I hope you never get cancer. If you finally go to the doctor when you fell like you on death's door, it will be too late. If caught early enough, most cancers are easily treatable.
You could say the say the same for hundreds of other life-threatening conditions. Swine Flu among them. But the contagious disease makes you a danger to everyone.
The people onboard can and will protect themselves.
You can't assume that the suicide bomber will give you any warning at all. The trigger man doesn't have to be the one you can see. The one you can reach.
People do strange things under stress. They do not always do the right things.
The aircraft is most vulnerable to the suicide bomber in take-off and landing. Passengers and crew are belted in.
The plane can be pitched steeply up. The acceleration is significant.
The bomber may take the window seat.
The party of four from the Sun and Shadows Retirement Home may be seated next. Not Bronco Billy Anderson and The Ranger From San Antonio.
None of this will matter, of course, if the primary explosive device ignites within a heart beat or so.
I have wondered idly if it would be worth trying to ignite a magnesium laptop case - or whether a potent explosive or incendiary could be impregnated into ordinary clothing.
The OLPC needs to be coupled with software that gives children a basic education with little or no teacher assistance.
This is the fantasy that sank OLPC the first time around.
Every culture has its own educational tradition. Its own theory of how children should be taught,what they should be taught, and by who they should be taught.
There are gatekeepers, secular and religious.
"No" means "no." No purchase orders. No deployment. No support. No protection.
You can't work openly.
You can't work secretly without someone paying the ultimate price.
"If you educate a boy, you educate an individual; but if you educate a girl, you educate a community. No other factor even comes close to matching the cascade of positive changes triggered by teaching a single girl how to read and write."Stones Into Schools
Yes, but where does that erroneous concept come from?
And so we return once again to talk of the geek's last refuge in court:
Jury Nullification.
The reality of nullification in post-Civil War America was that the Innocent black man got the rope and the guilty Klansman the celebratory pork barbecue dinner.
It's not far from the mark to say that jury nullification has always meant a free pass for the "good old boys."
The jocks.
The geek who plays this card will - quite predictably - awaken to find himself stuffed into the judicial equivalent of a junior high gym locker.
Considering the case will probably held in Vancouver or somewhere in BC--the most liberal courts in Canada, I doubt it.
Vancouver - as any true geek should know - is one of the major North American production centers outside of Hollywood. Don't bet on the locals cutting their own throats.
ISOhunt can always appeal the grant of summary judgment and perhaps the appeals court will reverse and call for an actual trial.
Don't hold your breath.
The grant of summary judgment means that despite reading everything in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion, there is simply no reason to go on.
That, as a matter of law, your case isn't worth shit.
You might win on appeal. You might be the instant winner in the $10 million dollar Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.
How does DRM help the BBC provide their services to the taxpayer, better ?
The BBC partners with other prduction companies and distributors world-wide.
International syndication and home video sales draws in big money and big talent. That's the benefit to the taxpayer.
Small Island Adapted from the award-winning 2004 novel, this mini-series stars Naomie Harris (Pirates of the Caribbean, White Teeth, 28 Days Later) as Hortense, a young ambitious Jamaican woman thrust into the grit of 1940s post-war London. A Ruby Television production in association with AL Films for BBC, coproduced with WGBH and made on location in Northern Ireland with the assistance of Northern Ireland Screen.
Sharpe's Peril Sharpe's Challenge Shot entirely in India, these two installments of the award-winning series, Sharpe, star Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings, Troy, Golden Eye) as Bernard Cornwell's title character. Sharpe's Peril is a Celtic Films Ent./Picture Palace Films/Duke Street Films co-production in association with Harper Collins. Sharpe's Challenge is a Celtic Films and Picture Place production. BBC WORLDWIDE ANNOUNCES DRAMA CO-PRODUCTIONS WITH WGBH/MASTERPIECE FOR EMMA AND CRANFORD 2
Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Eddie Izzard and Jason Priestley star in The Day Of The Triffids, written by Patrick Harbinson (ER, Law & Order). This epic, apocalyptic and futuristic two-part drama is a co-production between Power and Canadian producer Prodigy Pictures for BBC OneThe Day Of The Triffids attracts all-star cast to BBC One
Most of these millions of people wouldn't have paid to see in the first place. Lets say a few thousand that would have paid to see your picture don't because they found it for free yes, this costs you real money
You haven't shown any real numbers here.
But I would suggest it defies logic and experience that the geek would take a pass on the Hugo Award winning sci-fi blockbuster.
This was Wall-E's year - running in competition against the likes of Iron Man and The Joker - and better than this you don't get.
many of these people wouldn't have even known about your movie unless they found it online for free
Unless you really have been living in grandma's basement all these years, you have heard all about Avatar.
The same could be said for any significant theatrical release by the majors.
Suppose, for example, the SSD or its successor became almost unbelievably small, capacious, efficient, and cheap.
Local storage is no longer a problem for your mobile device even if what you need are high resolution marine charts or topographical maps for the whole of North America.
Databases that are updated infrequently - but when you need to access them, you need to access them now.
what's to stop warring planets from accelerating an asteroid in the same way and in the direction of the enemy planet? Or take that acceleration technique and speed up some ball bearings to ridiculous speeds and send them on their way towards something with a predictable position like a space station?
The attack will be confirmed within a matter of hours. You will be very, very fortunate if the tech allows you any second thoughts. Because you haven't got a prayer of countering the retaliatory strike.
Further proof that Hollywood is running out of good ideas, and must turn to new sources.
Giant alien machines destroy a great city:
H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds,1898. Radio adaption for Orson Welle's Mercury Theater of the Air, 1938. Film adaption by George Pal, 1953. Radio adaptation by WKBW, Buffalo, New York., 1968. Staged live using live remotes. State-of-the-art tech for an independent AM radio station in the sixties. Musical adaptation by Jeff Wayne in 1978.
Referenced countless times in every media from the bubble gum trading card to the CGI animated feature. [Monsters vs. Aliens, 2008]
This sort of thing should probably be done by academia or government then. Progress for the greater good doesn't have to be commercially driven.
But it does have to be adequately funded.
Here is an example of a small scale project that has the potential to reap significant benefits. But it still costs $5 million - and there are hundreds - and more likely thousands - of projects no less deserving.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $5 million research grant to a Hebrew University of Jerusalem biologist to find ways to combat visceral leishmanisis, a parasitic disease that affects 500,000 annually and, if left untreated - by 30 days of intramuscular injections - kills 95 percent of its victims.
Co-infection with HIV makes treatment much more complex. Because the immune system is suppressed in HIV-positive patients, Kala-azar relapses are common, and patients have to be treated multiple times. Given the difficulties of treating large populations in remote areas and the bleak prospects for patients infected by both diseases, efforts must be made to protect people living in HIV/AIDS-endemic areas from contracting Kala-azaHU researcher granted $5m. from Gates Foundation to battle parasitic disease
The charitable impulse is not unlimited. The university has to strike a balance between research and teaching. The government needs a broad political consensus to move decisively in any direction.
There is something to be said for the guy who is in it for the money.
Someone who can move quickly but still think long-term and can take very big risks without flinching.
And the only responsible thing to do at that point is call the police and ban her from campus.
Oh wait. That's insane. Make a phone call, have a counselor sit down with her. Lesson learned, and they aren't giving a student a criminal record for blowing off steam by shooting her mouth off.
Consider it off-topic, if you like.
But the counselors at our local mental health clinic are required to wear bullet poof vests on calls outside the office.
The geek making the call from the sidelines doesn't take the knife if things go wrong.
There are legitimate reasons to secure the site. To make certain that there will be no chance contact between the parties.
You forgot, that if you did not know that the houses were made of eggshells, and it is generally assumed that houses are not made of eggshells, that this would rather be a nasty trap
If you are playing with forces as elementally powerful as an earthquake, there are some things you need to know. You can't be willfully ignorant. You have to test your most basic assumptions, to make certain they are valid.
Or you can just believe in civil disobedience and ignore them entirely.
Belief is not enough. The essence of civil disobedience is that you accept the risk of civil and criminal penalties.
Arrest. Conviction. Confinement.
The essence of civil disobedience is that you do so without any guarantees whatever. You may rot in jail and be entirely - and perhaps deservedly - forgotten.
You may be bankrupt by a judgment and no one will give a damn.
we don't need to respect closed source
You respect closed source or open source loses its meaning, support and protection.
You've unilaterally declared all exposed code to be public domain. That doesn't code out into the open. It drive s it deeper into hiding.
you gave no evidence or logic for why the law should allow for copyright or licenses of any type
There are three ways of supporting a significant creative talent. He can have an independent source of income.
Which means that in all likelihood he will remain forever an amateur. He almost certainly not be working class.
The first alternative is patronage - by the state, the church, or the merchant prince. Each will have their own agenda which will shape the final product.
The second is through sales. This opens the door fully to participation by the lower and middle classes.
That is where you'll find Huck Finn. Dorothy Gale. Sam Spade. Susie Salmon.
But to make a living through his work and to build an estate for his family, the artist must have control over the use of his work.
Copyright drives innovation. You have to take chances. You have no protection unless you have produced a substantially original work.
Slashdot Mirror
I hope you never get cancer. If you finally go to the doctor when you fell like you on death's door, it will be too late. If caught early enough, most cancers are easily treatable.
You could say the say the same for hundreds of other life-threatening conditions. Swine Flu among them. But the contagious disease makes you a danger to everyone.
The people onboard can and will protect themselves.
You can't assume that the suicide bomber will give you any warning at all. The trigger man doesn't have to be the one you can see. The one you can reach.
The passengers will fight the fool to his death.
People do strange things under stress. They do not always do the right things.
The aircraft is most vulnerable to the suicide bomber in take-off and landing. Passengers and crew are belted in.
The plane can be pitched steeply up. The acceleration is significant.
The bomber may take the window seat.
The party of four from the Sun and Shadows Retirement Home may be seated next. Not Bronco Billy Anderson and The Ranger From San Antonio.
None of this will matter, of course, if the primary explosive device ignites within a heart beat or so.
I have wondered idly if it would be worth trying to ignite a magnesium laptop case - or whether a potent explosive or incendiary could be impregnated into ordinary clothing.
And the nearly 1,000,000 XO-1 laptops in the hands of children in developing countries suggest you are a troll.ZZZ
Confirmed deployment of OLPC outside of Columbia, Peru, Uruguay and Rwanda is - for all practical purposes - insignificant. Summary of Laptop Orders
The OLPC needs to be coupled with software that gives children a basic education with little or no teacher assistance.
This is the fantasy that sank OLPC the first time around.
Every culture has its own educational tradition. Its own theory of how children should be taught,what they should be taught, and by who they should be taught.
There are gatekeepers, secular and religious.
"No" means "no." No purchase orders. No deployment. No support. No protection.
You can't work openly.
You can't work secretly without someone paying the ultimate price.
"If you educate a boy, you educate an individual; but if you educate a girl, you educate a community. No other factor even comes close to matching the cascade of positive changes triggered by teaching a single girl how to read and write." Stones Into Schools
Taliban bomb schools in NW Pakistan
The geek will blithely hand the Afghan girl a lime-green laptop that can never be openly carried or displayed.
It would be suicidal even to speak of it to a stranger.
The girl is illiterate, like her sisters, her mother, her grandmother.
True literacy implies a basic understanding of all forms of communication. The girl needs to learn how to see. The girl needs to learn how to hear.
The girl needs a teacher. She needs a school - a defensible space in which to learn.
title #1, Small Island
The examples I chose were just that:
easily found through a quick search for "BBC co-productions."
Still, there is a pattern and the pattern is suggestive:
Two, three, or more, production companies are involved.
Locations are often outside the UK. Talent is international, and big-name.
Yes, but where does that erroneous concept come from?
And so we return once again to talk of the geek's last refuge in court:
Jury Nullification.
The reality of nullification in post-Civil War America was that the Innocent black man got the rope and the guilty Klansman the celebratory pork barbecue dinner.
It's not far from the mark to say that jury nullification has always meant a free pass for the "good old boys."
The jocks.
The geek who plays this card will - quite predictably - awaken to find himself stuffed into the judicial equivalent of a junior high gym locker.
Hey moron 5there is no extradition for civil cases.
But you can reach any assets he may hold in the states, any income he receives from the states. For a Canadian, that can pinch.
Considering the case will probably held in Vancouver or somewhere in BC--the most liberal courts in Canada, I doubt it.
Vancouver - as any true geek should know - is one of the major North American production centers outside of Hollywood. Don't bet on the locals cutting their own throats.
ISOhunt can always appeal the grant of summary judgment and perhaps the appeals court will reverse and call for an actual trial.
Don't hold your breath.
The grant of summary judgment means that despite reading everything in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion, there is simply no reason to go on.
That, as a matter of law, your case isn't worth shit.
You might win on appeal. You might be the instant winner in the $10 million dollar Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.
[citation needed] /morbid curiosityZ
Stories like this always have the flavor of a urban legend.
The automated roll bar deployment is a feature of some BMW covertibles only.
It uses springs. Not explosives.
Emergency services guidelines September 2009.
For a full description with handsome cutaway illustrations in color click to pages 22 and 23 of the PDF.
Real cryptographers don't trust closed source
How can you be sure of that?
How can you know what is in use but undisclosed within the military and other agencies and organizations world-wide?
How does DRM help the BBC provide their services to the taxpayer, better ?
The BBC partners with other prduction companies and distributors world-wide.
International syndication and home video sales draws in big money and big talent. That's the benefit to the taxpayer.
Small Island
Adapted from the award-winning 2004 novel, this mini-series stars Naomie Harris (Pirates of the Caribbean, White Teeth, 28 Days Later) as Hortense, a young ambitious Jamaican woman thrust into the grit of 1940s post-war London. A Ruby Television production in association with AL Films for BBC, coproduced with WGBH and made on location in Northern Ireland with the assistance of Northern Ireland Screen.
Sharpe's Peril
Sharpe's Challenge
Shot entirely in India, these two installments of the award-winning series, Sharpe, star Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings, Troy, Golden Eye) as Bernard Cornwell's title character. Sharpe's Peril is a Celtic Films Ent./Picture Palace Films/Duke Street Films co-production in association with Harper Collins. Sharpe's Challenge is a Celtic Films and Picture Place production.
BBC WORLDWIDE ANNOUNCES DRAMA CO-PRODUCTIONS WITH WGBH/MASTERPIECE FOR EMMA AND CRANFORD 2
Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Eddie Izzard and Jason Priestley star in The Day Of The Triffids, written by Patrick Harbinson (ER, Law & Order). This epic, apocalyptic and futuristic two-part drama is a co-production between Power and Canadian producer Prodigy Pictures for BBC One The Day Of The Triffids attracts all-star cast to BBC One
Most of these millions of people wouldn't have paid to see in the first place. Lets say a few thousand that would have paid to see your picture don't because they found it for free yes, this costs you real money
You haven't shown any real numbers here.
But I would suggest it defies logic and experience that the geek would take a pass on the Hugo Award winning sci-fi blockbuster.
This was Wall-E's year - running in competition against the likes of Iron Man and The Joker - and better than this you don't get.
many of these people wouldn't have even known about your movie unless they found it online for free
Unless you really have been living in grandma's basement all these years, you have heard all about Avatar.
The same could be said for any significant theatrical release by the majors.
1) The web has not always won.
Suppose, for example, the SSD or its successor became almost unbelievably small, capacious, efficient, and cheap.
Local storage is no longer a problem for your mobile device even if what you need are high resolution marine charts or topographical maps for the whole of North America.
Databases that are updated infrequently - but when you need to access them, you need to access them now.
Who gives a damn if women don't work in IT?
Women.
Because they won't have a direct part in IT decision making.
Because it reinforces stereotypes of the geek that are in no way helpful in the workplace.
Management.
Take pity on the guy who has to referee conflicts between a thousand-strong [female] clerical staff and IT.
The geek - again stereotypically - tends to be a top-down, my-way-or-the-highway kind of thinker.
Who can be very surprised when he meets resistance at ground level.
what's to stop warring planets from accelerating an asteroid in the same way and in the direction of the enemy planet? Or take that acceleration technique and speed up some ball bearings to ridiculous speeds and send them on their way towards something with a predictable position like a space station?
The attack will be confirmed within a matter of hours. You will be very, very fortunate if the tech allows you any second thoughts. Because you haven't got a prayer of countering the retaliatory strike.
Further proof that Hollywood is running out of good ideas, and must turn to new sources.
Giant alien machines destroy a great city:
H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds,1898.
Radio adaption for Orson Welle's Mercury Theater of the Air, 1938.
Film adaption by George Pal, 1953.
Radio adaptation by WKBW, Buffalo, New York., 1968.
Staged live using live remotes. State-of-the-art tech for an independent AM radio station in the sixties.
Musical adaptation by Jeff Wayne in 1978.
Referenced countless times in every media from the bubble gum trading card to the CGI animated feature. [Monsters vs. Aliens, 2008]
Half of /. content would be gone!
You say this like this like it would be a bad thing.
There is a case to be made for self-censorship on the net.
Your every tweet probably shouldn't read to your boss like a scribble on the men's room wall.
The Germans did not think the Poles could break their codes. The Japanese did not think the US and the Australians would break their codes.
The problem was never breaking the codes.
The problem was breaking the codes more or less instantaneously.
You need time to frame and execute an appropriate response - and far too often the correct response will be to do nothing.
Since to do anything will invite suspicion.
Eavesdropping on the Rising Sun
The Code War
The Edison of Secret Codes
This sort of thing should probably be done by academia or government then. Progress for the greater good doesn't have to be commercially driven.
But it does have to be adequately funded.
Here is an example of a small scale project that has the potential to reap significant benefits. But it still costs $5 million - and there are hundreds - and more likely thousands - of projects no less deserving.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $5 million research grant to a Hebrew University of Jerusalem biologist to find ways to combat visceral leishmanisis, a parasitic disease that affects 500,000 annually and, if left untreated - by 30 days of intramuscular injections - kills 95 percent of its victims.
Co-infection with HIV makes treatment much more complex. Because the immune system is suppressed in HIV-positive patients, Kala-azar relapses are common, and patients have to be treated multiple times. Given the difficulties of treating large populations in remote areas and the bleak prospects for patients infected by both diseases, efforts must be made to protect people living in HIV/AIDS-endemic areas from contracting Kala-aza HU researcher granted $5m. from Gates Foundation to battle parasitic disease
The charitable impulse is not unlimited. The university has to strike a balance between research and teaching. The government needs a broad political consensus to move decisively in any direction.
There is something to be said for the guy who is in it for the money.
Someone who can move quickly but still think long-term and can take very big risks without flinching.
Forced to buy anti virus products. Vendor lock. Upgrade treadmill....
I haven't been "forced" to buy anti virus products and other home security products for home use for a decade.
MSE is free for small business.
All that "vendor lock" really means to most users is that they have settled on a platform and set of applications with which they are comfortable.
It doesn't hurt if you have thirty years experience designing and marketing products for sale to the non-technical end user.
It doesn't hurt that there is probably a Win 7, XP Pro, or DosBox solution for every MSDOS and Windows program you could ever want to run.
Something like 95% of home users upgrade hardware and software when the OEM system bundle looks right.
It's scarcely a treadmill when you make the leap from a P4 CPU to quad core, the tetra byte hard drive, 8 to !2 GB RAM and DX 11 graphics in one jump.
And the only responsible thing to do at that point is call the police and ban her from campus.
Oh wait. That's insane. Make a phone call, have a counselor sit down with her. Lesson learned, and they aren't giving a student a criminal record for blowing off steam by shooting her mouth off.
Consider it off-topic, if you like.
But the counselors at our local mental health clinic are required to wear bullet poof vests on calls outside the office.
The geek making the call from the sidelines doesn't take the knife if things go wrong.
There are legitimate reasons to secure the site. To make certain that there will be no chance contact between the parties.
Until things are sorted out.
You forgot, that if you did not know that the houses were made of eggshells, and it is generally assumed that houses are not made of eggshells, that this would rather be a nasty trap
If you are playing with forces as elementally powerful as an earthquake, there are some things you need to know. You can't be willfully ignorant. You have to test your most basic assumptions, to make certain they are valid.
Or you can just believe in civil disobedience and ignore them entirely.
Belief is not enough. The essence of civil disobedience is that you accept the risk of civil and criminal penalties.
Arrest. Conviction. Confinement.
The essence of civil disobedience is that you do so without any guarantees whatever. You may rot in jail and be entirely - and perhaps deservedly - forgotten.
You may be bankrupt by a judgment and no one will give a damn.
we don't need to respect closed source
You respect closed source or open source loses its meaning, support and protection.
You've unilaterally declared all exposed code to be public domain. That doesn't code out into the open. It drive s it deeper into hiding.
you gave no evidence or logic for why the law should allow for copyright or licenses of any type
There are three ways of supporting a significant creative talent. He can have an independent source of income.
Which means that in all likelihood he will remain forever an amateur. He almost certainly not be working class.
The first alternative is patronage - by the state, the church, or the merchant prince. Each will have their own agenda which will shape the final product.
The second is through sales. This opens the door fully to participation by the lower and middle classes.
That is where you'll find Huck Finn. Dorothy Gale. Sam Spade. Susie Salmon.
But to make a living through his work and to build an estate for his family, the artist must have control over the use of his work.
Copyright drives innovation. You have to take chances. You have no protection unless you have produced a substantially original work.