The British government is set to replace all citizens with mobile robotic platforms fitted out for remote thought control. The entire camera network and all domestic surveillance systems will be dismantled as they will no longer be required.
Yeah... a friend of mine got a talking tire pressure gauge as a gift at our company Christmas party. Step 1 of the instructions said, "Remove the valve stem cover before attaching gauge or gauge will not work" or words to that effect. I guess Ripley was right... IQs did drop sharply while she was away.
because as everyone knows, once the United States Congress passes a law regarding what can and cannot be done on the Internet, everyone the whole world over immediately obeys. Equally, of course, data cannot be sent to a foreign country via the Internet once it has been deemed contraband. I wish our government would just get a grip, and realize that anyone that wants this stuff will get it, with ease, legally or illegally, and it doesn't matter where they are. Yes, the intent may be to hinder anyone that wishes to act against the United States and its citizens, but the only real effect (as always in these cases) is to harm American business. Symantec loses some customers and revenue, and those foreign nationals that want the software grab it from some warez site (or have someone here buy it and send it to them.)
The other, rather arrogant aspect to this is the presumption that only American vendors can write good encryption software. There are plenty of good programmers overseas, and if companies and individuals can't buy what they need from an American vendor, they'll just buy it from a local company. More U.S. businesses lose customers.
I guess I just don't see the point anymore. Maybe twenty years ago... but not today.
On the other hand... I do believe that there are far more serious crimes that could and should be investigated by said government officials, rather than wasting their time serving as a taxpayer-funded arm of the entertainment companies. Let those organizations pay for their own lawyers and investigators: frankly I don't want my tax dollars going for this.
However, what these guys were doing does come under the heading of "piracy", like it or not. They were selling copyrighted materials, for profit, without authorization from the rightsholders. So yeah, unlike your typical 13-year old copyright infringer these guys were true pirates and should suffer some consequences. However, as previous posters pointed out some rather severe civil penalties were already on the books for piracy. The legalized brutality of the DMCA serves absolutely no purpose but to breed further disrepect for the law.
Furthermore, this idea that products bought and sold on the open market can't be altered or modified just because the manufacturer doesn't like the idea is simply wrong. Property is property, and I resent being told that I can't take something I own apart and put it back together the way I want it.
... but there is a skilled work force to conduct the trials
And a nearly-unlimited pool of willing experimental anim^H^H^H^H human test subjects. Personally, I'd hate to be a member of that "skilled work force" administering untested drugs to the Indian population. I expect there will be a fair number of severely compromised and/or dead subjects. Say, maybe a requirement for an H1B visa should be to join one of these research programs: if you survive, you get to come to America and work.
Well, for much the same reason that automobiles claim lives, collapsing buildings claim lives, defective medicines claim lives, use of illicit drugs claims lives... usually it's because somebody did something stupid. Sometimes they have to pay for it, sometimes other people pay for it. Not much more to it than that, when you get right down to it.
Not at all. It wasn't just "lying around", it was normally kept in shielded storage. Buf you need to design equipment and electronics that are expected to function in a radioactive environment, you must test them in such an environment. That's all this facility was doing.
My father at one point designed scintillation counter equipment for the U.S. military. The company he worked for had a heavily-shielded test chamber with a powerful radioactive source buried underneath. When needed for a test, the item to be tested was placed on a stand in the chamber, and then the source was lifted into place (hydraulic cylinder, if I remember right... it's been over thirty years.) The system was well-designed and never had a problem.
So the need for radioactive sources isn't particularly troubling... it's poor mechanical design that allows the source to get stuck in its delivery tube that is troubling. The fact that the technicians mentioned in the article frequently had to apply overpressure to return the source to storage should have told someone that there was a problem.
It's funny (and I agree with your remark, I had a similar experience once my collection reached a certain critical mass) but around 1971 or so, I read a story where a spacecraft's crew was throwing a party. The author of the story noted that "there was a computer in the corner spitting out tunes" and I remember thinking how bizarre a thought that was, a computer playing music at a party. I mean, it was a sci-fi novel but at the time I could more easily accept faster-than-light space travel than a music-playing computer sitting on a table next to the champaign. Now here we are, thirty-odd years later, with tape and vinyl having been totally displaced by microprocessors, hard drives and flash memory.
The only bad thing about it is that when the Great Global Thermonuclear War of 2029 comes about, EMP will pretty much destroy all music stored electronically, as well as the technology needed to play it, so the survivors won't have anything to listen to. That would truly suck, being lost in a post-Apocalyptic radioactive wasteland with your terabyte iPod so much junk hanging around your neck. I guess you could use it to beat up attacking mutants, though.
One music executive already publicly stated that Jobs should be "sharing out some of the profits" from IPod sales... the arrogance on display here is simply amazing.
Fortunately for my peace of mind, I figured out over twenty years ago that the music business stank, and haven't bought a new album or CD since 1977. Well, no, that's not true... I did buy a CD around 1992 (I felt bad but hey, it was for a gift.) I've bought plenty of used ones because I figure someone else already paid the RIAA tax on it. And don't give me any crap about "not supporting the artists." The original owner paid for the right to listen to the music, and I bought those rights. Besides, I have zero sympathy for any musician that doesn't consult a lawyer well-versed in contract law before making a pact with the Devil. Not my problem if he ends up owing his label a million dollars. I recently bought a used motherboard: I frankly didn't lose much sleep worrying whether the engineers that designed it got paid either. Not my problem. Not the same thing you say? Of course it is... I'm not responsible for someone else's employment contract. So I wish the RIAA would stop using the "what of the artists!" argument against P2P. They have an agreement with each artist that has nothing to do with me. Given the size of this marketplace, if the artists aren't making enough money the customers aren't the problem.
Long before the Internet and peer-to-peer file sharing become globally popular, I wasn't giving them any money, I still don't give them any money, and even if I were a downloader I still wouldn't be costing them any money. I'm simply not one of their customers and never will be. Now, granted I'm not a fifteen-year-old iPod/iTunes addict, so my perspective is different. But if you look at this as a business selling products its customers, not an art form, then the quality and pricing of that product should be important. And they are... sales are dropping. Big surprise. Any industry that once enjoyed monopoly or cartel status that suddenly has to compete, will have to change something. In this case, they are competing against "free". Much like Microsoft is competing against "free". Doesn't matter if free is illegal in the case of downloading music, or legal with regards to Linux... it's still competition and if you want to stay in the game you deal with it. You adapt. And whatever you want to say about Microsoft they have recognized the threat, are changing some of their behaviors in response to it, and aren't suing 12 year old girls to keep people from downloading XP Home edition.
What bothers me most about the music industry's leaders (more specifically, the RIAA and its member companies) is not that they are an oligopolistic bunch of greedy arrogant assholes incapable of the slightest hint of enlightened thought. No, the world is full of such people, from big government to big oil to big music. What bothers me is the damage they are doing to other aspects of our lives (and livelihoods) in this misguided quest to maintain their hegemony. Even when they founder and go under, as they inevitably must, their legacy of bad law will remain.
Some years ago a radio station down south (I forget which) put up a billboard that read "500,000 Watts. More power than God" or words to that effect. It was just a billboard, and yes I suppose some thousands of people saw it... but it would have gone away in a few months. However, several religious groups got all torqued about it and started making loud public noises, to such good effect that millions of people all across the nation got to see it on TV and hear about it on the radio. Apparently, that disturbed these people even more since they really wanted it go away. The station's general manager took the position of "lighten up people, it's just a joke" and reveled in all the attention his little station was receiving. Eventually he took it down, but not before he got an incredible amount of free publicity. Maybe that was his original intent, I don't know. But that was the result.
So yes, I remember the heyday of Napster: I didn't even hear about it, much less download anything until the RIAA started making loud public noises about it. Matter of fact, I was driving to work one day when the commentator mentioned something about some software called "Napster" that was giving away hundreds of thousands of free songs. And that was only the first of many times I read or otherwise heard about it in the media. Naturally, since I had just had my first cable modem installed I had to go try it, but I might never have noticed if it hadn't been for the free publicity granted Napster by the RIAA. The bastards shot themselves squarely in their own foot on that one.
Sometimes it's best to just keep quiet about something, no matter how much it bothers you.
"expressed an interest"? I'll wager that they were at least partly responsible for this abomination appearing on the political agenda in the first place. Nice to know that our European friends have outdone us in the important up-and-coming new field of privacy invasion. For now... I don't doubt that our own Imperious Leaders have something at least as interesting in the works this very minute.
True. A more useful interspecies study would have compared human children and politicians, since politicians seem to have no grasp on cause-and-effect regardless of age.
Because the defective, drain-bamaged management of your private-sector organization doesn't effect the lives and livelihoods of an entire State full of people.
Slashdot Mirror
The British government is set to replace all citizens with mobile robotic platforms fitted out for remote thought control. The entire camera network and all domestic surveillance systems will be dismantled as they will no longer be required.
On the bright side, pretty much all of Oracle's stuff is free for development use.
Developers, developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS.
It's not just for Microsoft anymore.
Yeah ... a friend of mine got a talking tire pressure gauge as a gift at our company Christmas party. Step 1 of the instructions said, "Remove the valve stem cover before attaching gauge or gauge will not work" or words to that effect. I guess Ripley was right ... IQs did drop sharply while she was away.
Well ... Britain has more TV cameras than we do.
For now, anyways.
because as everyone knows, once the United States Congress passes a law regarding what can and cannot be done on the Internet, everyone the whole world over immediately obeys. Equally, of course, data cannot be sent to a foreign country via the Internet once it has been deemed contraband. I wish our government would just get a grip, and realize that anyone that wants this stuff will get it, with ease, legally or illegally, and it doesn't matter where they are. Yes, the intent may be to hinder anyone that wishes to act against the United States and its citizens, but the only real effect (as always in these cases) is to harm American business. Symantec loses some customers and revenue, and those foreign nationals that want the software grab it from some warez site (or have someone here buy it and send it to them.)
... but not today.
The other, rather arrogant aspect to this is the presumption that only American vendors can write good encryption software. There are plenty of good programmers overseas, and if companies and individuals can't buy what they need from an American vendor, they'll just buy it from a local company. More U.S. businesses lose customers.
I guess I just don't see the point anymore. Maybe twenty years ago
On the other hand ... I do believe that there are far more serious crimes that could and should be investigated by said government officials, rather than wasting their time serving as a taxpayer-funded arm of the entertainment companies. Let those organizations pay for their own lawyers and investigators: frankly I don't want my tax dollars going for this.
However, what these guys were doing does come under the heading of "piracy", like it or not. They were selling copyrighted materials, for profit, without authorization from the rightsholders. So yeah, unlike your typical 13-year old copyright infringer these guys were true pirates and should suffer some consequences. However, as previous posters pointed out some rather severe civil penalties were already on the books for piracy. The legalized brutality of the DMCA serves absolutely no purpose but to breed further disrepect for the law.
Furthermore, this idea that products bought and sold on the open market can't be altered or modified just because the manufacturer doesn't like the idea is simply wrong. Property is property, and I resent being told that I can't take something I own apart and put it back together the way I want it.
Congress needs to get a grip.
No, that was Ben Affleck in Robot Sex Kittens, where he played the fucking robot.
Or send it to the gynecologist's office and see how it does against IUDs.
More likely free brain cancer.
... but there is a skilled work force to conduct the trials
And a nearly-unlimited pool of willing experimental anim^H^H^H^H human test subjects. Personally, I'd hate to be a member of that "skilled work force" administering untested drugs to the Indian population. I expect there will be a fair number of severely compromised and/or dead subjects. Say, maybe a requirement for an H1B visa should be to join one of these research programs: if you survive, you get to come to America and work.
Just great. Yet another gas tax.
Well, for much the same reason that automobiles claim lives, collapsing buildings claim lives, defective medicines claim lives, use of illicit drugs claims lives ... usually it's because somebody did something stupid. Sometimes they have to pay for it, sometimes other people pay for it. Not much more to it than that, when you get right down to it.
Not at all. It wasn't just "lying around", it was normally kept in shielded storage. Buf you need to design equipment and electronics that are expected to function in a radioactive environment, you must test them in such an environment. That's all this facility was doing.
... it's been over thirty years.) The system was well-designed and never had a problem.
... it's poor mechanical design that allows the source to get stuck in its delivery tube that is troubling. The fact that the technicians mentioned in the article frequently had to apply overpressure to return the source to storage should have told someone that there was a problem.
My father at one point designed scintillation counter equipment for the U.S. military. The company he worked for had a heavily-shielded test chamber with a powerful radioactive source buried underneath. When needed for a test, the item to be tested was placed on a stand in the chamber, and then the source was lifted into place (hydraulic cylinder, if I remember right
So the need for radioactive sources isn't particularly troubling
It's funny (and I agree with your remark, I had a similar experience once my collection reached a certain critical mass) but around 1971 or so, I read a story where a spacecraft's crew was throwing a party. The author of the story noted that "there was a computer in the corner spitting out tunes" and I remember thinking how bizarre a thought that was, a computer playing music at a party. I mean, it was a sci-fi novel but at the time I could more easily accept faster-than-light space travel than a music-playing computer sitting on a table next to the champaign. Now here we are, thirty-odd years later, with tape and vinyl having been totally displaced by microprocessors, hard drives and flash memory.
The only bad thing about it is that when the Great Global Thermonuclear War of 2029 comes about, EMP will pretty much destroy all music stored electronically, as well as the technology needed to play it, so the survivors won't have anything to listen to. That would truly suck, being lost in a post-Apocalyptic radioactive wasteland with your terabyte iPod so much junk hanging around your neck. I guess you could use it to beat up attacking mutants, though.
One music executive already publicly stated that Jobs should be "sharing out some of the profits" from IPod sales ... the arrogance on display here is simply amazing.
... I did buy a CD around 1992 (I felt bad but hey, it was for a gift.) I've bought plenty of used ones because I figure someone else already paid the RIAA tax on it. And don't give me any crap about "not supporting the artists." The original owner paid for the right to listen to the music, and I bought those rights. Besides, I have zero sympathy for any musician that doesn't consult a lawyer well-versed in contract law before making a pact with the Devil. Not my problem if he ends up owing his label a million dollars. I recently bought a used motherboard: I frankly didn't lose much sleep worrying whether the engineers that designed it got paid either. Not my problem. Not the same thing you say? Of course it is ... I'm not responsible for someone else's employment contract. So I wish the RIAA would stop using the "what of the artists!" argument against P2P. They have an agreement with each artist that has nothing to do with me. Given the size of this marketplace, if the artists aren't making enough money the customers aren't the problem.
... sales are dropping. Big surprise. Any industry that once enjoyed monopoly or cartel status that suddenly has to compete, will have to change something. In this case, they are competing against "free". Much like Microsoft is competing against "free". Doesn't matter if free is illegal in the case of downloading music, or legal with regards to Linux ... it's still competition and if you want to stay in the game you deal with it. You adapt. And whatever you want to say about Microsoft they have recognized the threat, are changing some of their behaviors in response to it, and aren't suing 12 year old girls to keep people from downloading XP Home edition.
Fortunately for my peace of mind, I figured out over twenty years ago that the music business stank, and haven't bought a new album or CD since 1977. Well, no, that's not true
Long before the Internet and peer-to-peer file sharing become globally popular, I wasn't giving them any money, I still don't give them any money, and even if I were a downloader I still wouldn't be costing them any money. I'm simply not one of their customers and never will be. Now, granted I'm not a fifteen-year-old iPod/iTunes addict, so my perspective is different. But if you look at this as a business selling products its customers, not an art form, then the quality and pricing of that product should be important. And they are
What bothers me most about the music industry's leaders (more specifically, the RIAA and its member companies) is not that they are an oligopolistic bunch of greedy arrogant assholes incapable of the slightest hint of enlightened thought. No, the world is full of such people, from big government to big oil to big music. What bothers me is the damage they are doing to other aspects of our lives (and livelihoods) in this misguided quest to maintain their hegemony. Even when they founder and go under, as they inevitably must, their legacy of bad law will remain.
Some years ago a radio station down south (I forget which) put up a billboard that read "500,000 Watts. More power than God" or words to that effect. It was just a billboard, and yes I suppose some thousands of people saw it ... but it would have gone away in a few months. However, several religious groups got all torqued about it and started making loud public noises, to such good effect that millions of people all across the nation got to see it on TV and hear about it on the radio. Apparently, that disturbed these people even more since they really wanted it go away. The station's general manager took the position of "lighten up people, it's just a joke" and reveled in all the attention his little station was receiving. Eventually he took it down, but not before he got an incredible amount of free publicity. Maybe that was his original intent, I don't know. But that was the result.
So yes, I remember the heyday of Napster: I didn't even hear about it, much less download anything until the RIAA started making loud public noises about it. Matter of fact, I was driving to work one day when the commentator mentioned something about some software called "Napster" that was giving away hundreds of thousands of free songs. And that was only the first of many times I read or otherwise heard about it in the media. Naturally, since I had just had my first cable modem installed I had to go try it, but I might never have noticed if it hadn't been for the free publicity granted Napster by the RIAA. The bastards shot themselves squarely in their own foot on that one.
Sometimes it's best to just keep quiet about something, no matter how much it bothers you.
On the other hand ... a simple thermite charge wired beneath the hard drive bay would provide a rapid and highly secure wipe of all data.
"expressed an interest"? I'll wager that they were at least partly responsible for this abomination appearing on the political agenda in the first place. Nice to know that our European friends have outdone us in the important up-and-coming new field of privacy invasion. For now ... I don't doubt that our own Imperious Leaders have something at least as interesting in the works this very minute.
True. A more useful interspecies study would have compared human children and politicians, since politicians seem to have no grasp on cause-and-effect regardless of age.
So ... are you a doctor, or do you just play one on TV?
Yeah ... considering the "brew ha ha" over Java and it's competition, I'd say you're probably right.
Call it like it is ... SBC and Bellsouth are lobbying for this. AT&T is AT&T in name only.
Because the defective, drain-bamaged management of your private-sector organization doesn't effect the lives and livelihoods of an entire State full of people.
Do you know they were unintended?
Definitely Freudian, I'd say. Possibly something between ScuttleMonkey and his mother. But then again, I'm not a psychologist nor do I play one on TV.