The goverment assumes that all criminals will register there guns, this is logical isn't it?
Actually I think the idea is that over a generation or two most ordinary people will register their guns. Then if criminals steal the guns, the weapons can be traced. Of course, you would need some pretty tight import controls to stop illegal guns from entering the country before a gun-registry system like this would even be RELEVANT, but maybe the government is thinking ahead ? PFFT! {chuckle} sorry couldn't keep a straight face on that last one.
Publication bans are only effective against stupid people, and although it isn't quite PC to say so, these are exactly who is being targeted by the bans in the first place. It's Joe Moron that believes whatever the wing-nut in the newspaper prints. We need another reading of "War of the Worlds" to thin these people out again.
The Canadian Alliance is the opposition party at the moment. The Minister of whatever is from the governing party. The governing party determines who is prime minister, finance minister, etc.
I think that the only people who would advocate a zero-knowledge system for this are the ones who have zero-knowledge themselves. What you want is undeniable signatures, and some sort of encryption if you want to keep the individual votes "secret". I don't see how a zero-knowledge system would help anything. You could use them as an extra layer to help count the vote, but don't you usually trust people who are counting the vote anyway ?
Or a computer fee for Microsoft because everybody pirates their software?
Yes, this is exactly where we are going. Corporations will be our new governments; passing laws, collecting taxes, and running our lives (for their benefit). You can't vote, and you won't even be able to vote with your dollar. The marketplace will be ruled by cartels (-or industry associations, the name is your preference). It will be a sort of multi-feudalism, with many kings, each having control over a different aspect of your life. It's funny how at the extreme end capitalism and communism look quite similiar, at least in how they're implemented.
And you can bet it will be eagerly adopted by banks, media companies, and the likes, because it is the single scheme that allows them to "protect" their data against their own customers.
And it is exactly these issues of ownership and control which have driven the open source movement this far. I do not have a lot of faith in the average persons ability to recognize the importance of this issue. What I do have faith in is peoples' greed. The media companies will not stop at requiring an OS to be "trusted". If they did, OSS users would be utterly screwed. Once they have 80% or 95% of users under their umbrella, they will begin looking at other restrictions which are less appealing to consumers. Very quickly, the issues of ownership and control will become highly relevant to the average person, and they will (hopefully, if we do our job) have a choice. Provided we stick to our beliefs, there will be an alternate world : the free world. Where your digital media can be copied, edited, and redistributed entirely at your discression. The free world may never be as flashy as the DRM-whatever world, but a flashy prison is a prison nonetheless, and people will recognize this.
The greed and arrogance of media companies will be enough to turn people against DRM, although it may take a while. We need to stick to our principles, to ensure that when the time comes there is a free world for people to choose. I'm in for the long haul, how about everyone else ?
But Music, then Video drove expansion in size. What NEW is coming along to do that?
Umm, how about 3d worlds ? Right now, your average FPS fits on a cd and looks like a warped cartoon. What will happen when people expect all the characters to be totally lifelike ? At the very least, you will need a lot of high resolution textures for every nook and cranny.
There's also the possibility of raw HDTV... but I'm sure that a broadcast flag will stop us from ever doing anything with that (chuckle).
I know I'm going to get crap for this, but Linux needs a simpler install, and I'm not talking about hand-holding crap. I always choose the custom or expert install, and I find that unless I specifically go through EVERY LITTLE THING, something important will be missed. The various available packages need to be grouped by task, and then by program. For example, at the top level, I should be able to say "I want to compile programs", and have it install all the headers and libraries for each program. Likewise, an option which says "I like to tweak and monitor my system" would install every utility under the sun for tweaking and monitoring. Better yet, each group could have three choices : None, Reccomended, All. People who are new to Linux and are unfamiliar with the programs and packages available are always overwhelmed by the sheer volume of available choices. I think a system like this could go a long way to helping them, and I think it would make life a bit easier for established linux users as well.
OK quick, we actually have an acronym which is close to being a word here, so everyone try to think of what we can tack onto the END of Serial ATA, preference is given to anything that starts with an "N" !
It is dead obvious why this is happening. PC games debut at some ridiculously high price, before tanking down to 20 bucks or lower. No one wants to pay the high price, and most people wait until it is cheap(er). The price of new console games on the other hand is artificially inflated over the life of the game. Retailers risk the wrath of Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft if they dump the price too low. Everything else in the story is mostly anecdotal.
Simple, in an environment without choice, someone will have the power to set a standard. Take Apple for example. The interface of OSX is a "standard" because Apple made it that way. Although I'm sure you could change it, the idea that you could or should is not readily evident to most people. So in that way, a standard has been determined by a small fraction of users, particularily those that work at Apple.
I'm a graduate student in mathematics and I find biology "hard". It's somewhat straightforwards, but there's too much crap to memorize. But all the biology people I know think math is hard, so it's obviously a matter of personal attributes and taste as to what is "hard" or "easy".
In related news, a new study says that people are lazy and that our laziness often causes mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes propagate, because everyone is lazy and no one corrects the error.
Contrary to what some people seem to think, the open source model DOES produce standards. It produces de-facto standards ! When the popularity of a particular program reaches critical mass, it practically has to be included in all distributions. Don't believe me ? How many distros have bash as the default shell ? How about almost all of them ? That's not to say that the other shells are not as good, and they're still available incase you need them too. That is the beauty of the open source model. What is or isn't "standard" is determined by the users - it just takes a while.
The fact is, if you truly believe in the open source model you will trust people and companies to make their own standards. If your company wants Gnome as the default interface on every desktop, so be it. That is their choice. Much of what people dislike about Microsoft boils down to the fact that they don't trust the user to make a choice. Microsoft thinks they can make some sort of utopia, where all interfaces are the same, and anyone can use a computer without having to know anything. It's a well meaning, but ass-backwards goal. Computer use is now very much part of society in general, and the central planning model simply can not scale up to something this complex. We have to trust individuals to make their own choices. There should be some handholding available to people, but ultimately we have to trust the masses. Does this philosophy sound familiar ?
Maybe we could colonize the moon with a bunch of geeks. Let them build a civilization and develop technology and so on. Below are a sample of reasons why this would be worthwhile.
1) As a backup society in case someone "presses the button" and destroys all life on Earth.
2) If the earthlings kept it all a perfect secret, possibly by committing hari-kari, after a few generations we could re-enact H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" and scare the shit out of everybody. That would put Orson Wells infamous reading of it to shame.
3) Future geek race would be the closest thing to an alien civilization we can make, it's a good substitute since we can't seem to find the real aliens. (they all got shot entering Texas?)
4) Dumping ground for Slashdot trolls.
So how do we convince them to go ? Many geeks lack any sort of attachment to society, so they may want to go. Or we could just tell them that the whole "man in the moon" thing was a mistake, it's actually a "woman in the moon" and she's aweful lonely. I don't know if anyone will buy that last one, but it's worth a shot.
Slashdot Mirror
The goverment assumes that all criminals will register there guns, this is logical isn't it?
Actually I think the idea is that over a generation or two most ordinary people will register their guns. Then if criminals steal the guns, the weapons can be traced. Of course, you would need some pretty tight import controls to stop illegal guns from entering the country before a gun-registry system like this would even be RELEVANT, but maybe the government is thinking ahead ? PFFT! {chuckle} sorry couldn't keep a straight face on that last one.
Would it be acceptable, according to the definition of 'fair use' to stream movies from your own hard disk so that you could watch them remotely?
Wrong country. Canada doesn't have "fair-use" protection the way the US does.
DON'T DROP THE SOAP !!!!
Publication bans are only effective against stupid people, and although it isn't quite PC to say so, these are exactly who is being targeted by the bans in the first place. It's Joe Moron that believes whatever the wing-nut in the newspaper prints. We need another reading of "War of the Worlds" to thin these people out again.
The Canadian Alliance is the opposition party at the moment. The Minister of whatever is from the governing party. The governing party determines who is prime minister, finance minister, etc.
I think that the only people who would advocate a zero-knowledge system for this are the ones who have zero-knowledge themselves. What you want is undeniable signatures, and some sort of encryption if you want to keep the individual votes "secret". I don't see how a zero-knowledge system would help anything. You could use them as an extra layer to help count the vote, but don't you usually trust people who are counting the vote anyway ?
Or a computer fee for Microsoft because everybody pirates their software?
Yes, this is exactly where we are going. Corporations will be our new governments; passing laws, collecting taxes, and running our lives (for their benefit). You can't vote, and you won't even be able to vote with your dollar. The marketplace will be ruled by cartels (-or industry associations, the name is your preference). It will be a sort of multi-feudalism, with many kings, each having control over a different aspect of your life. It's funny how at the extreme end capitalism and communism look quite similiar, at least in how they're implemented.
This looks like something you would see at the state fair. At least in Oklahoma anyway ;D
Yeah, where you'd have all these people standing around asking "What the fuck is a SAAB ??"
Actually it would be easy to explain. The explaination would go something like : "You see, we're a bunch of dumb-asses..."
Thats probably why you got modded to +5 funny.
...ducks!
And you can bet it will be eagerly adopted by banks, media companies, and the likes, because it is the single scheme that allows them to "protect" their data against their own customers.
And it is exactly these issues of ownership and control which have driven the open source movement this far. I do not have a lot of faith in the average persons ability to recognize the importance of this issue. What I do have faith in is peoples' greed. The media companies will not stop at requiring an OS to be "trusted". If they did, OSS users would be utterly screwed. Once they have 80% or 95% of users under their umbrella, they will begin looking at other restrictions which are less appealing to consumers. Very quickly, the issues of ownership and control will become highly relevant to the average person, and they will (hopefully, if we do our job) have a choice. Provided we stick to our beliefs, there will be an alternate world : the free world. Where your digital media can be copied, edited, and redistributed entirely at your discression. The free world may never be as flashy as the DRM-whatever world, but a flashy prison is a prison nonetheless, and people will recognize this.
The greed and arrogance of media companies will be enough to turn people against DRM, although it may take a while. We need to stick to our principles, to ensure that when the time comes there is a free world for people to choose. I'm in for the long haul, how about everyone else ?
Why settle for 4x faster. I can get 10-15x faster by turning off images.
But Music, then Video drove expansion in size. What NEW is coming along to do that?
Umm, how about 3d worlds ? Right now, your average FPS fits on a cd and looks like a warped cartoon. What will happen when people expect all the characters to be totally lifelike ? At the very least, you will need a lot of high resolution textures for every nook and cranny.
There's also the possibility of raw HDTV... but I'm sure that a broadcast flag will stop us from ever doing anything with that (chuckle).
I know I'm going to get crap for this, but Linux needs a simpler install, and I'm not talking about hand-holding crap. I always choose the custom or expert install, and I find that unless I specifically go through EVERY LITTLE THING, something important will be missed. The various available packages need to be grouped by task, and then by program. For example, at the top level, I should be able to say "I want to compile programs", and have it install all the headers and libraries for each program. Likewise, an option which says "I like to tweak and monitor my system" would install every utility under the sun for tweaking and monitoring. Better yet, each group could have three choices : None, Reccomended, All. People who are new to Linux and are unfamiliar with the programs and packages available are always overwhelmed by the sheer volume of available choices. I think a system like this could go a long way to helping them, and I think it would make life a bit easier for established linux users as well.
OK quick, we actually have an acronym which is close to being a word here, so everyone try to think of what we can tack onto the END of Serial ATA, preference is given to anything that starts with an "N" !
I don't get it, where's the "???" ???
In related news, a tree has fallen in forest. Did anybody hear that as well ?
It is dead obvious why this is happening. PC games debut at some ridiculously high price, before tanking down to 20 bucks or lower. No one wants to pay the high price, and most people wait until it is cheap(er). The price of new console games on the other hand is artificially inflated over the life of the game. Retailers risk the wrath of Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft if they dump the price too low. Everything else in the story is mostly anecdotal.
It's the 100th aniversary of quantum physics, and about the fourth aniversary of Enron math ! Woo Hoo !
Simple, in an environment without choice, someone will have the power to set a standard. Take Apple for example. The interface of OSX is a "standard" because Apple made it that way. Although I'm sure you could change it, the idea that you could or should is not readily evident to most people. So in that way, a standard has been determined by a small fraction of users, particularily those that work at Apple.
I'm a graduate student in mathematics and I find biology "hard". It's somewhat straightforwards, but there's too much crap to memorize. But all the biology people I know think math is hard, so it's obviously a matter of personal attributes and taste as to what is "hard" or "easy".
In related news, a new study says that people are lazy and that our laziness often causes mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes propagate, because everyone is lazy and no one corrects the error.
Well duh.
Contrary to what some people seem to think, the open source model DOES produce standards. It produces de-facto standards ! When the popularity of a particular program reaches critical mass, it practically has to be included in all distributions. Don't believe me ? How many distros have bash as the default shell ? How about almost all of them ? That's not to say that the other shells are not as good, and they're still available incase you need them too. That is the beauty of the open source model. What is or isn't "standard" is determined by the users - it just takes a while.
The fact is, if you truly believe in the open source model you will trust people and companies to make their own standards. If your company wants Gnome as the default interface on every desktop, so be it. That is their choice. Much of what people dislike about Microsoft boils down to the fact that they don't trust the user to make a choice. Microsoft thinks they can make some sort of utopia, where all interfaces are the same, and anyone can use a computer without having to know anything. It's a well meaning, but ass-backwards goal. Computer use is now very much part of society in general, and the central planning model simply can not scale up to something this complex. We have to trust individuals to make their own choices. There should be some handholding available to people, but ultimately we have to trust the masses. Does this philosophy sound familiar ?
Microsoft Certified System Mom (MCSM)
It would fit right in with the Microsoft Certified System Enfants. Yeah, I had to kludge it, but don't we all sometimes...
Maybe we could colonize the moon with a bunch of geeks. Let them build a civilization and develop technology and so on. Below are a sample of reasons why this would be worthwhile.
1) As a backup society in case someone "presses the button" and destroys all life on Earth.
2) If the earthlings kept it all a perfect secret, possibly by committing hari-kari, after a few generations we could re-enact H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" and scare the shit out of everybody. That would put Orson Wells infamous reading of it to shame.
3) Future geek race would be the closest thing to an alien civilization we can make, it's a good substitute since we can't seem to find the real aliens. (they all got shot entering Texas?)
4) Dumping ground for Slashdot trolls.
So how do we convince them to go ? Many geeks lack any sort of attachment to society, so they may want to go. Or we could just tell them that the whole "man in the moon" thing was a mistake, it's actually a "woman in the moon" and she's aweful lonely. I don't know if anyone will buy that last one, but it's worth a shot.