Hmmn. Let me just be clear here - I'm not one of those libertarian, freedom-at-all-costs types. In fact, having read TFA, the associated comments and checking out the pictures, I'd have to agree that calling in a security team is the sensible thing to do for anyone who doesn't know about electronics. It really does look like the sort of bomb you would see in movies - not what a bomb would actually look like, but it's what the public have been programmed to think a bomb looks like. And I regularly build electronics and realise that an actual bomb would be significantly better designed and concealed - but if you're Joe or Jane Bloggs behind the check-in desk, and someone comes up to you wearing something with wires sticking out of it on their chest, then the most sensible thing is to find out what it is or call in a bit of back-up from your friendly neighborhood security guys.
However. A couple of minor facts from TFA that seem to have been overlooked. First, she was apparently not trying to board a plane - she was there to pick someone else up and seems to have been asking about the plane's arrival time. Second, the putty doesn't appear to have been a convenient, bomb-like block of the 'stick in some detonators' type you'd see in film, but rather some kind of paint residue (if I'm interpreting the between the lines stuff correctly). Third, and this is directed more at the general crowd than in direct response to the above discussion, she had apparently been wearing it around for weeks - not as a specific attempt to lampoon airport security.
And just a personal foible but - "stupid girl"? "dumb-ass girl"? Now, I'm as likely to exaggerate as the next 70 million people, but I think it's already been established that she's rather intelligent. I'd give you 'absent minded' or even 'head in the clouds academic' but stupid? Nah.
Finally, while I agree that security should have been called in the first place, I don't agree that she should have been charged when they discovered it was not a bomb. And the fact that it's a 'hoax device' charge when to all appearances she didn't try to claim it was a bomb seems a bit erroneous. My point is - the initial reaction wasn't an over-reaction but the follow-up is definitely going too far.
To the degree that the spin-off applications are valuable, the spin-off applications themselves will drive the development of the technologies, which can then (in a few decades) be used to conduct the physics experiments at a much lower cost. If the potential spin-offs don't justify investment in the technologies, then your justification that these are economically valuable is bogus.
Hmmn. I take your point. I really do. But I have to stress my earlier point - the spin-offs will never be started without the initial driving project. Sure, once the spin-offs have been spun off they'll take on their own economic/technological momentum, but you need the initial boost. It's also a big 'if' at the end there. Does the sum of the outcomes/advantages of such a project justify investment? Let me just state up front that, my feeling is that it does. It's not just whether you get back the capital investment. You've got material gains in the form of industry and spin-offs. You've got the (much underestimated) continuation of scientific endeavour in the form of scientists who work on projects they find stimulating - who teach other younger scientists, who teach other etc... and so on, continuing the tradition of training people to think in a scientific method. You've got the gains in knowledge already mentioned. And so much more - not all of it judgeable in terms of economic costing. You put money in, you get research and overflow into the economy and prosperity in the local area and international recognition in a field of research and knowledge, out.
Strange as that may be for you to believe, but people don't just collaborate internationally on big physics projects, and useful spin-off technology doesn't just come from big physics projects (and I suspect that dollar-for-dollar, large scale physics projects are one of the least productive projects when it comes to valuable spin-offs).
Oh, I do believe that people collaborate internationally on other projects of varying types. And believe me, I'm well aware that large physics projects do not spin out as many companies/technologies as they could. But how many small research projects have to be funded so that you get one decent spin-off? A hundred? A thousand? There's also the fact that large scale projects such as this one are essentially sub-divided into smaller research blocks, each of which concentrates on a separate (potentially spin-off-able) area with the added bonus that, at the end, you get a gravitational wave detector. I understand that there are other ways of funding research, and other things to be researched, and I understand that smaller research groups need funding too - indeed, it would be a callamity of massive proportions if all funding went on large projects, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't fund the large ones.
I guess according to you, the the millions of researchers in the world that make do with small budgets just aren't doing real research; it's only when you have figured out how to milk the taxpayers out of a few billion dollars for a single experiment that you graduate to real research, right?
Pardon? At which point did I say anything that even remotely sounds like that? I said that doing big projects is what research is all about. Research should be big! Even the smaller projects shold be funded properly. It should be grand and it should be well funded. All of it. And just because a project is small doesn't mean it will never become big. It's where the GW detectors started out - in a small lab. I don't know any researcher who, given the chance, wouldn't like to take their project to its ultimate conclusion. In the case of gravitational wave detection (which is essentially astronomy, or at the very least experimental 'telescope' design/research) this requires a large footprint installation and ultrasensitive equipment run by experts. Any idea how much a telescope costs? Quite a lot I believe. And I know many peopl
But we do invest in these areas. How do you think you get a gravitational wave detector in the first place? They don't build themselves you know. And aside from this, you need to have reasons to investigate (and therefore invest) in these technologies - this is an example of a large scale project which has the potential for practical and tangible gains in (as I posted before) laser technologies, control systems, material science and computational anaylsis. These are tangible scientific results in their own right with several industrial applications and assorted spin-off tech companies.
As to how many billions of dollars it takes - quite a lot. But the practical outcomes I've listed are what you get. Along with international co-operation - many countries working together for a common goal.
And another thing. It's gravitational wave detection. Not gravity wave detection, which is something completely different.
Large scale experiments are what research is all about. There comes a point in research where a table-top experiment just won't do.
Technically, you're correct. If the distortion of space-time 'compresses' one arm of the interferometer and 'extends' the other in a step (or constant offset), the amount of time taken for the light to traverse the arms and recombine at the beamsplitter wouldn't change and no phase difference would be detected between the returning beams.
However, gravitational waves are not stepwise events and have a frequency. This means that if the beams are split and traverse the arms the 'compression/extension' experienced by the beam on the way out will have changed by the time the beam returns such that the frame of reference is different for the outgoing and incoming beam in each arm. In essence, the instruments detect 'changes' in space-time but are unable to measure static states.
The schematic you mentioned from the article has additional mirrors [e + f]. 'f' is the signal recycling mirror which allows the instrument to by optically 'tuned' to the frequency of optimal detection (i.e. the frequency of your expected gravitational wave event). That's not to say that by choosing one frequency you're ignoring all the others - it just means the device is more sensitive at one chosen frequency.
OK. I wasn't going to get involved in this thread, but I really have to jump on that one.
It's not just about confirming Einstein's theory of general relativity. Or, in fact any of the other relativistic gravitational theories - most (if not all - been a while since I checked on the basic theory and they might have come up with some new ones) of which require the existence of gravitational waves. It's not simply a case of checking that the theory is correct - there are indirect measurements which have already done this, it's about directly detecting something we're sure is there. Don't get me wrong; in part, you're correct - if the outcome is negative, then we can set an upper limit (i.e. the waves must be of lower magnitude than X at frequency Y). This in itself allows corroboration with cosmological models and provides a valuable experimental check against predictions of numerical relativity such as the strain effect on space due to the merger of black holes.
But when a positive detection is made it will provide confirmation/empirical data on the processes involved in such violent astronomical phenomena. What are the physical processes involved in the inspiral of a binary system? Do pulsars with asymmetrical mass distribution really lose energy as gravitational waves? We know about the cosmic microwave background, what about the gravitational wave stochastic background?
It's not just a case of "There's a peak on the trace! Well, that's our job done! Who's for tea and biscuits?" The potential gains in knowledge of astronomy, astrophysics and even particle physics are vast. Not to mention the gains in laser technologies, control systems, material science and computational analysis that such a project brings. Just by designing and building these instruments we push the boundaries of what's known. Of course there will still be tea and biscuits (well, maybe beer and doughnuts) but that's half the fun right there.
Totally agree! I'd much rather shell out some pocket change for a floppy drive (hell, even a USB one would do) and a box of disks than shell out several grand on new lab equipment.
Thank you! Saved me the bother of posting. Except now I've posted anyway... hmmn, nevermind. We've got loads of the buggers. Just about every bit of lab equipment that you can take data from has a floppy drive.
Newer ones (past year or two) have network interfaces (and proprietary software that you've got to shell out for too) and I've even seen ones that have USB/flash memory output, but the floppies are still around!
Yup. But again, you'll never completely prevent it all. There's always a small (or not so small?) core of habitual criminals who will break the law anyway. Even, or perhaps especially in the kind of digital police-state we've envisioned here.
Yeah. Fair point but it's not quite the same. The music industry people aren't actually making the laws. Attempting to influence, but there are those in power preventing a free hand.
You'll never stop it all but if you make the consequences unpleasant enough then many people will stop doing things. Just in case.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but controlling the flow of info really can be just a matter of locking up anyone who does anything with information you don't want them to do.
Stop internet gambling? Perhaps not stop it, but by closing down internet cafes that allow it (or have been found to be lax in stopping it) and by tracking down anyone gambling online from home and prosecuting them to the full extent of the law (chains, manacles and the like - not to mention unmentionables), you could seriously curtail the widespread use of internet gambling. All one needs to do is sacrifice a few civil liberties and you're half way there.
It's only overclocking if you get a higher effective clock speed out of it. If you were to run a chip with x10 multiplier and 133MHz FSB (1330MHz effective) then down the multiplier to x5 and up the FSB to 266MHz (also 1330MHz effective) then is it really overclocking?
Your memory etc would probably have better performance with the higher FSB but the chip speed would be the same. More of a system-tweaking than an overclocking.
Granted, these numbers are a smidge unlikely but I'm sure there are more realistic (and harder to calculate in my head) numbers that work too.
And yet you ARE posting a comment about it. You don't think much of it and you felt compelled to post anyway? Obviously you did consider it newsworthy or you'd have ignored it.
Me? I think it's a cool little widget. Let it have its day in the techie news cycle. Where's the harm?
OK. Intelligent discussion it is. As long as you don't mind a bit of humour thrown in for good measure...
I'd say that I only agree with you about the dangers of games up to a point. And it's not a distant point either.
I think the key lies in "If you don't have other patterns established in your psychology to overcome these antisocial patterns, games like this WILL train you to associate criminally antisocial behavior with pleasure."
Yes. Completely true. That's why games have ratings so they shouldn't be played by those unable to differentiate between game and reality. Or in fact between right and wrong. Like many people posting here, I've spent long hours playing computer games. And I've experienced the urge to continue game thinking after the soothing glow of the cathode ray tube has ceased. But in real life you do not kill people. It is wrong. Most children learn at an early age what is right and wrong - if someone doesn't know that killing someone in a game and killing someone in real life are different, and that the latter is clearly not good then something worse has happened to that person than simply playing a computer game.
Game thinking includes the urge to fight back against someone attacking you, the urge to drive fast in order to beat the car beside you to the next intersection and even working out the best way to stack those bricks in the builders yard so that when you drop that long girder down lengthwise you'll get more points. These all require situations occurring while you're still thinking about the game. From personal experience, I've found that sufficient doses of real life (say 15->20 minutes and a nice cup of tea and maybe a chat with friends) will knock most of those urges right out of you. Hell, even just leaving the house and interacting with other people will reaffirm the social values we've all grown up with.
The problem that all these "games caused me to kill" cases have is that they all involve premeditation. The kids who get their parents gun and take it to school and kill their classmates. That's not games causing them to kill. It's not a quick urge to continue game thinking in the real world if a similar situation crops up. It's creating the situation that allows you to kill and then doing so. I'm not saying it's all the parents fault for letting their kids grow up with a squeaky wheel on the shopping trolley of life and death but if the shoe fits (and it often does) then someone should have gotten the WD-40 out a few years ago.
I'll leave this rant with one last thought: this sort of lawsuit happens when an event occurs that is similar to something that happenned in a computer game, but cops were killed before computer games were played, and TV was blamed for violence - so do the games take their inspiration from real life? Games as the effect and not the cause.
Hmmn. While I agree to a certain extent, it's more a question of where to lay the blame rather than suing everyone you can. For example:
> And what if all the moving steel parts are suddenly moving outside the > machine, where your arm used to be, because your skinflint boss didn't > want to shell out for maintenence?
Yes. Your boss would be liable. Ethically and probably (depending on the judge etc...) legally. Whereas:
> I mean, how far do you want to go with this? If somebody drops a piano > through your roof because of lax safety practices, is it your fault > for building your house there? If a poorly-designed pool drain > eviscerates your 9-year-old daughter, is it her fault for having weak > abdominal tissues? If someone shoots you in the face with a gun to > take your money, is it your fault for not being Superman?
OK. Going a bit extreme here aren't we but the point still stands. The piano - I'd be thinking it depends on the reason you've got a piano dangling over your roof but the person doing the dropping is probably to blame. The carnage of the youngster in the pool (sounds like an Agatha Christie novel) - either your fault for installing a drain that is clearly unsuitable for family use or allowing the child to play near dangerous machinery or even the person who installed the drain but it depends on circumstances. If you're shot in the face then I'd be very surprised that you could sue anyone but if your family was so inclined then they could probably take solace in the fact that the murderer will be jailed for a very long time. They could not ethically sue the gun manufacturer. Or the police for not stopping the crime. Or video games for training the mugger to commit such premeditated crimes.
The MD coffee - they knew the problem and did nothing to solve it? Then yeah, sue them. But not the makers of the cup the coffee was sitting in at the time it was spilled.
The point of the previous posters seemed to be that it usually IS the 'victim' to blame in these trite lawsuits. Not always. There are unfortunate people that legitimately get harmed by things that should not have been capable of harm. These are the people the legal system is meant to protect. Not to claim damages for the misfortune caused by something that's your own fault. The trick is being able to tell the difference.
From my own standpoint, I'll always remember a seminar on basic research practice I went to where the speaker warned against making comparisons that show correlations without taking account of additional factors. Such as the fact that neat handwriting is well correlated with shoe size - children have smaller feet and handwriting improves with practice/age. And more churches in an area correlates with more crime - both increase with population size, big cities, etc.
Just another lesson that you can prove anything with statistics.
"Sorry but you're displaying your arrogance. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is ethical. I could give you plenty of examples, but I'll leave it up to people's imagination."
The parent post didn't say anything about ethics. Just legality. Ease down there sparky.
"What sort of a dim-witted comparison is that? Gambling devastates many people's lives. That makes people who push their gambling 'services' onto us 'shady'. Having a cup of coffee has nothing to do with it."
No. Bad poster. Bad. It's the rolled up newspaper for you! The fact that gambling has devastated peoples lives doesn't make it 'shady'. Consuming coffee is not shady and that can be addictive too. I see a link there. Neither one of them is 'shady'. Shady would be tricking someone into gambling or forcing those who are underage to gamble.
"I don't think so. People running gambling sites are far more likely to be dodgy than those in a physical establishment. It's far easier to police a 'real' gambling business than a virtual one, especially since a virtual one can hide it's location and reside in a place that has no regulation."
At last! Something I agree with! Online betting is much harder to police than the regular high street kind. Doesn't make the local betting shop a hive of scum and wossname though. None of this tarred by the same brush nonsense. The thing that's always put me off about the local bookies has generally been the drunks and persistent smell of wee. Not the most glowing recommendation, I'll admit. But the gambling itself isn't amoral.
Aaaand then we have the lists of evil legal things:
Selling cigarettes - there are laws to prevent sale to minors - ie those unable to make informed choice. Therefore, not legal if evil. Selling alcohol - also laws. Plus Jesus drank wine - if he could, so can I. Evil be damned (by definition). Not legal if evil. Selling weapons - Once again there are laws which prevent you selling without permits and things. And if you were talking about international arms sale then even more laws exist. Not legal if evil. Monopolies - Not sure about this one. Possibly depends on country but there are various prohibitions on monopolies. I wouldn't class it as evil though. Dastardly maybe. Diminishing the free choice of free people, yes. But evil?
Selling things which are not all that good for the public is not evil. The public IS capable of making an informed choice in such matters (even if they often choose not to follow the safest course of action) and there are laws to prevent those incapable of making an informed choice from partaking of the various 'evils' you mentioned.
Legality of drugs, non-voting and resistance? I can't really comment. Or I'm getting bored with this rant...
I agree with your last word though. Don't really care one way or the other. Wouldn't normally have bothered replying to your soapbox bashing either if it hadn't been so... random. Yeah, random.
...you realise the original post didn't specify the moons of Jupiter, right? ALL the moons means ALL the moons, yeah? Like, every one of them? Anywhere? I'd stick to assuming it just means all the moons in our solar system if it was me, but y'know, each to his own.
Looks like I'll just have to accept the fact that I'm not as generous as I thought I was. I salute your altruistic tendencies! If there was more free internet the world would be a better (if slightly more scary) place.
Oh hell yes! Once (after a lengthy session of extra style bonus carnage) I went out with some mates. I wasn't driving. I was in the front passenger seat - but here in the UK the perspective is the same as that in the drivers seat in the US...
The urge to run down pedestrians while we were stopped at the traffic lights and they weren't expecting it was quite strong. Quite glad I wasn't the one driving really. Though the combo bonus would have been impressive. And Carmageddon wasn't anywhere near life-like, just think of what you'd feel the urge to do with more realistic graphics.
Of course I've played puzzle games and good old fashioned 2D shooters that stay with you too (on the insides of your eyelids) so it's not just the first person perspective that causes problems. Not to the extent of driving over helpless innocents but you know what I mean.
Don't game and drive. Friends don't let friends pick up the controller.
Well, you're more generous than I am. You're paying for that bandwidth. Anyone using your connection without your prior approval is stealing from you.
Very public spirited, but I can't help thinking that you'd feel differently if you were being charged per GB. Just better hope that they're all using the connection for legitimate purposes - otherwise the next knock on the door will be the police about that you know what you've been ordering from you know where and we've got the download records to prove it.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmn. Let me just be clear here - I'm not one of those libertarian, freedom-at-all-costs types. In fact, having read TFA, the associated comments and checking out the pictures, I'd have to agree that calling in a security team is the sensible thing to do for anyone who doesn't know about electronics. It really does look like the sort of bomb you would see in movies - not what a bomb would actually look like, but it's what the public have been programmed to think a bomb looks like. And I regularly build electronics and realise that an actual bomb would be significantly better designed and concealed - but if you're Joe or Jane Bloggs behind the check-in desk, and someone comes up to you wearing something with wires sticking out of it on their chest, then the most sensible thing is to find out what it is or call in a bit of back-up from your friendly neighborhood security guys.
However. A couple of minor facts from TFA that seem to have been overlooked. First, she was apparently not trying to board a plane - she was there to pick someone else up and seems to have been asking about the plane's arrival time. Second, the putty doesn't appear to have been a convenient, bomb-like block of the 'stick in some detonators' type you'd see in film, but rather some kind of paint residue (if I'm interpreting the between the lines stuff correctly). Third, and this is directed more at the general crowd than in direct response to the above discussion, she had apparently been wearing it around for weeks - not as a specific attempt to lampoon airport security.
And just a personal foible but - "stupid girl"? "dumb-ass girl"? Now, I'm as likely to exaggerate as the next 70 million people, but I think it's already been established that she's rather intelligent. I'd give you 'absent minded' or even 'head in the clouds academic' but stupid? Nah.
Finally, while I agree that security should have been called in the first place, I don't agree that she should have been charged when they discovered it was not a bomb. And the fact that it's a 'hoax device' charge when to all appearances she didn't try to claim it was a bomb seems a bit erroneous. My point is - the initial reaction wasn't an over-reaction but the follow-up is definitely going too far.
Hmmn. I take your point. I really do. But I have to stress my earlier point - the spin-offs will never be started without the initial driving project. Sure, once the spin-offs have been spun off they'll take on their own economic/technological momentum, but you need the initial boost. It's also a big 'if' at the end there. Does the sum of the outcomes/advantages of such a project justify investment? Let me just state up front that, my feeling is that it does. It's not just whether you get back the capital investment. You've got material gains in the form of industry and spin-offs. You've got the (much underestimated) continuation of scientific endeavour in the form of scientists who work on projects they find stimulating - who teach other younger scientists, who teach other etc... and so on, continuing the tradition of training people to think in a scientific method. You've got the gains in knowledge already mentioned. And so much more - not all of it judgeable in terms of economic costing. You put money in, you get research and overflow into the economy and prosperity in the local area and international recognition in a field of research and knowledge, out.
Oh, I do believe that people collaborate internationally on other projects of varying types. And believe me, I'm well aware that large physics projects do not spin out as many companies/technologies as they could. But how many small research projects have to be funded so that you get one decent spin-off? A hundred? A thousand? There's also the fact that large scale projects such as this one are essentially sub-divided into smaller research blocks, each of which concentrates on a separate (potentially spin-off-able) area with the added bonus that, at the end, you get a gravitational wave detector. I understand that there are other ways of funding research, and other things to be researched, and I understand that smaller research groups need funding too - indeed, it would be a callamity of massive proportions if all funding went on large projects, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't fund the large ones.
Pardon? At which point did I say anything that even remotely sounds like that? I said that doing big projects is what research is all about. Research should be big! Even the smaller projects shold be funded properly. It should be grand and it should be well funded. All of it. And just because a project is small doesn't mean it will never become big. It's where the GW detectors started out - in a small lab. I don't know any researcher who, given the chance, wouldn't like to take their project to its ultimate conclusion. In the case of gravitational wave detection (which is essentially astronomy, or at the very least experimental 'telescope' design/research) this requires a large footprint installation and ultrasensitive equipment run by experts. Any idea how much a telescope costs? Quite a lot I believe. And I know many peopl
But we do invest in these areas. How do you think you get a gravitational wave detector in the first place? They don't build themselves you know. And aside from this, you need to have reasons to investigate (and therefore invest) in these technologies - this is an example of a large scale project which has the potential for practical and tangible gains in (as I posted before) laser technologies, control systems, material science and computational anaylsis. These are tangible scientific results in their own right with several industrial applications and assorted spin-off tech companies.
As to how many billions of dollars it takes - quite a lot. But the practical outcomes I've listed are what you get. Along with international co-operation - many countries working together for a common goal.
And another thing. It's gravitational wave detection. Not gravity wave detection, which is something completely different.
Large scale experiments are what research is all about. There comes a point in research where a table-top experiment just won't do.
Technically, you're correct. If the distortion of space-time 'compresses' one arm of the interferometer and 'extends' the other in a step (or constant offset), the amount of time taken for the light to traverse the arms and recombine at the beamsplitter wouldn't change and no phase difference would be detected between the returning beams.
However, gravitational waves are not stepwise events and have a frequency. This means that if the beams are split and traverse the arms the 'compression/extension' experienced by the beam on the way out will have changed by the time the beam returns such that the frame of reference is different for the outgoing and incoming beam in each arm. In essence, the instruments detect 'changes' in space-time but are unable to measure static states.
The schematic you mentioned from the article has additional mirrors [e + f]. 'f' is the signal recycling mirror which allows the instrument to by optically 'tuned' to the frequency of optimal detection (i.e. the frequency of your expected gravitational wave event). That's not to say that by choosing one frequency you're ignoring all the others - it just means the device is more sensitive at one chosen frequency.
OK. I wasn't going to get involved in this thread, but I really have to jump on that one.
It's not just about confirming Einstein's theory of general relativity. Or, in fact any of the other relativistic gravitational theories - most (if not all - been a while since I checked on the basic theory and they might have come up with some new ones) of which require the existence of gravitational waves. It's not simply a case of checking that the theory is correct - there are indirect measurements which have already done this, it's about directly detecting something we're sure is there. Don't get me wrong; in part, you're correct - if the outcome is negative, then we can set an upper limit (i.e. the waves must be of lower magnitude than X at frequency Y). This in itself allows corroboration with cosmological models and provides a valuable experimental check against predictions of numerical relativity such as the strain effect on space due to the merger of black holes.
But when a positive detection is made it will provide confirmation/empirical data on the processes involved in such violent astronomical phenomena. What are the physical processes involved in the inspiral of a binary system? Do pulsars with asymmetrical mass distribution really lose energy as gravitational waves? We know about the cosmic microwave background, what about the gravitational wave stochastic background?
It's not just a case of "There's a peak on the trace! Well, that's our job done! Who's for tea and biscuits?" The potential gains in knowledge of astronomy, astrophysics and even particle physics are vast. Not to mention the gains in laser technologies, control systems, material science and computational analysis that such a project brings. Just by designing and building these instruments we push the boundaries of what's known. Of course there will still be tea and biscuits (well, maybe beer and doughnuts) but that's half the fun right there.
OK. Rant over. Everyone back on your heads.
Damn. Someone mod this anonymous coward up. A whole list of references to the correct usage instead of argumentative personal opinions.
Good job li'l anonymous guy. Good job!
Hey, check it out here, six beautiful devices. They know what you like and they'll do it to within a tolerance of one micron!
Totally agree! I'd much rather shell out some pocket change for a floppy drive (hell, even a USB one would do) and a box of disks than shell out several grand on new lab equipment.
Thank you! Saved me the bother of posting. Except now I've posted anyway... hmmn, nevermind. We've got loads of the buggers. Just about every bit of lab equipment that you can take data from has a floppy drive.
Newer ones (past year or two) have network interfaces (and proprietary software that you've got to shell out for too) and I've even seen ones that have USB/flash memory output, but the floppies are still around!
Yup. But again, you'll never completely prevent it all. There's always a small (or not so small?) core of habitual criminals who will break the law anyway. Even, or perhaps especially in the kind of digital police-state we've envisioned here.
Yeah. Fair point but it's not quite the same. The music industry people aren't actually making the laws. Attempting to influence, but there are those in power preventing a free hand.
You'll never stop it all but if you make the consequences unpleasant enough then many people will stop doing things. Just in case.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but controlling the flow of info really can be just a matter of locking up anyone who does anything with information you don't want them to do.
Stop internet gambling? Perhaps not stop it, but by closing down internet cafes that allow it (or have been found to be lax in stopping it) and by tracking down anyone gambling online from home and prosecuting them to the full extent of the law (chains, manacles and the like - not to mention unmentionables), you could seriously curtail the widespread use of internet gambling. All one needs to do is sacrifice a few civil liberties and you're half way there.
CowboyNeal?
Hey, this is Slashdot after all. Wait, this isn't the poll!
It's only overclocking if you get a higher effective clock speed out of it. If you were to run a chip with x10 multiplier and 133MHz FSB (1330MHz effective) then down the multiplier to x5 and up the FSB to 266MHz (also 1330MHz effective) then is it really overclocking?
Your memory etc would probably have better performance with the higher FSB but the chip speed would be the same. More of a system-tweaking than an overclocking.
Granted, these numbers are a smidge unlikely but I'm sure there are more realistic (and harder to calculate in my head) numbers that work too.
Silly? Yes. Fun? Yes. Slightly pointless? Yes.
And yet you ARE posting a comment about it. You don't think much of it and you felt compelled to post anyway? Obviously you did consider it newsworthy or you'd have ignored it.
Me? I think it's a cool little widget. Let it have its day in the techie news cycle. Where's the harm?
OK. Intelligent discussion it is. As long as you don't mind a bit of humour thrown in for good measure...
I'd say that I only agree with you about the dangers of games up to a point. And it's not a distant point either.
I think the key lies in "If you don't have other patterns established in your psychology to overcome these antisocial patterns, games like this WILL train you to associate criminally antisocial behavior with pleasure."
Yes. Completely true. That's why games have ratings so they shouldn't be played by those unable to differentiate between game and reality. Or in fact between right and wrong. Like many people posting here, I've spent long hours playing computer games. And I've experienced the urge to continue game thinking after the soothing glow of the cathode ray tube has ceased. But in real life you do not kill people. It is wrong. Most children learn at an early age what is right and wrong - if someone doesn't know that killing someone in a game and killing someone in real life are different, and that the latter is clearly not good then something worse has happened to that person than simply playing a computer game.
Game thinking includes the urge to fight back against someone attacking you, the urge to drive fast in order to beat the car beside you to the next intersection and even working out the best way to stack those bricks in the builders yard so that when you drop that long girder down lengthwise you'll get more points. These all require situations occurring while you're still thinking about the game. From personal experience, I've found that sufficient doses of real life (say 15->20 minutes and a nice cup of tea and maybe a chat with friends) will knock most of those urges right out of you. Hell, even just leaving the house and interacting with other people will reaffirm the social values we've all grown up with.
The problem that all these "games caused me to kill" cases have is that they all involve premeditation. The kids who get their parents gun and take it to school and kill their classmates. That's not games causing them to kill. It's not a quick urge to continue game thinking in the real world if a similar situation crops up. It's creating the situation that allows you to kill and then doing so. I'm not saying it's all the parents fault for letting their kids grow up with a squeaky wheel on the shopping trolley of life and death but if the shoe fits (and it often does) then someone should have gotten the WD-40 out a few years ago.
I'll leave this rant with one last thought: this sort of lawsuit happens when an event occurs that is similar to something that happenned in a computer game, but cops were killed before computer games were played, and TV was blamed for violence - so do the games take their inspiration from real life? Games as the effect and not the cause.
Hmmn. While I agree to a certain extent, it's more a question of where to lay the blame rather than suing everyone you can. For example:
> And what if all the moving steel parts are suddenly moving outside the
> machine, where your arm used to be, because your skinflint boss didn't
> want to shell out for maintenence?
Yes. Your boss would be liable. Ethically and probably (depending on the judge etc...) legally. Whereas:
> I mean, how far do you want to go with this? If somebody drops a piano
> through your roof because of lax safety practices, is it your fault
> for building your house there? If a poorly-designed pool drain
> eviscerates your 9-year-old daughter, is it her fault for having weak
> abdominal tissues? If someone shoots you in the face with a gun to
> take your money, is it your fault for not being Superman?
OK. Going a bit extreme here aren't we but the point still stands. The piano - I'd be thinking it depends on the reason you've got a piano dangling over your roof but the person doing the dropping is probably to blame. The carnage of the youngster in the pool (sounds like an Agatha Christie novel) - either your fault for installing a drain that is clearly unsuitable for family use or allowing the child to play near dangerous machinery or even the person who installed the drain but it depends on circumstances. If you're shot in the face then I'd be very surprised that you could sue anyone but if your family was so inclined then they could probably take solace in the fact that the murderer will be jailed for a very long time. They could not ethically sue the gun manufacturer. Or the police for not stopping the crime. Or video games for training the mugger to commit such premeditated crimes.
The MD coffee - they knew the problem and did nothing to solve it? Then yeah, sue them. But not the makers of the cup the coffee was sitting in at the time it was spilled.
The point of the previous posters seemed to be that it usually IS the 'victim' to blame in these trite lawsuits. Not always. There are unfortunate people that legitimately get harmed by things that should not have been capable of harm. These are the people the legal system is meant to protect. Not to claim damages for the misfortune caused by something that's your own fault. The trick is being able to tell the difference.
Hah! Nicely spotted! They've changed it now though. Right between me noticing the link on the front page and clicking through to the story.
Never mind. At least someone believes you. ^_^
Interesting link.
From my own standpoint, I'll always remember a seminar on basic research practice I went to where the speaker warned against making comparisons that show correlations without taking account of additional factors. Such as the fact that neat handwriting is well correlated with shoe size - children have smaller feet and handwriting improves with practice/age. And more churches in an area correlates with more crime - both increase with population size, big cities, etc.
Just another lesson that you can prove anything with statistics.
"Sorry but you're displaying your arrogance. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is ethical. I could give you plenty of examples, but I'll leave it up to people's imagination."
The parent post didn't say anything about ethics. Just legality. Ease down there sparky.
"What sort of a dim-witted comparison is that? Gambling devastates many people's lives. That makes people who push their gambling 'services' onto us 'shady'. Having a cup of coffee has nothing to do with it."
No. Bad poster. Bad. It's the rolled up newspaper for you! The fact that gambling has devastated peoples lives doesn't make it 'shady'. Consuming coffee is not shady and that can be addictive too. I see a link there. Neither one of them is 'shady'. Shady would be tricking someone into gambling or forcing those who are underage to gamble.
"I don't think so. People running gambling sites are far more likely to be dodgy than those in a physical establishment. It's far easier to police a 'real' gambling business than a virtual one, especially since a virtual one can hide it's location and reside in a place that has no regulation."
At last! Something I agree with! Online betting is much harder to police than the regular high street kind. Doesn't make the local betting shop a hive of scum and wossname though. None of this tarred by the same brush nonsense. The thing that's always put me off about the local bookies has generally been the drunks and persistent smell of wee. Not the most glowing recommendation, I'll admit. But the gambling itself isn't amoral.
Aaaand then we have the lists of evil legal things:
Selling cigarettes - there are laws to prevent sale to minors - ie those unable to make informed choice. Therefore, not legal if evil.
Selling alcohol - also laws. Plus Jesus drank wine - if he could, so can I. Evil be damned (by definition). Not legal if evil.
Selling weapons - Once again there are laws which prevent you selling without permits and things. And if you were talking about international arms sale then even more laws exist. Not legal if evil.
Monopolies - Not sure about this one. Possibly depends on country but there are various prohibitions on monopolies. I wouldn't class it as evil though. Dastardly maybe. Diminishing the free choice of free people, yes. But evil?
Selling things which are not all that good for the public is not evil. The public IS capable of making an informed choice in such matters (even if they often choose not to follow the safest course of action) and there are laws to prevent those incapable of making an informed choice from partaking of the various 'evils' you mentioned.
Legality of drugs, non-voting and resistance? I can't really comment. Or I'm getting bored with this rant...
I agree with your last word though. Don't really care one way or the other. Wouldn't normally have bothered replying to your soapbox bashing either if it hadn't been so... random. Yeah, random.
...you realise the original post didn't specify the moons of Jupiter, right? ALL the moons means ALL the moons, yeah? Like, every one of them? Anywhere? I'd stick to assuming it just means all the moons in our solar system if it was me, but y'know, each to his own.
Ah. Fair enough.
Looks like I'll just have to accept the fact that I'm not as generous as I thought I was. I salute your altruistic tendencies! If there was more free internet the world would be a better (if slightly more scary) place.
Yup.
But just be relieved there's no jelly suspension and pinball mode either.
Oh hell yes! Once (after a lengthy session of extra style bonus carnage) I went out with some mates. I wasn't driving. I was in the front passenger seat - but here in the UK the perspective is the same as that in the drivers seat in the US...
The urge to run down pedestrians while we were stopped at the traffic lights and they weren't expecting it was quite strong. Quite glad I wasn't the one driving really. Though the combo bonus would have been impressive. And Carmageddon wasn't anywhere near life-like, just think of what you'd feel the urge to do with more realistic graphics.
Of course I've played puzzle games and good old fashioned 2D shooters that stay with you too (on the insides of your eyelids) so it's not just the first person perspective that causes problems. Not to the extent of driving over helpless innocents but you know what I mean.
Don't game and drive. Friends don't let friends pick up the controller.
Well, you're more generous than I am. You're paying for that bandwidth. Anyone using your connection without your prior approval is stealing from you.
Very public spirited, but I can't help thinking that you'd feel differently if you were being charged per GB. Just better hope that they're all using the connection for legitimate purposes - otherwise the next knock on the door will be the police about that you know what you've been ordering from you know where and we've got the download records to prove it.