The DeCSS song is a little more complicated, depending on whether you believe it is intended to (and can be) enjoyed as pure music, or whether it is merely intended as a vector for code. In any case, there is real audio content that's been provided.
Personally, I thought the DeCSS Haiku was a truly magnificent work of art. The DeCSS Song struck me as a bit silly, but then again that doesn't stop The Lumberjack Song or I Am The Walrus being legitimate music, copyright-protected and published on CDs by a record company.
It's an interesting matter, though. Suppose my image converts to music, and that music infringes someone's copyright - maybe it contains recognisable melodies, like 'Hello' on Morning Glory which meant that Gary Glitter got paid off out-of-court... Can I be prevented from publishing my image? Or can I be prevented from publishing the conversion program, which in combination with the image becomes a tool for violation? One for the judges to decide, I suspect...
Best impact point: South Pole. Glacial melting may be an issue, but that'll give us time to evacuate and minimize casualties.
I think I saw this somewhere. It doesn't end well; as I understand it, all of humanity dissolves into orange Sunny Delight and the warm-water penguins inherit the earth.
I find this hard to understand. Why wouldn't 10 miles be in the nothingness that is next to the big bang? Why would it have to be limited to within the bigbang/growing universe(?)?
For much the same reason that 'north' and 'south' are restricted to the Earth's surface, '10 miles' is restricted to the Universe. To speak of something as being '10 miles outside the Universe' is as meaningless as to speak of something being '10 miles north of the North Pole'.
Warning: the analogy in this post is under tension comparable to that of cosmic string. Beware singularities and closed timelike curves.
They will use CG; they'll probably have the same guys doing it who did the last couple of series of Red Dwarf. Sad to say, the CG bits were the highlight of Red Dwarf VIII - the Blue Midget dance sequence was the _only_ bit I actually enjoyed:-(
So, this disc autoruns. Trojans your system somehow to stop you being able to rip it, and lets you have WMA files instead. Am I right so far?
So what happens when this software screws up someone's system badly? It's going to happen sooner or later. How much arse-covering are they going to put into the EULA to try to protect themselves, and do they seriously think that'll work?
Which, of course, you have to pay for or suffer ads or bad service. No thanks. I'd rather have spam.
Hey - if your one and only local ISP is so terribly and unrepentantly spam-friendly that a large portion of the net refuses to accept its emails, that's too bad. But if they can't provide the service you need, then you have to buy it from someone else. IIRC some people have had some success taking their ISPs to a small-claims court to make them pay the costs of going to another mail provider, since the ISP had failed to provide the service contracted for - but that would depend on the details of the TOS.
By taking the ISP's cutomers hostages.... in real life taking hostages is a crime, and should be so in cyberspace as well !
You haven't been taken hostage. You've been ignored. You can send your email, nobody is going to stop you doing that. But SPEWS have decided that if mail from your network reaches theirs, it will be routed to/dev/null. Some people think SPEWS have some good ideas about how to handle mail, and thus they do the same based on SPEWS' published advice. Nobody has taken you hostage; a small but significant portion of the net has simply decided to send your ISP to Coventry until and unless it cleans up its act.
Now, are you going to tell me that I should accept every email regardless of source, even if it comes from goatse.cx, and that to do otherwise should be a crime?
Are you using a clueless ISP
Are you being clueless that in a lot of contries, people have no choice of ISP, since tele services are state monopolies, like healthcare and water ?
Are you being clueless that a lot of people simply don't care? I don't know anyone in Brazil, but I get a lot of spam from there. Fine - till the spam dries up, I'll happily block every single packet from the place, and advise my friends to do likewise. Maybe if they start to notice their increasing isolation, the Brazilians might do something about their spammers.
My point is that you cannot dismiss astrology simply because there may be some truth to it. Since most astrological descriptions are so vague, it's hard to prove that they are wrong.
Au contraire: that's precisely why I _do_ dismiss astrology. If astrologers made specific, precise predictions and statements, if they made claims that were clearly and definitely either right or wrong, then maybe there might be something to it. But they don't - they make predictions and statements that are so damn vague that they apply to anyone, whatever the circumstances of their birth, and you get absurdities like the Randi demonstration upthread where nearly everyone claims that an identical horoscope describes them remarkably well...
Keep in mind California has the world's fifth largest economy
Can any economist explain how these things are measured? For instance, the top economies are often quoted as US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France - but sometimes China is inserted between the US and Japan. I guess that this is because a lot of China's economy goes on feeding their billion peasants, so it could be argued that it doesn't really count - is that what's going on?
How do you know dark matter doesn't affect the birth of a child?
I don't know that. But that's not what astrologers claim, is it? They claim that the position of Jupiter in the solar system affects the birth of a child. Jupiter isn't made of dark matter, it's made of hydrogen, helium, some methane and ammonia, and the vapourised remains of Galileo. Astrologers don't point to mysterious, exotic entities from frontier physics, they point to bloody huge balls of gas and rock, made entirely of normal matter, interacting gravitationally in a very good approximation to Newtonian mechanics. Even relativity hardly gets a look-in. String theory doesn't even enter into it.
The funniest part is when astrologers claim that the position of Neptune (discovered 1846) or Pluto (discovered 1930) will have some effect on a newborn's future. And they try to pass this off as Wisdom of the Ancients. I must have missed the massive research programme over the last 73 years in which astrologers deduced the nature of Pluto's effect on people's lives. I must also have missed the public apology where the astrologers admitted that their predictions had been wrong for centuries because the unknown influence of Pluto was throwing them off...
And is it also wrong for the Russians to build their own planes? Why don't Boeing or Lockheed get a look-in when the Russian airforce wants some new fighters? Obviously because it is in Russia's interest to maintain an independent ability to develop and build such aircraft. Maybe the US could supply better planes more cheaply, but some day when all Russia's factories are derelict a US government might cut off the supply, and leave them in a difficult position.
Similarly, I think critical software is as much a national security issue as defence hardware; and in a world where the US is trusted less and less, and Microsoft hardly at all, it makes sense for other countries to ensure that they have a homegrown alternative that they can rely on.
People who are blind or deaf did not choose to be so, many people on 56k connections do not have a faster alternative, on the other hand anyone who wants to can buy a Microsoft Operating System if they have a PC. Try complaining on behalf of people who do not own a PC, as they cannot currently access it all.
Anyone who wants to can buy a PC. Having a Mac is your own choice.
Until quite recently, spider silk had the highest tensile strength of any substance known to man, and the name Silksteel pays homage to the arachnid for good reason. -- Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Scientific Survey", on the discovery of Silksteel Alloys
In one moment, Earth; in the next, Heaven. -- Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "For I Have Tasted The Fruit", on the construction of the Space Elevator
Unfortunately, Silksteel Alloys are not sufficient to construct the space elevator. That calls for Super-Tensile Solids, which is quite a lot more advanced...
There's a film coming out this winter that I've waited all my life to see. After that, I doubt I will ever subject myself to a first run cinema.
Yep... me too. I rant against the media tyrants like everyone else, I say boycott the RIAA, and the big marketing-driven blockbusters...
Yet right now I can't pass a video store without consciously fighting a terrible impulse to go in and pick up my Precious. I already have the pirate 'For Your Consideration' copy, but the Precious offers me more, it offers extras, it offers me a trailer. I can only control the urge by promising myself that I'll get the extended edition on the day it comes out.
Then this December, I'm going to go and watch the conclusion of this monster of a movie. And though I know that by doing so I'm funding terrorism, I'll go and watch it again. And again. Repeatedly and continuously. I'll be the perfect consumer, a total helpless junkie. And then I'm sure some cinema will offer me a nine-hour back-to-back screening of the whole thing, and I'll have to be physically restrained...
Of course Mars smacking with the Earth is hard to imagine but what if something were to collide with Mars while it is so close to the Earth? Isn't it possible that something colliding with Mars large enough could send fragments of Mars close to Earth? What if Mars was destroyed while it is so close? Has anyone considered these possibilities?
If we did not have any spam, the kinds listed above, would anyone complain about emails from persons running for public office?
Yes. I don't want to pay, through my ISP bill, for some politician to spew forth his propaganda. When he puts up posters, he pays; when he takes out newspaper advertisements, he pays; when he spams, I pay, and that's the chief problem.
It's not an x86, so Windows won't run natively. Might as well try to run Windows on a Mac. With Linux, we have the source code, so we can make the necessary modifications for the PS2 system, recompile, and run. If Microsoft wanted, they could probably produce a Windows for PS2, but I bet they won't:-)
Probably it would mean that somebody was planning something ambitious involving two angsty fourteen-year-olds, a giant particle cannon, some mecha, and an aggressive sentient octahedron bent on world annihilation.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I thought the DeCSS Haiku was a truly magnificent work of art. The DeCSS Song struck me as a bit silly, but then again that doesn't stop The Lumberjack Song or I Am The Walrus being legitimate music, copyright-protected and published on CDs by a record company.
It's an interesting matter, though. Suppose my image converts to music, and that music infringes someone's copyright - maybe it contains recognisable melodies, like 'Hello' on Morning Glory which meant that Gary Glitter got paid off out-of-court... Can I be prevented from publishing my image? Or can I be prevented from publishing the conversion program, which in combination with the image becomes a tool for violation? One for the judges to decide, I suspect...
I think I saw this somewhere. It doesn't end well; as I understand it, all of humanity dissolves into orange Sunny Delight and the warm-water penguins inherit the earth.
For much the same reason that 'north' and 'south' are restricted to the Earth's surface, '10 miles' is restricted to the Universe. To speak of something as being '10 miles outside the Universe' is as meaningless as to speak of something being '10 miles north of the North Pole'.
Warning: the analogy in this post is under tension comparable to that of cosmic string. Beware singularities and closed timelike curves.
You want to use solar power on the Moon, for long-term experiments you're going to leave behind? Good luck, what with that two-week night.
TV Offal used to feature the Gay Daleks. EXSPERMINATE!
They will use CG; they'll probably have the same guys doing it who did the last couple of series of Red Dwarf. Sad to say, the CG bits were the highlight of Red Dwarf VIII - the Blue Midget dance sequence was the _only_ bit I actually enjoyed :-(
So what happens when this software screws up someone's system badly? It's going to happen sooner or later. How much arse-covering are they going to put into the EULA to try to protect themselves, and do they seriously think that'll work?
Which, of course, you have to pay for or suffer ads or bad service. No thanks. I'd rather have spam.
Hey - if your one and only local ISP is so terribly and unrepentantly spam-friendly that a large portion of the net refuses to accept its emails, that's too bad. But if they can't provide the service you need, then you have to buy it from someone else. IIRC some people have had some success taking their ISPs to a small-claims court to make them pay the costs of going to another mail provider, since the ISP had failed to provide the service contracted for - but that would depend on the details of the TOS.
By taking the ISP's cutomers hostages .... in real life taking hostages is a crime, and should be so in cyberspace as well !
You haven't been taken hostage. You've been ignored. You can send your email, nobody is going to stop you doing that. But SPEWS have decided that if mail from your network reaches theirs, it will be routed to /dev/null. Some people think SPEWS have some good ideas about how to handle mail, and thus they do the same based on SPEWS' published advice. Nobody has taken you hostage; a small but significant portion of the net has simply decided to send your ISP to Coventry until and unless it cleans up its act.
Now, are you going to tell me that I should accept every email regardless of source, even if it comes from goatse.cx, and that to do otherwise should be a crime?
Are you using a clueless ISP
Are you being clueless that in a lot of contries, people have no choice of ISP, since tele services are state monopolies, like healthcare and water ?
Are you being clueless that a lot of people simply don't care? I don't know anyone in Brazil, but I get a lot of spam from there. Fine - till the spam dries up, I'll happily block every single packet from the place, and advise my friends to do likewise. Maybe if they start to notice their increasing isolation, the Brazilians might do something about their spammers.
Au contraire: that's precisely why I _do_ dismiss astrology. If astrologers made specific, precise predictions and statements, if they made claims that were clearly and definitely either right or wrong, then maybe there might be something to it. But they don't - they make predictions and statements that are so damn vague that they apply to anyone, whatever the circumstances of their birth, and you get absurdities like the Randi demonstration upthread where nearly everyone claims that an identical horoscope describes them remarkably well...
Can any economist explain how these things are measured? For instance, the top economies are often quoted as US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France - but sometimes China is inserted between the US and Japan. I guess that this is because a lot of China's economy goes on feeding their billion peasants, so it could be argued that it doesn't really count - is that what's going on?
I don't know that. But that's not what astrologers claim, is it? They claim that the position of Jupiter in the solar system affects the birth of a child. Jupiter isn't made of dark matter, it's made of hydrogen, helium, some methane and ammonia, and the vapourised remains of Galileo. Astrologers don't point to mysterious, exotic entities from frontier physics, they point to bloody huge balls of gas and rock, made entirely of normal matter, interacting gravitationally in a very good approximation to Newtonian mechanics. Even relativity hardly gets a look-in. String theory doesn't even enter into it.
The funniest part is when astrologers claim that the position of Neptune (discovered 1846) or Pluto (discovered 1930) will have some effect on a newborn's future. And they try to pass this off as Wisdom of the Ancients. I must have missed the massive research programme over the last 73 years in which astrologers deduced the nature of Pluto's effect on people's lives. I must also have missed the public apology where the astrologers admitted that their predictions had been wrong for centuries because the unknown influence of Pluto was throwing them off...
Apparently there was also a possibility that Mission Control would be trampled to rubble by a herd of stegosaurs. Glad that didn't happen, either...
To destroy a Talking Barney?
Microwave. You know it makes sense.
+5 Funny
Similarly, I think critical software is as much a national security issue as defence hardware; and in a world where the US is trusted less and less, and Microsoft hardly at all, it makes sense for other countries to ensure that they have a homegrown alternative that they can rely on.
Anyone who wants to can buy a PC. Having a Mac is your own choice.
-- Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Scientific Survey", on the discovery of Silksteel Alloys
In one moment, Earth; in the next, Heaven.
-- Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "For I Have Tasted The Fruit", on the construction of the Space Elevator
Unfortunately, Silksteel Alloys are not sufficient to construct the space elevator. That calls for Super-Tensile Solids, which is quite a lot more advanced...
Yep... me too. I rant against the media tyrants like everyone else, I say boycott the RIAA, and the big marketing-driven blockbusters...
Yet right now I can't pass a video store without consciously fighting a terrible impulse to go in and pick up my Precious. I already have the pirate 'For Your Consideration' copy, but the Precious offers me more, it offers extras, it offers me a trailer. I can only control the urge by promising myself that I'll get the extended edition on the day it comes out.
Then this December, I'm going to go and watch the conclusion of this monster of a movie. And though I know that by doing so I'm funding terrorism, I'll go and watch it again. And again. Repeatedly and continuously. I'll be the perfect consumer, a total helpless junkie. And then I'm sure some cinema will offer me a nine-hour back-to-back screening of the whole thing, and I'll have to be physically restrained...
... +5 Funny
Yes. I don't want to pay, through my ISP bill, for some politician to spew forth his propaganda. When he puts up posters, he pays; when he takes out newspaper advertisements, he pays; when he spams, I pay, and that's the chief problem.
It'll reach desktop prominence just in time to play Duke Nukem Forever!
It's not an x86, so Windows won't run natively. Might as well try to run Windows on a Mac. With Linux, we have the source code, so we can make the necessary modifications for the PS2 system, recompile, and run. If Microsoft wanted, they could probably produce a Windows for PS2, but I bet they won't :-)
Deterrent against the British nukes.
Probably it would mean that somebody was planning something ambitious involving two angsty fourteen-year-olds, a giant particle cannon, some mecha, and an aggressive sentient octahedron bent on world annihilation.