However, its is worth noting that it has never been proven that any member of DoD profited financially from their activities. Indeed, at the trial of other DoD members in the UK in May 2005, Bruce Houlder QC, prosecuting, said he acknowledged that the defendants were not involved in the software piracy scene to make money but rather they saw themselves as latter-day Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
For many in the warez scene and beyond, this is how DoD will be remembered. Yes, I know this doesn't absolve them of their sins... well, I could envision someone making a reasonable argument about how the world isn't on a level playing field and these guys were helping to level things for those that couldn't afford to be recognized... but I digress. I just thought it was worth recognizing that there is something to be said about these characters that isn't completely negative.
I had wondered what should be done about this when I first happened across the article on Digg and I honestly believed that that it would make sense for Google to censor sensitive regions of the world. They could do what they did for the D.C. area and beige-out some of the imagery to protect sensitive images of the country. But then the big ugly can of worms is opened as to what's sensitive to who, etc.
And honestly, all this image censorship seems like a waste of time, because this kind of information could be discovered in such a large number of ways. Imagine just floating a balloon in the air with a camera atached and some GPS equipment? I guess the US could shoot every flying object out of the sky and then censor Google, but it's probably a lame solution... it's analogous (in my mind) to application security through obscurity.
I'd imagine the betters solution for the US is to 1) place their own tents over vulnerable points (if they like the security through obscurity solution) and to 2) cut back on those points of vulnerability. What the heck did we do during the cold war -- satellite weren't only a US technology....
Ultimately, the question in this scenario goes far beyond the immediate problem posed here (cell phones being used as bugs), but lends itself to the more interesting question about why privacy should be held as one of the most important things in our society. I am of the persuasion that the following quote from The United States constitution should stand as one of the most important parts of our society -- and if you're not from the United States, than imagine that I'm suggesting you include this in your Government's constitution/body of laws if it is not already there...
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
This has always stood as one of those easily reinterpreted components of the constitution -- just look at the way the US Supreme Court enjoys reinterpreting it. And, to some degree, I do see why this should be interpreted in a somewhat fluid way. There are terrorists/freedom fighters out there, and governments should be capable of protecting their citizens-- that is what they're ultimately designed to do.
However, the egregious trampling of our right to privacy, as outlined in the US constitution, starts moving us very quickly in the direction of fascism. And people tend to use the term fascism lightly, but you have to ask yourself how a state can move from one type of government to another? History has shown that this happens everywhere -- justlookathistory
So, why would I take a break from my ultimate presentation on latency markers in tuberculosis? Well, I feel strongly that you (the person reading this, not just the general "you") should take it upon yourself to encourage those people that you vote for to stand up and strengthen the first levee against tyranny -- our right to privacy. The FBI may, at this point, consider using your cell phone to track you as a legitimate means to and end, but when the FBI cycles through it's current leadership/membership then we can only hope that these means lead to good ends.
And the hope that people mean well is not something I am willing to risk.
nukem996, you are not wrong in suggesting that people should use multiple sources when writing things, but the truth is people should never cite wikipedia as a source. It's not because the information is wrong, but it's because the information has not been vetted in a process that can be methodically demonstrated. Even peer-reviewed journals can fail, and they do, but the truth is the information contained in those journals is being vetted by people with backgrounds in related fields and the information is being analyzed in a way that is methodically laid out. If Wikipedia was designed in that way -- where the process was highly moderated, then it would be a legitimate source, not unlike how a book or a journal is a legitimate source. (Although old books and journals are wrong in the worst kinds of ways... sometimes)
I've written several articles on Wikipedia on obscure things (Phosphatidylmyo-inositol_mannosides) which was just an exercise in me understanding my own research, but the stuff I've written, even if heavily sourced on Wikipedia is so obscure I could just make up anything about that and it would likely fly. And the truth is, if I write anything that seems correct, for the most part it will last because it seems correct And therein lies the problem that an unmoderated system cannot solve for. Wikipedia assumes honorable and intelligent users and gives enormous privileges to these users, when just one bad apple can go around slowly obscuring fact with fiction.
Anyway, I've ranted here which is not what I really wanted, but my point is simple: Wikipedia is a good starting point, but should never ever be used as a cited source. Find the information you discover in Wikipedia in another source and use that. And, because you should be a good wikipedia user, put that source into the article.
It's really not different. Tissue Engineering, as far as I know, has long since been able to do this. It's just the concept of using an artificial scaffold of some sort (or a patented box, as described in this article) to support the artificial recreation of some sort of multilayered tissue. In this case, it happened to be Heart Tissue, but in most of the cases that I've read about and studied -- it's tended to be something like skin grafts, artificial tendons, etc.
This is hardly breaking news, if any news at all. Frankly, the article is written quite ambiguously -- no one can really clarify what this patented box really does and honestly, it seems like it's a pretty lame breakthrough in general. If a breakthrough at all. Check pubmed for this article: "
Cell transplantation for heart failure, and tissue engineering of cardiovascular structures."
But then again, that's why Slashdot is a place to begin learning.. half the time I don't know if some "breakthrough" in x field is really a breakthrough until I find the mad scientist who clarifies. Anyway, Tissue Engineering is interesting regardless. Check it out.
Honestly, I wouldn't say Digg has stolen the userbase -- it's just made a nice copy of it -- and it seems to be grabbing a crowd of people that aren't so enthused with the Digg community, but just the interesting information they have. Honestly, Slashdot needs to post more things at a faster rate -- and I'm sure the users will focus on what they'd like to..
Honestly, the reason why firefox is the preffered choice is not only because of it's security, robustness, and general workability, but also because it's so damn customizable. Honestly, I can do anything I want on any operating system, if I have my handy dandy firefox.
Anyway, check out this kickass firefox extension that allows users anywhere to chat with other users viewing the same website as them. (It'd be cool to see a few slashdot.org people!) =)
Try the QuickChat extension out.. it's pretty sweet.
But keep in mind, millions and millions of people were watching on NBC during the prank. The CalTech kids had altered the cards subtly (which requires a LOT more work), and at the end of the day, they were the first to do it.
So, the Yale kids were definitely doing something cool, but they were unoriginal. It's a good prank, but nothing like what CalTech did.
So, here I am, a user of Civilization IV (the highly acclaimed game from Firaxis), and I can tell you that you do NOT want to buy this game right now. The game was clearly released before the holiday season to take advantage of gullible users (hmph, me.. =\) who needed to spend their hard earned cash on a game that was only half developed.
Civfanatics.com is an extremely good resource for people crazy about Civilization IV, and you can immediately see there are some serious problems with the game. There have already been two patches (25 megs and 45 megs a pop) in the first couple months of the release, and things are still terrible with the game. Basically, the memory usages generally runs in the territory of unbelievable (600-800 megs), with the game basically unplayable after a certain point. You don't actually experience some of the most interesting parts of the game because things are just that amazingly slow.
But don't take my word for it, read the posts on civfanatics.com.
This is just another reason why corporations bastardize the faith that users have in them. Firaxis, shame on you.
I know this is probably not the spot to ask for things from Win-GAIM, I'm sure a person or two could possibily comment on what I'm asking for.
(1) GAIM should not have such a large memory footprint. I'm not sure if this has been fixed in 2.0 beta, but it's a huge gripe I have. Given enough time and use, GAIM will just become this behemoth application that slows everything to a crawl.
(2) I know the Aways Message code has been rewritten, and hopefully it has taken into account the fact that not all away message lengths and types are standard -- so setting one away message for all acounts is not really feasible. For example, I could place a huge away message for my AIM accounts, but my Yahoo account will be awkwardly cut off. It's just kinda lame.
(3) I wish the logging feature in GAIM could somehow recollect logs from the ancient versions of GAIM (sub 0.70, I believe). I have logs that extend wayyy back in time, and I'd love to be able to reclaim them in GAIM today. I know there are some elements that were not included in those logs to break them into the exact format that is being used now, but I'm sure they are still parseable and reclaimable.
(4) I honestly believe that GAIM looks like garbage. I know the UI stuff is what OSS has been all about sucking at, and this is no departure from what seems like the norm, but c'mon. I am seriously waiting for the moment when GAIM can look like DeadAIM or Trillian, or anything in that general region of interest. Frankly, I think GAIM is a super powerful program, that I have loved for years, but damnit, make it look nice.
(5) The file sending and receiving feature for GAIM is garbage. I rarely can receive and send files without something catastrophic happening to my client. That is terrible, and almost a reason why I am slowly making plans to move away from it. Yes, I am sad about this too. Well, hopefully you are sad.
(6) And I really want to be able to control my buddy list a lot better. I remeber testing a really unstable CVS copy of GAIM, and I did notice that there was a way to list buddies based on log size, which is excellent, but still. I want other ways to do it too. And I'm not sure if there are other ways (you could enlighten me), but I think that would be an amazing tool.
(7) And then, generally speaking, I want GAIM to have more features. I really want the clients that I have on GAIM to have much better access to the normal client's array of stuff.. (this is openended, and I'm a bastard for suggesting something like this because it's huge and not really broken down, but damnit, I want more stuff -- and I'll write for GAIM, just give me a piece to write, and I'll get to it.. seriously, I should do that.. I will.)
And that's that. I have ranted.. hopefully somewhat positively. =)
In other news, we hereby revoke 2004 Game of the Year status for Blizzard's "World of Warcraft," effective immediately. ... I'm putting aside issues like class balance or Gamemaster abuse, because honestly those things are only a problem when the ****ing server is up. ... It's not like I'm sitting here trying to connect at odd hours so I can catch them in something, either - this is in prime time, or on a weekend. The mail system works when it is good and ready. The servers themselves appear to have other things on their mind.
So, my question is basically about how Blizzard is dealing with the problem of servers and user load? People are paying good money, and when the service is available, they're losing that good money, while Blizzard saves it. Thanks!
Wassup! Actually, you may be happy to know one of my ideas is finishing a first round of angel funding =) We're receiving real money to support a real company -- you should e-mail me about this. The idea is especially juicy and I'm sure you'll like it. I have this stupid meeting to go to, but I'll check my e-mail. =)
Whoa. UVa's outbound connection just got crushed -- I can help someone create a torrent, but my mirror can't sustain this. I've already dished out a couple gigs of data -- and the server basically dropped.
Seriously, I was downloading of of the UVA Residence conection from from www.people.virginia.edu at nearly a megabyte a second, and I can't access the server any longer -- even my access to our mail server and network file storage was getting slowed.. Nasty phone calls will come from this.
Someone would be much loved if they created a torrent for this -- and if that somebody needs fast access to this file, just send an e-mail to pg8p At virginia magicdotofdoom edu, and I will give you direct access to the file so you can download it quickly and get the torrent up.
Sorry amigos -- a few hundred KB per sec is okay, but megabytes per second of bandwidth usage is not going to fly. A torrent would work magic here.
Well, I've begun the download for this video, and seeing as how mirrordot is being slashdotted, I have only downloaded about 20 megs out of the 60 meg file, with an ETA of about 25 minutes. At any rate, I've put the mirror up linking to the file that's being created -- and in 25 minutes that file will be complete, until then it'll be some percentage of the total.
Slashdot Mirror
could be
possible
indeed
False.
Wrong.
Wrong.
For many in the warez scene and beyond, this is how DoD will be remembered. Yes, I know this doesn't absolve them of their sins... well, I could envision someone making a reasonable argument about how the world isn't on a level playing field and these guys were helping to level things for those that couldn't afford to be recognized... but I digress. I just thought it was worth recognizing that there is something to be said about these characters that isn't completely negative.
I had wondered what should be done about this when I first happened across the article on Digg and I honestly believed that that it would make sense for Google to censor sensitive regions of the world. They could do what they did for the D.C. area and beige-out some of the imagery to protect sensitive images of the country. But then the big ugly can of worms is opened as to what's sensitive to who, etc.
And honestly, all this image censorship seems like a waste of time, because this kind of information could be discovered in such a large number of ways. Imagine just floating a balloon in the air with a camera atached and some GPS equipment? I guess the US could shoot every flying object out of the sky and then censor Google, but it's probably a lame solution... it's analogous (in my mind) to application security through obscurity.
I'd imagine the betters solution for the US is to 1) place their own tents over vulnerable points (if they like the security through obscurity solution) and to 2) cut back on those points of vulnerability. What the heck did we do during the cold war -- satellite weren't only a US technology....
This has always stood as one of those easily reinterpreted components of the constitution -- just look at the way the US Supreme Court enjoys reinterpreting it. And, to some degree, I do see why this should be interpreted in a somewhat fluid way. There are terrorists/freedom fighters out there, and governments should be capable of protecting their citizens-- that is what they're ultimately designed to do.
However, the egregious trampling of our right to privacy, as outlined in the US constitution, starts moving us very quickly in the direction of fascism. And people tend to use the term fascism lightly, but you have to ask yourself how a state can move from one type of government to another? History has shown that this happens everywhere -- just look at history
So, why would I take a break from my ultimate presentation on latency markers in tuberculosis? Well, I feel strongly that you (the person reading this, not just the general "you") should take it upon yourself to encourage those people that you vote for to stand up and strengthen the first levee against tyranny -- our right to privacy. The FBI may, at this point, consider using your cell phone to track you as a legitimate means to and end, but when the FBI cycles through it's current leadership/membership then we can only hope that these means lead to good ends.
And the hope that people mean well is not something I am willing to risk.
nukem996, you are not wrong in suggesting that people should use multiple sources when writing things, but the truth is people should never cite wikipedia as a source. It's not because the information is wrong, but it's because the information has not been vetted in a process that can be methodically demonstrated. Even peer-reviewed journals can fail, and they do, but the truth is the information contained in those journals is being vetted by people with backgrounds in related fields and the information is being analyzed in a way that is methodically laid out. If Wikipedia was designed in that way -- where the process was highly moderated, then it would be a legitimate source, not unlike how a book or a journal is a legitimate source. (Although old books and journals are wrong in the worst kinds of ways... sometimes)
I've written several articles on Wikipedia on obscure things (Phosphatidylmyo-inositol_mannosides) which was just an exercise in me understanding my own research, but the stuff I've written, even if heavily sourced on Wikipedia is so obscure I could just make up anything about that and it would likely fly. And the truth is, if I write anything that seems correct, for the most part it will last because it seems correct And therein lies the problem that an unmoderated system cannot solve for. Wikipedia assumes honorable and intelligent users and gives enormous privileges to these users, when just one bad apple can go around slowly obscuring fact with fiction.
Anyway, I've ranted here which is not what I really wanted, but my point is simple: Wikipedia is a good starting point, but should never ever be used as a cited source. Find the information you discover in Wikipedia in another source and use that. And, because you should be a good wikipedia user, put that source into the article.
It's really not different. Tissue Engineering, as far as I know, has long since been able to do this. It's just the concept of using an artificial scaffold of some sort (or a patented box, as described in this article) to support the artificial recreation of some sort of multilayered tissue. In this case, it happened to be Heart Tissue, but in most of the cases that I've read about and studied -- it's tended to be something like skin grafts, artificial tendons, etc.
This is hardly breaking news, if any news at all. Frankly, the article is written quite ambiguously -- no one can really clarify what this patented box really does and honestly, it seems like it's a pretty lame breakthrough in general. If a breakthrough at all. Check pubmed for this article: " Cell transplantation for heart failure, and tissue engineering of cardiovascular structures."
But then again, that's why Slashdot is a place to begin learning.. half the time I don't know if some "breakthrough" in x field is really a breakthrough until I find the mad scientist who clarifies. Anyway, Tissue Engineering is interesting regardless. Check it out.
Honestly, I wouldn't say Digg has stolen the userbase -- it's just made a nice copy of it -- and it seems to be grabbing a crowd of people that aren't so enthused with the Digg community, but just the interesting information they have. Honestly, Slashdot needs to post more things at a faster rate -- and I'm sure the users will focus on what they'd like to ..
Seriously, I've been using slashdot for ages, and this kind of problem -- in this case more obvious than most -- is just retarded.
Honestly, the reason why firefox is the preffered choice is not only because of it's security, robustness, and general workability, but also because it's so damn customizable. Honestly, I can do anything I want on any operating system, if I have my handy dandy firefox.
.. it's pretty sweet.
Anyway, check out this kickass firefox extension that allows users anywhere to chat with other users viewing the same website as them. (It'd be cool to see a few slashdot.org people!) =)
Try the QuickChat extension out
But keep in mind, millions and millions of people were watching on NBC during the prank. The CalTech kids had altered the cards subtly (which requires a LOT more work), and at the end of the day, they were the first to do it. So, the Yale kids were definitely doing something cool, but they were unoriginal. It's a good prank, but nothing like what CalTech did.
And this is one of the reasons why Biomedical Engineering is the hot, up and coming field of the 21st century. Cheers =)
So, here I am, a user of Civilization IV (the highly acclaimed game from Firaxis), and I can tell you that you do NOT want to buy this game right now. The game was clearly released before the holiday season to take advantage of gullible users (hmph, me.. =\) who needed to spend their hard earned cash on a game that was only half developed.
Civfanatics.com is an extremely good resource for people crazy about Civilization IV, and you can immediately see there are some serious problems with the game. There have already been two patches (25 megs and 45 megs a pop) in the first couple months of the release, and things are still terrible with the game. Basically, the memory usages generally runs in the territory of unbelievable (600-800 megs), with the game basically unplayable after a certain point. You don't actually experience some of the most interesting parts of the game because things are just that amazingly slow.
But don't take my word for it, read the posts on civfanatics.com.
This is just another reason why corporations bastardize the faith that users have in them. Firaxis, shame on you.
I know this is probably not the spot to ask for things from Win-GAIM, I'm sure a person or two could possibily comment on what I'm asking for.
.. (this is openended, and I'm a bastard for suggesting something like this because it's huge and not really broken down, but damnit, I want more stuff -- and I'll write for GAIM, just give me a piece to write, and I'll get to it .. seriously, I should do that .. I will.)
.. hopefully somewhat positively. =)
(1) GAIM should not have such a large memory footprint. I'm not sure if this has been fixed in 2.0 beta, but it's a huge gripe I have. Given enough time and use, GAIM will just become this behemoth application that slows everything to a crawl.
(2) I know the Aways Message code has been rewritten, and hopefully it has taken into account the fact that not all away message lengths and types are standard -- so setting one away message for all acounts is not really feasible. For example, I could place a huge away message for my AIM accounts, but my Yahoo account will be awkwardly cut off. It's just kinda lame.
(3) I wish the logging feature in GAIM could somehow recollect logs from the ancient versions of GAIM (sub 0.70, I believe). I have logs that extend wayyy back in time, and I'd love to be able to reclaim them in GAIM today. I know there are some elements that were not included in those logs to break them into the exact format that is being used now, but I'm sure they are still parseable and reclaimable.
(4) I honestly believe that GAIM looks like garbage. I know the UI stuff is what OSS has been all about sucking at, and this is no departure from what seems like the norm, but c'mon. I am seriously waiting for the moment when GAIM can look like DeadAIM or Trillian, or anything in that general region of interest. Frankly, I think GAIM is a super powerful program, that I have loved for years, but damnit, make it look nice.
(5) The file sending and receiving feature for GAIM is garbage. I rarely can receive and send files without something catastrophic happening to my client. That is terrible, and almost a reason why I am slowly making plans to move away from it. Yes, I am sad about this too. Well, hopefully you are sad.
(6) And I really want to be able to control my buddy list a lot better. I remeber testing a really unstable CVS copy of GAIM, and I did notice that there was a way to list buddies based on log size, which is excellent, but still. I want other ways to do it too. And I'm not sure if there are other ways (you could enlighten me), but I think that would be an amazing tool.
(7) And then, generally speaking, I want GAIM to have more features. I really want the clients that I have on GAIM to have much better access to the normal client's array of stuff
And that's that. I have ranted
-Pavan
I'll preempt the flames -- I was wrong =)
In other news, we hereby revoke 2004 Game of the Year status for Blizzard's "World of Warcraft," effective immediately.
...
I'm putting aside issues like class balance or Gamemaster abuse, because honestly those things are only a problem when the ****ing server is up.
...
It's not like I'm sitting here trying to connect at odd hours so I can catch them in something, either - this is in prime time, or on a weekend. The mail system works when it is good and ready. The servers themselves appear to have other things on their mind.
So, my question is basically about how Blizzard is dealing with the problem of servers and user load? People are paying good money, and when the service is available, they're losing that good money, while Blizzard saves it. Thanks!
Wassup! Actually, you may be happy to know one of my ideas is finishing a first round of angel funding =) We're receiving real money to support a real company -- you should e-mail me about this. The idea is especially juicy and I'm sure you'll like it. I have this stupid meeting to go to, but I'll check my e-mail. =)
Whoa. UVa's outbound connection just got crushed -- I can help someone create a torrent, but my mirror can't sustain this. I've already dished out a couple gigs of data -- and the server basically dropped.
Seriously, I was downloading of of the UVA Residence conection from from www.people.virginia.edu at nearly a megabyte a second, and I can't access the server any longer -- even my access to our mail server and network file storage was getting slowed.. Nasty phone calls will come from this.
Someone would be much loved if they created a torrent for this -- and if that somebody needs fast access to this file, just send an e-mail to pg8p At virginia magicdotofdoom edu, and I will give you direct access to the file so you can download it quickly and get the torrent up.
Sorry amigos -- a few hundred KB per sec is okay, but megabytes per second of bandwidth usage is not going to fly. A torrent would work magic here.
Well, I've begun the download for this video, and seeing as how mirrordot is being slashdotted, I have only downloaded about 20 megs out of the 60 meg file, with an ETA of about 25 minutes. At any rate, I've put the mirror up linking to the file that's being created -- and in 25 minutes that file will be complete, until then it'll be some percentage of the total.
Enjoy.
I couldn't agree with Page more ..
larry page: "I know a lot of you are planning on going to business school, but I don't think you need to go to business schoool"
larry page: "I just read a bookshelf of business books"
From a man worth 7 billion dollars, it sure seems to me like his statement on how to run a business is pretty reputable.
I found the Central Hindi Directorate, but it's all in the Devangari (I think) script, which potentially leads to another question --
Where do you suggest I learn how to read and write? That might be a big gateway into a lot more hindi related things.. Thanks!