Anyone who lives somewhere and has a life is "captive" within their town/life/job/family. Don't be naive if you think people can just walk "next door" to another state and rent a video their (unless they live on a border).
How can you support legislation edited movies for those who desire it without affecting those who do not? Last I checked, laws applied to everyone -- not just those who "want it" and legislatures are all too willing to cast their votes to in order to setup a pre-judgemental framework. Case in point, today's slashdot: "Utah wants to create a rating system for ISP's that filter the way the legislature wants". First you create the rating system, then you make sure all the local schools, libraries and internet cafe's have to use only "G" rated ISP's... Now you've shoved your rating system down other people's throat.
My post implies nothing about people "in general" preferring the edited version -- only those people who control the guns and the legislature. Since only a fraction of the people vote, you can not claim that even a majority support it -- but at best, a majority, of a minority that believes it is worthwhile vote and that their vote will make a difference. If you live in an oppressive regime, you tend to be skeptical about voting making a difference. Look at how easily the 2000 and 2004 elections were corrupted nationally and you think a state dominated by one religion couldn't do the same with much less fuss?
What do you mean by you would have no problem with permitting a minority seeing an "edited" movie? Gee, that's awfully open-minded of you. What if they wanted to see the uncensored version? You tell them just to move out of your "state"?
You can edit the DVD in your home and produce your own copy for your family -- just like you can remix music compilations under Fair Use privileges.
What isn't ok, is a large mega-corp producing their own "edited" version, where they might change dialogue, (or add dialogue), cut scenes out, etc. The problem is that once you allow that, viewers in a "captive market" (Utah, Blockbuster) are shut out of the rental market because the only video store in town is a BB. Would it be "equally ok" for a state to declare certain scenes as "pornographic", and require the removal of such scenes in order for the movie to be "rented" or "let" out in the state? Local standards are supposedly applicable in deciding obscenity cases. Suppose your "locality" wants to have only "clean" movies? Suppose someone "cleans" your movies for you and you aren't even aware of it (this was happening until it was stopped)? Allowing commercial vendors to vend or rent "cleaned" movies is a bad idea for artistic expression and freedom.
While I agree with you (and have used your solution @work for years), imagine the problems if one's notebook/laptop were stolen? I tended toward the paranoid side of things, but all it takes is one slip around one smart thief....not that I would change my "M.O." on this account -- putting private or proprietary data on some website is a recipe for disaster. Companies and governments can't keep their stuff on their servers from being hacked over the internet -- and someone wants me to trust some company like "Adobe" that can't even print my PDF without starting a licensing manager as a service that constantly tries to contact Adobe's servers for unauthorized software updates?... Pah! Adobe is right behind Apple and MS in badness. MS and Adobe lead the pack for numbers of software-licensing problems handled by their enforcement arm, BSA.
But other than satellites, there've been mumblings about possible geo-stationary *balloons*. Solar powered and tethered at a specific height. I think there was some mention of Google possibly doing it over a small area like the Bay Area to provide Bay-wide internet access. Apparently the cost of putting balloons up is considerably lower than putting satellites up, and maintenance is a tad easier as well (don't have to hire a shuttle crew).
That could dovetail well into a rumored google phone that could might be able to tap into anyone's any land-to-balloon station -- which google could encourage customers to do 'acquire' by offering cheap or free internet access to those who agree to be a "land-station"...
Time will tell how these things shake-out. Certainly makes sense over urban areas, though have heard it could be possible to use high enough balloons to blanket wide areas -- like satellites currently do, but at a fraction of the cost.
Could be interesting. Someone needs to shake up the telco-cable monopolies. While they may not "strictly" be monopolies in that they have no competition, at least in the cell phone arena, they provide strong incentives to adopt one of the monopolies with their 2-year contracts and phone non-portability. Interesting how rates are much cheaper and service is better in other areas where phones are are 'portable' and unlocked. This makes it easy to change providers when the providers provide poor service or more costly add-ons... Amazing how the ability for users to easily change providers drives competition toward better service and lower prices. But for 'cheap' ISP's (that provide poor service), it seems AT&T and cable companies are often the only two games in town (presuming having even that choice in one's area).:=/
A slowdown of 33% in fiber? Wow...that seems like alot, but believable. This fiber is 'glass'?
Do you happen to know about the speed of an electrical signal over copper? I.e. is fiber really any better in terms of speed? Or does its main benefit come from capacity?
Here's an odd question, maybe... So fiber is "efficient" because the light stays fairly trapped within the fiber as it snakes along. What would be the effect if, instead of a solid core (glass?), one were to create a "tube" with the center being 'hollow', and the fiber surrounding the core -- would light tend to stay in the "empty" core? I.e. is the reflectivity of the surface of the fiber (which normally keeps the light within a fiber) 2-way? Would it also tend to keep a light beam within the empty space thus increasing the speed back up to the speed of light through air (presumption that it would be impractical to attempt to maintain a vacuum in the hollow core over any significant distance)...?
I'm sure it's probably impractical for some reason or they'd be doing it...:-)
Now if we could just induce an artificial wormhole within the wire....
"Data sent over fibre optic networks is subject to the limitations of the speed of light, which means interactivity between the server and gamer will never have a latency below 70 milliseconds."
70ms latency being a minimum over fiber optic networks? Is the speed of light slowed down in fiber optic cables?
Speed of light would normally be able to travel over 13000 miles (>20800km) in 70ms. But the same article was claiming that consoles were on the way out and that 'flash' would be used to write online games, so maybe the technical expertise in that article is lacking a bit?
1) You can attach a cheap USB fingerprint scanner like the one from APC -- froogle shows low price range of 30-40$$. That should be fairly "unique"... 2) She can encrypt all her files (which will be tied to her login password -- the USB scanner).
No matter if brother hacks her computer, he'd have to guess her password to decrypt the files.
If anyone changes her login password (or clears it), the files won't decrypt.
Might be a good idea to create a separate USB-keyfob with a backup of her encryption credentials in case someone changes her password. Theoretically, I think, a 2-password system can be setup so parents ("Administrator"s) could unlock her account and read the passwords.
You may need XP-Professional to use some of these features.
Might also be a bit of overkill.
Does she have a favorite book? How about the ISBN? Not a likely password to be going and guessing!:-)
While I'm sure computers will be able to "out reason" us in the future, they will be unlikely to excel in human thought or creativity.
Let me try to explain: what concepts or thoughts can computers conceive other than what has been programmed by a human into them?
Sure, you can claim computers can "learn". But again, what value can a computer assign to any experience without having been told its value by humans?
The big problem I see for computers to develop into self-actualized beings is that they are not alive. Thus -- they cannot be killed, they cannot be 'hurt' in the way we feel pain. They can be programmed to say "ow" and act "like" they are hurt, but because they are machines, they cannot learn by avoiding painful experiences. One might think a computer might want to avoid being "turned off", but "why?" It can just as easily be turned back on and be none the worse for it. It may be better (may have been upgraded, may have had solar cells recharge its batteries...etc). There can be no fear of "death".
As such, there can be no desire to exceed, or grow beyond "death". As far as implementation -- how can computers "grow" new neurons or attachments. Our brains make new cells throughout life. Old cells die -- in a computer this would generally be considered a fatal error.
There are so many problems attempting to create human thought out of machines -- because they can never "think" beyond what values the humans have programmed into them. Or rather -- lets say this, I cannot think of anyway a computer could learn to "fear" something, like avoiding falling because a scraped knee hurts. I don't see anyway they can ever have "preferences", other than what they've been told to prefer. Could they prefer a shade of red or a flavor of a banana? How can they acquire all (or any) of the experiences that make us humans?
Maybe I'm missing some real obvious solutions, but I've been cogitating about this for the past several weeks (on the coat-tails of reading G.E.B. and a minor chunk into "AI: a Modern approach". How does a computer come to know what is "good" or "evil" (assuming one would even want one's computer to think in such primitive terms).
It seems like there is a very large, and not decreasing gap between computer reasoning, and "thought" or "self-reflection". Can you even imagine a computer "meditating" to "quiet its mind", to help its creativity increase?
Have to stop here....my output units are fatigued.:-)
patent trolls ARE providing a service. By purchasing patents, these patent trolls provide a market for patents which puts money in the hands of small time inventors, who don't have the resources to commercialize their inventions
You are outright "WRONG".
Patent TROLLS do not provide the service of "commercializing" patents. Patent trolls put no more money in the hands of inventors because they buy up patents that have, already proven technological worth because they are already included in technology. That's the TROLL's leverage. If the patent didn't already have proven or provable worth, the TROLL wouldn't have ever have been interested in the patent. Your fantasy that TROLLS help inventors commercialize anything is just that: a *fantasy*. Get over it.
The problem is *both* the patent system, AND those who abuse the system (TROLLS and those who use patents to put other companies out-of-business).
It's one thing to award a patent as a reward for inventing something and to give the inventor a reasonable time to obtain compensation for their ingenuity. It's patent abuse to use them for most other purposes.
Stop claiming patent and copyright bogosity protects or rewards "the little guy", the garage inventor or a garage band. It's the corporations and trolls who benefit -- and they benefit WAY too much.
Sorry if my tone is harsh, but abusive corporations need to be STOPPED. At the very least, they need to have their "personhood" status revoked. Inventors & creators should be rewarded to encourage them to continue in order to benefit society -- that's was the entire point of exclusive licenses (patents and copyrights). They've gone way beyond that intent, to the point that entire artificial markets have been created solely to manage these non-physical, "Intellectual Properties". It is a drain on society, benefiting society very little, but hurting society forever into the future by limiting, draining and destroying resources that could have been used to benefit society in NEW ways, rather than by researching new ways to extract money from older patents and copyrights.
No one of this generation really cares because they'll all be dead, but all the resources we waste in pointless legal wrangling and warring will end up costing humanity dearly in future decades and centuries. It's all so much a waste!
What I am curious about is why we let "skylab" fall into earth's atmosphere -- or just about any satellite for that matter.
I know things break, wear-out, past their lifetime, etc. But getting things up into orbit costs huge sums of money and takes alot of "energy" resources.
Would it be possible or practical, that instead of just letting every retired space object fall to earth, couldn't they be given a nudge to a higher, fixed orbit that wouldn't decay? Say we reserve some "band" in earth's orbit -- considerably farther out than the current space station, where we could "park" all the old things we've shot up but no longer use? *Eventually*, we may have the ability to re-use space-junk. Initially, maybe parts, but possibly for recycling the metal for inclusion in distant future space platform plans?
Could it ever become cheaper to retool junk in space than to shoot up replacement satellites? If it's a possibility, and if it's not of major cost, is it possible to save more "junk" and sorta store it in a common orbit -- heck -- even collected in one mass -- like a giant junkyard floating in permanent orbit around the planet. If no other use is needed, maybe shells of the satellites could be used as increased "inert" shielding against space radiation or reflective material for solar collection?
Maybe we'll eventually get a space elevator up and running and getting things into space won't cost as much, but right now, just seems short-sighted to send End-of-Life'd satellites into the atmosphere to be burnt up.
What physical item is "illegal" to import that I can't also have shipped in a container, where it will probably go unnoticed?
Physical items are possibly illegal to 'smuggle' in -- drugs being common if you are coming over the Mexican border. Illegal weapons, illegal aliens (they have to go through Area 51 first!)...etc. But AFAIK, unless I'm a spy carrying around nuclear or bio-warfare secrets, or the floor plan to the president's bunker under they white house, complete with ventilation system access points where one could introduce the toxin. The,..you wanna see explosive lithium power cells...wait till you get a load of way my laptop disperses the toxin!... Uh...You sure you want the password on my laptop?...ok...you don't mind if I stand outside, do you?...
Supposedly there isn't much in the way of information that I would be likely to 'smuggle in' in a laptop that it wouldn't be easier to exchange in illegally traded P2P files using stenography. The whole RIAA/MPAA thing -- chasing after copyright violators -- what a joke. It's great at dissuading them examining the bitstreams too carefully -- just chalk it up to different mp3 or mpeg-2 encoding techniques...amazing the bandwidth you can hide in a standard DVD. The genius would be to embed the next Al-Qaeda plans in a widely distributed movie as background noise. With the right decoder, anyone could go down to BlockBuster or Hollywood and rent the DVD to get the plans...
But smuggling in active plans for terrorism on a laptop? That's just plain dumb.
Information isn't illegal in the US, so again, what information could be considered 'contraband'? I suppose if someone could answer that, then the 'contraband' program wouldn't be nearly so effective. I mean, our contraband program is so secretive about what information is contraband that no one really knows what it is that is being banned!.... Yeah...right. In the US we ban information by having no word or description for it, so it is impossible to talk about that which one has no words for....very effective.
But those laptops...could be sneaking in new words or something...then what'll we do?
Should the border officials be allowed to copy data? Actually, maybe so.....
If you believe that customs should be able to search for contraband and/or undeclared items upon which import taxes would be levied, then it is inconsistent to hold that they can't examine the data you're carrying.
This isn't exactly the same situation. In America, exactly what "contraband" can one carry in a laptop? What information is "illegal" to import that is not also available to be "downloaded" online?
There is nothing of monetary value to the government to declare.
The only thing they can search for -- is not "contraband", or "taxable goods", but *personal information*.
If I brought several personal letters with me, or if I brought a diary or journal in my carry-on, does (or should) the government have the right to read my personal mail or open my diary and start reading my personal entries?
If I tell the officer my computer has no password -- and he looks for contraband and finds none, can he demand I produce a password to uncover a hidden partition? Can they take me aside and start "waterboarding" me for all the passwords to all the websites I use...including financial sites?
Part of the problem is that there is no official policy about what is allowed, or not, and there is zero oversight for abuses. If I refuse (or don't have) a password. How's about telling them that partition they want to access is only accessible with your boss's fingerprint? What if a partition on your disk is only accessible when "online" so that a password can be validated with a one-time password keycard?
That may be the safest -- the 'private' info is stored in an encrypted partition with the key stored on your company's internal network (or for that matter, your home network!)
But all this seems like alot of work to go through when the chances of being hassled are probably, literally a million to 1. It certainly isn't something random travelers should have to go through without probably cause.
This nonsense of our "US-Constitutional Rights" are gone the moment we leave the US-terminal and enter the international zone is ridiculous. It seems next up might be people (non-ambassadors, of course), entering or exiting embassies.
Isn't telecommuting the first step toward being outsourced? I mean if you can do it from home, you can do it from India, or China...where-ever. How long before government functions are outsourced to lower-paid workers in other countries? Or are government salaries low enough to not be at risk for cheaper outsourcing?;^/
' Microsoft's IE8 render modes have... caused an uproar in the web development community. According to the scheme, authors must put Microsoft-specific tags into their pages in order for them to be rendered correctly.
Well the authors could decide to show some spine and "just say no" to bending over for Microsoft. They can instead tell customers to get a standards compliant browswer...Firefox maybe?
While some companies may have "real" requirements for managers, in my limited experience, it seems the biggest requirement seems to be the ability to dissimulate, convincingly, at will. While I've known (and had) managers that didn't have this talent, they were usually managers who had been good software engineers who had been recently promoted to management. Those who learned the talent progressed up the management chain, those who didn't found themselves either cross- or down-moved to a senior engineer position.
The ability to manipulate others into doing things against their nature is a strong plus!
Yeah...bingo. Firewire 400 was 30-50% faster than 480 for 7200rpm 2.5" hard disks off a laptop. One can't use the excuse that USB doesn't achieve it's rated speed due to protocol overhead, since even with 20% more raw bandwidth USB2 is still slower than FW400.
For desktop/side computers using 7200RPM disks FW800 can keep up with IDE on single drives. Supposedly FW1600 is in the works? Interesting that they aren't announcing the speed of USB3.0. Hopefully they'll go for a 10x speed boost, at least.
The cards have userid's. You use your userid to login and buy mp3's. It would be consistent for Sony to embed the userid in the MP3 so if leaked onto file sharing sites they could determine what userid was involved.
There are tons of other possibilities -- but requiring you to buy and use the purchased userid allows them to tie purchasers to a physical place: if not your house, then, at least where the userid was purchased -- where they could have your image recorded on the in-store CCTV cameras. Of course if you don't use cash, they would have your credit/debit card number.
What'cha expect... Benefit for them, hassle for us.
Cable companies (Comcast) are advertising the benefit of being on cable -- since cable TV won't convert to digital anytime soon for their bottom (i.e.: standard, no extra charge) tiered services.
If there was a problem, how would you know it hadn't been caused by the OS? It's not as if you can examine the source. With the file-corruption on Windows Home Server, they got caught.
Right...and of course, those complaining about Novell dealing with Microsoft wouldn't agree to accept Microsoft's licensing of unspecified and unvalued patents in exchange for also accepting $356 million? I wonder how much would people would let 'appearances' bother them in such a position?
Hey...let em have it! I'm sure several here have thought of just writing a program to auto-query on every word in the dictionary...let 'em register the entire language (including foreign words)....
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone who lives somewhere and has a life is "captive" within their town/life/job/family. Don't be naive if you think people can just walk "next door" to another state and rent a video their (unless they live on a border).
How can you support legislation edited movies for those who desire it without affecting those who do not? Last I checked, laws applied to everyone -- not just those who "want it" and legislatures are all too willing to cast their votes to in order to setup a pre-judgemental framework. Case in point, today's slashdot: "Utah wants to create a rating system for ISP's that filter the way the legislature wants". First you create the rating system, then you make sure all the local schools, libraries and internet cafe's have to use only "G" rated ISP's... Now you've shoved your rating system down other people's throat.
My post implies nothing about people "in general" preferring the edited version -- only those people who control the guns and the legislature. Since only a fraction of the people vote, you can not claim that even a majority support it -- but at best, a majority, of a minority that believes it is worthwhile vote and that their vote will make a difference. If you live in an oppressive regime, you tend to be skeptical about voting making a difference. Look at how easily the 2000 and 2004 elections were corrupted nationally and you think a state dominated by one religion couldn't do the same with much less fuss?
What do you mean by you would have no problem with permitting a minority seeing an "edited" movie? Gee, that's awfully open-minded of you. What if they wanted to see the uncensored version? You tell them just to move out of your "state"?
You can edit the DVD in your home and produce your own copy for your family -- just like you can remix music compilations under Fair Use privileges.
What isn't ok, is a large mega-corp producing their own "edited" version, where they might change dialogue, (or add dialogue), cut scenes out, etc. The problem is that once you allow that, viewers in a "captive market" (Utah, Blockbuster) are shut out of the rental market because the only video store in town is a BB. Would it be "equally ok" for a state to declare certain scenes as "pornographic", and require the removal of such scenes in order for the movie to be "rented" or "let" out in the state? Local standards are supposedly applicable in deciding obscenity cases. Suppose your "locality" wants to have only "clean" movies? Suppose someone "cleans" your movies for you and you aren't even aware of it (this was happening until it was stopped)? Allowing commercial vendors to vend or rent "cleaned" movies is a bad idea for artistic expression and freedom.
While I agree with you (and have used your solution @work for years), imagine the problems if one's notebook/laptop were stolen? I tended toward the paranoid side of things, but all it takes is one slip around one smart thief....not that I would change my "M.O." on this account -- putting private or proprietary data on some website is a recipe for disaster. Companies and governments can't keep their stuff on their servers from being hacked over the internet -- and someone wants me to trust some company like "Adobe" that can't even print my PDF without starting a licensing manager as a service that constantly tries to contact Adobe's servers for unauthorized software updates?... Pah! Adobe is right behind Apple and MS in badness.
MS and Adobe lead the pack for numbers of software-licensing problems handled by their enforcement arm, BSA.
Ahh...yes...took me a bit for the picture....
:=/
But other than satellites, there've been mumblings about possible geo-stationary *balloons*. Solar powered and tethered at a specific height. I think there was some mention of Google possibly doing it over a small area like the Bay Area to provide Bay-wide internet access. Apparently the cost of putting balloons up is considerably lower than putting satellites up, and maintenance is a tad easier as well (don't have to hire a shuttle crew).
That could dovetail well into a rumored google phone that could might be able to tap into anyone's any land-to-balloon station -- which google could encourage customers to do 'acquire' by offering cheap or free internet access to those who agree to be a "land-station"...
Time will tell how these things shake-out. Certainly makes sense over urban areas, though have heard it could be possible to use high enough balloons to blanket wide areas -- like satellites currently do, but at a fraction of the cost.
Could be interesting. Someone needs to shake up the telco-cable monopolies. While they may not "strictly" be monopolies in that they have no competition, at least in the cell phone arena, they provide strong incentives to adopt one of the monopolies with their 2-year contracts and phone non-portability. Interesting how rates are much cheaper and service is better in other areas where phones are are 'portable' and unlocked. This makes it easy to change providers when the providers provide poor service or more costly add-ons... Amazing how the ability for users to easily change providers drives competition toward better service and lower prices. But for 'cheap' ISP's (that provide poor service), it seems AT&T and cable companies are often the only two games in town (presuming having even that choice in one's area).
A slowdown of 33% in fiber? Wow...that seems like alot, but believable. This fiber is 'glass'?
Do you happen to know about the speed of an electrical signal over copper? I.e. is fiber really any
better in terms of speed? Or does its main benefit come from capacity?
Here's an odd question, maybe... So fiber is "efficient" because the light stays fairly trapped within the fiber as it snakes along. What would be the effect if, instead of a solid core (glass?), one were to create a "tube" with the center being 'hollow', and the fiber surrounding the core -- would light tend to stay in the "empty" core? I.e. is the reflectivity of the surface of the fiber (which normally keeps the light within a fiber) 2-way? Would it also tend to keep a light beam within the empty space thus increasing the speed back up to the speed of light through air (presumption that it would be impractical to attempt to maintain a vacuum in the hollow core over any significant distance)...?
I'm sure it's probably impractical for some reason or they'd be doing it...:-)
Now if we could just induce an artificial wormhole within the wire....
3.76ms? How do you figure? I used 175 miles * 2 = 350. 350/186,000 = 1.8ms, or does latency to a satellite take 4 trips?
How are people computing latency?
I saw this on the BBC News website:
"Data sent over fibre optic networks is subject to the limitations of the speed of light, which means interactivity between the server and gamer will never have a latency below 70 milliseconds."
70ms latency being a minimum over fiber optic networks? Is the speed of light slowed down in fiber optic cables?
Speed of light would normally be able to travel over 13000 miles (>20800km) in 70ms. But the same article was claiming that consoles were on the way out and that 'flash' would be used to write online games, so maybe the technical expertise in that article is lacking a bit?
1) You can attach a cheap USB fingerprint scanner like the one from APC -- froogle shows low price range of 30-40$$. That should be fairly "unique"...
:-)
2) She can encrypt all her files (which will be tied to her login password -- the USB scanner).
No matter if brother hacks her computer, he'd have to guess her password to decrypt the files.
If anyone changes her login password (or clears it), the files won't decrypt.
Might be a good idea to create a separate USB-keyfob with a backup of her encryption
credentials in case someone changes her password. Theoretically, I think, a 2-password
system can be setup so parents ("Administrator"s) could unlock her account and read the passwords.
You may need XP-Professional to use some of these features.
Might also be a bit of overkill.
Does she have a favorite book? How about the ISBN? Not a likely password to be going and guessing!
While I'm sure computers will be able to "out reason" us in the future, they will be unlikely to excel in human thought or creativity.
:-)
Let me try to explain: what concepts or thoughts can computers conceive other than what has been programmed by a human into them?
Sure, you can claim computers can "learn". But again, what value can a computer assign to any experience without having been told its value by humans?
The big problem I see for computers to develop into self-actualized beings is that they are not alive. Thus -- they cannot be killed, they cannot be 'hurt' in the way we feel pain. They can be programmed to say "ow" and act "like" they are hurt, but because they are machines, they cannot learn by avoiding painful experiences. One might think a computer might want to avoid being "turned off", but "why?" It can just as easily be turned back on and be none the worse for it. It may be better (may have been upgraded, may have had solar cells recharge its batteries...etc). There can be no fear of "death".
As such, there can be no desire to exceed, or grow beyond "death". As far as implementation -- how can computers "grow" new neurons or attachments. Our brains make new cells throughout life. Old cells die -- in a computer this would generally be considered a fatal error.
There are so many problems attempting to create human thought out of machines -- because they can never "think" beyond what values the humans have programmed into them. Or rather -- lets say this, I cannot think of anyway a computer could learn to "fear" something, like avoiding falling because a scraped knee hurts. I don't see anyway they can ever have "preferences", other than what they've been told to prefer. Could they prefer a shade of red or a flavor of a banana? How can they acquire all (or any) of the experiences that make us humans?
Maybe I'm missing some real obvious solutions, but I've been cogitating about this for the past several weeks (on the coat-tails of reading G.E.B. and a minor chunk into "AI: a Modern approach". How does a computer come to know what is "good" or "evil" (assuming one would even want one's computer to think in such primitive terms).
It seems like there is a very large, and not decreasing gap between computer reasoning, and "thought" or "self-reflection". Can you even imagine a computer "meditating" to "quiet its mind", to help its creativity increase?
Have to stop here....my output units are fatigued.
-l
patent trolls ARE providing a service. By purchasing patents, these patent trolls provide a market for patents which puts money in the hands of small time inventors, who don't have the resources to commercialize their inventions
You are outright "WRONG".
Patent TROLLS do not provide the service of "commercializing" patents. Patent trolls put no more money in the hands of inventors because they buy up patents that have, already proven technological worth because they are already included in technology. That's the TROLL's leverage. If the patent didn't already have proven or provable worth, the TROLL wouldn't have ever have been interested in the patent. Your fantasy that TROLLS help inventors commercialize anything is just that: a *fantasy*. Get over it.
The problem is *both* the patent system, AND those who abuse the system (TROLLS and those who use patents to put other companies out-of-business).
It's one thing to award a patent as a reward for inventing something and to give the inventor a reasonable time to obtain compensation for their ingenuity. It's patent abuse to use them for most other purposes.
Stop claiming patent and copyright bogosity protects or rewards "the little guy", the garage inventor or a garage band. It's the corporations and trolls who benefit -- and they benefit WAY too much.
Sorry if my tone is harsh, but abusive corporations need to be STOPPED. At the very least, they need to have their "personhood" status revoked. Inventors & creators should be rewarded to encourage them to continue in order to benefit society -- that's was the entire point of exclusive licenses (patents and copyrights). They've gone way beyond that intent, to the point that entire artificial markets have been created solely to manage these non-physical, "Intellectual Properties". It is a drain on society, benefiting society very little, but hurting society forever into the future by limiting, draining and destroying resources that could have been used to benefit society in NEW ways, rather than by researching new ways to extract money from older patents and copyrights.
No one of this generation really cares because they'll all be dead, but all the resources we waste in pointless legal wrangling and warring will end up costing humanity dearly in future decades and centuries. It's all so much a waste!
What I am curious about is why we let "skylab" fall into earth's atmosphere -- or just about any satellite for that matter.
I know things break, wear-out, past their lifetime, etc. But getting things up into orbit costs huge sums of money and takes alot of "energy" resources.
Would it be possible or practical, that instead of just letting every retired space object fall to earth, couldn't they be given a nudge to a higher, fixed orbit that wouldn't decay? Say we reserve some "band" in earth's orbit -- considerably farther out than the current space station, where we could "park" all the old things we've shot up but no longer use? *Eventually*, we may have the ability to re-use space-junk. Initially, maybe parts, but possibly for recycling the metal for inclusion in distant future space platform plans?
Could it ever become cheaper to retool junk in space than to shoot up replacement satellites? If it's a possibility, and if it's not of major cost, is it possible to save more "junk" and sorta store it in a common orbit -- heck -- even collected in one mass -- like a giant junkyard floating in permanent orbit around the planet. If no other use is needed, maybe shells of the satellites could be used as increased "inert" shielding against space radiation or reflective material for solar collection?
Maybe we'll eventually get a space elevator up and running and getting things into space won't cost as much, but right now, just seems short-sighted to send End-of-Life'd satellites into the atmosphere to be burnt up.
What physical item is "illegal" to import that I can't also have shipped in a container, where it will probably go unnoticed?
... Uh...You
.... Yeah...right. In the US we ban information by having no word or description for it, so it is impossible to talk about that which one has no words for....very effective.
Physical items are possibly illegal to 'smuggle' in -- drugs being common if you are coming over the Mexican border. Illegal weapons, illegal aliens (they have to go through Area 51 first!)...etc. But AFAIK, unless I'm a spy carrying around nuclear or bio-warfare secrets, or the floor plan to the president's bunker under they white house, complete with ventilation system access points where one could introduce the toxin. The,..you wanna see explosive lithium power cells...wait till you get a load of way my laptop disperses the toxin!
sure you want the password on my laptop?...ok...you don't mind if I stand outside, do you?...
Supposedly there isn't much in the way of information that I would be likely to 'smuggle in' in a laptop that it wouldn't be easier to exchange in illegally traded P2P files using stenography. The whole RIAA/MPAA thing -- chasing after copyright violators -- what a joke. It's great at dissuading them examining the bitstreams too carefully -- just chalk it up to different mp3 or mpeg-2 encoding techniques...amazing the bandwidth you can hide in a standard DVD. The genius would be to embed the next Al-Qaeda plans in a widely distributed movie as
background noise. With the right decoder, anyone could go down to BlockBuster or Hollywood and rent the
DVD to get the plans...
But smuggling in active plans for terrorism on a laptop? That's just plain dumb.
Information isn't illegal in the US, so again, what information could be considered 'contraband'? I suppose if someone could answer that, then the 'contraband' program wouldn't be nearly so effective. I mean, our contraband program is so secretive about what information is contraband that no one really knows what it is that is being banned!
But those laptops...could be sneaking in new words or something...then what'll we do?
Oi vey!
Should the border officials be allowed to copy data? Actually, maybe so. ....
If you believe that customs should be able to search for contraband and/or undeclared items upon which import taxes would be levied, then it is inconsistent to hold that they can't examine the data you're carrying.
This isn't exactly the same situation. In America, exactly what "contraband" can one carry in a laptop? What information is "illegal" to import that is not also available to be "downloaded" online?
There is nothing of monetary value to the government to declare.
The only thing they can search for -- is not "contraband", or "taxable goods", but *personal information*.
If I brought several personal letters with me, or if I brought a diary or journal in my carry-on, does (or should) the government have the right to read my personal mail or open my diary and start reading my personal entries?
If I tell the officer my computer has no password -- and he looks for contraband and finds none, can he demand I produce a password to uncover a hidden partition? Can they take me aside and start "waterboarding" me for all the passwords to all the websites I use...including financial sites?
Part of the problem is that there is no official policy about what is allowed, or not, and there is zero oversight for abuses. If I refuse (or don't have) a password. How's about telling them that partition
they want to access is only accessible with your boss's fingerprint? What if a partition on your disk is only accessible when "online" so that a password can be validated with a one-time password keycard?
That may be the safest -- the 'private' info is stored in an encrypted partition with the key stored on your company's internal network (or for that matter, your home network!)
But all this seems like alot of work to go through when the chances of being hassled are probably, literally a million to 1. It certainly isn't something random travelers should have to go through without probably cause.
This nonsense of our "US-Constitutional Rights" are gone the moment we leave the US-terminal and enter the international zone is ridiculous. It seems next up might be people (non-ambassadors, of course), entering or exiting embassies.
maybe itunes was the only high-bandwidth site they visited while on the web?
I'd guess that they start by dropping everyone into the lowest tier, then if you wanted your faster service back you would pay more...
Tried the maker's website...."can't connect to DB 1Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (11)"
Seems like something got cooked...
Isn't telecommuting the first step toward being outsourced? I mean if you can do it from home, you can do it from India, or China...where-ever. How long before government functions are outsourced to lower-paid workers in other countries? Or are government salaries low enough to not be at risk for cheaper outsourcing? ;^/
' Microsoft's IE8 render modes have ... caused an uproar in the web development community. According to the scheme, authors must put Microsoft-specific tags into their pages in order for them to be rendered correctly.
Well the authors could decide to show some spine and "just say no" to bending over for Microsoft. They can instead tell customers to get a standards compliant browswer...Firefox maybe?
While some companies may have "real" requirements for managers, in my limited experience, it seems the biggest requirement seems to be the ability to dissimulate, convincingly, at will. While I've known (and had) managers that didn't have this talent, they were usually managers who had been good software engineers who had been recently promoted to management. Those who learned the talent progressed up the management chain, those who didn't found themselves either cross- or down-moved to a senior engineer position.
The ability to manipulate others into doing things against their nature is a strong plus!
I *did* glaze^Wgraze over the original article -- guess I glazed more than grazed. :-)
Yeah...bingo. Firewire 400 was 30-50% faster than 480 for 7200rpm 2.5" hard disks off a laptop. One can't use the excuse that USB doesn't achieve it's rated speed due to protocol overhead, since even with 20% more raw bandwidth USB2 is still slower than FW400.
For desktop/side computers using 7200RPM disks FW800 can keep up with IDE on single drives. Supposedly
FW1600 is in the works? Interesting that they aren't announcing the speed of USB3.0. Hopefully they'll go for a 10x speed boost, at least.
The cards have userid's. You use your userid to login and buy mp3's. It would be consistent for Sony to embed the userid in the MP3 so if leaked onto file sharing sites they could determine what userid was involved.
There are tons of other possibilities -- but requiring you to buy and use the purchased userid allows them to tie purchasers to a physical place: if not your house, then, at least where the userid was purchased -- where they could have your image recorded on the in-store CCTV cameras. Of course if you don't use cash, they would have your credit/debit card number.
What'cha expect... Benefit for them, hassle for us.
Cable companies (Comcast) are advertising the benefit of being on cable -- since cable TV won't convert to digital anytime soon for their bottom (i.e.: standard, no extra charge) tiered services.
"I thought this article was about the irrational number at first."
It's related: It's about irrational legislation...
If there was a problem, how would you know it hadn't been caused by the OS? It's not as if you can examine the source. With the file-corruption on Windows Home Server, they got caught.
Right...and of course, those complaining about Novell dealing with Microsoft wouldn't agree to accept Microsoft's licensing of unspecified and unvalued patents in exchange for also accepting $356 million? I wonder how much would people would let 'appearances' bother them in such a position?
Hey...let em have it! I'm sure several here have thought of just writing a program to auto-query on every word in the dictionary...let 'em register the entire language (including foreign words)....