You know, as much as I normally despise spelling rants - this time I actually agree with it.
I think what he what he was trying to say is:
All the laws - both state and federal need to be taught at school, in such a way so that they all fit in 180hours. You need to pass the class to graduate the 9th grade.
Any laws that cannot fit in that will be for a licensed body/or group - where you need to then understand the applicable laws to join.
In this case - not knowing a law is an absolute defence. The idea of copyrighting laws - then trying to apply them is absurd.
I think to go with the concept - any law which cannot be explained to a ninth grader, and justified to them - probably needs to be reviewed. If its application, workings and purpose are not absolutely clear, obsolete or otherwise invalid - then the law should be immediately revoked.
Just one question - being a Brit myself (where we do not really have a written constitution, and given our comparitive size - we have more quirky inexplicable laws than most of the states put together) - at what age roughly is ninth grade? 14 or something?
Its funny that bleem was not allowed. Consider that console hardware is normally sold at a loss(although less of a loss than not selling at all), and the money is made back on the games. Sony would have been cleverer to demand royalties from bleem, and turn it into a commercial product - where they woudl profit.
Yet again - I want to turn the community back to Bruce Perens letter on the matter.
Any virus is abhorent - no matter who it targets.
Lest we forget - on some scale - the plight of Linux Users is the same experienced by Muslims trying to denounce 911. The largest percentage of Linux users have no love for spammers and virus writers, and hope such unpleasant wasters do not turn their eye on linux.
As for the programmer/open source community, lets not forget that the virus's were written in the style of the scummiest - most denounced group - script kiddies.
Lets face it - our distaste for losers who regularly type d00d and l337 via AolIM/IRC, when advertising their vbasic/virus toolkit skills - certainly outshines the community distaste for MS and SCO.
Although I take strong exception to Fox coverage of the BBC (" Foaming at the mouth Anti-Americans"), and support the BBC's line against our government, I still feel that this artical should have represented opinion as fact.
As a story written for the possibly non-technically minded, focussing on the spam issue would have been a great deal more constructive.
Yes Linux users, IBM and a number of geeks do have a grudge against SCO. But these people have no interest in allowing spammers backdoors. The spam part of this goes against the grain of every such geek or zealot. This has come from organised crime, or a marketing department with a couple of script kiddies.
Orion
Would be an mobile graffiti removing bot - a mobile bot, able to cope with urban landscapes, and with a long telescoping arm.
When instructed to remove graffiti from a wall - it will either try and use water/sand or detergent cannons to blast it off(paint remover?). Or the other possibility is to paint over it.
If the robot is painting over it, the robot could either be supplied with the right paint, or given the primaries, plus black and white, and use a color sensor to determine a pantone for the colors and mix the paint accordingly.
Later on this evening - I will add a report on this artical on OrionRobots with details on basic colour sensing gear...
I am not sure there are laws against it in the uk. If they are - they sadly seem to more often fall in favour of big consortiums before consumers and smaller companies. This case cleary demonstrates that.
BPI, MPAA and RIAA are now seriously worried that they will be undercut. They know the days of their business models are dated- and they are probably aware that it is this kind of behaviour that will make many individuals feel justified in sharing MP3s.
Why can they sell them cheaper in Asia than the UK? Or is it that the Asian population really dont want allow themselves to be ripped off like we do?
If they stomp on amazon as well - I am going to abstain entirely from buying any music via their business model- I compose my own music, and I know others who do - fine. Its time we vote with our feet - what they have done here is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I think I have spent more of my income on lego now, than would have been spent on a child by a parent. In fact as a robot builder, I recommend lego as a robot prototyping tool. It is also a wonderful toy.
Sadly, because of the decline in set quality, although I bought the mindstorms set, pretty much most of my purchases post '99 are older sets from ebay.. If my local toy store had proper technic sets(with more than just liftarms - I liked technic beams), and not just the Bionacle/Slizer range - then I would be purchasing much more new Lego.
The only good thing to come out of bionacle was the Manas set - which with the right sneakiness can be controlled via IR from the RCX. I did have an artical on OrionRobots about that somewhere...
That looks like some kind of precursor to Fischertechnic. Anyone got any links? I know the company are still around, as they sent me a catalogue a while back, and they stock some rather neat pneumatic parts, as well as a couple of robot building kits. It looks like they are really only sold to education and industry though...
I am pretty sure I once had a spaceship construx set.
But then half the fun, and electronics learning has come from people trying to expand these limitations in some way. While the RCX is not the most advanced microcontroller out there for building robots, it certainly has some of the most interesting and innovative systems.
I agree that the bubblegum programming system is limited - and I recommend learning NQC asap, but I have created a couple of custom sensors based upon stuff I found on the web and my own research. After all - if you can use one input to create a differential light source sensor, then you can use a similar sensor on a 4 input PIC and get much more out of it.
Sadly the spybotics is the most limited one - as without hacking the brick to peices, you cannot extend its sensors. Well you could... Using some PIC with a clever VLL board and program - but then you may as well use the PIC instead entirely.
Btw - any links to the museum? I had a look at your site - and your work with the contest is probably worth a mention on Orionrobots.
The pity is that while Bionacle and some of the specialised themed sets went away from this, the Mindstorms sets fired the creative side of lego furthar. The amount of creative thought poured out from Mindstorms users is unbeleivable. Indeed it was mindstorms that brought me back to being a Lego user - all my old lego was destroyed by my sisters after I moved out and left it behind..
It only bionacle had used fairly standard technic bricks - it would have been more of an asset. Moulding lots of custom bricks is not the way to have gone.
Lego still is the perfect toy - and having the normally compatible technic and basic lego go back to roots would be great. The current range of technic sets is right down. The designer and inventor sets are great.
What I really want to do now, is establish OrionRobots as an education organisation in some way so we can order Dacta.
As you observed - that is entirely down to the client. AFAIK - it is pretty easy to do so with mozilla(temporarily change the from address, and change it back). You could probably mess with the php behind squirrelmail to allow such things to be automatically scripted.. I cant speak for outlook(dont used it).
The question is, if you configure your client to reply with the alias address - will postfix accept that as a from address? It should - but anyone have any solid info on that.
I regularly use different aliases on postfix for giving to different organisations... And any who do sell my address will have their name publicly displayed on my site. I already have a list of certain groups who are banned from it in my terms and conditions page.
Since the DMCA has come about, I wouldnt be suprised if someone lobbied to make sure you couldnt return DRM items on that grounds, or to make non-DRM versions of the items illegal(kinda like REGION FREE DVD players).
You could be sure the Bush Administration, RIAA, MPAA and others will not prevent such a bill being passed - in fact - given recent event, I would almost expect them to openly push for it.
Considering the way PS2 games sell, and the PS2 market share, sony have a lot of heavy region control, as does the DVD market. VCDs, and sVCD's did not have region control - but they fell to DVD's. If you beleive we really control what we purchase, and that big business is really accountable - then you must be living in some kind of dreamworld, where 12 year old girls are not sued for their mp3 collection, and MS were actually punished effectively for their anti-competative and anti-trust violations.
That site kinda makes me proud I have only bought AMD processors for a long time. My last Intel was a P90 overclocked to 110...
At least I am glad that some manufacturers are keeping the open source people in mind. The fact they are trying to sell me a decent product, not take away my rights with one - regardless of the open source situation - is a big bonus.. Kudos to AMD.
But you missing it. The entire, and only point is the "DRM and the rest of the crap". By doing this, MS will be able to stop you using or installing un-sanctioned software. And also, making sure you cannot install software on non-compliant hardware. Unless you want to be left behind, you would have to upgrade. But then - maybe there will be hardware manufacturers who realise that there is a large community who will not buy into such things - and sell an alternative.
That will mean that the open-source movement will have to keep its initiative to remain the alternative in a competative way - while the platforms windows and linux run on diverge. Of course maybe by attempting it- Intel and Microsoft could be nailing their own coffins - lets all hope so.. DRM in the BIOS firmware is a step too far in the wrong direction- it certainly would *never* go in a computer of mine.
I suggest the contributors to open-cores.org start working, so by the time this becomes a reality- we have alternatives, and companies like VIA and ALI fly in the face of such blatently deliberate anti-competative moves.
I certainly agree with this. Let me say - the day I can flash my Pheonix/ and AMI bios firmware with a system which a) Works B) Works and C) Is user friendly (IE a text mode gui) - then I will never look back...
Surely the works and works bits depend far too much on motherboard and chipset manufacturers playing ball - which some are still yet to do with software drivers for linux - let alone open firmware. How much are Intel and AMD co-operating on this initiative? Intel are not the only processor manufacturer...
I must admit- although I am 100% robot advocate - I would consider a wi-fi distributed net a better use of resources. But I would agree with a real tree-climbing/swinging robot(not a robot on a rope) for the purpose of placing such things - as well as counting/tracking animal populations, and scaring off would be poachers and loggers.
To be fair- a machine does not necesarily need to be all mobile to be classified as a robot anyway. I would imagine a wi-fi net of sensors to gather info in a forest just as much a use of robotic technology.
Wouldnt that be similar to the condition experienced by the main character in the filn "memento"? Short term memory loss is a pretty distressing thing. I certainly could not be paid enough to willingly deal with that(though I suppose I wouldnt remember it).
Hold on - I think when he mentioned advertising and religeon - he was condoning neither. Using psychological attacks to manipulate the brain(repetition, trauma, association) as advertisers, and religeons tend to is an entirely scientific method.
It is fairly easy to see how religeous fanatics can be bred by methods like sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, attrition and imposed poverty. These techniques have been used extensively in convents, monastries and barracks for centuries, and do have scientific basis.
I do not think we will get anywhere by trying to physically manipulate individual neurons - it is just too interconnected and interdependant. And short of a full-scale chemical attack, the subtleties of synapses, and hormonal message transmissions are much better manipulated through stimulation and deception than invasive methods.
A good enough salesman really could sell sand to arabs(anyone got the link for that- last weeks story?).
I always thought seeing this stuff in old movies made me feel queasy. It always seemed more about "calming down" a patient than actually helping them.
If you have a patient who is prone to screaming, hallucinations(if they are coherant enough to express them), it stands to reason that this is possibly due to over-activity or mis-activity of the neurons. So the idea of shocking them is to temporarily "stun" the brain into inactivity, it will have the effect of calming down - so a troublesome patient will shut up. It is quite likely that this causes enough damage to have long term effects. I wonder how many people with genius minds and vivid imaginations were shocked into blubbering vegetables after sharing the real key to time travel(or some other much-needed fundamental technology) with their mates in the pub? Maybe some really clever stuff has passed the human race by in this way...
I suspect some kind of psychological de-sensitization process(with repetition of extreme images and the like) might be able to erase a section of memory through trauma(something the human mind is quite capable of- and may willingly do for the sake of the occupants sanity).
I would be much less skeptical of the induced trauma method than an invasive destruction. If you were to know which memories were to be erased- using those with seriously traumatic images may cause the brain to erect a filter around them.
The only problem is that they may leak out, and it may leave someone severely mentally unstable. Similar I would Imagine, to the behaviour of Corto/Armitage when wintermute begins to loose its hold on him.If you have read Neuromancer you'll know what I mean.
I would imagine it would also all be spilled out under any hypnosis or councilling though...
The other idea is some kind of "neural programming"- sending pulses of light directly into the retina which mess with the brains short term/long term memory stuff. In other words - the MIB "flashy thing".
Either that or they could be goldfish.... Many say that Goldfish have a five second memory span... . . . . Either that or they could be goldfish.... Many say that Goldfish have a five second memory span...
Slashdot Mirror
Wow - never managed to ignite one like that - and that includes reverse biasing or overloading them.
I assume that is what you would expect if you exceeded the voltage rating of a supercap. I never tried as they are somewhat expensive.
I also made the same assumption at first - but then my website says it all (my "geek-o-meter" rating).
You know, as much as I normally despise spelling rants - this time I actually agree with it. I think what he what he was trying to say is: All the laws - both state and federal need to be taught at school, in such a way so that they all fit in 180hours. You need to pass the class to graduate the 9th grade. Any laws that cannot fit in that will be for a licensed body/or group - where you need to then understand the applicable laws to join. In this case - not knowing a law is an absolute defence. The idea of copyrighting laws - then trying to apply them is absurd. I think to go with the concept - any law which cannot be explained to a ninth grader, and justified to them - probably needs to be reviewed. If its application, workings and purpose are not absolutely clear, obsolete or otherwise invalid - then the law should be immediately revoked. Just one question - being a Brit myself (where we do not really have a written constitution, and given our comparitive size - we have more quirky inexplicable laws than most of the states put together) - at what age roughly is ninth grade? 14 or something?
Dude - use mozilla to filter out images when reading NY times...(You can always re-enable them later)...
Its funny that bleem was not allowed. Consider that console hardware is normally sold at a loss(although less of a loss than not selling at all), and the money is made back on the games. Sony would have been cleverer to demand royalties from bleem, and turn it into a commercial product - where they woudl profit.
Yet again - I want to turn the community back to Bruce Perens letter on the matter.
Any virus is abhorent - no matter who it targets.
Lest we forget - on some scale - the plight of Linux Users is the same experienced by Muslims trying to denounce 911. The largest percentage of Linux users have no love for spammers and virus writers, and hope such unpleasant wasters do not turn their eye on linux.
As for the programmer/open source community, lets not forget that the virus's were written in the style of the scummiest - most denounced group - script kiddies.
Lets face it - our distaste for losers who regularly type d00d and l337 via AolIM/IRC, when advertising their vbasic/virus toolkit skills - certainly outshines the community distaste for MS and SCO.
Although I take strong exception to Fox coverage of the BBC (" Foaming at the mouth Anti-Americans"), and support the BBC's line against our government, I still feel that this artical should have represented opinion as fact. As a story written for the possibly non-technically minded, focussing on the spam issue would have been a great deal more constructive. Yes Linux users, IBM and a number of geeks do have a grudge against SCO. But these people have no interest in allowing spammers backdoors. The spam part of this goes against the grain of every such geek or zealot. This has come from organised crime, or a marketing department with a couple of script kiddies. Orion
Would be an mobile graffiti removing bot - a mobile bot, able to cope with urban landscapes, and with a long telescoping arm.
When instructed to remove graffiti from a wall - it will either try and use water/sand or detergent cannons to blast it off(paint remover?). Or the other possibility is to paint over it.
If the robot is painting over it, the robot could either be supplied with the right paint, or given the primaries, plus black and white, and use a color sensor to determine a pantone for the colors and mix the paint accordingly.
Later on this evening - I will add a report on this artical on OrionRobots with details on basic colour sensing gear...
I am not sure there are laws against it in the uk. If they are - they sadly seem to more often fall in favour of big consortiums before consumers and smaller companies. This case cleary demonstrates that. BPI, MPAA and RIAA are now seriously worried that they will be undercut. They know the days of their business models are dated- and they are probably aware that it is this kind of behaviour that will make many individuals feel justified in sharing MP3s. Why can they sell them cheaper in Asia than the UK? Or is it that the Asian population really dont want allow themselves to be ripped off like we do? If they stomp on amazon as well - I am going to abstain entirely from buying any music via their business model- I compose my own music, and I know others who do - fine. Its time we vote with our feet - what they have done here is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I think I have spent more of my income on lego now, than would have been spent on a child by a parent. In fact as a robot builder, I recommend lego as a robot prototyping tool. It is also a wonderful toy.
Sadly, because of the decline in set quality, although I bought the mindstorms set, pretty much most of my purchases post '99 are older sets from ebay.. If my local toy store had proper technic sets(with more than just liftarms - I liked technic beams), and not just the Bionacle/Slizer range - then I would be purchasing much more new Lego.
The only good thing to come out of bionacle was the Manas set - which with the right sneakiness can be controlled via IR from the RCX. I did have an artical on OrionRobots about that somewhere...
That looks like some kind of precursor to Fischertechnic. Anyone got any links? I know the company are still around, as they sent me a catalogue a while back, and they stock some rather neat pneumatic parts, as well as a couple of robot building kits. It looks like they are really only sold to education and industry though...
I am pretty sure I once had a spaceship construx set.
But then half the fun, and electronics learning has come from people trying to expand these limitations in some way. While the RCX is not the most advanced microcontroller out there for building robots, it certainly has some of the most interesting and innovative systems.
I agree that the bubblegum programming system is limited - and I recommend learning NQC asap, but I have created a couple of custom sensors based upon stuff I found on the web and my own research. After all - if you can use one input to create a differential light source sensor, then you can use a similar sensor on a 4 input PIC and get much more out of it.
Sadly the spybotics is the most limited one - as without hacking the brick to peices, you cannot extend its sensors. Well you could... Using some PIC with a clever VLL board and program - but then you may as well use the PIC instead entirely.
Btw - any links to the museum? I had a look at your site - and your work with the contest is probably worth a mention on Orionrobots.
The pity is that while Bionacle and some of the specialised themed sets went away from this, the Mindstorms sets fired the creative side of lego furthar. The amount of creative thought poured out from Mindstorms users is unbeleivable. Indeed it was mindstorms that brought me back to being a Lego user - all my old lego was destroyed by my sisters after I moved out and left it behind..
It only bionacle had used fairly standard technic bricks - it would have been more of an asset. Moulding lots of custom bricks is not the way to have gone.
Lego still is the perfect toy - and having the normally compatible technic and basic lego go back to roots would be great. The current range of technic sets is right down. The designer and inventor sets are great.
What I really want to do now, is establish OrionRobots as an education organisation in some way so we can order Dacta.
Does anyone know of a UK equivalent? Thats an interesting site.
As you observed - that is entirely down to the client. AFAIK - it is pretty easy to do so with mozilla(temporarily change the from address, and change it back). You could probably mess with the php behind squirrelmail to allow such things to be automatically scripted.. I cant speak for outlook(dont used it).
The question is, if you configure your client to reply with the alias address - will postfix accept that as a from address? It should - but anyone have any solid info on that.
I regularly use different aliases on postfix for giving to different organisations... And any who do sell my address will have their name publicly displayed on my site. I already have a list of certain groups who are banned from it in my terms and conditions page.
Since the DMCA has come about, I wouldnt be suprised if someone lobbied to make sure you couldnt return DRM items on that grounds, or to make non-DRM versions of the items illegal(kinda like REGION FREE DVD players).
You could be sure the Bush Administration, RIAA, MPAA and others will not prevent such a bill being passed - in fact - given recent event, I would almost expect them to openly push for it.
Considering the way PS2 games sell, and the PS2 market share, sony have a lot of heavy region control, as does the DVD market. VCDs, and sVCD's did not have region control - but they fell to DVD's. If you beleive we really control what we purchase, and that big business is really accountable - then you must be living in some kind of dreamworld, where 12 year old girls are not sued for their mp3 collection, and MS were actually punished effectively for their anti-competative and anti-trust violations.
That site kinda makes me proud I have only bought AMD processors for a long time. My last Intel was a P90 overclocked to 110...
At least I am glad that some manufacturers are keeping the open source people in mind. The fact they are trying to sell me a decent product, not take away my rights with one - regardless of the open source situation - is a big bonus.. Kudos to AMD.
But you missing it. The entire, and only point is the "DRM and the rest of the crap". By doing this, MS will be able to stop you using or installing un-sanctioned software. And also, making sure you cannot install software on non-compliant hardware. Unless you want to be left behind, you would have to upgrade. But then - maybe there will be hardware manufacturers who realise that there is a large community who will not buy into such things - and sell an alternative.
That will mean that the open-source movement will have to keep its initiative to remain the alternative in a competative way - while the platforms windows and linux run on diverge. Of course maybe by attempting it- Intel and Microsoft could be nailing their own coffins - lets all hope so.. DRM in the BIOS firmware is a step too far in the wrong direction- it certainly would *never* go in a computer of mine.
I suggest the contributors to open-cores.org start working, so by the time this becomes a reality- we have alternatives, and companies like VIA and ALI fly in the face of such blatently deliberate anti-competative moves.
I certainly agree with this. Let me say - the day I can flash my Pheonix/ and AMI bios firmware with a system which a) Works B) Works and C) Is user friendly (IE a text mode gui) - then I will never look back...
Surely the works and works bits depend far too much on motherboard and chipset manufacturers playing ball - which some are still yet to do with software drivers for linux - let alone open firmware. How much are Intel and AMD co-operating on this initiative? Intel are not the only processor manufacturer...
I must admit- although I am 100% robot advocate - I would consider a wi-fi distributed net a better use of resources. But I would agree with a real tree-climbing/swinging robot(not a robot on a rope) for the purpose of placing such things - as well as counting/tracking animal populations, and scaring off would be poachers and loggers.
To be fair- a machine does not necesarily need to be all mobile to be classified as a robot anyway. I would imagine a wi-fi net of sensors to gather info in a forest just as much a use of robotic technology.
Wouldnt that be similar to the condition experienced by the main character in the filn "memento"? Short term memory loss is a pretty distressing thing. I certainly could not be paid enough to willingly deal with that(though I suppose I wouldnt remember it).
I thought that was what the Academy awards were....
Hold on - I think when he mentioned advertising and religeon - he was condoning neither. Using psychological attacks to manipulate the brain(repetition, trauma, association) as advertisers, and religeons tend to is an entirely scientific method.
It is fairly easy to see how religeous fanatics can be bred by methods like sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, attrition and imposed poverty. These techniques have been used extensively in convents, monastries and barracks for centuries, and do have scientific basis.
I do not think we will get anywhere by trying to physically manipulate individual neurons - it is just too interconnected and interdependant. And short of a full-scale chemical attack, the subtleties of synapses, and hormonal message transmissions are much better manipulated through stimulation and deception than invasive methods.
A good enough salesman really could sell sand to arabs(anyone got the link for that- last weeks story?).
I always thought seeing this stuff in old movies made me feel queasy. It always seemed more about "calming down" a patient than actually helping them. If you have a patient who is prone to screaming, hallucinations(if they are coherant enough to express them), it stands to reason that this is possibly due to over-activity or mis-activity of the neurons. So the idea of shocking them is to temporarily "stun" the brain into inactivity, it will have the effect of calming down - so a troublesome patient will shut up. It is quite likely that this causes enough damage to have long term effects. I wonder how many people with genius minds and vivid imaginations were shocked into blubbering vegetables after sharing the real key to time travel(or some other much-needed fundamental technology) with their mates in the pub? Maybe some really clever stuff has passed the human race by in this way...
I suspect some kind of psychological de-sensitization process(with repetition of extreme images and the like) might be able to erase a section of memory through trauma(something the human mind is quite capable of- and may willingly do for the sake of the occupants sanity).
I would be much less skeptical of the induced trauma method than an invasive destruction. If you were to know which memories were to be erased- using those with seriously traumatic images may cause the brain to erect a filter around them.
The only problem is that they may leak out, and it may leave someone severely mentally unstable. Similar I would Imagine, to the behaviour of Corto/Armitage when wintermute begins to loose its hold on him.If you have read Neuromancer you'll know what I mean.
I would imagine it would also all be spilled out under any hypnosis or councilling though...
The other idea is some kind of "neural programming"- sending pulses of light directly into the retina which mess with the brains short term/long term memory stuff. In other words - the MIB "flashy thing".
Either that or they could be goldfish....
Many say that Goldfish have a five second memory span...
.
.
.
.
Either that or they could be goldfish....
Many say that Goldfish have a five second memory span...