1. The U.S. army is fighting "terrorists" rather than domestic insurgencies. 2. Killing civilians is ok so long as it is in pursuit of "terrorists".
And, by implication, you appear to be arguing that it is morally justifiable to kill innocent people simply because guilty people use them (against their will) as human shields.
It's still not backwards evolution though. What you're saying is that 3000 years ago or whenever humans were specialised enough to survive the conditions they found themselves in. Now there is more diversity should similar hard times loom on the horizon we will as a species find it easier to adapt because we're starting off with a more diverse population which will find more ways of adpating and surviving.
If you transplanted an indivdual back in time 3000 years ago then yes they may well have a hard time of it but that's nothing to do with evolution.
While I fully understand what you're saying, it's a bit cute. In essence, you are denying the validity of making value judgments about which mutations are 'better' and which are 'worse'. Setting aside total, universe-level objectivity for a second, surely it's not too much of a leap to say that by any reasonable human standards the following hold true in terms of which is 'better' or (if you will) 'more evolved':
physically stronger > physically weaker
assimilates information more quickly > assimilates information more slowly
less prone to morbid obesity > more prone to morbid obesity
capable of high level ethical/moral reasoning > incapable of high level ethical/moral reasoning
able to survive X dose of radiation > not able to survive X dose of radiation
requires Y units of food per day to survive > requires 2*Y units of food per day to survive
more resistant to disease > less resistant to disease...and so on.
None of the traits I have identified as "positive" or "better" are currently necessary for survival to reproductive age in our current (western) society, and indeed the "negative" traits may in fact promote more reproduction than the positive ones as per Idiocracy. Nevertheless, I think we are entitled to have regard for the possibility that we are evolving "backward" with respect to those traits.
To support that argument, consider that the 'environment' you speak of has been radically altered such that the beneficial characteristics which have arisen from pre-civilisation evolution (particularly high levels of intelligence and problem solving) have been universally applied to eliminate many differentiating factors in the environment, most notably disease and the possibility of a violent death at the hands of some wild creature or other humans. The decision to supply healthcare and military/police protection even to the weak and stupid is one founded on the application of intelligence to social/ethical considerations; it is therefore valid and I would suggest essential to consider the potential resulting changes in evolution in the same social/ethical context.
Finally, don't overlook the possibility that we are going backwards even in an utterly objective sense - it's just that the homogeneity of our society and the halt to "traditional" evolution means that it might all hit in one big event (such as nuclear war, a plague of some sort, global warming, or electing another Republican President) and our lack of competitive differentiation might not be apparent until then at which point we die as a species because we 'broke' evolution.
That is, you can grow bacteria in a lab and observe its 'evolution' to the nice conditions in a petri dish, but how will it fare when you throw it back out into the real world? Perhaps early 21st century western civilisation is that petri dish.
I agree about Command & Conquer, personally I thought Red Alert 2 in particular had some great music in it.
Also:
* Syndicate Wars - brilliant, Blade Runner-ish soundtrack (and playable in a CD player from the game disc) * Deus Ex - the music throughout is excellent and adapts very well depending on location and events * Dune II - the various House themes were great, as was the in-game music
And, although is sort of doesn't count, Tie Fighter had great in-game music as I recall.
...that the backlash is really against all the pants-creaming 99.999% "greatest game of all time" reviews that Bioshock got. When that game came out there was some sort of contagious mass hysteria in the gaming press - seldom have I read such ridiculous hyperbole about a game.
As such, when people who have played great PC games of the past (e.g. System Shock, Deus Ex, Oblivion) they fire this up in the expectation that it will exceed even those titles they know and love... only to find that it's not actually as sensationally amazingly fabulously revolutionary as the reviews have promised it is.
I must say for myself that I felt the same way about Half Life 2 - it was a good game, but no way in hell is it the greatest game of all time, or even close. Hence I now have mild negativity attached to it in my mind after the reviewer love-in which took place when it came out.
As I understand it, in Australia, the national telco (Telstra) is required to maintain a network of public telephones. This has prompted them to not only maintain them, but promote them as a cheap alternative to mobile phones - you can use them to send text messages, for example.
There is a clear social benefit to having pay phones. This is (yet) another example of a way in which "maximising profit" does not equal "maximising social benefit".
Now, the vast majority of people coming in and out of this country are legitimate and yet our freedoms are being restricted for a handful of people worldwide that would most likely not appear on that list as there are new "freedom haters" popping up every second -- especially when news, like this, keep coming to light.
I have come to the conclusion that the current plan is to make visiting the US such a privacy-invading, presumption-of-innocence-reversing, bureaucratic ordeal that the number of legitimate visitors gradually diminishes towards zero. At that point it will be safe to assume that anyone who actually wants to come to the country despite all of the above is a freedom hater with murder on his/her mind, and should be 'processed' accordingly.
Seriously though, to a non-American there is such a phenomenal... arrogance to all of this. It's not quite the right word. But there's a presumption that the US is fabulous and sacred and utterly superior and different to all other nations, and that people will accept whatever probing and scanning and recording Washington decides to impose simply for the honour and privilege of visiting.
It might be the case now, but let's see how things stand in 20-30 years.
You're forgetting some important 'facts'
on
Google Goes Green
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· Score: 1
It was humans "combined with a form of fusion"... duh. Why a "form of fusion" wouldn't be the most efficient approach to start with is not clear...
In discussions with friends, however, we have established a subsidiary flaw. Even if we accept the ridiculous notion of "bioelectricity", why use humans? If humans produce X watts, then presumably a blue whale produces X*2000 watts or so, and lasts just as long. So to be faithful to its own premise, the Matrix should have featured rows and rows of whales in gigantic tanks.
I hypothesise the following battery sizes and uses:
* ant - tiny battery for powering calculator watches and similar * mouse - several mice can power a gameboy advance, machine edition (TM) * tortoise - excellent for super long lasting, low voltage applications * human - general purpose "coppertop" C-size battery, rumoured to explode unexpectedly * elephant - useful size for running starter motors in cars * blue whale - sufficient to run a Toyota Prius for 2 hours or 200km between krill doses
Also, if it was vaguely realistic the Matrix: Revolutions would have featured criticism of Steve Jobsbot for creating the iPod Robo with a non-replaceable squirrel power source. Once your squirrel dies, it just rots inside your iPod unless you send it back to Apple or use a dubious third party possum as a substitute.
Yeah, that is annoying. They toyed around with the idea of making Quicktime optional, but they didn't like the idea of iTunes not being able to do kind of important stuff once it's installed like, I dunno... play music?
Weird huh?
Yeah, because without Quicktime installed in Windows it is simply not possible to do kind of important stuff like, I dunno... play music, is it?
Microsoft better make it part of the default Windows install pronto to give millions of users worldwide the ability to actually play music for the first time ever.
Of course, that old version of iTunes which didn't require Quicktime and didn't play music was a bit pointless, too.
1. Quicktime doesn't ask whether you actually want to install the browser plugin when you install the QT player
2. You HAVE to install Quicktime if you want to use iTunes
3. You (sort of) HAVE to install iTunes if you want to use an iPod (although I strongly recommend people consider Winamp, which has native support now, or the excellent ml_ipod plugin for Winamp)
4. Quicktime's browser plugin commandeers associations with a whole range of media types whether you want it to or not
5. QT doesn't give you the option of launching QT in a totally separate window - it automatically opens things embedded in the browser and starts playing them
6. QT seems to totally screw the ability to get Firefox to go back to launching media files with the good old "Open with..." dialog box, which lets you decide whether to open it, what to open it with, or whether to save it to disk
7. QT has absolutely no regard for what other media players and file association you might already have configured for your browser
and I guess we can add 8, although it was already implied
8. QT is a buggy p.o.s. with worse functionality and security than any half-decent media player including VLC, Winamp, and (in my humble opinion) even the dreaded WMP.
All of this reflects Apple's horrible attitude to developing software for the PC, which is essentially that they will utterly ignore the now well-established conventions of the platform in terms of installation behaviour, GUI and menu structure, and plugin behaviour and just run roughshod over the whole thing. Which would probably be more acceptable if their software JUST WORKED and was as fully featured as other options on the PC - but unfortunately that is not the case.
Now, most of the food in Spain except for the ham, seafood and churros is bordering on objectively disgusting, but everyone I saw over there is very thin.
Having been to both Spain and the U.S., and living in neither, I can confirm without any doubt that if anyone's food is "objectively disgusting" it's the food in the U.S., and Spanish food was generally quite pleasant.
For example:
- extensive use of fresh produce (Spain) versus pre-processed goop (U.S.)
- most things grilled/shallow fried/cured (Spain) versus most things deep fried (U.S.)
- variety of spices, herbs and types of flavour (Spain) versus sugary, somewhat Mexican-y uniformity (U.S.)
- average coffee (Spain) versus terrible, terrible coffee (U.S.)
- beer (Spain) versus Budweiser and Miller (U.S.)
- serving sizes designed for normal humans for one single meal (Spain) versus servings for giant humans for multiple days (U.S.)
I will, however, grant you the following:
- New York pizza is one of the best things I've ever eaten - Bagels in the U.S. are like croissants in France - they just don't taste as good anywhere else
What I would like to know: have they reached a "deal" to stop cooperating with totalitarian censors in suppressing freedom of speech and political opposition?
The Dems believe that their best course is to continue to let Bush & Co trash everything in sight until the Presidential election. The theory is that at that point the Republicans will have so little credibility left that it will ensure a Democratic clean sweep of both houses plus the White House - and ironically, the supposed "permanent majority" of the Republicans will quite possibly give way to something much more long-lasting for the Democrats.
The main problem with this plan is that they are allowing Bush to set some very, very dangerous precedents (unilateral wars, signing statements, executive detention, torture, etc etc) without pulling him up on it. The longer that stuff goes on, the harder it gets to stop.
The other major problem is, what if Bush does attack Iran (or Pakistan...)? Wars inevitably make leaders popular immediately after they start, and a strike against Iran sufficiently close to the next election could conceivably destroy any advantage the Democrats glean from the Republicans running amok for another 2 years.
You have expressed what I've always thought about Half Life 2. I played through it with all of those "greatest game of all time" reviews in the back of my mind, and as with you it left me strangely cold. The scripted sequences were a little too scripted, the characters seemed to be relying on a whole range of history and interaction which happened 'off camera' so to speak, and the most interesting aspects of it (such as the mysterious gentleman who gives you your initial mission, and the excellent house-to-house fighting sequence towards the end) were not developed anywhere near as much as they could have been.
On top of which, the 'puzzles' were extraordinarily artificial - what, all those boxes and blanks and levers just *happened* to be perfectly balanced in such a way as to create one exact path through to the place where you really want to be?
To the parent poster, and anyone else who felt the same - if you haven't played Deus Ex, get it immediately. It looks a little dated graphics wise, but the gameplay and immersion will blow you away when you compare it to HL2 or the supposedly brilliant Bioshock. (Stay away from DX2, however, a turkey made for console gamers).
...it's fundamentally unethical, illegal and immoral (depending on your particular morality, I suppose) to allow an autonomous machine to roam free with the capability (and intent) to kill human beings.
For one thing, we read here every day about the endless ways in which software farks up.
Furthermore, I find the whole notion of armed robots cruising around freely in any kind of environment - war zone or not - extremely disturbing. How do we ensure they only kill what we want them to kill? Who is accountable when they do kill things? Does the extra layer of separation between commanding officer and 'target' make it more likely that decision makers will authorise killing?
These toys are very neat from a tech perspective, but they create a perception that killing human beings is like a video game of some description.
You actually think non-geek business people can manually edit HTML?
Most of them can barely edit a MS Word document. In any event, the essential functionality of the software is disabled when away from the internet. Which is a bad idea.
Another chapter in the ridiculous history of 20th century warfare was the development of bat-mounted bombs for use against the Japanese - read all about it.
The interesting thing is that they were actually looking to be reasonably effective - so much so that they destroyed the testing facility. Unfortunately for the Japanese and the program, the atomic bomb was perfected before frozen bats could be deployed for use in warfare.
There is no limit to the insane plans the world's armed forces will try.
...we have the unedifying spectacle of Apple fanboys scrambling to justify the exact same types of behaviour they constantly condemn Microsoft for:
- defective by design hardware featuring crippleware to degrade functionality in the event of uses which differ from the uses the parent company approves
- intentional attempt to force customers to buy uncompetitive/unattractive services in addition to the thing they want
- vague and misleading corporate spin which dodges the real issue
Apple have done some good stuff lately, particularly playing hardball over music licensing on iTunes. But this is not good, and you should have the guts to say so, just as you would if it was Microsoft or some other similar company.
And that doesn't make anything either of them do with that objective good or right.
The assumption that pursuit of profits by whatever means is automatically valid is just as incorrect when applied to a company you like (Apple) as a company that I think we can safely assume many people here don't like (MS).
This is a typical./ rant which ignores important information:
So in a very resource-wasteful move, we may very well need to derive another technology that duplicates 802.11n, not for any technical reason, but just to satisfy the legal conditions of a mere document. That's clearly harmful for the economy as a whole. Those resources could have been put towards developing new technologies, rather than reimplementing what already existed.
Has it crossed your mind that the CSIRO developed this technology and deserves to be rewarded for its efforts? As I understand the situation, the CSIRO is simply refusing to "open source" its work. It is asking for a reasonable license fee in exchange for allowing others to benefit from its work.
Patents are artificial. But they are a device designed to foster innovation, and in this case I cannot see any valid argument as to why they aren't working. The CSIRO are not sitting on the patents and refusing to license them for use. They ARE sharing the technology. They are merely exercising their right to be rewarded for a positive innovation.
Which of course might fund more positive innovations, given that they are a government run organisation dedicated to science and technology. But don't worry about that, proceed with your idiotic ranting.
I don't like many things that companies do with patents. But in this instance you are wrong.
...for people who ARE convicted, how about storing it for a period of time similar to a parole period?
I.e. instead of the current sentencing structure where there is a head sentence with eligibility for parole after a certain period, which lasts for the remainder of the head sentence, why not allow judges to also sentence someone to a period for which their DNA will be kept on file?
"I sentence you to 10 years imprisonment, with a 6 year non-parole period and a 4 year DNA retention period following the expiry of your sentence."
This would be consistent with the notion that a person pays the price for their actions, but that the penalty is proportionate to the crime.
I wrote a longer piece about it, and other recent developments regarding the UK's DNA database, here, with links to some further reading.
No, but in brief terms, a court will be prepared to imply a term into a contract if it's obvious on the face of the contract that that term was mutually in the contemplation of the parties when they made the contract. This will be determined on the face of the contract (i.e. not on what the parties say now). So a court, reading a contract about an agreement between an artist and a label to record and sell albums, will be very likely to conclude that it was implicitly agreed that neither party would actively seek to impede the second activity, selling albums.
There would be many variables, and of course the wording of the actual contract might specifically deal with this issue. The relevant jurisdiction would be significant and may differ from my own, so Result May Vary.
Of course they won't look fondly on it, any more than Reznor looks findly on working for them. So what? Both sides have to do what they signed a contract to do; neither has to pretend to like it. What are they going to do to him -- terminate his contract?
IAAL. You are wrong.
There is absolutely no question that it would be a breach of an implied term of his contract to actively discourage people from buying CDs produced pursuant to the contract. The only way this would not be the case would be if the contract contained a clause expressly allowing him to say this type of thing with no penalty.
They could terminate the contract and sue him for (a) the lost sales on this album which result from his comments (which would be hard to prove) and (b) the loss of future earnings on the next album due to the termination of the contract arising from his breach. And they would probably win.
I love how everyone here is a freaking legal expert. People make the most sweeping judgments about complex legal issues based on a pejorative three sentence summary.
For example, from the main post:
While proving $10 million in damages might prove difficult, the reasoning behind the case is pretty sound
Hmm, yes. And the legal basis as to why the reasoning is 'sound' is...?
I'm not saying this is a baseless suit. But it's funny how everyone around here (99% computer/tech geeks of some flavour or other) is able to deduce why it's 'plainly' legally correct or incorrect to do whatever suits the common agenda here (free IP good; big companies bad; little guy good; etc etc etc).
IAAL. Newsflash: legal work is hard. Lawyers get paid a lot partly because legal issues are often very complex and challenging. You cannot determine whether something is 'sound' or not based on 4 minutes of absent-minded evaluation.
But seriously. Cue a bunch of geeks arguing that teaching people how to build dangerously powerful lasers from cheap and widely available components is a Great Thing.
How hard would it be to align a couple of dozen of these in a rack, park your truck next to an airport, and aim it at the cockpit of a plane as it lands or takes off? Very easy, I'd say. Here in Australia we had this just this week.
I'm normally the first person to argue against hysteria about terrorism, but I can't help but think that whether it's terrorists or standard variety morons, giving people dangerous tools and no training is a poor idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Underlying assumptions:
1. The U.S. army is fighting "terrorists" rather than domestic insurgencies.
2. Killing civilians is ok so long as it is in pursuit of "terrorists".
And, by implication, you appear to be arguing that it is morally justifiable to kill innocent people simply because guilty people use them (against their will) as human shields.
Just thought that observation was worth making.
While I fully understand what you're saying, it's a bit cute. In essence, you are denying the validity of making value judgments about which mutations are 'better' and which are 'worse'. Setting aside total, universe-level objectivity for a second, surely it's not too much of a leap to say that by any reasonable human standards the following hold true in terms of which is 'better' or (if you will) 'more evolved':
physically stronger > physically weaker
assimilates information more quickly > assimilates information more slowly
less prone to morbid obesity > more prone to morbid obesity
capable of high level ethical/moral reasoning > incapable of high level ethical/moral reasoning
able to survive X dose of radiation > not able to survive X dose of radiation
requires Y units of food per day to survive > requires 2*Y units of food per day to survive
more resistant to disease > less resistant to disease
None of the traits I have identified as "positive" or "better" are currently necessary for survival to reproductive age in our current (western) society, and indeed the "negative" traits may in fact promote more reproduction than the positive ones as per Idiocracy. Nevertheless, I think we are entitled to have regard for the possibility that we are evolving "backward" with respect to those traits.
To support that argument, consider that the 'environment' you speak of has been radically altered such that the beneficial characteristics which have arisen from pre-civilisation evolution (particularly high levels of intelligence and problem solving) have been universally applied to eliminate many differentiating factors in the environment, most notably disease and the possibility of a violent death at the hands of some wild creature or other humans. The decision to supply healthcare and military/police protection even to the weak and stupid is one founded on the application of intelligence to social/ethical considerations; it is therefore valid and I would suggest essential to consider the potential resulting changes in evolution in the same social/ethical context.
Finally, don't overlook the possibility that we are going backwards even in an utterly objective sense - it's just that the homogeneity of our society and the halt to "traditional" evolution means that it might all hit in one big event (such as nuclear war, a plague of some sort, global warming, or electing another Republican President) and our lack of competitive differentiation might not be apparent until then at which point we die as a species because we 'broke' evolution.
That is, you can grow bacteria in a lab and observe its 'evolution' to the nice conditions in a petri dish, but how will it fare when you throw it back out into the real world? Perhaps early 21st century western civilisation is that petri dish.
I agree about Command & Conquer, personally I thought Red Alert 2 in particular had some great music in it.
Also:
* Syndicate Wars - brilliant, Blade Runner-ish soundtrack (and playable in a CD player from the game disc)
* Deus Ex - the music throughout is excellent and adapts very well depending on location and events
* Dune II - the various House themes were great, as was the in-game music
And, although is sort of doesn't count, Tie Fighter had great in-game music as I recall.
...that the backlash is really against all the pants-creaming 99.999% "greatest game of all time" reviews that Bioshock got. When that game came out there was some sort of contagious mass hysteria in the gaming press - seldom have I read such ridiculous hyperbole about a game.
As such, when people who have played great PC games of the past (e.g. System Shock, Deus Ex, Oblivion) they fire this up in the expectation that it will exceed even those titles they know and love... only to find that it's not actually as sensationally amazingly fabulously revolutionary as the reviews have promised it is.
I must say for myself that I felt the same way about Half Life 2 - it was a good game, but no way in hell is it the greatest game of all time, or even close. Hence I now have mild negativity attached to it in my mind after the reviewer love-in which took place when it came out.
As I understand it, in Australia, the national telco (Telstra) is required to maintain a network of public telephones. This has prompted them to not only maintain them, but promote them as a cheap alternative to mobile phones - you can use them to send text messages, for example.
There is a clear social benefit to having pay phones. This is (yet) another example of a way in which "maximising profit" does not equal "maximising social benefit".
Now, the vast majority of people coming in and out of this country are legitimate and yet our freedoms are being restricted for a handful of people worldwide that would most likely not appear on that list as there are new "freedom haters" popping up every second -- especially when news, like this, keep coming to light.
I have come to the conclusion that the current plan is to make visiting the US such a privacy-invading, presumption-of-innocence-reversing, bureaucratic ordeal that the number of legitimate visitors gradually diminishes towards zero. At that point it will be safe to assume that anyone who actually wants to come to the country despite all of the above is a freedom hater with murder on his/her mind, and should be 'processed' accordingly.
Seriously though, to a non-American there is such a phenomenal... arrogance to all of this. It's not quite the right word. But there's a presumption that the US is fabulous and sacred and utterly superior and different to all other nations, and that people will accept whatever probing and scanning and recording Washington decides to impose simply for the honour and privilege of visiting.
It might be the case now, but let's see how things stand in 20-30 years.
It was humans "combined with a form of fusion"... duh. Why a "form of fusion" wouldn't be the most efficient approach to start with is not clear...
In discussions with friends, however, we have established a subsidiary flaw. Even if we accept the ridiculous notion of "bioelectricity", why use humans? If humans produce X watts, then presumably a blue whale produces X*2000 watts or so, and lasts just as long. So to be faithful to its own premise, the Matrix should have featured rows and rows of whales in gigantic tanks.
I hypothesise the following battery sizes and uses:
* ant - tiny battery for powering calculator watches and similar
* mouse - several mice can power a gameboy advance, machine edition (TM)
* tortoise - excellent for super long lasting, low voltage applications
* human - general purpose "coppertop" C-size battery, rumoured to explode unexpectedly
* elephant - useful size for running starter motors in cars
* blue whale - sufficient to run a Toyota Prius for 2 hours or 200km between krill doses
Also, if it was vaguely realistic the Matrix: Revolutions would have featured criticism of Steve Jobsbot for creating the iPod Robo with a non-replaceable squirrel power source. Once your squirrel dies, it just rots inside your iPod unless you send it back to Apple or use a dubious third party possum as a substitute.
Yeah, because without Quicktime installed in Windows it is simply not possible to do kind of important stuff like, I dunno... play music, is it?
Microsoft better make it part of the default Windows install pronto to give millions of users worldwide the ability to actually play music for the first time ever.
Of course, that old version of iTunes which didn't require Quicktime and didn't play music was a bit pointless, too.
1. Quicktime doesn't ask whether you actually want to install the browser plugin when you install the QT player
2. You HAVE to install Quicktime if you want to use iTunes
3. You (sort of) HAVE to install iTunes if you want to use an iPod (although I strongly recommend people consider Winamp, which has native support now, or the excellent ml_ipod plugin for Winamp)
4. Quicktime's browser plugin commandeers associations with a whole range of media types whether you want it to or not
5. QT doesn't give you the option of launching QT in a totally separate window - it automatically opens things embedded in the browser and starts playing them
6. QT seems to totally screw the ability to get Firefox to go back to launching media files with the good old "Open with..." dialog box, which lets you decide whether to open it, what to open it with, or whether to save it to disk
7. QT has absolutely no regard for what other media players and file association you might already have configured for your browser
and I guess we can add 8, although it was already implied
8. QT is a buggy p.o.s. with worse functionality and security than any half-decent media player including VLC, Winamp, and (in my humble opinion) even the dreaded WMP.
All of this reflects Apple's horrible attitude to developing software for the PC, which is essentially that they will utterly ignore the now well-established conventions of the platform in terms of installation behaviour, GUI and menu structure, and plugin behaviour and just run roughshod over the whole thing. Which would probably be more acceptable if their software JUST WORKED and was as fully featured as other options on the PC - but unfortunately that is not the case.
Having been to both Spain and the U.S., and living in neither, I can confirm without any doubt that if anyone's food is "objectively disgusting" it's the food in the U.S., and Spanish food was generally quite pleasant.
For example:
- extensive use of fresh produce (Spain) versus pre-processed goop (U.S.)
- most things grilled/shallow fried/cured (Spain) versus most things deep fried (U.S.)
- variety of spices, herbs and types of flavour (Spain) versus sugary, somewhat Mexican-y uniformity (U.S.)
- average coffee (Spain) versus terrible, terrible coffee (U.S.)
- beer (Spain) versus Budweiser and Miller (U.S.)
- serving sizes designed for normal humans for one single meal (Spain) versus servings for giant humans for multiple days (U.S.)
I will, however, grant you the following:
- New York pizza is one of the best things I've ever eaten
- Bagels in the U.S. are like croissants in France - they just don't taste as good anywhere else
For the good of the people.
What I would like to know: have they reached a "deal" to stop cooperating with totalitarian censors in suppressing freedom of speech and political opposition?
Albeit a stupid one.
The Dems believe that their best course is to continue to let Bush & Co trash everything in sight until the Presidential election. The theory is that at that point the Republicans will have so little credibility left that it will ensure a Democratic clean sweep of both houses plus the White House - and ironically, the supposed "permanent majority" of the Republicans will quite possibly give way to something much more long-lasting for the Democrats.
The main problem with this plan is that they are allowing Bush to set some very, very dangerous precedents (unilateral wars, signing statements, executive detention, torture, etc etc) without pulling him up on it. The longer that stuff goes on, the harder it gets to stop.
The other major problem is, what if Bush does attack Iran (or Pakistan...)? Wars inevitably make leaders popular immediately after they start, and a strike against Iran sufficiently close to the next election could conceivably destroy any advantage the Democrats glean from the Republicans running amok for another 2 years.
You have expressed what I've always thought about Half Life 2. I played through it with all of those "greatest game of all time" reviews in the back of my mind, and as with you it left me strangely cold. The scripted sequences were a little too scripted, the characters seemed to be relying on a whole range of history and interaction which happened 'off camera' so to speak, and the most interesting aspects of it (such as the mysterious gentleman who gives you your initial mission, and the excellent house-to-house fighting sequence towards the end) were not developed anywhere near as much as they could have been.
On top of which, the 'puzzles' were extraordinarily artificial - what, all those boxes and blanks and levers just *happened* to be perfectly balanced in such a way as to create one exact path through to the place where you really want to be?
To the parent poster, and anyone else who felt the same - if you haven't played Deus Ex, get it immediately. It looks a little dated graphics wise, but the gameplay and immersion will blow you away when you compare it to HL2 or the supposedly brilliant Bioshock. (Stay away from DX2, however, a turkey made for console gamers).
...it's fundamentally unethical, illegal and immoral (depending on your particular morality, I suppose) to allow an autonomous machine to roam free with the capability (and intent) to kill human beings.
For one thing, we read here every day about the endless ways in which software farks up.
Furthermore, I find the whole notion of armed robots cruising around freely in any kind of environment - war zone or not - extremely disturbing. How do we ensure they only kill what we want them to kill? Who is accountable when they do kill things? Does the extra layer of separation between commanding officer and 'target' make it more likely that decision makers will authorise killing?
These toys are very neat from a tech perspective, but they create a perception that killing human beings is like a video game of some description.
You actually think non-geek business people can manually edit HTML?
Most of them can barely edit a MS Word document. In any event, the essential functionality of the software is disabled when away from the internet. Which is a bad idea.
Another chapter in the ridiculous history of 20th century warfare was the development of bat-mounted bombs for use against the Japanese - read all about it.
The interesting thing is that they were actually looking to be reasonably effective - so much so that they destroyed the testing facility. Unfortunately for the Japanese and the program, the atomic bomb was perfected before frozen bats could be deployed for use in warfare.
There is no limit to the insane plans the world's armed forces will try.
It's a combination of a skunk and a gnu. You do NOT want to piss it off.
(Seriously, when will gaming nerd "journalists" realise that "sku" is not a word in the English language?)
...we have the unedifying spectacle of Apple fanboys scrambling to justify the exact same types of behaviour they constantly condemn Microsoft for:
- defective by design hardware featuring crippleware to degrade functionality in the event of uses which differ from the uses the parent company approves
- intentional attempt to force customers to buy uncompetitive/unattractive services in addition to the thing they want
- vague and misleading corporate spin which dodges the real issue
Apple have done some good stuff lately, particularly playing hardball over music licensing on iTunes. But this is not good, and you should have the guts to say so, just as you would if it was Microsoft or some other similar company.
And that doesn't make anything either of them do with that objective good or right.
The assumption that pursuit of profits by whatever means is automatically valid is just as incorrect when applied to a company you like (Apple) as a company that I think we can safely assume many people here don't like (MS).
Has it crossed your mind that the CSIRO developed this technology and deserves to be rewarded for its efforts? As I understand the situation, the CSIRO is simply refusing to "open source" its work. It is asking for a reasonable license fee in exchange for allowing others to benefit from its work.
Patents are artificial. But they are a device designed to foster innovation, and in this case I cannot see any valid argument as to why they aren't working. The CSIRO are not sitting on the patents and refusing to license them for use. They ARE sharing the technology. They are merely exercising their right to be rewarded for a positive innovation.
Which of course might fund more positive innovations, given that they are a government run organisation dedicated to science and technology. But don't worry about that, proceed with your idiotic ranting.
I don't like many things that companies do with patents. But in this instance you are wrong.
...for people who ARE convicted, how about storing it for a period of time similar to a parole period?
I.e. instead of the current sentencing structure where there is a head sentence with eligibility for parole after a certain period, which lasts for the remainder of the head sentence, why not allow judges to also sentence someone to a period for which their DNA will be kept on file?
"I sentence you to 10 years imprisonment, with a 6 year non-parole period and a 4 year DNA retention period following the expiry of your sentence."
This would be consistent with the notion that a person pays the price for their actions, but that the penalty is proportionate to the crime.
I wrote a longer piece about it, and other recent developments regarding the UK's DNA database, here, with links to some further reading.
No, but in brief terms, a court will be prepared to imply a term into a contract if it's obvious on the face of the contract that that term was mutually in the contemplation of the parties when they made the contract. This will be determined on the face of the contract (i.e. not on what the parties say now). So a court, reading a contract about an agreement between an artist and a label to record and sell albums, will be very likely to conclude that it was implicitly agreed that neither party would actively seek to impede the second activity, selling albums.
There would be many variables, and of course the wording of the actual contract might specifically deal with this issue. The relevant jurisdiction would be significant and may differ from my own, so Result May Vary.
IAAL. You are wrong.
There is absolutely no question that it would be a breach of an implied term of his contract to actively discourage people from buying CDs produced pursuant to the contract. The only way this would not be the case would be if the contract contained a clause expressly allowing him to say this type of thing with no penalty.
They could terminate the contract and sue him for (a) the lost sales on this album which result from his comments (which would be hard to prove) and (b) the loss of future earnings on the next album due to the termination of the contract arising from his breach. And they would probably win.
They won't do it, but only because of the bad PR.
For example, from the main post:
Hmm, yes. And the legal basis as to why the reasoning is 'sound' is...?
I'm not saying this is a baseless suit. But it's funny how everyone around here (99% computer/tech geeks of some flavour or other) is able to deduce why it's 'plainly' legally correct or incorrect to do whatever suits the common agenda here (free IP good; big companies bad; little guy good; etc etc etc).
IAAL. Newsflash: legal work is hard. Lawyers get paid a lot partly because legal issues are often very complex and challenging. You cannot determine whether something is 'sound' or not based on 4 minutes of absent-minded evaluation.
on slashdot?
Oh wait, I forgot about this...
But seriously. Cue a bunch of geeks arguing that teaching people how to build dangerously powerful lasers from cheap and widely available components is a Great Thing.
How hard would it be to align a couple of dozen of these in a rack, park your truck next to an airport, and aim it at the cockpit of a plane as it lands or takes off? Very easy, I'd say. Here in Australia we had this just this week.
I'm normally the first person to argue against hysteria about terrorism, but I can't help but think that whether it's terrorists or standard variety morons, giving people dangerous tools and no training is a poor idea.
Up next: the US government bans DVD burners...