The idea of 'data havens' where conventional meatspace law doesn't apply is sadly seeming more and more like a lost concept. It seemed possible during the early 90s... it's going to become more and more regulated, just like every other area of human endeavor. It was fun while it lasted, I guess, and it'll make a neat story to tell our kids about, but the party's basically over.
I don't understand how the Geek could have ever thoght this was possible.
Cyberspace is fantasy, Yech always has an anchorage in the real world. Meatspace rules.
Now, however, technology moves much faster than the human mind. A person may easily see two or three technological revolutions in his lifetime, each one forcing the rejection of old value systems and the embracing of new perspectives.
Has any of this has ever been true?
Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 and died in 1922.
He was born before the transcontinental telegraph and lived to see the beginnings of broadcast radio.
He was an infant when the wagon trains began moving westward along the Oregon trail and lived to see the steam locaomotive in its twilight and 20,000,000 automobiles on the American road.
He was a contemprary of John Deere, Erricson, the Roeblings, Edison, George Eastman, Ford, Burpee, Louis Sullivan, Willis Carrier, and a hundred others.
He was a witness - and often a participant - in technological revolutions that transformed agriculture, manufacturing, engineering, architecture, transportation, communications. transportation, medicine.
In 1881 he devised a metal detector to probe for the bullet that would kill President Garfield. In 1901 an X-Ray machine might have saved McKinley.
Coffee is supposed to be brewed HOT. It is supposed to be served HOT. You spill HOT SHIT on you, and you GET BURNT
That woman was sold a cup of coffee that was somewhere between 180-190 F. That's hot, sure
225 consumers tasted black coffees at six different temperatures, ranking them for preference. The lowest temperature was below the pain threshold, the next below the epithelial damage threshold, the next two above. The two highest temperatures approximated to coffees served commercially.
The rank order of preference for temperatures was 160F (71.1C)... Coffee shop serving temperatures ranged 168-187F (75.6-86.1C). Observed time from serving to drinking ranged: 2-1005 sec, (median 114 sec). The average estimated drinking temperature was 168.1F.At what temperature should you serve coffee?
1 The coffee was sold as a drive-thru take out. That maximizes the chance of spills.
2 The woman was 79 years old and for all practical purposesd mmobilized in her car seat. This was nothing like the geek tippimg over his cup at Starbucks.
She was taken to the hospital, where it was determined that she had suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent. She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. Two years of treatment followed.
3 Documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burnt by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000
4 Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for US $20,000 to cover her medical costs, which were $11,000, but the company offered only $800. A mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle.
In short, McDonald's attorneys gambled on the chance they could persuade a jury to decide against an 81 year old woman who had been in and out of hospital for two years.
MSFT is selling Vista for 2-4 times what XP went for.
Vista sales have been strongest in the Premium and Ultimate markets. Windows MCE and XP Pro territory,
especially in order to get the same functionality as XP PRO, or Leopard (both of which sold for ~$130)you have to buy the $400 version.
Consumer ales of Windows are overwhelmingly OEM system bundles. Windows users are constitutionally incapable of paying retail list. They retire an OS when they retire a system.
This article, and others like it that I've read, seem a little bit mean-spirited. OLPC is, after all, a charity organization.
We provide sheltered work programs and services for the disabled.
But we are in the business of bulk mailing, corporate promotions, fulfillment - and that is how we are judged by our customers. That is how we survive.
The word "militia" must be read in the context of when the document was written. The modern day definition is quite different.
The meaning hasn't changed as much as you pretend.
The militia was a civilian levy.
You were expected to respond to a call to service.
You were expected to maintain your weapon. You were expected to drill. You were expected to obey orders.You were expected to be physically fit and alert on the line, not a danger to yourself and others.
There were officers, a chain-of-command.
The founders believed that a "well-regulated" militia could be the republican alternative to a standing army and not the chowder and marching societies they became after the Revolution.
And a video gamer's best friend, Jack Thompson, files suit against Take Two, Walmart, Microsoft, Sony, Best Buy, and cousin Skippy on April 30th.
Rockstar doesn't need Jack Thompson to push GTA off a cliff. Rockstar is perfectly capable of doing that on its own.
Case in point:
The Rockstar exec or PR flack who memorably touted the heightened engagement - emotional involvement - of the player using a Wii controller to mime the torture porn kills in Manhunt 2.
Why would the RIAA push this particular viewpoint? Because it's easy to despise a thief
Turn the question around.
Why does the Geek shy like a virgin from an association of words and ideas that was current when the Black Flag still flew over the Caribbean?
It is pathetic and futile to argue that the word "thief" must given the same meaning in casual usage as it has in criminal law. The geek must know in his heart that will have no more success here than he has had in reclaiming words like "hacker."
The American people gave up on taking responsibility for themselves when the Great Depression hit. The American people gave up on taking responsibility for themselves when the Great Depression hit. They had screwed up and instead of working themselves out of it, they turned to government to fix it. Ever since, when troubles arise, instead of working it out themselves.
This is anti-historical nonsense.
During the first months after the Crash, Hoover maintained his equanimity; yet as the Depression lingered, a certain bitterness is increasingly evident. Commentator after commentator remarked upon his grim, dour demeanor and taut temper. By the 1932 election the frustration of the Great Engineer with this new, elusive enemy had begun to seep inexorably into his solemn, stuffy speeches.
On August 11 he warned that "it is not the function of the government to relieve individuals of their responsibilities to their neighbors."
Stern words, but to whom was he talking? Some three years into the worst economic meltdown in modern times, just who was failing to meet their responsibilities? Schoolteachers in Chicago who continued to teach even though they had not been paid in six months and the city authorities had begun to confiscate their homes for nonpayment of property taxes? Farmers dumping their milk in the road because they couldn't afford to take it to market?
When he was out of office, his feelings toward Roosevelt, FDR's advisers, and their policies became relentless, paranoid, and downright ugly. The New Deal constituted a "march toward Moscow," Social Security had "a fine demagogic flavor," and even the Civilian Conservation Corps was suspect (it "would be infinitely better to extend naval construction than to plant trees"). He mocked "Hebraic philosophers of genius who can compound collectivism and individual rights and make the waters of life." He confided his dark vision of the future to a few friends: "Privately, I have no expectation that a nation which has once cut loose from its moorings to definite human rights and places them at the disposal of the state will ever return to them. History does not move that way, and those who cling to such a philosophy are just part of the wreckage. We can nevertheless yell 'help, help.'"
Fortunately, Franklin Roosevelt was never much inclined to cling to wreckage and yell for help, even in the face of the darkness that seemed about to engulf the world. In 1936, with the Nazis already on the march and the American people still staggering under the weight of the Depression, he told the nation, "There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation has a rendezvous with destiny." How to lose the next election
I don't think the Slashdot Geek realizes how big a presence Microsoft has in education in places like Africa:
The Chairman of Microsoft Africa Zone, Dr. Cheick Modibo Diarra, has said his company would soon develop and launch a communication satellite for Africa [part of] the company's commitment to provide a fast Internet connection to meet up with the continent's ever-increasing use of Information and Communication Technology, ICT.
{The satellite would,] to a larger extent, serve in the transmission of mobile phone signals as well as radio and television, thereby improving communication within the continent and beyond.
Microsoft and the University of Yaounde I [have signed an agreement] to lay the groundwork for development of the [satellite]. Cameroon: Microsoft Partners With Schools for IT Development [Dec 21, 2007]
[Microsoft] Faculty Connection [ introduced at the first ever Microsoft Academic Day in Lagos] is a resource for technology news, customisable courseware, access to the latest Microsoft technology and faculty-only community forums for like-minded academic professionals. A number of higher education institutions, including the University of Lagos, the University of Ibadan and Nnamdi Azikiwe University are already receiving the benefits which are part of the IT Academy programme, including training, certification as well as access to the latest Microsoft Official Curriculum and technologies.
On the Imagine Cup Competition, Szenvedi said that Microsoft is encouraging young people to apply their imagination, passion and creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world today. He added that Nigerian students who competed in this year's edition developed applications that were world-class. Nigeria: Microsoft's Faculty Connection [January 16, 2008]
i>I'll remind them of Richard Reid, who was so dumb he didn't know plastic explosives couldn't be detonated with matches.
You do that. But you should have your facts right:
there was nothing unsophisticated about Mr. Reid's intended weapon: a wedge of plastic explosive dyed black and concealed in the sole of his high-top suede sport shoe. An official of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed that a highly unstable component known as triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, served as the trigger. Threaded through the plastic explosive and topped with a long, black-powder fuse running up through his shoelace, the TATP igniter would have allowed the British-born Mr. Reid to set off his charge without wires and batteries" a>href="http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200201/msg00100.html" a>Didn't see this in the WSJ
The fundamental problem with eavesdropping is that it assumes that the bad guys are willing to divulge key operational details over an insecure channel.
The bad guy believes that all channels are insecure.
The bad guy believes in indirection, misdirection. The bad guy doesn't think like a geek. He thinks like a magician. He plays on the psychology of his audience. The fatigue of the listener, his ignorance of language, idioms and cultures.
The bad guy believes in hiding his essential communications in the background. noise. When the cops are around the the criminal ratchets up the volume and the noise all the more.
actors - fuck you! You want royalties on a performance that took you at most a week? We slaved over that game for over three years, working evenings, weekends, you name it
You aren't paying for the actor's time.
You are paying for his talent and resources. You are paying because he was right for the part.
You are paying for the marquee value of his name.
In the animated film, the voices are recorded first. The vocal performance, the personality of the actor, shapes the design and animation of the character.
The stakes here are pretty serious; look at what happened to comic books back in the 50's.
The comic book industry in the 50's was in deep trouble, losing older readers to the 25 cent paperback book. "My Gun Is Quick." The kids were watching TV.
The crime and horror comic was the quick-fix solution.
The first problem was that the industry had no legitimate adult marketing channels.
The horror comics would appear on the same drugstore racks with Casper, Archie and Scrooge McDuck and in the cigar stores alongside the soft core bondage of Detective Stories and the hard core stuff being sold out of the back.
The second problem was that the product was bottom-feeder sludge.
While the newspapers were publishing strips by Eisner, Walt Kelly, Milton Caniff, Al Capp, the young Charles Schulz.
let's have a measurable definition of "potentially dangerous ground" before we admit to anything.
let me suggest an example:
1 the game has a real world setting that is deeply significant to an adolescent player.
a mod based on a serviceable tactical model of a suburban high school, perhaps.
2 the weapons aren't the BFGs of Doom. they are the handguns, rifles, shotguns and semi-automatics that can be found on the street.
2 the player isn't being rewarded for killing the stereotypical monsters of sci-fi and fantasy, the larger-than-life villains of James Bond. his targets are the unarmed non-combatants that normally inhabit his world.
3 the player is permanently in god mode, all cheat codes enabled. he is shooting fish in a barrel.
4 if the modding tools permit it, the player can re-create people he knows in the game.
5 the game encourages and rewards a level of savagery - of sadism - that isn't to be found in Doom and only rarely in real life. the chainsaw not withstanding.
Artists don't have to know or care about mathemathics, while engineers and architechts have to.
I think that is going a bit too far.
Perspective drawing is surely an exercise in mathematics. If you are trying to capture motion, abstract forms in nature. - the shape of a cloud, the power of a wave breaking against the rocks. - you are probably thinking mathematically on some level.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand how the Geek could have ever thoght this was possible.
Cyberspace is fantasy, Yech always has an anchorage in the real world. Meatspace rules.
Has any of this has ever been true?
Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 and died in 1922.
He was born before the transcontinental telegraph and lived to see the beginnings of broadcast radio.
He was an infant when the wagon trains began moving westward along the Oregon trail and lived to see the steam locaomotive in its twilight and 20,000,000 automobiles on the American road.
He was a contemprary of John Deere, Erricson, the Roeblings, Edison, George Eastman, Ford, Burpee, Louis Sullivan, Willis Carrier, and a hundred others.
He was a witness - and often a participant - in technological revolutions that transformed agriculture, manufacturing, engineering, architecture, transportation, communications. transportation, medicine.
In 1881 he devised a metal detector to probe for the bullet that would kill President Garfield. In 1901 an X-Ray machine might have saved McKinley.
That woman was sold a cup of coffee that was somewhere between 180-190 F. That's hot, sure
225 consumers tasted black coffees at six different temperatures, ranking them for preference. The lowest temperature was below the pain threshold, the next below the epithelial damage threshold, the next two above. The two highest temperatures approximated to coffees served commercially.
The rank order of preference for temperatures was 160F (71.1C)... Coffee shop serving temperatures ranged 168-187F (75.6-86.1C). Observed time from serving to drinking ranged: 2-1005 sec, (median 114 sec). The average estimated drinking temperature was 168.1F. At what temperature should you serve coffee?
As to Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants;
1 The coffee was sold as a drive-thru take out. That maximizes the chance of spills.
2 The woman was 79 years old and for all practical purposesd mmobilized in her car seat. This was nothing like the geek tippimg over his cup at Starbucks.
She was taken to the hospital, where it was determined that she had suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent. She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. Two years of treatment followed.
3 Documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burnt by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000
4 Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for US $20,000 to cover her medical costs, which were $11,000, but the company offered only $800. A mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle.
In short, McDonald's attorneys gambled on the chance they could persuade a jury to decide against an 81 year old woman who had been in and out of hospital for two years.
The server had better be in a country outside the Berne convention and with no other reciprocal agreemrnts on copyright protection with the U.S.
Not to sound unkind, but you are reading the law ten years back: Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988
Vista sales have been strongest in the Premium and Ultimate markets. Windows MCE and XP Pro territory,
especially in order to get the same functionality as XP PRO, or Leopard (both of which sold for ~$130)you have to buy the $400 version.
Consumer ales of Windows are overwhelmingly OEM system bundles. Windows users are constitutionally incapable of paying retail list. They retire an OS when they retire a system.
so where is the Vista only product?
not in Office 2007 - which is the runaway best seller at retail.
Most of Microsoft's sales come from the OEMs who buy licenses in bulk. Even if they can't offload them onto end consumers
a hint for the future business major: you do not buy in numbers what you cannot sell in numbers.
pc sales have been strong. it is only in the geek's wet dream that OEMs are holding on to a mammoth inventory of unsold Vista licenses.
The Geek quotes retail list for the boxed version of the Windows product that is almost universally sold as part of an OEM system bundle.
It doesn't take a genius, it only takes an editor who will post a story from a Twitter.
We provide sheltered work programs and services for the disabled.
But we are in the business of bulk mailing, corporate promotions, fulfillment - and that is how we are judged by our customers. That is how we survive.
The meaning hasn't changed as much as you pretend.
The militia was a civilian levy.
You were expected to respond to a call to service.
You were expected to maintain your weapon. You were expected to drill. You were expected to obey orders.You were expected to be physically fit and alert on the line, not a danger to yourself and others.
There were officers, a chain-of-command.
The founders believed that a "well-regulated" militia could be the republican alternative to a standing army and not the chowder and marching societies they became after the Revolution.
Rockstar doesn't need Jack Thompson to push GTA off a cliff. Rockstar is perfectly capable of doing that on its own.
Case in point:
The Rockstar exec or PR flack who memorably touted the heightened engagement - emotional involvement - of the player using a Wii controller to mime the torture porn kills in Manhunt 2.
Yawn.
Interesting.
Someone posts a story about compromised Apache servers and all it rates from the Geek is a yawn.
Turn the question around.
Why does the Geek shy like a virgin from an association of words and ideas that was current when the Black Flag still flew over the Caribbean?
It is pathetic and futile to argue that the word "thief" must given the same meaning in casual usage as it has in criminal law. The geek must know in his heart that will have no more success here than he has had in reclaiming words like "hacker."
This is anti-historical nonsense.
During the first months after the Crash, Hoover maintained his equanimity; yet as the Depression lingered, a certain bitterness is increasingly evident. Commentator after commentator remarked upon his grim, dour demeanor and taut temper. By the 1932 election the frustration of the Great Engineer with this new, elusive enemy had begun to seep inexorably into his solemn, stuffy speeches.
On August 11 he warned that "it is not the function of the government to relieve individuals of their responsibilities to their neighbors."
Stern words, but to whom was he talking? Some three years into the worst economic meltdown in modern times, just who was failing to meet their responsibilities? Schoolteachers in Chicago who continued to teach even though they had not been paid in six months and the city authorities had begun to confiscate their homes for nonpayment of property taxes? Farmers dumping their milk in the road because they couldn't afford to take it to market?
When he was out of office, his feelings toward Roosevelt, FDR's advisers, and their policies became relentless, paranoid, and downright ugly. The New Deal constituted a "march toward Moscow," Social Security had "a fine demagogic flavor," and even the Civilian Conservation Corps was suspect (it "would be infinitely better to extend naval construction than to plant trees"). He mocked "Hebraic philosophers of genius who can compound collectivism and individual rights and make the waters of life." He confided his dark vision of the future to a few friends: "Privately, I have no expectation that a nation which has once cut loose from its moorings to definite human rights and places them at the disposal of the state will ever return to them. History does not move that way, and those who cling to such a philosophy are just part of the wreckage. We can nevertheless yell 'help, help.'"
Fortunately, Franklin Roosevelt was never much inclined to cling to wreckage and yell for help, even in the face of the darkness that seemed about to engulf the world. In 1936, with the Nazis already on the march and the American people still staggering under the weight of the Depression, he told the nation, "There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation has a rendezvous with destiny." How to lose the next election
If the non-standard browser has 80% of your employer's target audience then it becomes your problem whether you want it or not.
Monday was Martin Luther King Day. Proving that the 20-something Geek has no sense of history whatsoever.
The Chairman of Microsoft Africa Zone, Dr. Cheick Modibo Diarra, has said his company would soon develop and launch a communication satellite for Africa [part of] the company's commitment to provide a fast Internet connection to meet up with the continent's ever-increasing use of Information and Communication Technology, ICT. {The satellite would,] to a larger extent, serve in the transmission of mobile phone signals as well as radio and television, thereby improving communication within the continent and beyond. Microsoft and the University of Yaounde I [have signed an agreement] to lay the groundwork for development of the [satellite]. Cameroon: Microsoft Partners With Schools for IT Development [Dec 21, 2007]
[Microsoft] Faculty Connection [ introduced at the first ever Microsoft Academic Day in Lagos] is a resource for technology news, customisable courseware, access to the latest Microsoft technology and faculty-only community forums for like-minded academic professionals. A number of higher education institutions, including the University of Lagos, the University of Ibadan and Nnamdi Azikiwe University are already receiving the benefits which are part of the IT Academy programme, including training, certification as well as access to the latest Microsoft Official Curriculum and technologies.
On the Imagine Cup Competition, Szenvedi said that Microsoft is encouraging young people to apply their imagination, passion and creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world today. He added that Nigerian students who competed in this year's edition developed applications that were world-class. Nigeria: Microsoft's Faculty Connection [January 16, 2008]
So Sun underwrites and staffs OpenOffice.org as a charity?
You do that. But you should have your facts right:
there was nothing unsophisticated about Mr. Reid's intended weapon: a wedge of plastic explosive dyed black and concealed in the sole of his high-top suede sport shoe. An official of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed that a highly unstable component known as triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, served as the trigger. Threaded through the plastic explosive and topped with a long, black-powder fuse running up through his shoelace, the TATP igniter would have allowed the British-born Mr. Reid to set off his charge without wires and batteries" a>href="http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200201/msg00100.html" a>Didn't see this in the WSJ
The fundamental problem with eavesdropping is that it assumes that the bad guys are willing to divulge key operational details over an insecure channel.
The bad guy believes that all channels are insecure.
The bad guy believes in indirection, misdirection. The bad guy doesn't think like a geek. He thinks like a magician. He plays on the psychology of his audience. The fatigue of the listener, his ignorance of language, idioms and cultures.
The bad guy believes in hiding his essential communications in the background. noise. When the cops are around the the criminal ratchets up the volume and the noise all the more.
You aren't paying for the actor's time.
You are paying for his talent and resources. You are paying because he was right for the part.
You are paying for the marquee value of his name.
In the animated film, the voices are recorded first. The vocal performance, the personality of the actor, shapes the design and animation of the character.
The comic book industry in the 50's was in deep trouble, losing older readers to the 25 cent paperback book. "My Gun Is Quick." The kids were watching TV.
The crime and horror comic was the quick-fix solution.
The first problem was that the industry had no legitimate adult marketing channels.
The horror comics would appear on the same drugstore racks with Casper, Archie and Scrooge McDuck and in the cigar stores alongside the soft core bondage of Detective Stories and the hard core stuff being sold out of the back.
The second problem was that the product was bottom-feeder sludge.
While the newspapers were publishing strips by Eisner, Walt Kelly, Milton Caniff, Al Capp, the young Charles Schulz.
I think this attitude explains why the Slashdot gamer-geek is ignored in development for the PC and the console.
Why he doesn't get the games he wants to see.
let me suggest an example:
1 the game has a real world setting that is deeply significant to an adolescent player.
a mod based on a serviceable tactical model of a suburban high school, perhaps.
2 the weapons aren't the BFGs of Doom. they are the handguns, rifles, shotguns and semi-automatics that can be found on the street.
2 the player isn't being rewarded for killing the stereotypical monsters of sci-fi and fantasy, the larger-than-life villains of James Bond.
his targets are the unarmed non-combatants that normally inhabit his world.
3 the player is permanently in god mode, all cheat codes enabled.
he is shooting fish in a barrel.
4 if the modding tools permit it, the player can re-create people he knows in the game.
5 the game encourages and rewards a level of savagery - of sadism - that isn't to be found in Doom and only rarely in real life. the chainsaw not withstanding.
I think that is going a bit too far.
Perspective drawing is surely an exercise in mathematics. If you are trying to capture motion, abstract forms in nature. - the shape of a cloud, the power of a wave breaking against the rocks. - you are probably thinking mathematically on some level.