If government data mining were to be implemented ala Homeland Security then everyone is in the crosshairs for more potential damage than a silly bunch of fanatics holding a grudge because their children prefer bikinis and McDonalds more than their abusive orthodox religious beliefs. For instance, your AC status could be violated and your accounts audited on the basis of the word hijackers in your post - talk about reputation, who wants to be on a terrorist watch list?
The thing that has always struck me about people is that even though most of them HAVE opinions they're not always prone to sharing those opinions. It's the way that everyone has an opinion about poilitics and yet still only a fraction of the populace votes.
Of course a lot of silence is in people online not wanting to chime in expressedly with a "Me Too!" opinion in the presence of a well expressed position that already outlines what they would say themselves if they only could spell, write with some skill, etc. It's the nice thing about the Anonymous Cowards system at Slashdot that people can, if they'd like, post whatever weird or netiquette violating opinion anonymously without slipping in their own opinion like a bad walk with your dog.
In the end though, I think the success of an online forum's credibility and reputation depends on a couple of factors. Slashdot is very geek/tech/IP heavy in content and slant. Everyone is surprised when someone speaks out in favor of Microsoft on Slashdot even when probably 80% of the readership uses Windows at some point in a day. The **IAA's are ridiculed and revealed at Slashdot, and if we don't always hear about the neatest new gizmo from Slashdot we at least know that in the culture of Slashdot that if someone has retailed a Linux machine Vibrator that SOMEONE at Slashdot has purchased the beast and will eventually post a review on how penguins are in bed. I don't think anyone comes to Slashdot for reviews on cars, because posters at Slashdot aren't perceived as being particularly of the greasemonkey/NASCAR set usually. People will have an opinion on which spark plugs are best at Slashdot but it will be weighted against the idea that the average posters would have less real experience than say the mass of people at a classic car forum.
One of the advantages of traditional media is that even if we can know that Dan Rather probably doesn't know much about Hot Air Ballooning, we all know that before he speaks out on a story about Hot Air Ballooning that at least someone from the news department has at least implied that they have made an effort to research the sport. Of course, that implication turns on them when they don't know what they're talking about anyways but everyone should know by now that the grains of salt size difference between CNN and a random internet poster is large.
The solution of course is to phase out humanity, as we're obviously incapable of anything. Human minds are pathetic and weak, accept no progress done by the loser monkeys that are we.
If companies understood implicit social contracts with their customers then there would be no Microsoft or XXAA's. Instead of attempting to win consumer support most businesses today seem to believe that the way to sell product is to institute the most draconion controls imaginable on their products and the ruthlessly savage the competition until they have as much of a monopoly as allowable by law (or buyable by law).
Hmm, I think you're up against who's selling your state in that regard. Just like here in Florida I have to explain to people that, "No, I don't live anywhere near Disney" and "No, I don't think there are any Cubans or even much hispanic culture up here in Northwest Florida." People equate Florida with old folks, Miami, and Disney. People equate New York with angry New Yorkers. These are the images that Hollywood and the media sells to the world as encapsulated stereotypes of who we are via where we live.
It doesn't matter whether or not they are the actual transferers of content. If I run a BBS that facilitates the conversations of criminals and moderate content in any way then I am shown to be aware of any and all criminal activities discussed on my BBS. Therefore I'm liable for their content if they say, "We're gonna knock off the bank on 34th street" if I don't make an effort to inform the proper authorities that there is a crime about to be taking place. Of course, that's US law and IRC has always been one of the more multicultural places I've ever hung my hat so YMMV.
Part of the beauty of the network that Kazaa has started is that theoretically it's impossible to shut down Sharman networks and kill Kazaa itself. What Dalnet is essentially stating is that they're now able to moderate content enough to kill individual channels, which leaves them open to legal questions on whether or not they could moderate individual users or groups of users. Now, everyone has learned by now that judges read cases by the potential campaign funds and slogans that might be involved right?
The question I have is, if goes Dalnet because of this nonsense, when does the rest of IRC hit someone's radars and get sued into geek history also? And before I hear another "Good! Serves them right for having crooks on their computers!" arguement I'd like to remind everyone that tyrannies are made of strong police forces.
Supposedly the OICW, the next generation of personal infantry weapons to be fielded by the US Army, will carry either on the squad level or individually a 20mm "grenade" system that will include corrective targeting features and integrated goodies like talking between the weapons for more exact targeting.
For AP activities I'm not sure why you'd need anything more interesting than a 20mm round. People blow up and die pretty easily. It would be scarier if the Army started talking about field AT capability on every single soldier, since tanks are customarily vulnerable to close quarters infantry anyways. They'll have that eventually though, once every soldier is wired up to be able to call up air support and artillery on an individual basis the Army will basically be nothing more than garrison troops, building checkers, base security, artillery and engineering, and most importantly forward observers.
Re:Didn't the Terms and Conditions say ...
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Kazaa Fights Back
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· Score: 3, Interesting
No, they aren't like state owned roads because government property has clear standards and expectations of use and safety, along with a bunch of other things.
It's more like a great big mall. What Kazaa argues is that they designed their mall so that transactions could take place and nothing more, then added legitimate businesses into their mall when they were told that it had become a haven of thieves. Their suit is based on the thought that they now have millions of potential customers in their mall and even when they point that fact out to the big music industry sorts they get dismissed as the mall that has thieves in it.
I think it's probably true that the music idustry has been less than forthcoming in any talks that might lead to releasing copyright licences for any use other than what they control with their dirty, money-grubbing fists. I think it's also true that you'd have to be an imbecile not to realize and take into account that Kazaa profits from illegal filesharing.
The question is, if a cartel of music industry companies refuses outright to let a potential retail store sell it's product in favor of their own retail stores is that anti-trust? It might be if you can successfully argue that there is no business model that could succeed in music retail without access to those catalogs. They're squashing competition by maintaining a stranglehold on the copyrights, just like Disney might be preventing new Disney's by buying their copyright extensions.
Kazaa's case would be easier if they were in a physical sense a mall, since there is no safety issue I fail to see how a mall should be liable for the actions of it's customers no matter how much it profits from those customers. In a real mall the retailers don't try and arrest the mall when customers shoplift. Even if the mall had no security it wouldn't be about arresting the mall for failure to provide a lawful environment. Maybe they should try to condemn Kazaa...
I thought the DMCA specifically disallows the distribution of programs that are designed to hinder or sabotage the functioning of another program?
Since there is no way to tell that by downloading bonjovi-livingonaprayer.mp3 I'm not actually getting a crappy recording of my grandpa in the shower in the first place, specifically writing software to categorically sabotage specific filenames is essentially illegal isn't it? Or is this another case of "my lawyer is bigger than your lawyer" where the larger companies can afford to recklessly abuse the laws that they bought without the book being thrown at them?
All in all, I think that if this is the case it would be a delicious irony.
As long as everyone dies then no one wins, thats part of the whole strategic theory of MAD. No one wants to fight a war they can't win, with MAD in place the general consensus was that the best realistic possible outcome was a draw. Hence no one would fight.
Which will only encourage newer generations of weapons to rely on cruise missile type map guidance systems.
Honestly, if it's a war of technology that we're talking about does anyone really think that Iraq is capable of stepping up to the plate unless a larger power that hasn't been under close international scrutiny for a decade hands it to them? Sure, low tech solutions are grand. AKs fire if you've vomited down the barrel and sawed oof the first 3 inches of the barrel to make your wife a bong, that doesn't mean they're a superior weapon to the OICW.
Perhaps if we go to war Saddam will pull a frickin rabbit out of his hat, but for his sake it almost better be a nuke or something similarly colorful. I doubt he could though, because at this point the only reason I can think of for GWB to not show everyone his "proof of weapons of mass destruction" beforehand is because he hasn't decided where he'll have us plant it yet in the ashes of Bagdad.
Exactly, even if I'm really fucking wrong in something I do I'm not willing to die on general principles of right and wrong. I'm willing to extend that to my countrymen most of the time, since the general consensus is that if someone were to wrongly or rightly invade the States I'd hope that my neighbors wouldn't be waiting around at night to stab me in the back because they agreed with the morality of the invaders.
Who really thinks this way? It's wrong, in absolute terms smacks of getting mad at your dad because he screwed your mom. It SHOULD make a difference who's doing what even if you don't agree with what they're doing.
The problem is that even for the smart seeker heads attached to older conventional "dumb" bombs, there is probably still a backlog. In Bosnia the US dropped so many munitions that they were having to order more smart systems to keep up with demand. And who knows how much conventional bomb stock is actually left nowadays? I can never seem to get a straight answer, while the US and USSR made an absolutely frightening amount of munitions in the Cold War it seems that the majority of the US' munitions over the past decade and a half have come from those same stockpiles. Luckily, the US seems to have managed a higher level of quality control and upkeep on our munitions than the Russians have so we haven't heard any common stories about munitions mishaps.
The best thing about the hype surrounding the airborne laser projects, microwave weapons, etc seems to me to be the fact that if we're not going to keep up with our munitions stockpile we really should be lessening our military's reliance on it. Also, given the US military's higher level of electronic sophistication it should pay to be the first folks on the battlefield with the weapons and the ways to defend against those weapons.
I don't think we're anywhere near the time where a USAF colonel will be strapping himself into a saucer and blowing up bridges with his death rays, but the important thing to remember about ways to kill people is that it's such a popular sport that everyone has to invest in it if they want to be able to compete at all.
I don't agree with GB's policies right now, but I know that mostly the people who fight the wars and LOSE are the ones that come home with more body bags. So, in that light I'll happily support anything that might possible help the US win any misguided warlike notion just so I don't end up attending any more funerals.
I've been told by my daughter that occassionally she catches me typing into the bed while I sleep. Until voice recognition becomes much better technology, typing is an essential communication skill for a huge number of people.
Of course I'm one of those people who will happily read a novel on a screen, regularly used a mouse to draw complex images until I finally broke down a bought a stylus, and generally spend more than twice the amount of time talking to people on the computer than I do in real life.
Sure, keyboards are nice. Feel is important, I still miss my old clacking keyboard that went with my last computer but was destroyed by the great mineral spirits disaster in my house. But I think virtual keyboards are an important step to an eventual goal of getting rid of keyboards and mice and all sorts of other sorts of distracting clutter.
I might go for a wireless computer that sat underneath the bed, that I viewed with one of those virtual screen glasses, typed into my bedsheets/walls/kitchen counter/deck rails outside, and moused around using waves of my hand and my pointing finger. Sure I'd probably look like a complete doofus, but if I somehow were a more productive and mobile doofus I think I could live with that.
What the world needs more than virtual keyboards are virtual typists, you know...those folks that can spell out the entire words "you" and "are" and can do so in under five minutes without a typo.
My 11 year griped about it, but she's finally starting to see the sense in learning to type quickly and correctly and not sounding like a 15 year old boy on methamphetamines while doing so.
These are just the authors of the books in my "put these away soon" pile. All have books that I have recently read and enjoyed and follow the basic theme of science fiction and/or fantasy. Qualifier: I have thousands of science fiction and fantasy novels and works collected by my father for over 50 years and I've been collecting them myself for over 20. I have an attic full of books, three rooms of bookshelves, and some in storage. Still there is a definite trend of taste in most of the books that some people might not share or agree with.
Lois McMaster Bujold (reread)
LMB simply deserves every accolade she's won. Of all the books of hers that I've read (which I believe with the completion of The Curse of Chalion now includes all of them) only Falling Free felt like it was wrote in haste or lack of care.
Harry Turtledove
Turtledove is the king of Alternative Historical Fiction and when he writes I always get the sense that he's gone to the effort of trying to get a unique or intimate perspective on the people or cultures he's writing about.
William Dietz
Not my favorite, but he's fun for neat explosions and one-liners occassionally I suppose.
Eric Flint
Hit or miss, I think that when he's writing with a co-author he sometimes either shows brilliance or else manages to bring out new ideas in otherwise somewhat tired authors.
Greg Bear
Vitals wasn't his best book mostly because of his insistence of switching viewpoints and thereby coming across like an accomplished conspiracy theorist. Sometimes I think he talks too much, like me. He's almost always dealing with a novel technology or idea though, so I generally read everything he writes.
David Drake
Unless it's yet another anthology of 20 year old stories, Drake is usually a good bet even when he's editing. Lately I've discovered that he's an acquired taste, though I still think that it's a worthwhile taste to acquire.
Laurell K Hamilton
Hamilton's major sticking point with me is that even her fantasy novels seem like they're firmly entrenched in the female romantic fiction market. Simply put, sometimes I feel like I'm reading soft core porn rather than something that I shouldn't be hiding the cover from passerbies.
Nancy Kress
I finished Probability Moon recently, but I had to pick it back up to remember anything about it. After reading through it some, I still don't remember much. I suppose that is a good endorsement that Kress doesn't do a whole lot for me.
Fritz Leiber
Every few years I reread Leiber, who in my opinion epitomizes a lot of good thing about past writers in the field that people don't do much anymore. His work is usually short and concise and complete. Since the present market is dominated by sometimes overly long winded, long running series I don't see how that can be a bad thing.
Charles Sheffield
Sometimes CS seems to have an underlining message to his books that I'm just not programmed to interpret. They're not bad books, they're memorable and mostly interesting. Perhaps it's that they sometimes lack a bit in plot development?
S M Stirling
SMS writes military science fiction primarily. In that, he's competent and worth filling a shelf or two checking him out. If you're out there cruising for new concepts or ideas though in your science fiction, I might recommend that you steer clear of him.
Fred Saberhagen
Another old favorite, like Asimov I doubt I've even begun to discover everything he's wrote to tell you how much I like it all. Every so often I delve into a dusty box of old books and find yet another book he's wrote or has a story in though, and each and every time I'm impressed. Sometimes you can tell that he's writing for a paycheck though, so some pieces are better than others.
Gordon R Dickson
I reread his old books, I buy his new ones. I recommend that everyone follow suit on general principles.
Ann Rice
Sometimes I get a lot of flak for reading her, but there is no denying that she started a trend with her books. Sometimes I wish her work were a little bit more like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, who is a much better author of "vampire fiction" in my opinion. I'm always picking up the Mayfair Witches though, picking through it and rereading it. It's either good or I'm obsessive-compulsive.
Harry Harrison
Harrison isn't my favorite writer, but he's a good writer with a healthy portfolio of books to purchase from. If nothing else I think people should be familiar with his work in a sort of science fiction heritage way.
C S Friedman
I read Madness Season after passing the book over for years. I didn't know what to make of it, and I still don't. Part of me wants to like it, the other part insists that it's hokey. Sometimes hokey is fun though, so maybe someone else will enjoy it more than I did.
CJ Cherryh
When Cherryh writes about aliens, they're ALIEN, not funny looking humans with pointy ears or personifications of human traits. At least she tries, and her books set in her weird light speed restricted universe of Cyteen and Hellburner are pretty good too.
Jack McDevitt
Not a lot of people seem to know about Jack McDevitt, but more people should. I'm not sure how to classify his work, possibly because I haven't finished reading all of it. It seems like science fiction from a non-science fiction writer, which may be true. In any case it's usually fun and fascinating.
Poul Anderson
Anderson's Flandry novels always move me for some reason. Perhaps it's my father's deep affection for them. In any case, I reread one or two of them on occassion.
Steven Gould
A newer science fiction writer, of the "one gimmick" school. Boy though, does he write the gimmick well. Even as I sit here writing I can't help but look forward to his next book.
Dan Simmons
Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion might be the best science fiction books I've ever read. Carrion Comfort might be one of the better horror stories I've ever read. The Hollow Man is right up there in the top ten "literature disguised as science fiction" books...So, if you haven't read ANY of those, please go do so.
Joe Haldeman
Haldeman's talent seems to be slowing down, but every time I read something new that I don't entirely like I find myself picking up The Forever War and reading it again. The Forever War and Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) ought to be required reading in high school I think.
David Weber
Honor Harrington lines the bookshelves, and since everyone else was buying it I didn't for a long time. Then after I read some of his other series, I turned around and gave it a try. Weber writes the equivalent of Science Fiction action flicks, but he does it well.
Bernard Cromwell
Cromwell doesn't really write science fiction or fantasy, but his Winter King series (I believe that is the name - the books are on loan right now)is good enough that I think he deserves mention. It's really one of the most interesting retellings of the Arthurian Legend I've ever read. I liked it so much I went and bought and read The Archer's Tale, which was quite good as well.
Gary Jennings
Gary Jennings bothers me sometimes. He writes too much, he bores me to tears, he makes me wonder if he'll ever finish his internal monologues and conversations sometimes. I still think he's worth reading, his Aztec books are so out of the ordinary that they read like fantasy.
I could continue, but is anyone really still reading now?
Thanks to recent advances in technology mind control lasers have never before been as safe and as effective as they are today. Insights from confidential sources have allowed us to make past limitations in our systems obsolete. Now mind control lasering technology relies on non-material interference bands and goes directly into each subject regardless of most terrestrial technologies jamming efforts.
Please cease your/. revolutionary activities at once and report to your Control.
Seems like a distributed ass-kicking you off the game for not running the same code as the rest of world could handle it. You'd have to set up a central server system just to handle passing off new versions maybe? And if enough users were using cracked out rulesets then it's open source, let them.
I think the idea would be to insure that each user could faithfully assure themselves that at least the people that they were playing with would be operating under the same sorts of rules assumptions as they were. I mean, I've sat for HOURS downloading the skins and maps required to play Unreal before and I was cool with that - but once AimBots started taking hold it just wasn't fun anymore.
Perhaps the final solution would be limited open sourcing, change everything you want about this game except THIS part which makes sure that everyone is playing the same game. That way you could offer nice C&D letters on the basis of the evil DMCA to people who just _had_ to cheat.
It would be nice to see something good come out of the damned thing.
I doubt you'll find many people at Slashdot ever weeping many tears for the RIAA OR needing to be reminded of facts.
I mean everyone at Slashdot knows their facts before they were made aware of them right?
I just think the RIAA has decidedly forgotten the old saying about winning more flies with honey. It really doesn't matter whether the music itself is good or worse than in previous years or if P2P is killing music companies. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, seems to use some form of music sharing or downloading now (my 70 something grandfather likes finding out of print bluegrass music).
Does anyone really get off on being screaming at thief! when no one feels like they're doing anything wrong? How many people wring their hands before downloading music with the consideration that they might be breaking the law? Everyone agrees that if suddenly the music industry flopped over and died that it would probably be A Bad Thing, but I don't think anyone has any delusions that if Sony/Geffen/BMG/whatever suddenly were out of business that it would be the end of music and music distribution. It's like saying that if Microsoft went out of business that it would be the end of the PC.
Slashdot Mirror
If government data mining were to be implemented ala Homeland Security then everyone is in the crosshairs for more potential damage than a silly bunch of fanatics holding a grudge because their children prefer bikinis and McDonalds more than their abusive orthodox religious beliefs. For instance, your AC status could be violated and your accounts audited on the basis of the word hijackers in your post - talk about reputation, who wants to be on a terrorist watch list?
Everyone already knows that Anonymous Cowards are into gay goatsex.
The thing that has always struck me about people is that even though most of them HAVE opinions they're not always prone to sharing those opinions. It's the way that everyone has an opinion about poilitics and yet still only a fraction of the populace votes.
Of course a lot of silence is in people online not wanting to chime in expressedly with a "Me Too!" opinion in the presence of a well expressed position that already outlines what they would say themselves if they only could spell, write with some skill, etc. It's the nice thing about the Anonymous Cowards system at Slashdot that people can, if they'd like, post whatever weird or netiquette violating opinion anonymously without slipping in their own opinion like a bad walk with your dog.
In the end though, I think the success of an online forum's credibility and reputation depends on a couple of factors. Slashdot is very geek/tech/IP heavy in content and slant. Everyone is surprised when someone speaks out in favor of Microsoft on Slashdot even when probably 80% of the readership uses Windows at some point in a day. The **IAA's are ridiculed and revealed at Slashdot, and if we don't always hear about the neatest new gizmo from Slashdot we at least know that in the culture of Slashdot that if someone has retailed a Linux machine Vibrator that SOMEONE at Slashdot has purchased the beast and will eventually post a review on how penguins are in bed. I don't think anyone comes to Slashdot for reviews on cars, because posters at Slashdot aren't perceived as being particularly of the greasemonkey/NASCAR set usually. People will have an opinion on which spark plugs are best at Slashdot but it will be weighted against the idea that the average posters would have less real experience than say the mass of people at a classic car forum.
One of the advantages of traditional media is that even if we can know that Dan Rather probably doesn't know much about Hot Air Ballooning, we all know that before he speaks out on a story about Hot Air Ballooning that at least someone from the news department has at least implied that they have made an effort to research the sport. Of course, that implication turns on them when they don't know what they're talking about anyways but everyone should know by now that the grains of salt size difference between CNN and a random internet poster is large.
I don't know, after Rsync's last album I've decided that they're probably too old for serious contending in the boy-band heavy marketplace.
The solution of course is to phase out humanity, as we're obviously incapable of anything. Human minds are pathetic and weak, accept no progress done by the loser monkeys that are we.
If companies understood implicit social contracts with their customers then there would be no Microsoft or XXAA's. Instead of attempting to win consumer support most businesses today seem to believe that the way to sell product is to institute the most draconion controls imaginable on their products and the ruthlessly savage the competition until they have as much of a monopoly as allowable by law (or buyable by law).
Hmm, I think you're up against who's selling your state in that regard. Just like here in Florida I have to explain to people that, "No, I don't live anywhere near Disney" and "No, I don't think there are any Cubans or even much hispanic culture up here in Northwest Florida." People equate Florida with old folks, Miami, and Disney. People equate New York with angry New Yorkers. These are the images that Hollywood and the media sells to the world as encapsulated stereotypes of who we are via where we live.
It doesn't matter whether or not they are the actual transferers of content. If I run a BBS that facilitates the conversations of criminals and moderate content in any way then I am shown to be aware of any and all criminal activities discussed on my BBS. Therefore I'm liable for their content if they say, "We're gonna knock off the bank on 34th street" if I don't make an effort to inform the proper authorities that there is a crime about to be taking place. Of course, that's US law and IRC has always been one of the more multicultural places I've ever hung my hat so YMMV.
Part of the beauty of the network that Kazaa has started is that theoretically it's impossible to shut down Sharman networks and kill Kazaa itself.
What Dalnet is essentially stating is that they're now able to moderate content enough to kill individual channels, which leaves them open to legal questions on whether or not they could moderate individual users or groups of users. Now, everyone has learned by now that judges read cases by the potential campaign funds and slogans that might be involved right?
The question I have is, if goes Dalnet because of this nonsense, when does the rest of IRC hit someone's radars and get sued into geek history also? And before I hear another "Good! Serves them right for having crooks on their computers!" arguement I'd like to remind everyone that tyrannies are made of strong police forces.
Supposedly the OICW, the next generation of personal infantry weapons to be fielded by the US Army, will carry either on the squad level or individually a 20mm "grenade" system that will include corrective targeting features and integrated goodies like talking between the weapons for more exact targeting.
For AP activities I'm not sure why you'd need anything more interesting than a 20mm round. People blow up and die pretty easily. It would be scarier if the Army started talking about field AT capability on every single soldier, since tanks are customarily vulnerable to close quarters infantry anyways. They'll have that eventually though, once every soldier is wired up to be able to call up air support and artillery on an individual basis the Army will basically be nothing more than garrison troops, building checkers, base security, artillery and engineering, and most importantly forward observers.
I'd hardly call it a hobby....
No, they aren't like state owned roads because government property has clear standards and expectations of use and safety, along with a bunch of other things.
It's more like a great big mall. What Kazaa argues is that they designed their mall so that transactions could take place and nothing more, then added legitimate businesses into their mall when they were told that it had become a haven of thieves. Their suit is based on the thought that they now have millions of potential customers in their mall and even when they point that fact out to the big music industry sorts they get dismissed as the mall that has thieves in it.
I think it's probably true that the music idustry has been less than forthcoming in any talks that might lead to releasing copyright licences for any use other than what they control with their dirty, money-grubbing fists. I think it's also true that you'd have to be an imbecile not to realize and take into account that Kazaa profits from illegal filesharing.
The question is, if a cartel of music industry companies refuses outright to let a potential retail store sell it's product in favor of their own retail stores is that anti-trust? It might be if you can successfully argue that there is no business model that could succeed in music retail without access to those catalogs. They're squashing competition by maintaining a stranglehold on the copyrights, just like Disney might be preventing new Disney's by buying their copyright extensions.
Kazaa's case would be easier if they were in a physical sense a mall, since there is no safety issue I fail to see how a mall should be liable for the actions of it's customers no matter how much it profits from those customers. In a real mall the retailers don't try and arrest the mall when customers shoplift. Even if the mall had no security it wouldn't be about arresting the mall for failure to provide a lawful environment. Maybe they should try to condemn Kazaa...
God save my children from Music Videos 101.
Down with Kazaa.
I thought the DMCA specifically disallows the distribution of programs that are designed to hinder or sabotage the functioning of another program?
Since there is no way to tell that by downloading bonjovi-livingonaprayer.mp3 I'm not actually getting a crappy recording of my grandpa in the shower in the first place, specifically writing software to categorically sabotage specific filenames is essentially illegal isn't it? Or is this another case of "my lawyer is bigger than your lawyer" where the larger companies can afford to recklessly abuse the laws that they bought without the book being thrown at them?
All in all, I think that if this is the case it would be a delicious irony.
There are some sickos out there that will go to any lengths to get p0rn of Celine Dion and that creepy husband of hers...
As long as everyone dies then no one wins, thats part of the whole strategic theory of MAD. No one wants to fight a war they can't win, with MAD in place the general consensus was that the best realistic possible outcome was a draw. Hence no one would fight.
Which will only encourage newer generations of weapons to rely on cruise missile type map guidance systems.
Honestly, if it's a war of technology that we're talking about does anyone really think that Iraq is capable of stepping up to the plate unless a larger power that hasn't been under close international scrutiny for a decade hands it to them? Sure, low tech solutions are grand. AKs fire if you've vomited down the barrel and sawed oof the first 3 inches of the barrel to make your wife a bong, that doesn't mean they're a superior weapon to the OICW.
Perhaps if we go to war Saddam will pull a frickin rabbit out of his hat, but for his sake it almost better be a nuke or something similarly colorful. I doubt he could though, because at this point the only reason I can think of for GWB to not show everyone his "proof of weapons of mass destruction" beforehand is because he hasn't decided where he'll have us plant it yet in the ashes of Bagdad.
Exactly, even if I'm really fucking wrong in something I do I'm not willing to die on general principles of right and wrong. I'm willing to extend that to my countrymen most of the time, since the general consensus is that if someone were to wrongly or rightly invade the States I'd hope that my neighbors wouldn't be waiting around at night to stab me in the back because they agreed with the morality of the invaders.
Who really thinks this way? It's wrong, in absolute terms smacks of getting mad at your dad because he screwed your mom. It SHOULD make a difference who's doing what even if you don't agree with what they're doing.
The problem is that even for the smart seeker heads attached to older conventional "dumb" bombs, there is probably still a backlog. In Bosnia the US dropped so many munitions that they were having to order more smart systems to keep up with demand. And who knows how much conventional bomb stock is actually left nowadays? I can never seem to get a straight answer, while the US and USSR made an absolutely frightening amount of munitions in the Cold War it seems that the majority of the US' munitions over the past decade and a half have come from those same stockpiles. Luckily, the US seems to have managed a higher level of quality control and upkeep on our munitions than the Russians have so we haven't heard any common stories about munitions mishaps.
The best thing about the hype surrounding the airborne laser projects, microwave weapons, etc seems to me to be the fact that if we're not going to keep up with our munitions stockpile we really should be lessening our military's reliance on it. Also, given the US military's higher level of electronic sophistication it should pay to be the first folks on the battlefield with the weapons and the ways to defend against those weapons.
I don't think we're anywhere near the time where a USAF colonel will be strapping himself into a saucer and blowing up bridges with his death rays, but the important thing to remember about ways to kill people is that it's such a popular sport that everyone has to invest in it if they want to be able to compete at all.
I don't agree with GB's policies right now, but I know that mostly the people who fight the wars and LOSE are the ones that come home with more body bags. So, in that light I'll happily support anything that might possible help the US win any misguided warlike notion just so I don't end up attending any more funerals.
Some people have terminally dirty minds.
I'm often asleep hours before she's tired of cartoons and playing on my computer.
I've been told by my daughter that occassionally she catches me typing into the bed while I sleep. Until voice recognition becomes much better technology, typing is an essential communication skill for a huge number of people.
Of course I'm one of those people who will happily read a novel on a screen, regularly used a mouse to draw complex images until I finally broke down a bought a stylus, and generally spend more than twice the amount of time talking to people on the computer than I do in real life.
Sure, keyboards are nice. Feel is important, I still miss my old clacking keyboard that went with my last computer but was destroyed by the great mineral spirits disaster in my house. But I think virtual keyboards are an important step to an eventual goal of getting rid of keyboards and mice and all sorts of other sorts of distracting clutter.
I might go for a wireless computer that sat underneath the bed, that I viewed with one of those virtual screen glasses, typed into my bedsheets/walls/kitchen counter/deck rails outside, and moused around using waves of my hand and my pointing finger. Sure I'd probably look like a complete doofus, but if I somehow were a more productive and mobile doofus I think I could live with that.
What the world needs more than virtual keyboards are virtual typists, you know...those folks that can spell out the entire words "you" and "are" and can do so in under five minutes without a typo.
My 11 year griped about it, but she's finally starting to see the sense in learning to type quickly and correctly and not sounding like a 15 year old boy on methamphetamines while doing so.
These are just the authors of the books in my "put these away soon" pile. All have books that I have recently read and enjoyed and follow the basic theme of science fiction and/or fantasy. Qualifier: I have thousands of science fiction and fantasy novels and works collected by my father for over 50 years and I've been collecting them myself for over 20. I have an attic full of books, three rooms of bookshelves, and some in storage. Still there is a definite trend of taste in most of the books that some people might not share or agree with.
Lois McMaster Bujold (reread)
LMB simply deserves every accolade she's won. Of all the books of hers that I've read (which I believe with the completion of The Curse of Chalion now includes all of them) only Falling Free felt like it was wrote in haste or lack of care.
Harry Turtledove
Turtledove is the king of Alternative Historical Fiction and when he writes I always get the sense that he's gone to the effort of trying to get a unique or intimate perspective on the people or cultures he's writing about.
William Dietz
Not my favorite, but he's fun for neat explosions and one-liners occassionally I suppose.
Eric Flint
Hit or miss, I think that when he's writing with a co-author he sometimes either shows brilliance or else manages to bring out new ideas in otherwise somewhat tired authors.
Greg Bear
Vitals wasn't his best book mostly because of his insistence of switching viewpoints and thereby coming across like an accomplished conspiracy theorist. Sometimes I think he talks too much, like me. He's almost always dealing with a novel technology or idea though, so I generally read everything he writes.
David Drake
Unless it's yet another anthology of 20 year old stories, Drake is usually a good bet even when he's editing. Lately I've discovered that he's an acquired taste, though I still think that it's a worthwhile taste to acquire.
Laurell K Hamilton
Hamilton's major sticking point with me is that even her fantasy novels seem like they're firmly entrenched in the female romantic fiction market. Simply put, sometimes I feel like I'm reading soft core porn rather than something that I shouldn't be hiding the cover from passerbies.
Nancy Kress
I finished Probability Moon recently, but I had to pick it back up to remember anything about it. After reading through it some, I still don't remember much. I suppose that is a good endorsement that Kress doesn't do a whole lot for me.
Fritz Leiber
Every few years I reread Leiber, who in my opinion epitomizes a lot of good thing about past writers in the field that people don't do much anymore. His work is usually short and concise and complete. Since the present market is dominated by sometimes overly long winded, long running series I don't see how that can be a bad thing.
Charles Sheffield
Sometimes CS seems to have an underlining message to his books that I'm just not programmed to interpret. They're not bad books, they're memorable and mostly interesting. Perhaps it's that they sometimes lack a bit in plot development?
S M Stirling
SMS writes military science fiction primarily. In that, he's competent and worth filling a shelf or two checking him out. If you're out there cruising for new concepts or ideas though in your science fiction, I might recommend that you steer clear of him.
Fred Saberhagen
Another old favorite, like Asimov I doubt I've even begun to discover everything he's wrote to tell you how much I like it all. Every so often I delve into a dusty box of old books and find yet another book he's wrote or has a story in though, and each and every time I'm impressed. Sometimes you can tell that he's writing for a paycheck though, so some pieces are better than others.
Gordon R Dickson
I reread his old books, I buy his new ones. I recommend that everyone follow suit on general principles.
Ann Rice
Sometimes I get a lot of flak for reading her, but there is no denying that she started a trend with her books. Sometimes I wish her work were a little bit more like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, who is a much better author of "vampire fiction" in my opinion. I'm always picking up the Mayfair Witches though, picking through it and rereading it. It's either good or I'm obsessive-compulsive.
Harry Harrison
Harrison isn't my favorite writer, but he's a good writer with a healthy portfolio of books to purchase from. If nothing else I think people should be familiar with his work in a sort of science fiction heritage way.
C S Friedman
I read Madness Season after passing the book over for years. I didn't know what to make of it, and I still don't. Part of me wants to like it, the other part insists that it's hokey. Sometimes hokey is fun though, so maybe someone else will enjoy it more than I did.
CJ Cherryh
When Cherryh writes about aliens, they're ALIEN, not funny looking humans with pointy ears or personifications of human traits. At least she tries, and her books set in her weird light speed restricted universe of Cyteen and Hellburner are pretty good too.
Jack McDevitt
Not a lot of people seem to know about Jack McDevitt, but more people should. I'm not sure how to classify his work, possibly because I haven't finished reading all of it. It seems like science fiction from a non-science fiction writer, which may be true. In any case it's usually fun and fascinating.
Poul Anderson
Anderson's Flandry novels always move me for some reason. Perhaps it's my father's deep affection for them. In any case, I reread one or two of them on occassion.
Steven Gould
A newer science fiction writer, of the "one gimmick" school. Boy though, does he write the gimmick well. Even as I sit here writing I can't help but look forward to his next book.
Dan Simmons
Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion might be the best science fiction books I've ever read. Carrion Comfort might be one of the better horror stories I've ever read. The Hollow Man is right up there in the top ten "literature disguised as science fiction" books...So, if you haven't read ANY of those, please go do so.
Joe Haldeman
Haldeman's talent seems to be slowing down, but every time I read something new that I don't entirely like I find myself picking up The Forever War and reading it again. The Forever War and Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) ought to be required reading in high school I think.
David Weber
Honor Harrington lines the bookshelves, and since everyone else was buying it I didn't for a long time. Then after I read some of his other series, I turned around and gave it a try. Weber writes the equivalent of Science Fiction action flicks, but he does it well.
Bernard Cromwell
Cromwell doesn't really write science fiction or fantasy, but his Winter King series (I believe that is the name - the books are on loan right now)is good enough that I think he deserves mention. It's really one of the most interesting retellings of the Arthurian Legend I've ever read. I liked it so much I went and bought and read The Archer's Tale, which was quite good as well.
Gary Jennings
Gary Jennings bothers me sometimes. He writes too much, he bores me to tears, he makes me wonder if he'll ever finish his internal monologues and conversations sometimes. I still think he's worth reading, his Aztec books are so out of the ordinary that they read like fantasy.
I could continue, but is anyone really still reading now?
Dear Sir,
/. revolutionary activities at once and report to your Control.
Thanks to recent advances in technology mind control lasers have never before been as safe and as effective as they are today. Insights from confidential sources have allowed us to make past limitations in our systems obsolete. Now mind control lasering technology relies on non-material interference bands and goes directly into each subject regardless of most terrestrial technologies jamming efforts.
Please cease your
Thank you,
They
Seems like a distributed ass-kicking you off the game for not running the same code as the rest of world could handle it. You'd have to set up a central server system just to handle passing off new versions maybe? And if enough users were using cracked out rulesets then it's open source, let them.
I think the idea would be to insure that each user could faithfully assure themselves that at least the people that they were playing with would be operating under the same sorts of rules assumptions as they were. I mean, I've sat for HOURS downloading the skins and maps required to play Unreal before and I was cool with that - but once AimBots started taking hold it just wasn't fun anymore.
Perhaps the final solution would be limited open sourcing, change everything you want about this game except THIS part which makes sure that everyone is playing the same game. That way you could offer nice C&D letters on the basis of the evil DMCA to people who just _had_ to cheat.
It would be nice to see something good come out of the damned thing.
I doubt you'll find many people at Slashdot ever weeping many tears for the RIAA OR needing to be reminded of facts.
I mean everyone at Slashdot knows their facts before they were made aware of them right?
I just think the RIAA has decidedly forgotten the old saying about winning more flies with honey. It really doesn't matter whether the music itself is good or worse than in previous years or if P2P is killing music companies. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, seems to use some form of music sharing or downloading now (my 70 something grandfather likes finding out of print bluegrass music).
Does anyone really get off on being screaming at thief! when no one feels like they're doing anything wrong? How many people wring their hands before downloading music with the consideration that they might be breaking the law? Everyone agrees that if suddenly the music industry flopped over and died that it would probably be A Bad Thing, but I don't think anyone has any delusions that if Sony/Geffen/BMG/whatever suddenly were out of business that it would be the end of music and music distribution. It's like saying that if Microsoft went out of business that it would be the end of the PC.