Not exactly. This provision prohibits individual states from undermining the treaties made by the federal government. It says nothing about the federal courts (and definitely not the Supreme Court) making Constitutional rulings on treaty provisions.
However, not being familiar with the Constitutions of other nations, I can't comment on the assertion that other nations are plagued with the problem of having treaties undermine their sovereignty.
You give too much credit. NWN pretty much bastardized the 3ed D&D rules. Knockdown requires a feat, and you can't bull rush or charge at all, for example. There are no hidden doors, either. (IWD2 didn't do any better, though it was in some ways different.)
I'd like to see this game done with a little more appreciation for the pen and paper rules, although I can't help but think that the real reasons to play D&D - camaraderie with your friends, using your imagination, and actually *gasp!* roleplaying will be, in large part, nowhere to be seen.
Listen to a group of 15 & 16 year olds sometime---or maybe even ask them. Their expectations are usually very high because thats what they see on television or on movies.
Yet, given the opportunity, they will still screw anything that moves.
Exactly! Minsky was recently at our school giving a talk, and when asked about computational intelligence methods (neural networks, etc.) he blew it off as being a black box that nobody could understand.
What he doesn't understand is that intelligence wasn't *designed* - it was *evolved*. It only makes sense that evolutionary principles (and biologically-inspired control systems), rather than design principles, will be useful - if not instrumental - in developing true intelligence.
Either way, though, developing true artificial intelligence is more than a few years off, although small neural networks have already been evolved for selective attention and memory-based tasks (pdf link).
"The idea is it's just like a commercial," Shiels said. "You don't just send it to one address once. You send it to one address five or six times. Do commercials only come on once? You get the same crap in your e-mail more than once. You have to bombard the person."
I only have two words for this: Guards carrying torches.
Re:MythTV...
on
TiVo Basic
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
You forgot one very important detail, and that's the fact that with MythTV, you are actually in control of the device recording TV shows for you.
Currently, for example, I have some John Howe as the menu background on my MythTV box. But that's minor compared to the fact that my box doesn't record programs that advertisers think I want to see.
Ultimately, this ad format will fail, not because it's too intrusive, but because it's too annoying. It's annoying enough that people will find a way to block the ads. Internet advertisers need to find a way to make their ads intrusive without being annoying, and full-screen pop-ups that steal focus are not the answer.
But perhaps "That Honda ad" is an example of how to do it properly. The mere fact that most readers will know what I'm talking about speaks volumes on how successful it was.
"Negative points for using a hotmail email address (possible warez monkey)."
Naaah, couldn't *possibly* be that the applicant put a hotmail address in there because they were afraid that your company was planning on selling their e-mail address to spammers?
I would love to see some references to some reputable scientific studies on this topic - at least, studies that support your opinion. Considering that entire government agencies are filled to the brim with studies that state otherwise, I'd think you have your work cut out for you.
In the article in the Post, a guy from the CDT gives her a pretty positive review. I don't think this is worthy of a Chicken Little-style panic attack.
Article 1.2.5. Personally identifiable information. "Personally identifiable information" means information that identifies: (snip) any of the contents of a consumer's data storage devices.
Article 1.3. Disclosure of personal information required. Provides for when an ISP must disclose personally identifiable information about a consumer: (snip) pursuant to a court order in a civil proceeding on a showing of compelling need that cannot be accommodated by other means;
So does this mean that an ISP, under pretext of obtaining a suspected file sharer's personal information, could also be compelled to provide the contents of that person's hard drives?
Probably not, I know.... but this privacy legislation has a hole large enough to drive the RIAA through. They certainly could have written it better.
This is also one reason why The Sims Online is completely flopping. Sure, you might be able to get the in-game money to build a great house with lots of accessories, but not everyone can have 15 guests at all times. So, all power is concentrated in certain places, driven by reputation which is picked up early in the process.
Latecomers and people who don't play much end up screwed if they had their hearts set on being the social spot of the game.
But there is a big difference between going through the TV Guide and seeing listings for everything that's on, and scrolling down through TiVo's list of TV shows and seeing an entry for a show that TiVo thinks you "might want to watch".
You "might need something to make your dick bigger", or you "might want to work from home and make thousands of dollars licking envelopes", or you "might want to see barely-legal teens in provocative poses". That's all spam, because it shows up in your e-mail inbox under the guise of something you "might want". Obviously, most people don't want any of that, and even though it's just a matter of hitting the trash button on those messages, it's still infuriating to receive them in the first place.
With your TiVo, you have a limited resource (hard drive space) being taken up in significant quantities by each show, and TiVo tells you that you "might want to watch this show" even though there is no real heuristic for determining whether this is the case. And no, if(1){record("show")} does not count as a heuristic.
It's also different from broadcasting, because a broadcast program is shown by the TV station and then "goes away" in a sense. A program recorded to your TiVo stays around until you delete it, which makes it far different from a broadcast program. It's solely a marketing ploy to take advantage of that, and people don't like it when marketers invade their home without permission.
Could you provide more info on the "PR fiasco" you mentioned? I'm just very curious as to whether it had anything to do with the politics of the content of the article itself.
Not all U.S.-published science fiction is centered around America. Babylon 5, for example, was relatively Euro-centric, and pulled a lot of its Earth background from Russia and Israel, among other places.
I don't see this as being simply an American power-grab. The Supreme Court tends to be a little more reserved when it comes to international issues, and this is more than likely a political ploy by this judge in particular (quid pro quo, perhaps?).
It's good to see that many other Congresspeople besides Tauzin are in support of a do-not-call list. Tauzin is a supporter of the concept, but wanted to ensure that the implementation was correct the first time. Considering the horrible mistake that was/is the DMCA*, I think it's admirable that Tauzin wants to ensure that things are done correctly, but I think it would have been a better idea to maintain funding while keeping an eye on the FTC for its implementation.
* When you consider that the DMCA was passed via voice vote in both the House and Senate - indicating that the measure pretty much hadn't attracted the attention of anyone besides committee members and its supporters - anyone who takes an interest in getting YRO-type issues done right the first time has my admiration.
P.S. Rep. Boucher has reintroduced the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA) in the 108th Congress as H.R. 107. Sadly, the text of the bill is not available yet on Thomas....
What is really needed is a new free peer-review system where authors can post peer-reviewed papers on their website complete with a digital signature to verify that their paper has been reviewed and accepted much as it would be for a traditional publication like Nature.
More than anywhere else, information in the scientific community wants to be free. I hope that the scientific community finally takes up the banner of technology developed in the 1990s, and uses that technology to ensure that verified and reviewed information becomes free for all.
Slashdot Mirror
The constitutionality of sobriety checkpoints has been affirmed by the Supreme Court.
Not exactly. This provision prohibits individual states from undermining the treaties made by the federal government. It says nothing about the federal courts (and definitely not the Supreme Court) making Constitutional rulings on treaty provisions.
However, not being familiar with the Constitutions of other nations, I can't comment on the assertion that other nations are plagued with the problem of having treaties undermine their sovereignty.
I can't spare any! I need them for beer consumption.
Neverwinter Nights is 3rd Ed rules for DND
You give too much credit. NWN pretty much bastardized the 3ed D&D rules. Knockdown requires a feat, and you can't bull rush or charge at all, for example. There are no hidden doors, either. (IWD2 didn't do any better, though it was in some ways different.)
I'd like to see this game done with a little more appreciation for the pen and paper rules, although I can't help but think that the real reasons to play D&D - camaraderie with your friends, using your imagination, and actually *gasp!* roleplaying will be, in large part, nowhere to be seen.
Listen to a group of 15 & 16 year olds sometime---or maybe even ask them. Their expectations are usually very high because thats what they see on television or on movies.
Yet, given the opportunity, they will still screw anything that moves.
Exactly! Minsky was recently at our school giving a talk, and when asked about computational intelligence methods (neural networks, etc.) he blew it off as being a black box that nobody could understand.
What he doesn't understand is that intelligence wasn't *designed* - it was *evolved*. It only makes sense that evolutionary principles (and biologically-inspired control systems), rather than design principles, will be useful - if not instrumental - in developing true intelligence.
Either way, though, developing true artificial intelligence is more than a few years off, although small neural networks have already been evolved for selective attention and memory-based tasks (pdf link).
There are two Gamespot articles posted here just today, and neither one was submitted by a reader of this "reader-driven" site.
"The idea is it's just like a commercial," Shiels said. "You don't just send it to one address once. You send it to one address five or six times. Do commercials only come on once? You get the same crap in your e-mail more than once. You have to bombard the person."
And they wonder why they get death threats.
Has Slashdot become a portal to Gamespot game reviews now?
I only have two words for this: Guards carrying torches.
You forgot one very important detail, and that's the fact that with MythTV, you are actually in control of the device recording TV shows for you.
Currently, for example, I have some John Howe as the menu background on my MythTV box. But that's minor compared to the fact that my box doesn't record programs that advertisers think I want to see.
Ultimately, this ad format will fail, not because it's too intrusive, but because it's too annoying. It's annoying enough that people will find a way to block the ads. Internet advertisers need to find a way to make their ads intrusive without being annoying, and full-screen pop-ups that steal focus are not the answer.
But perhaps "That Honda ad" is an example of how to do it properly. The mere fact that most readers will know what I'm talking about speaks volumes on how successful it was.
"Negative points for using a hotmail email address (possible warez monkey)."
Naaah, couldn't *possibly* be that the applicant put a hotmail address in there because they were afraid that your company was planning on selling their e-mail address to spammers?
I would love to see some references to some reputable scientific studies on this topic - at least, studies that support your opinion. Considering that entire government agencies are filled to the brim with studies that state otherwise, I'd think you have your work cut out for you.
...because haxoring those buffer overflow exploits is just too damn hard.
In the article in the Post, a guy from the CDT gives her a pretty positive review. I don't think this is worthy of a Chicken Little-style panic attack.
You left out the cable operators. They'll charge extra for this "feature".
Then, as he said before: Additionally, it will serve two masters (cable operators and networks) rather than one.
Article 1.2.5. Personally identifiable information. "Personally identifiable information" means information that identifies: (snip) any of the contents of a consumer's data storage devices.
Article 1.3. Disclosure of personal information required. Provides for when an ISP must disclose personally identifiable information about a consumer: (snip) pursuant to a court order in a civil proceeding on a showing of compelling need that cannot be accommodated by other means;
So does this mean that an ISP, under pretext of obtaining a suspected file sharer's personal information, could also be compelled to provide the contents of that person's hard drives?
Probably not, I know.... but this privacy legislation has a hole large enough to drive the RIAA through. They certainly could have written it better.
This is also one reason why The Sims Online is completely flopping. Sure, you might be able to get the in-game money to build a great house with lots of accessories, but not everyone can have 15 guests at all times. So, all power is concentrated in certain places, driven by reputation which is picked up early in the process.
Latecomers and people who don't play much end up screwed if they had their hearts set on being the social spot of the game.
But there is a big difference between going through the TV Guide and seeing listings for everything that's on, and scrolling down through TiVo's list of TV shows and seeing an entry for a show that TiVo thinks you "might want to watch".
You "might need something to make your dick bigger", or you "might want to work from home and make thousands of dollars licking envelopes", or you "might want to see barely-legal teens in provocative poses". That's all spam, because it shows up in your e-mail inbox under the guise of something you "might want". Obviously, most people don't want any of that, and even though it's just a matter of hitting the trash button on those messages, it's still infuriating to receive them in the first place.
With your TiVo, you have a limited resource (hard drive space) being taken up in significant quantities by each show, and TiVo tells you that you "might want to watch this show" even though there is no real heuristic for determining whether this is the case. And no, if(1){record("show")} does not count as a heuristic.
It's also different from broadcasting, because a broadcast program is shown by the TV station and then "goes away" in a sense. A program recorded to your TiVo stays around until you delete it, which makes it far different from a broadcast program. It's solely a marketing ploy to take advantage of that, and people don't like it when marketers invade their home without permission.
On a side note: There is another way to watch your TV.
Could you provide more info on the "PR fiasco" you mentioned? I'm just very curious as to whether it had anything to do with the politics of the content of the article itself.
Not all U.S.-published science fiction is centered around America. Babylon 5, for example, was relatively Euro-centric, and pulled a lot of its Earth background from Russia and Israel, among other places.
I don't see this as being simply an American power-grab. The Supreme Court tends to be a little more reserved when it comes to international issues, and this is more than likely a political ploy by this judge in particular (quid pro quo, perhaps?).
It's good to see that many other Congresspeople besides Tauzin are in support of a do-not-call list. Tauzin is a supporter of the concept, but wanted to ensure that the implementation was correct the first time. Considering the horrible mistake that was/is the DMCA*, I think it's admirable that Tauzin wants to ensure that things are done correctly, but I think it would have been a better idea to maintain funding while keeping an eye on the FTC for its implementation.
* When you consider that the DMCA was passed via voice vote in both the House and Senate - indicating that the measure pretty much hadn't attracted the attention of anyone besides committee members and its supporters - anyone who takes an interest in getting YRO-type issues done right the first time has my admiration.
P.S. Rep. Boucher has reintroduced the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA) in the 108th Congress as H.R. 107. Sadly, the text of the bill is not available yet on Thomas....
What is really needed is a new free peer-review system where authors can post peer-reviewed papers on their website complete with a digital signature to verify that their paper has been reviewed and accepted much as it would be for a traditional publication like Nature.
More than anywhere else, information in the scientific community wants to be free. I hope that the scientific community finally takes up the banner of technology developed in the 1990s, and uses that technology to ensure that verified and reviewed information becomes free for all.
...to investigate it now and block it if it doesn't pass muster?