Why do you think militias, you know, those little civilian armies, you know, the ones that originally fought for our revolution, why the fuck do you think want them to only really have small arms and certainly no automatic weapons, bombs, grenades, or anything of power?
Because they're crasy, and crazy people shouldn't have bombs?
Let's use the old NRA argument here. One of the main reasons the NRA is opposed to gun registration is that criminals will not register their guns, thus only legitimate gun owners will be registered and potentially tracked.
Exactly, that's the whole point.
How do you tell the difference between a law abiding citizen with a gun and a criminal is the one who holds up the liquor store or kills somebody.
If you require that guns are registered, the criminal is the one with the unregistered gun.
Gun registration allows you to arrest criminals when they acquire the unregistered firearm instead of having to wait until they actually kill someone.
Now back to the matter at hand...
knowleged of your every purchase, move, travel, etc.
Do you buy your tin foil by the ton?
Are you in the habit of showing your driver's license when you buy stuff? I didn't think so.
The fact of the matter is, any information you think the evil government/corporations are going to get because of these new standardized IDs they already have, because these things are not tracked by your ID, they're tracked by PAYMENT. Do you use credit cards? Even if you don't, the airline knos who you are by the name on your ticket, the hotel knows who you are by the name on the reservation (and if they don't, it's because you lied, and I doubt a standardized ID card in your pocket is going to ruin your poker face), the grocery store knows what you buy because you use their discount program (or don't, but I don't remember the last time I was carded for buying doritos.)
I mean, seriously, who really looks at your ID? The only time anyone ever looks at my ID is:
- When I'm buying alcohol - When I'm getting on a plane - When I'm withdrawing money from my banking account - When I'm on the receiving end of a traffic violation
Other than the first one, the party looking at my ID already has my information anyway, and no one records any info in the first case anyway.
By your analogy, if you get rid of all the other people in the field, your chances of being hit are still the same. That's not the way security through obscurity is supposed to work.
A better analogy of security through obscurity is you have a guy standing on a tower in the middle of a field with a rifle and one bullet. If you're the only guy in the field, it's going to be you. By filling the field with other people, you virually guarantee you won't be the one who gets shot.
Of course, that doesn't mean that's realistic. The problem with security through obscurity is that the more people you put into the field, the more unsavory people you find trying to get into the tower with a rifle.
He probably didn't spend any time on the light sabre design either. I bet it's just as bad. You just notice the bad dialogue more because nobody really expects the light sabre design to acutally work.
Why single out PG-13... _all_ MPAA ratings are jsut advisory notations with no legal basis.
You mean no CRIMINAL legal basis. Theaters must enforce R and NC-17 ratings for movies distributed by members of the MPAA as a contractual condition of being able to show movies distributed by MPAA members.
Theaters are under no obligation to the distributors to regulate who may see G, PG, or PG-13 movies.
That's not to say a movie theater couldn't decide on it's own to not allow 12 year olds to see PG-13 movies, but if any do enforce such a policy, it's extremely rare, and entirely voluntary on a theater-by-theater basis.
Why would parents be forced to go with their children? The -13 on the PG is simply an advisory notation; G, PG, and PG-13 all have the same admission criteria: Anyone can see it, no adult supervision required.
General purpose processors have *WAY* more punch. Especially punch per dollar, as FPGAs are fairly expensive.
They're just general purpose, whether they be scalar (CPU) or vector (GPU), so an FPGA that is specifically optimized for a specific problem will kick the general purpose processor's butt - in that specific problem.
But try running Quake III on an FPGA - it will be killed by the CPU in processing and killed by the GPU in graphics. Assuming you can even cram everything you need to be a CPU or GPU into the limited real estate of the FPGA in the first place.
a future much more peaceful and prosperous than the present day
Except, of course, when the federation is blowing up, or being blown up by, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Ferrengi, etc.
One of the things I thought made DS9 really good, especially in the later seasons, was precisely that even though the Federation was supposed to be this nice happy place, DS9 showed that the only reason everything was hunky-dory on Earth was that there were people at the edge of the federation holding back the things that wern't so hunky-dory.
Even in the Star Trek future, peace and prosperity are only guaranteed by phasers and photon torpedoes. Star Trek just pushed the line between peace and conflict further away from home.
The point wasn't that a rabid fanbse was bad. The point was that commercial success was bad. Obviously, TNG wouldn't have happened if Star Trek was a money pit, and thus the success of TOS and the movies definitely enabled TNG (as if the movies lost millions of dollars each, there wouldn't have been TNG.)
But RABID COMMERCIAL SUCCESS will kill Sci-Fi. And that's what happened - eventually Paramount made what is now referred to as the Lucas Observation - it doesn't matter if the product is any good, it'll make you millions regardless as long as it's part of The Franchise.
Think about it - Paramount spit out *FOUR* new star trek TV series in about a decade. *FOUR*.
Which of the following scenarios is more likely:
Exec #1: I got this GREAT new concept for a series pitched to me today. We should really do it. Exec #2: Really? What's it about? Exec #1: "t takes place in the Star Trek universe... Exec #2... Don't we already have three star trek series? Do we really need another one? Exec #1: Yes, but this new concept is SO INCREDIBLY GOOD and SO REMARKABLY DIFFERENT from the three series we already have we should do it anyway.
*OR*
Exec #1: Doesn't look like we're going to meet our revenue targets this year. Exec #2: Damn, what can we do to get more revenue next year? Exec #1: How about a Star Trek series or movie? Those are always good for a few bucks.
And THAT'S the difference. Sci-Fi that is created because someone wants to create Sci-Fi and manags to convince someone else that it's worth spending money on is far more likely to be GOOD than Sci-Fi that is created because someone knows they will make money off it as long as something gets produced.
In short, people loved Star Trek because it WAS both thought provoking and accessable to people who aren't interested in "hardcore sci-fi" visions of the future.
Emphasis on the WAS.
The problem here is too many people view Trek as one big, indivisible thing. It's not. You can't have a rational conversation about "Trek is Good" or "Trek is Bad". Some Trek was good. The current state of Trek is bad.
The worst thing that can happen to a piece of Sci Fi is for it to become commercially successful. The more commercially successful something is, the greater the temptation to extend the franchise just for the sake of profit. The more money a franchise is worth, the lower you can set your creative standards and still justify releasing a product.
Why do half of the Star Trek movies suck? Because PAramount wanted to make a Star Trek movie, regardless of whether the script was any good. Sometimes they got good scripts, sometimes they didn't. But the people who get to decide whether a Star Trek movie should get made don't make that decision on whether the script is going to produce a good movie. They make that decision based on whether money in will be greater than money out.
The Original Series was a ground-breaking series that only happened because Roddenbery believed in it and made it happen. Next Generation only happened because Roddenbery believed in it and made it happen. Star Trek XXXVJWII, Voyager, and Enterprise was made because if Paramount didn't churn out new Trek they'd be wasting this huge, profitable sci fi franchise they'd built.
That can't go on forever though - eventually you produce so much crap just for the sake of making a buck that your franchise becomes worthless.
Unprofitable or New Sci Fi will only happen if it's good. Profitable Sci Fi will happen REGARDLESS of whether it's good.
If Star Trek hadn't been successful, it would have died after DS9 or earlier, and we'd all still think Trek is Good. But it didn't. But new trek being bad doesn't make old trek any less good.
What does a CFL team (go Argos!) have to do with a computing industry trademark?
Whoever submitted this obviously is not a lwayer, because the answer to your question is absolutely nothing.
Let's say I want to register the trademark Foo. First, I have to use, or plan to use within one year, the trademark in INTERSTATE COMMERCE.
Next, I have to decide whether I'm going to trademark the WORD Foo, or just a presentation of the word Foo. For example, let's say I'm the University of Illinois. I want trademark protection for my athletic program. But I can't just trademark "Illinois" - trademarking a geographical name is expressly prohibited. But I *CAN* trademark the word "Illinois" written in a certain shape/font/color. Trademarking a particular presentation of a word is much easier to do and much easier to defend, but also lets other people use that same word with a different presentation as long as it's not confusing (a matter decided in court). for exampl,e nobody can stop you from having a sports team and calling it the Tigers. Tigers is not a trademark. But you can't have a sports team, call it the Tigers, and then use the logo of the Detroit Tigers, because while the NAME Tigers isn't trademarked, the way the Detroit Tigers write Tigers is.
Lastly, and most importantly here, you have to decide IN WHAT PRODUCT SPACE you are registering your trademark. You can't just trademark something for all products everywhere. You have to get a separate trademark for each product space, and actually have products using that mark in that space.
For example, there is Discover the credit card and Discover the TV station. Both are trademarked. How can this be? The reason is that Discover the TV station's trademark is only good within the TV space, and Discover the credit card's trademark is only good within the credit card space.
Point of the matter is, a trademark on a sports team named the tigers isn't even going to give you trademark rights against other sports teams, much less against computer companies.
Would you volunteer to cut the grass around these same student dwellings if the housing authority insisted that the grass only be cut with scissors?
You apparently know whose computers cause problems, yet are in a work environment where you are not authorized to disconnect those computers.
You have five choices, in order of most to least pleasant:
- Insist on, and receive, authority to disconnect problem computers at a time and duration solely at your discretion - Quit - Disconnect problem computers anyway, and let them fire you for not reconnecting them. - Acquire a hammer, and hit yourself in the head until you lose consciousness - Attempt to administer the network with your current level of authority.
Actually, there is a sixth option which involves scissors, which fortunately are more effective on network cable than on grass.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do you think militias, you know, those little civilian armies, you know, the ones that originally fought for our revolution, why the fuck do you think want them to only really have small arms and certainly no automatic weapons, bombs, grenades, or anything of power?
Because they're crasy, and crazy people shouldn't have bombs?
Let's use the old NRA argument here. One of the main reasons the NRA is opposed to gun registration is that criminals will not register their guns, thus only legitimate gun owners will be registered and potentially tracked.
Exactly, that's the whole point.
How do you tell the difference between a law abiding citizen with a gun and a criminal is the one who holds up the liquor store or kills somebody.
If you require that guns are registered, the criminal is the one with the unregistered gun.
Gun registration allows you to arrest criminals when they acquire the unregistered firearm instead of having to wait until they actually kill someone.
Now back to the matter at hand...
knowleged of your every purchase, move, travel, etc.
Do you buy your tin foil by the ton?
Are you in the habit of showing your driver's license when you buy stuff? I didn't think so.
The fact of the matter is, any information you think the evil government/corporations are going to get because of these new standardized IDs they already have, because these things are not tracked by your ID, they're tracked by PAYMENT. Do you use credit cards? Even if you don't, the airline knos who you are by the name on your ticket, the hotel knows who you are by the name on the reservation (and if they don't, it's because you lied, and I doubt a standardized ID card in your pocket is going to ruin your poker face), the grocery store knows what you buy because you use their discount program (or don't, but I don't remember the last time I was carded for buying doritos.)
I mean, seriously, who really looks at your ID? The only time anyone ever looks at my ID is:
- When I'm buying alcohol
- When I'm getting on a plane
- When I'm withdrawing money from my banking account
- When I'm on the receiving end of a traffic violation
Other than the first one, the party looking at my ID already has my information anyway, and no one records any info in the first case anyway.
By your analogy, if you get rid of all the other people in the field, your chances of being hit are still the same. That's not the way security through obscurity is supposed to work.
A better analogy of security through obscurity is you have a guy standing on a tower in the middle of a field with a rifle and one bullet. If you're the only guy in the field, it's going to be you. By filling the field with other people, you virually guarantee you won't be the one who gets shot.
Of course, that doesn't mean that's realistic. The problem with security through obscurity is that the more people you put into the field, the more unsavory people you find trying to get into the tower with a rifle.
Iay cryptenay ithway igpay atinlay.
But it's at least theoretically possible for VoIP to be secure.
He probably didn't spend any time on the light sabre design either. I bet it's just as bad. You just notice the bad dialogue more because nobody really expects the light sabre design to acutally work.
Does that mean physical attack as in the same location of the server, or physical attack as in axe?
There's lots and lots of parents monitoring fanboy sites
Amazingly enough, some Star Wars fanboys have managed to successfully reproduce since 1977.
Why single out PG-13... _all_ MPAA ratings are jsut advisory notations with no legal basis.
You mean no CRIMINAL legal basis. Theaters must enforce R and NC-17 ratings for movies distributed by members of the MPAA as a contractual condition of being able to show movies distributed by MPAA members.
Theaters are under no obligation to the distributors to regulate who may see G, PG, or PG-13 movies.
That's not to say a movie theater couldn't decide on it's own to not allow 12 year olds to see PG-13 movies, but if any do enforce such a policy, it's extremely rare, and entirely voluntary on a theater-by-theater basis.
Why would parents be forced to go with their children? The -13 on the PG is simply an advisory notation; G, PG, and PG-13 all have the same admission criteria: Anyone can see it, no adult supervision required.
General purpose processors have *WAY* more punch. Especially punch per dollar, as FPGAs are fairly expensive.
They're just general purpose, whether they be scalar (CPU) or vector (GPU), so an FPGA that is specifically optimized for a specific problem will kick the general purpose processor's butt - in that specific problem.
But try running Quake III on an FPGA - it will be killed by the CPU in processing and killed by the GPU in graphics. Assuming you can even cram everything you need to be a CPU or GPU into the limited real estate of the FPGA in the first place.
$100,000/96 = ~$1,000.
Not a bad deal.
even a woman in a gorilla suit.
As it turns out, it was actually a 43 year old married man in a gorilla suit pretending to be an 18-year old bisexual woman in a gorilla suit.
I hope I'm not alone in expecting a higher standard from the slashdot editors.
Nope, you're alone.
Except that it is to be confused, that's why they chose that name. It's supposed to be funny.
It's not, but it's supposed to be.
Looks like someone forgot to change the spelling when they did this one.
a future much more peaceful and prosperous than the present day
Except, of course, when the federation is blowing up, or being blown up by, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Ferrengi, etc.
One of the things I thought made DS9 really good, especially in the later seasons, was precisely that even though the Federation was supposed to be this nice happy place, DS9 showed that the only reason everything was hunky-dory on Earth was that there were people at the edge of the federation holding back the things that wern't so hunky-dory.
Even in the Star Trek future, peace and prosperity are only guaranteed by phasers and photon torpedoes. Star Trek just pushed the line between peace and conflict further away from home.
Part of what makes this country great is the (unfortunately declining) encouragement to tolerate people that are wrong. The alternative is worse.
Relax, we'll make sure your execution is painless.
The point wasn't that a rabid fanbse was bad. The point was that commercial success was bad. Obviously, TNG wouldn't have happened if Star Trek was a money pit, and thus the success of TOS and the movies definitely enabled TNG (as if the movies lost millions of dollars each, there wouldn't have been TNG.)
... Don't we already have three star trek series? Do we really need another one?
But RABID COMMERCIAL SUCCESS will kill Sci-Fi. And that's what happened - eventually Paramount made what is now referred to as the Lucas Observation - it doesn't matter if the product is any good, it'll make you millions regardless as long as it's part of The Franchise.
Think about it - Paramount spit out *FOUR* new star trek TV series in about a decade. *FOUR*.
Which of the following scenarios is more likely:
Exec #1: I got this GREAT new concept for a series pitched to me today. We should really do it.
Exec #2: Really? What's it about?
Exec #1: "t takes place in the Star Trek universe...
Exec #2
Exec #1: Yes, but this new concept is SO INCREDIBLY GOOD and SO REMARKABLY DIFFERENT from the three series we already have we should do it anyway.
*OR*
Exec #1: Doesn't look like we're going to meet our revenue targets this year.
Exec #2: Damn, what can we do to get more revenue next year?
Exec #1: How about a Star Trek series or movie? Those are always good for a few bucks.
And THAT'S the difference. Sci-Fi that is created because someone wants to create Sci-Fi and manags to convince someone else that it's worth spending money on is far more likely to be GOOD than Sci-Fi that is created because someone knows they will make money off it as long as something gets produced.
In short, people loved Star Trek because it WAS both thought provoking and accessable to people who aren't interested in "hardcore sci-fi" visions of the future.
Emphasis on the WAS.
The problem here is too many people view Trek as one big, indivisible thing. It's not. You can't have a rational conversation about "Trek is Good" or "Trek is Bad". Some Trek was good. The current state of Trek is bad.
The worst thing that can happen to a piece of Sci Fi is for it to become commercially successful. The more commercially successful something is, the greater the temptation to extend the franchise just for the sake of profit. The more money a franchise is worth, the lower you can set your creative standards and still justify releasing a product.
Why do half of the Star Trek movies suck? Because PAramount wanted to make a Star Trek movie, regardless of whether the script was any good. Sometimes they got good scripts, sometimes they didn't. But the people who get to decide whether a Star Trek movie should get made don't make that decision on whether the script is going to produce a good movie. They make that decision based on whether money in will be greater than money out.
The Original Series was a ground-breaking series that only happened because Roddenbery believed in it and made it happen. Next Generation only happened because Roddenbery believed in it and made it happen. Star Trek XXXVJWII, Voyager, and Enterprise was made because if Paramount didn't churn out new Trek they'd be wasting this huge, profitable sci fi franchise they'd built.
That can't go on forever though - eventually you produce so much crap just for the sake of making a buck that your franchise becomes worthless.
Unprofitable or New Sci Fi will only happen if it's good. Profitable Sci Fi will happen REGARDLESS of whether it's good.
If Star Trek hadn't been successful, it would have died after DS9 or earlier, and we'd all still think Trek is Good. But it didn't. But new trek being bad doesn't make old trek any less good.
What does a CFL team (go Argos!) have to do with a computing industry trademark?
Whoever submitted this obviously is not a lwayer, because the answer to your question is absolutely nothing.
Let's say I want to register the trademark Foo. First, I have to use, or plan to use within one year, the trademark in INTERSTATE COMMERCE.
Next, I have to decide whether I'm going to trademark the WORD Foo, or just a presentation of the word Foo. For example, let's say I'm the University of Illinois. I want trademark protection for my athletic program. But I can't just trademark "Illinois" - trademarking a geographical name is expressly prohibited. But I *CAN* trademark the word "Illinois" written in a certain shape/font/color. Trademarking a particular presentation of a word is much easier to do and much easier to defend, but also lets other people use that same word with a different presentation as long as it's not confusing (a matter decided in court). for exampl,e nobody can stop you from having a sports team and calling it the Tigers. Tigers is not a trademark. But you can't have a sports team, call it the Tigers, and then use the logo of the Detroit Tigers, because while the NAME Tigers isn't trademarked, the way the Detroit Tigers write Tigers is.
Lastly, and most importantly here, you have to decide IN WHAT PRODUCT SPACE you are registering your trademark. You can't just trademark something for all products everywhere. You have to get a separate trademark for each product space, and actually have products using that mark in that space.
For example, there is Discover the credit card and Discover the TV station. Both are trademarked. How can this be? The reason is that Discover the TV station's trademark is only good within the TV space, and Discover the credit card's trademark is only good within the credit card space.
Point of the matter is, a trademark on a sports team named the tigers isn't even going to give you trademark rights against other sports teams, much less against computer companies.
Hey man, stop giving away my comments or I'll have no choice but to sue you!
If all the dumb users go to AOL, and AOL doesn't let the dumb users get email, how am I supposed to target the people most likely to buy my stuff?
Disconnect everyone at the start of every semester. Reconnect users who pay you $10.
It's just like those Habitat for Humanity bastards, conspiring to drive down the wages of building contractors!
And the problem is that the author is a sucker.
Would you volunteer to cut the grass around these same student dwellings if the housing authority insisted that the grass only be cut with scissors?
You apparently know whose computers cause problems, yet are in a work environment where you are not authorized to disconnect those computers.
You have five choices, in order of most to least pleasant:
- Insist on, and receive, authority to disconnect problem computers at a time and duration solely at your discretion
- Quit
- Disconnect problem computers anyway, and let them fire you for not reconnecting them.
- Acquire a hammer, and hit yourself in the head until you lose consciousness
- Attempt to administer the network with your current level of authority.
Actually, there is a sixth option which involves scissors, which fortunately are more effective on network cable than on grass.