Restrict mandatory content control to devices and programs specifically designed for content playback (i.e. not an operating system or general-purpose computers). The current bill would cripple the computer industry in favor of the media industry.
Do not mandate any guidelines as to the nature of the content control technology. This is something that should be worked out between the implementors.
Limit the scope of the mandatory technology to saying yay/nay to requested media management operations only. Any sort of identification, tracking, or phone-home requirements in cases where no violation is detected should not be included. I know you requested suggestions for methods of tracking, but that is also something that should be worked out within the industry and not by Congress.
(IANAL or congressional expert and I don't seriously expect my ideas to be used, but I hope this post was more productive than the ones he's complaining about.)
One word: Cooling. A next-generation video chip would probably be a lot hotter than the previous one, and laptops are already very close to the limit with regards to heat and airflow.
You have now lumped child porn in with all other forms of porn as well as non-porn NC-17 movies. Thank you for painting as detailed and accurate a picture of the issue as the decision this story is complaining about.
Most of you are completely missing the point. Two parties, a provider and a consumer, enter into a legally binding contract in which the provider gives the consumer a product and the consumer gives the provider a quantity of money. Whether the consumer is an idiot or the provider is not popular in the Slashdot community is completely irrelevant. The Red Hat example has nothing to do with the cost of Red Hat itself, if it's a useless copy of Red Hat (not meaning the product is bad, just that the purchaser has no plan, ability, or desire to actually use it) then it is $89.95 wasted. Does that deserve a story on Slashdot and a hefty round of RH bashing?
I didn't want to go this far, but you leave me no choice:
California did sign the agreement. Oracle expects them to abide by the contract. California should have thought a bit more before signing, perhaps, but there is no wrongdoing here. If they signed a contract to purchase 270,000 useless copies of Red Hat, no one would be complaining.
Everyone is saying how this is an old version or it's so few people and so on... That's irrelevant. AOL believes that Mozilla is ready for primetime, and they are putting their money where their mouth is (slowly) by deploying it in a commercial environment. That's as much a milestone as anything else so far.
Potentially malicious code distribution should not be illegal, but perhaps it should be licensed. We require authorization to practice medicine, operate vehicles and firearms, and lots of other potentially dangerous activities (and I would not be all surprised if working with real high-threat viruses was included in there). You'd just have to have a "security researcher clearance" in with all your other certs.
You can drop legacy ports as a way of playing chicken with the hardware upgrade cycle. Apple gambled in this way when they shipped the iMac with only USB and Firewire ports; they won in that ADB, serial, and SCSI (except for the high end) devices were quickly abandoned and USB/Firewire took off. If the iMacs had been able to use legacy peripherals, USB would be dead in the water right now and Firewire would be a niche toy like fiber channel.
Re:Is any of this real?
on
Quark Stars
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· Score: 2
We have justified our theories based on methods of reasoning we believe to be infallible (the laws of mathematics and logic) and results of observations which we know are imperfect but which are usually "close enough" to the theory. If anyone ever came out with a disproof of science that was falsifiable (there is a situation imaginable under which the proposal would clearly be false), reproducible, logical, and otherwise consistent, it would slowly but surrely become accepted. It took 1500 years but we did finally accept that the Earth was round and it revolved around the sun (at least, we accepted that those explanations are closer to observed phenomena than what came before).
Just look at it, he's attacking the fans, Joseph Campbell's work as a whole (unrelated to Star Wars), various other random works of sci-fi, and I don't even know who Stephen Ambrose is but he doesn't seem to have anything to do with Star Wars. The author is just venting spleen in general and happens to have focused on Star Wars.
Take, for example, realistic death. At first, deaths were pretty unrealistic, you pulled the trigger and the enemy fell down and stopped moving. Then there was blood. Then there was persistent blood that stayed on walls. Then there were detailed damage models. Soldier of Fortune had one of the most complex damage models yet; the problem was that that was the only part of the game anyone ever mentioned. It's as is the entire rest of the game had been neglected in favor of having the characters twitch and bleed in different ways depending on where you shot them. The more effort that is put into the realism, the less is put into imaginative gameplay and original content. The more realistic a game is, the more it is similar to all the other realistic games, and eventually they will be indistinguishable.
The pinnacle of realistic death, and the other reason realism should only go so far, was Postal. Your targets wouldn't just die, they would act like real gunshot victims. They might fall to the ground moaning and holding whatever part of them you shot. They might try to slowly and painfully crawl away from you with their last strength, or curl up into a ball while gasping and whimpering, often for several minutes. Only a pyschotic could enjoy that game.
It is possible to configure most games to ignore the vertical synch wait, and swap buffers while the screen is being refreshed. Of course this isn't really a solution because it leads to tearing, where the swaps become visible as horizontal discontinuities on the screen.
No. An april fools joke must be so insane that no one could possibly believe it, and it can't be an unnerving lead-in like so many of today's stories. If anything, the stories of today and your examples are too conservative.
Debian Adds Gator Package
Apple Announces Zero-Button Mouse (yes, that's old)
Cartoon Network Drops Barney For Being Too Violent
I agree that no law is the best solution but that wasn't the question.
(IANAL or congressional expert and I don't seriously expect my ideas to be used, but I hope this post was more productive than the ones he's complaining about.)
One word: Cooling. A next-generation video chip would probably be a lot hotter than the previous one, and laptops are already very close to the limit with regards to heat and airflow.
You have now lumped child porn in with all other forms of porn as well as non-porn NC-17 movies. Thank you for painting as detailed and accurate a picture of the issue as the decision this story is complaining about.
Your sig is incorrect. Kirk uses that tactic in Wrath of Kahn.
I'm pretty sure I've known of the Turk for years.
Why did he buy one if he hated it?
Most of you are completely missing the point. Two parties, a provider and a consumer, enter into a legally binding contract in which the provider gives the consumer a product and the consumer gives the provider a quantity of money. Whether the consumer is an idiot or the provider is not popular in the Slashdot community is completely irrelevant. The Red Hat example has nothing to do with the cost of Red Hat itself, if it's a useless copy of Red Hat (not meaning the product is bad, just that the purchaser has no plan, ability, or desire to actually use it) then it is $89.95 wasted. Does that deserve a story on Slashdot and a hefty round of RH bashing?
I didn't want to go this far, but you leave me no choice:
This Is Not News For Nerds Or Stuff That Matters!
Thank you.
California did sign the agreement. Oracle expects them to abide by the contract. California should have thought a bit more before signing, perhaps, but there is no wrongdoing here. If they signed a contract to purchase 270,000 useless copies of Red Hat, no one would be complaining.
- "Hey, do we have to output in sorted order?" "Yeah, I just used a bubble sort." "OK,thanks."
- "Hey, do you remember how to do bubble sort?" "You take the array and [do bubblesort]." "OK, thanks."
- "Hey, how did you implement the [thing]?" "I just used a [structure]." "OK, thanks."
- "Hey, how do I use [API]?" "Like this: [shows code]" "OK, thanks."
- "Hey, how did you implement [small part of the requirements]?" "Like this: [shows code]" "OK, thanks. [goes back and writes his own code]"
- "Hey, my code isn't working, any ideas?" "How about this? [fixes 1 line in first student's code]" "OK, thanks."
Whether it's cheating or not is hazier, and there's no way to recall what was said (or prove it).Everyone is saying how this is an old version or it's so few people and so on... That's irrelevant. AOL believes that Mozilla is ready for primetime, and they are putting their money where their mouth is (slowly) by deploying it in a commercial environment. That's as much a milestone as anything else so far.
If I create a digital version of Times Square in a modeler, am I required to include the billboards?
Potentially malicious code distribution should not be illegal, but perhaps it should be licensed. We require authorization to practice medicine, operate vehicles and firearms, and lots of other potentially dangerous activities (and I would not be all surprised if working with real high-threat viruses was included in there). You'd just have to have a "security researcher clearance" in with all your other certs.
You can drop legacy ports as a way of playing chicken with the hardware upgrade cycle. Apple gambled in this way when they shipped the iMac with only USB and Firewire ports; they won in that ADB, serial, and SCSI (except for the high end) devices were quickly abandoned and USB/Firewire took off. If the iMacs had been able to use legacy peripherals, USB would be dead in the water right now and Firewire would be a niche toy like fiber channel.
We have justified our theories based on methods of reasoning we believe to be infallible (the laws of mathematics and logic) and results of observations which we know are imperfect but which are usually "close enough" to the theory. If anyone ever came out with a disproof of science that was falsifiable (there is a situation imaginable under which the proposal would clearly be false), reproducible, logical, and otherwise consistent, it would slowly but surrely become accepted. It took 1500 years but we did finally accept that the Earth was round and it revolved around the sun (at least, we accepted that those explanations are closer to observed phenomena than what came before).
I agree that the author is probably right, but he should stick to the subject and not go off on tangents about related things that piss him off.
Just look at it, he's attacking the fans, Joseph Campbell's work as a whole (unrelated to Star Wars), various other random works of sci-fi, and I don't even know who Stephen Ambrose is but he doesn't seem to have anything to do with Star Wars. The author is just venting spleen in general and happens to have focused on Star Wars.
Don't put robots in hospitals! Don't you know they use old people's medicine for food?!
No, it's "I call the big one Bitey."
My UID is three orders of magnitude less than yours. Any questions?
Take, for example, realistic death. At first, deaths were pretty unrealistic, you pulled the trigger and the enemy fell down and stopped moving. Then there was blood. Then there was persistent blood that stayed on walls. Then there were detailed damage models. Soldier of Fortune had one of the most complex damage models yet; the problem was that that was the only part of the game anyone ever mentioned. It's as is the entire rest of the game had been neglected in favor of having the characters twitch and bleed in different ways depending on where you shot them. The more effort that is put into the realism, the less is put into imaginative gameplay and original content. The more realistic a game is, the more it is similar to all the other realistic games, and eventually they will be indistinguishable.
The pinnacle of realistic death, and the other reason realism should only go so far, was Postal. Your targets wouldn't just die, they would act like real gunshot victims. They might fall to the ground moaning and holding whatever part of them you shot. They might try to slowly and painfully crawl away from you with their last strength, or curl up into a ball while gasping and whimpering, often for several minutes. Only a pyschotic could enjoy that game.
"Fuck" in my native languge of English is "Fuck".
What might be more reasonable is to have every device you mention have a firewire port. The power requirements might be a problem though.
It is possible to configure most games to ignore the vertical synch wait, and swap buffers while the screen is being refreshed. Of course this isn't really a solution because it leads to tearing, where the swaps become visible as horizontal discontinuities on the screen.
Just adding to the information pool...