Is to simply make fewer laws? Has it occurred to anyone that perhaps much of the people who get locked up are there for reasons that don't really warrant locking them up in the first place, and that by branding them as criminals for behavior that isn't really harming anyone is actually doing more to create crime than stop it?
As an American, I'm sorry. We're not all idiots, and I promise you that those of us with at least a modicum of intelligence feel just as alienated and bewildered by the insanity that has apparently overtaken our country.
Because that's an entirely different frequency of radio waves with entirely different properties. Would you say that lead and hydrogen are the same because they are composed of the same components? Likewise, different frequencies of electromagnetic waves can have completely different properties.
Microwaves work through a very specific mechanism that only applies to very high powered signals, at certain frequencies, at close range. Specifically, they exploit the polar nature of water, causing the molecules to spin and generate friction, which in turn generates heat. To achieve this effect, microwaves operate at anywhere from 600 to 2000 watts within relatively tiny confines. Take into account that the intensity of radio waves decreases proportionately over distance, and add to the fact that this particular band of radio waves is incapable of traversing anything metallic, and the fact that it loses a significant amount of energy from it's constant interaction with the water in the air, sticking your head IN the microwave would hurt, but standing a reasonable distance away would have an effect only after lengthy exposure. Put a wall or some other substantial rigid structure in between you and the microwave, and you'd evaporate the magnetron long before you'd feel anything from the microwave.
To give you a sense of scale, 200mW, which is the output of your average wireless access point is to 600 watts (about the lowest power microwave you'll find) is about like comparing the mass of a four year old (40 pounds) to the mass of an M1 A1 Abrahms tank (135,200 pounds), and that's not even considering the fact that the frequencies in which these devices operate have entirely different properties. (IE, they don't cause rotation in water, and therefore don't cause heating).
In short, unless you think pre-schoolers are an adequate substitute for artillery, it's unwise to compare a microwave oven to a wireless access point.
If you know enough about computer science to write a book on compression algorithms, then you already know that piracy can't really be stopped. If you want to sell a book online, there is going to be a small segment of people who are going to pirate it and no amount of DRM will really stop that. There is really no question here, the cost of doing business selling digital media is that some pirated copies are going to inevitably get passed around. You are not losing money, as the people who pirate your book weren't very likely to buy it in the first place.
This is a minor gripe of mine, media doesn't really understand technology so they get some rough approximation of how things work and run with it
The DS plays games, the iPhone can play games, they are both immensely popular and have touch screens, therefore they must be competitive products.
If you look, you'll find similarly misinformed articles that act as though the iPhone was the first device to have a touch screen, or the first to have an application portal, or the first to play games. Misunderstandings like this are all over the internet and are a clear example of news outlets attempting to get some manner of readership by simply talking about something popular. It doesn't do justice to the devices in question, and it helps to perpetuate the general level of misinformation that most people have about devices that are rapidly becoming an important part of their lives.
Sorry you took such offense.
I do feel the need to defend myself by pointing out that the G1 functions just fine without a sim card and is more than happy to connect to a WAP.
Secondly, you can pick up a gently used G1 on ebay for about the cost of an iPod touch and it's an open platform which is something I think most people on slashdot would approve of.
Finally, the poster said "no cellphone-style activation and service fees" which simply means that they don't want a contract, just a wap device and most of the devices discussed here are within the 300-400 dollar range anyway so I guess I don't see why it was necessary to be so rude.
I absolutely love mine. The browser is excellent for a mobile device, the hardware is robust, and the physical keyboard/trackball makes browsing a breeze. The browser supports java, and will also soon support flash, you really can't ask for more.
Symantec's products have declined in quality to the point in which we do not recommend it to our clients, in fact, we actively discourage it.
Endpoint protection, even the corporate version, is heavy and almost useless for the detection of any kind of malware. The management software is so bad, that when left unchecked, it will fill a server with logs sometimes generating as much as a gigabyte per manged PC in a month.
When I was ten years old, I was playing games like Fallout and Daggerfall, in which I was doing all manner of highly immoral things including murder and theft and I turned out just fine, most of us did. So ask yourself, what has the ESRB accomplished short of making people paranoid?
So 99.8% of gamers don't mind DRM. I do, and that's why I don't buy their games. I do buy games, and music too, but only in non-DRM formats because I think I should be able to do what I want with what I buy, and that doesn't make me a pirate--it makes me an informed and careful consumer and as long as EA and others are going to accuse me of being a pirate for feeling this way, I'm going to continue to revile them for their consumer-unfriendly ways.
(as an aside, in the case of EA specifically, being a software developer and knowing exactly the sorts of things their preferred DRM mechanisms do, I simply don't feel comfortable installing anything on a computer that takes that sort of control.)
Only to content you post to Google services, which means that they don't own any rights to this post, for instance, but they retain rights to reproduce, display, and reuse any content that I upload to YouTube, or any other Google site. Hate to say it, but this is a condition of basically any Web2.0 service, and a source of my dislike for the cloud.
The critical flaw of cloud computing is that you entrust your data to a third party. If you are at all concerned with privacy you will think cloud computing is a terrible idea.
I think what bothers me the most about the book is that "The Internet" is looked at as one single item. I just don't see how it's fair to lump things like Wikipedia in with Twitter. Yes, they use the same core technology, but one is an intellectual pursuit built (theoretically) on lofty principles--the other is a system that allows people to keep the world informed of the frequency of bowel movements.
I'm glad that we are no longer aloud to use nonpositive words! Nonpositivity is ungood and does disbenefit to the party!
In all seriousness folks, this is a ridiculous ruse. It's become clear that the powers that be are pretty content with the idea of eliminating free speech in all of it's forms.
As a personal aside, I would like to say that while I was growing up, I was never "cyberbullied" (the internet was but a mere toddler at the time) instead, I was abused physically and emotionally by my classmates--in person--and it was allowed to happen by an ineffective administration that would rather try to get me into a different school than actually punish the students responsible. I was once told that for insinuating that another student was stupid, I was just as guilty as him. I had insulted him after he attacked me in the hallway, leaving a half a dozen bruises on my chest. Clearly, this was far less damaging than somebody making fun of me on the internet. Surely, that would have been far more devastating to me, and I'd have never become the self-reliant successful person that I am today.
I'm glad that "The Authorities" have nothing better to do than keep tabs on people who are ultimately of little consequence in the overall course of things. Yes, tax dollars at work.
I'd love to see any Dream Theater in a Guitar Hero game, but the longer and more intricate the track the better. Personally I think that "Under a Glass Moon" would be an excellent choice, at least for the Rock Band game--torment the keyboard player a bit.
If you want to go further down the "incredibly long song" category, they could always put one of the Jethro Tull concept albums on there. I would definitely like so see someone play Thick as a Brick without missing a note.
Unfortunate pop-culture reference, but using the GIMP reminds me a lot of the episode of South Park in which Mr. Garrison involves an alternative form of transport with a rather unfortunate control interface.
Slashdot Mirror
An anonymous reader quotes a press release on Reuters for crackpot author's book tour.
Is to simply make fewer laws? Has it occurred to anyone that perhaps much of the people who get locked up are there for reasons that don't really warrant locking them up in the first place, and that by branding them as criminals for behavior that isn't really harming anyone is actually doing more to create crime than stop it?
As an American, I'm sorry. We're not all idiots, and I promise you that those of us with at least a modicum of intelligence feel just as alienated and bewildered by the insanity that has apparently overtaken our country.
Because that's an entirely different frequency of radio waves with entirely different properties. Would you say that lead and hydrogen are the same because they are composed of the same components? Likewise, different frequencies of electromagnetic waves can have completely different properties.
Microwaves work through a very specific mechanism that only applies to very high powered signals, at certain frequencies, at close range. Specifically, they exploit the polar nature of water, causing the molecules to spin and generate friction, which in turn generates heat. To achieve this effect, microwaves operate at anywhere from 600 to 2000 watts within relatively tiny confines. Take into account that the intensity of radio waves decreases proportionately over distance, and add to the fact that this particular band of radio waves is incapable of traversing anything metallic, and the fact that it loses a significant amount of energy from it's constant interaction with the water in the air, sticking your head IN the microwave would hurt, but standing a reasonable distance away would have an effect only after lengthy exposure. Put a wall or some other substantial rigid structure in between you and the microwave, and you'd evaporate the magnetron long before you'd feel anything from the microwave. To give you a sense of scale, 200mW, which is the output of your average wireless access point is to 600 watts (about the lowest power microwave you'll find) is about like comparing the mass of a four year old (40 pounds) to the mass of an M1 A1 Abrahms tank (135,200 pounds), and that's not even considering the fact that the frequencies in which these devices operate have entirely different properties. (IE, they don't cause rotation in water, and therefore don't cause heating). In short, unless you think pre-schoolers are an adequate substitute for artillery, it's unwise to compare a microwave oven to a wireless access point.
If you know enough about computer science to write a book on compression algorithms, then you already know that piracy can't really be stopped. If you want to sell a book online, there is going to be a small segment of people who are going to pirate it and no amount of DRM will really stop that. There is really no question here, the cost of doing business selling digital media is that some pirated copies are going to inevitably get passed around. You are not losing money, as the people who pirate your book weren't very likely to buy it in the first place.
This is a minor gripe of mine, media doesn't really understand technology so they get some rough approximation of how things work and run with it
The DS plays games, the iPhone can play games, they are both immensely popular and have touch screens, therefore they must be competitive products.
If you look, you'll find similarly misinformed articles that act as though the iPhone was the first device to have a touch screen, or the first to have an application portal, or the first to play games. Misunderstandings like this are all over the internet and are a clear example of news outlets attempting to get some manner of readership by simply talking about something popular. It doesn't do justice to the devices in question, and it helps to perpetuate the general level of misinformation that most people have about devices that are rapidly becoming an important part of their lives.
Sorry you took such offense. I do feel the need to defend myself by pointing out that the G1 functions just fine without a sim card and is more than happy to connect to a WAP. Secondly, you can pick up a gently used G1 on ebay for about the cost of an iPod touch and it's an open platform which is something I think most people on slashdot would approve of. Finally, the poster said "no cellphone-style activation and service fees" which simply means that they don't want a contract, just a wap device and most of the devices discussed here are within the 300-400 dollar range anyway so I guess I don't see why it was necessary to be so rude.
I absolutely love mine. The browser is excellent for a mobile device, the hardware is robust, and the physical keyboard/trackball makes browsing a breeze. The browser supports java, and will also soon support flash, you really can't ask for more.
Have you encountered the problem where use of Symantec Cleanwipe breaks the user's ability to to create and use PPTP VPN connections?
Symantec's products have declined in quality to the point in which we do not recommend it to our clients, in fact, we actively discourage it. Endpoint protection, even the corporate version, is heavy and almost useless for the detection of any kind of malware. The management software is so bad, that when left unchecked, it will fill a server with logs sometimes generating as much as a gigabyte per manged PC in a month.
When I was ten years old, I was playing games like Fallout and Daggerfall, in which I was doing all manner of highly immoral things including murder and theft and I turned out just fine, most of us did. So ask yourself, what has the ESRB accomplished short of making people paranoid?
Hell, even my aging grandmother could find flaws in the RFID passports.
So 99.8% of gamers don't mind DRM. I do, and that's why I don't buy their games. I do buy games, and music too, but only in non-DRM formats because I think I should be able to do what I want with what I buy, and that doesn't make me a pirate--it makes me an informed and careful consumer and as long as EA and others are going to accuse me of being a pirate for feeling this way, I'm going to continue to revile them for their consumer-unfriendly ways. (as an aside, in the case of EA specifically, being a software developer and knowing exactly the sorts of things their preferred DRM mechanisms do, I simply don't feel comfortable installing anything on a computer that takes that sort of control.)
Only to content you post to Google services, which means that they don't own any rights to this post, for instance, but they retain rights to reproduce, display, and reuse any content that I upload to YouTube, or any other Google site. Hate to say it, but this is a condition of basically any Web2.0 service, and a source of my dislike for the cloud.
The critical flaw of cloud computing is that you entrust your data to a third party. If you are at all concerned with privacy you will think cloud computing is a terrible idea.
Can't we still hope for a stranglet? Please? That's all I'm asking for.
I think what bothers me the most about the book is that "The Internet" is looked at as one single item. I just don't see how it's fair to lump things like Wikipedia in with Twitter. Yes, they use the same core technology, but one is an intellectual pursuit built (theoretically) on lofty principles--the other is a system that allows people to keep the world informed of the frequency of bowel movements.
Afraid I have to call FUD on this one
In all seriousness folks, this is a ridiculous ruse. It's become clear that the powers that be are pretty content with the idea of eliminating free speech in all of it's forms.
As a personal aside, I would like to say that while I was growing up, I was never "cyberbullied" (the internet was but a mere toddler at the time) instead, I was abused physically and emotionally by my classmates--in person--and it was allowed to happen by an ineffective administration that would rather try to get me into a different school than actually punish the students responsible. I was once told that for insinuating that another student was stupid, I was just as guilty as him. I had insulted him after he attacked me in the hallway, leaving a half a dozen bruises on my chest. Clearly, this was far less damaging than somebody making fun of me on the internet. Surely, that would have been far more devastating to me, and I'd have never become the self-reliant successful person that I am today.
I thought of this years ago! I've got blog posts as prior art! SOMEBODY GET ME A MARSHALL TEXAS JUDGE ON THE LINE!
Wow, you seem to be harboring quite a bit of rage toward the Ukraine, any particular reason for that?
Well then she can go to hell!
I'm glad that "The Authorities" have nothing better to do than keep tabs on people who are ultimately of little consequence in the overall course of things. Yes, tax dollars at work.
I'd love to see any Dream Theater in a Guitar Hero game, but the longer and more intricate the track the better. Personally I think that "Under a Glass Moon" would be an excellent choice, at least for the Rock Band game--torment the keyboard player a bit.
If you want to go further down the "incredibly long song" category, they could always put one of the Jethro Tull concept albums on there. I would definitely like so see someone play Thick as a Brick without missing a note.
Unfortunate pop-culture reference, but using the GIMP reminds me a lot of the episode of South Park in which Mr. Garrison involves an alternative form of transport with a rather unfortunate control interface.