It's pretty clear that the flash animation in question does not make fun of the actual song, but rather the presidential candidates and America in general.
I disagree. The original song is about America in general. It addressed social and political issues such as land ownership and welfare. Read the lyrics.
The Jib Jab song features the two presidential candidates, but also Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger--singing Guthrie's original line "From California, to the New York Island". It also has the Native American being overshadowed by huge shopping centers. And there are the generalizations about the economic classes that Kerry and Bush represent, different attitudes towards war, etc.
In short, the Jib Jab song is not just about Kerry and Bush, but it's a parady of American culture, just as Guthrie's original was a critique of American culture. Since the Jib Jab song addresses the original content of the work, it is fair use.
In case you were wondering, 42 is the answer the the ultimate question of life and the universe. At the end of the trailer, the number is in the stars.
Why mod it in the first place?... It's just a box.
Physically, it's just a box, but psychologically, it's an extension of yourself. And as part of youself, you want it to reflect your unique tastes and values.
The Model T car suffered (and Oldsmobile boomed) because Ford refused to sell cars in any color but black. The color of car doesn't affect its function. But for the consumer, whether they like the color of the car has a big impact on whether they like the car in general. Choosing the appearance makes it your car rather than a car.
The same thing goes with cell phone faceplates and desktop wallpapers. Since the device is personalized, it pyschologically becomes and extension of yourself, rather than merely a beige hunk of plastic in your pocket or on your desk.
On another note, the fact that you may need to plug in USB devices or change CDs means that the computer should be near your desk, in arms' reach, rather than in a closet. So it most likely will be visible.
"[The parents] will then automatically receive a return message stating the name of the park area and the map coordinate of their child's position in the park. On their special Kidspotter map of the park, parents can easily see where to find their child"
On the topic of insurance, it's a common misconception that insurance companies make most of their profit by charging a higher premium than what they have to pay out.
In fact, most of their profit comes from investing your premium until they have to pay you back. Historically, the stock market increases about 8% per year. We'll assume that insurance companies can get 8% interest per year.
So, going back to the above example, if 25 out of 100 people make a claim for a new laptop, the insurer would pay out exactly what it took in. But, say the laptops broke after 18 months. The insurer would have made
[(1.08)^1.5 - 1] * 40,000 = $4894.75 just from investing your premium in the meantime, or about $50 per laptop. Even if they don't gouge you on the premium, it's a nice source of extra profit in an already competitive market.
Bear in mind that this is the main source of profit for large-scale insurance companies with a lot of statistics to make informed predictions and competition from other insurers.
In the case of insuring your consumer electronics, the premium is likely higher because it's a riskier kind of insurance, and their is little competition.
I have several friends who are CS majors and use Windows 98 with no virus protection or firewall.
Win98 came with their computer, and works fine for what they use it to do: play games, download movies and mp3s, and SSH into other computers on campus to do their programming projects. They don't want the hassle of upgrading to a more secure OS or installing security software.
Being a CS major doesn't mean you're serious about network security. It might seem incriminating if a CS major's computer was used in an attack, but hopefully they could defend themselves by showing that they don't hang out in IRC chatrooms or brag about their hacks to other script kiddies.
It seems to me that the RIAA is trying (and often succeeding) in skipping a step -- that of monitoring after evidence is brought forth (a la a search warrant). They're monitoring and then getting the names to prosecute
What about video cameras in stores? They monitor for illegal activity, and if a crime takes place, the police or store owner tries to identify the criminal. The RIAA, after monitoring network activity and determining the identity of someone they wish to prosecute, then probably does get a search warrant to examine the defendant's computer.
I've seen several food advertisements--fast food, pizza, soda, etc, in which a bunch of cool dudes are hanging out playing videogames while scarfing down whatever product is being advertised.
For the advertisers, this targets their ads to people who play videogames. But on the other hand, it portrays gaming as a social pasttime of attractive, popular people.
Randy Cohen writes "The Ethicist" column in the NYTimes Magazine. This week he responded to a similiar quandary about helping an ex-employer. (It's the second letter, so scroll down a little bit.)
As a student who recently graduated from high school, I totally agree that teacher incompatence is a major factor inhibiting the usefulness of computers in education. As the "computer whiz" in most of my classes, I was often responsible for operating the VCR and the television, because the teachers didn't know how to use them. The main stumbling block for the teachers was the TV/Video button, and even worse - a disconnected coaxial cable! So anyway, a few years ago my high school began a project to put a computer in every classroom. All 100+ classroom got $2500 Pentiums w/ MMX @ 200MHZ (this was a few years ago, so they were top of the line) Every classroom even got it's own hub, so it could at some point support even 8 computers, and all were connected to a network. How many of these computers have I ever seen in use? 0 How many have I ever even seen turned on? 0 The only computers that are used are the ones in the library, where there are occassionally classes for students with little computer experience - classes which seemed very instructive about using search engines to get useful information from the Internet. But nothing that challenged a computer enthusiast like me. I'd also like to mention, as an aside, that the school district paid $40k to get a district-wide license for McAfee VirusScan, but then didn't update the scanner for 3 years. So, I think computers skills (not neccessarily programming skills) will be neccessary for virtually every job for my generation. Thus, getting experience with computers in school is a great benefit. However, teacher incompetence and poor administration stand in the way of using technology most affectively.
Apparently, eBay has no plan of aquiring Sotheby's. To quote CEO Meg Whitman today "We're not buying them. There's absolutely nothing to these rumors." The yahoo news article where I'm getting this info went on to say that the rumor originated from a British newspaper, The Independent, based on the evidence of the resigning Sotherby executives.
First- there is more information on their website (http://www.disappearing.com/) than there is in the Canoe article.
After reading the vague description they give on their website of their system, I'm trying to come up with my own "self-destructing" cryptosystem. I'm only in high school, so I'm too naive to think of this as a potential business plan. And hell, this is the open source community, so at least I know you will put it to good use.
Here goes - the Self-Destructing Cryptosystem (SDC)
1. Alice and Bob both have a proprietary SDC email program.
2. Alice logs into a trusted SDC server, owned and maintained by SDC Inc. Alice's client program encrypts the message with a random key sent from the server. Alice's client program does not cache the key, so it is forever lost on her machine.
3. The encrypted message gets sent to Bob, and he uses his SDC client program to log into the SDC server. The server verifies his identity, and verifies his permissions for the random key. The SDC server then sends Bob the key to decrypt the message. Bob's client program also does not cache the key, so it is lost forever on his machine also.
4. Alice sets they self-descruct time when she sends the message. When the time expires, they key is wiped from the SDC server.
Ok, that's most of it. Here are a few notes/comments: Alice and Bob can have public keyrings to encrypt the transmission of the random key, so that eavesdroppers can't intercept the random key. This can be built into the program. Also, Alice could set the key to destruct N amount of time after she sends it, or N amount of time after Bob reads it. The only computer that needs to have the correct time is the SDC server, which would hopefully be trusted and secure. This is less vulnerable than relying on the time on the client computers.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.1 for non-commercial use
I've read a few posts that wonder why he was in trouble for crimes he was PLANNING to commit, but hadn't actually committed. Though this may seem Orwellian, I don't really think it is. Let me explain.
My father is a minister, which classifies him as a "counselor" (along with lawyers, psychiatrists, and a few other types of people). This means that if someone comes to him and confesses a crime, my father is breaking the law to tell the authorities of this confession. It's the same idea as attorney/client privileges, but it extends to a few other occupations. It basically ensures confidentiality.
The sole exception to this is crimes involving children - such as child abuse, or sexual abuse as the case is with Naughton. In these cases, my father is required to tell the police. I wholly agree with this clause because it protects children who are not able to stick up for themselves. If a crime is committed against another adult, then that adult at least has the capacities to take action and report it to the proper authorities. It's quite possible that a thirteen-year-old girl that could have been a victim to Naughton would not even know that what she was doing was wrong. Young people who are not completely independent need responsible adults to protect them against people trying to harm them.
Although the technical age of consent may be debatable, I'm glad that we do have these laws that prevent people who attempt to take advantage of young people from doing so.
How do we decide who is informed enough to vote? Any standard, to me, seems arbitrary. A crux of democracy is that someone who cares ademently about an issue gets the same amount of representation who has a less strong opinion. Each person gets one vote, regardless of how informed they are.
Now, technology allows us to make voting even more accessible for those who might not have usually voted. Hypothetically, this person, even though they don't feel strongly enough about an issue to go to the pains of voting, may be much more informed about an issue (remember: informed, educated votes are what we want, not strength of opinion) than someone who'll vote b/c they're bored.
By saying "The people who should be elligble to vote are the people who are willing to register, reschedule appointments, and travel to their local voting booths" is similiar to saying that people elligble to vote should be able to read and interpret the constitution. (I'm citing the infamous "reading tests" used to deter black people from voting until the Civil Rights Movement).
My point here being that we shouldn't have any standards at all for voting (besides citizenship, or course). So, I say use technology to make voting as easy as possible. People still need to take the final step themselves to actually caste the vote, so it is possible to still abstain.
But everyone still gets one vote. The movie Bulworth seems to have left the impression on our society that the person with the biggest budget wins. This isn't *always* the case. I don't think we can start blaming people for having money, so it is imperative that we trust voters to make the right decision.
Slashdot Mirror
"If your mouse is a-clickin', we'll come a-knockin'."
give [the buses] chrome boxes so they always get a green light
I recommend you avoid the intersections where two bus routes cross.
Does this mean that all these years, satellite designers have NOT been using the internet?
After reading the /. description, I still have two questions:
Is the Helix Player 100% open source?
Does it support Ogg Vorbis and Theora?
I can't read "ATRAC" without thinking of "8-track". It's like they're subliminally telling us how crappy the format is.
It's pretty clear that the flash animation in question does not make fun of the actual song, but rather the presidential candidates and America in general.
I disagree. The original song is about America in general. It addressed social and political issues such as land ownership and welfare. Read the lyrics.
The Jib Jab song features the two presidential candidates, but also Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger--singing Guthrie's original line "From California, to the New York Island". It also has the Native American being overshadowed by huge shopping centers. And there are the generalizations about the economic classes that Kerry and Bush represent, different attitudes towards war, etc.
In short, the Jib Jab song is not just about Kerry and Bush, but it's a parady of American culture, just as Guthrie's original was a critique of American culture. Since the Jib Jab song addresses the original content of the work, it is fair use.
In case you were wondering, 42 is the answer the the ultimate question of life and the universe. At the end of the trailer, the number is in the stars.
Why mod it in the first place? ... It's just a box.
Physically, it's just a box, but psychologically, it's an extension of yourself. And as part of youself, you want it to reflect your unique tastes and values.
The Model T car suffered (and Oldsmobile boomed) because Ford refused to sell cars in any color but black. The color of car doesn't affect its function. But for the consumer, whether they like the color of the car has a big impact on whether they like the car in general. Choosing the appearance makes it your car rather than a car.
The same thing goes with cell phone faceplates and desktop wallpapers. Since the device is personalized, it pyschologically becomes and extension of yourself, rather than merely a beige hunk of plastic in your pocket or on your desk.
On another note, the fact that you may need to plug in USB devices or change CDs means that the computer should be near your desk, in arms' reach, rather than in a closet. So it most likely will be visible.
"OMG! Why are the missiles launching?!" says the guy resting his elbow on the '0' key.
RTFA. From the first paragraph(!):
"[The parents] will then automatically receive a return message stating the name of the park area and the map coordinate of their child's position in the park. On their special Kidspotter map of the park, parents can easily see where to find their child"
I'd say for the past few decades, the playing field has been majorly slanted towards the U.S. middle class, and now it's starting to correct itself.
So we chose to 'microwave' our cash, over $1000 in twenties in a stack, not spread out on a carasoul.
...So I guess the only put RFID tags in 60% of twenties.
There's only $600 worth of twenties in the second picture.
On the topic of insurance, it's a common misconception that insurance companies make most of their profit by charging a higher premium than what they have to pay out.
In fact, most of their profit comes from investing your premium until they have to pay you back. Historically, the stock market increases about 8% per year. We'll assume that insurance companies can get 8% interest per year.
So, going back to the above example, if 25 out of 100 people make a claim for a new laptop, the insurer would pay out exactly what it took in. But, say the laptops broke after 18 months. The insurer would have made
[(1.08)^1.5 - 1] * 40,000 = $4894.75 just from investing your premium in the meantime, or about $50 per laptop. Even if they don't gouge you on the premium, it's a nice source of extra profit in an already competitive market.
Bear in mind that this is the main source of profit for large-scale insurance companies with a lot of statistics to make informed predictions and competition from other insurers.
In the case of insuring your consumer electronics, the premium is likely higher because it's a riskier kind of insurance, and their is little competition.
Good point.
I have several friends who are CS majors and use Windows 98 with no virus protection or firewall.
Win98 came with their computer, and works fine for what they use it to do: play games, download movies and mp3s, and SSH into other computers on campus to do their programming projects. They don't want the hassle of upgrading to a more secure OS or installing security software.
Being a CS major doesn't mean you're serious about network security. It might seem incriminating if a CS major's computer was used in an attack, but hopefully they could defend themselves by showing that they don't hang out in IRC chatrooms or brag about their hacks to other script kiddies.
It seems to me that the RIAA is trying (and often succeeding) in skipping a step -- that of monitoring after evidence is brought forth (a la a search warrant). They're monitoring and then getting the names to prosecute
What about video cameras in stores? They monitor for illegal activity, and if a crime takes place, the police or store owner tries to identify the criminal. The RIAA, after monitoring network activity and determining the identity of someone they wish to prosecute, then probably does get a search warrant to examine the defendant's computer.
I've seen several food advertisements--fast food, pizza, soda, etc, in which a bunch of cool dudes are hanging out playing videogames while scarfing down whatever product is being advertised.
For the advertisers, this targets their ads to people who play videogames. But on the other hand, it portrays gaming as a social pasttime of attractive, popular people.
I went to high school with a Justin Case. Now he's a radio DJ in upstate NY.
Randy Cohen writes "The Ethicist" column in the NYTimes Magazine. This week he responded to a similiar quandary about helping an ex-employer. (It's the second letter, so scroll down a little bit.)
Regardless of science, any clone born into society today will certainly have an tremendous identity crisis.
As a student who recently graduated from high school, I totally agree that teacher incompatence is a major factor inhibiting the usefulness of computers in education. As the "computer whiz" in most of my classes, I was often responsible for operating the VCR and the television, because the teachers didn't know how to use them. The main stumbling block for the teachers was the TV/Video button, and even worse - a disconnected coaxial cable! So anyway, a few years ago my high school began a project to put a computer in every classroom. All 100+ classroom got $2500 Pentiums w/ MMX @ 200MHZ (this was a few years ago, so they were top of the line) Every classroom even got it's own hub, so it could at some point support even 8 computers, and all were connected to a network. How many of these computers have I ever seen in use? 0 How many have I ever even seen turned on? 0 The only computers that are used are the ones in the library, where there are occassionally classes for students with little computer experience - classes which seemed very instructive about using search engines to get useful information from the Internet. But nothing that challenged a computer enthusiast like me. I'd also like to mention, as an aside, that the school district paid $40k to get a district-wide license for McAfee VirusScan, but then didn't update the scanner for 3 years. So, I think computers skills (not neccessarily programming skills) will be neccessary for virtually every job for my generation. Thus, getting experience with computers in school is a great benefit. However, teacher incompetence and poor administration stand in the way of using technology most affectively.
Apparently, eBay has no plan of aquiring Sotheby's. To quote CEO Meg Whitman today "We're not buying them. There's absolutely nothing to these rumors." The yahoo news article where I'm getting this info went on to say that the rumor originated from a British newspaper, The Independent, based on the evidence of the resigning Sotherby executives.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
N IoOxdbcSSqkAmwUj
Hash: SHA1
First- there is more information on their website
(http://www.disappearing.com/) than there is in the Canoe article.
After reading the vague description they give on their website of
their system, I'm trying to come up with my own "self-destructing"
cryptosystem. I'm only in high school, so I'm too naive to think of
this as a potential business plan. And hell, this is the open source
community, so at least I know you will put it to good use.
Here goes - the Self-Destructing Cryptosystem (SDC)
1. Alice and Bob both have a proprietary SDC email program.
2. Alice logs into a trusted SDC server, owned and maintained by SDC
Inc. Alice's client program encrypts the message with a random key
sent from the server. Alice's client program does not cache the key,
so it is forever lost on her machine.
3. The encrypted message gets sent to Bob, and he uses his SDC
client program to log into the SDC server. The server verifies his
identity, and verifies his permissions for the random key. The SDC
server then sends Bob the key to decrypt the message. Bob's client
program also does not cache the key, so it is lost forever on his
machine also.
4. Alice sets they self-descruct time when she sends the message.
When the time expires, they key is wiped from the SDC server.
Ok, that's most of it. Here are a few notes/comments:
Alice and Bob can have public keyrings to encrypt the transmission of
the random key, so that eavesdroppers can't intercept the random key.
This can be built into the program.
Also, Alice could set the key to destruct N amount of time after she
sends it, or N amount of time after Bob reads it.
The only computer that needs to have the correct time is the SDC
server, which would hopefully be trusted and secure. This is less
vulnerable than relying on the time on the client computers.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.1 for non-commercial use
iQA/AwUBN/4mCelLHfp8d083EQK0vQCfebzQjvZtxB2WGB3
aO2Li0a1IncBjJZEe/L3bU8H
=pXcN
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I've read a few posts that wonder why he was in trouble for crimes he was PLANNING to commit, but hadn't actually committed. Though this may seem Orwellian, I don't really think it is. Let me explain.
My father is a minister, which classifies him as a "counselor" (along with lawyers, psychiatrists, and a few other types of people). This means that if someone comes to him and confesses a crime, my father is breaking the law to tell the authorities of this confession. It's the same idea as attorney/client privileges, but it extends to a few other occupations. It basically ensures confidentiality.
The sole exception to this is crimes involving children - such as child abuse, or sexual abuse as the case is with Naughton. In these cases, my father is required to tell the police. I wholly agree with this clause because it protects children who are not able to stick up for themselves. If a crime is committed against another adult, then that adult at least has the capacities to take action and report it to the proper authorities. It's quite possible that a thirteen-year-old girl that could have been a victim to Naughton would not even know that what she was doing was wrong. Young people who are not completely independent need responsible adults to protect them against people trying to harm them.
Although the technical age of consent may be debatable, I'm glad that we do have these laws that prevent people who attempt to take advantage of young people from doing so.
How do we decide who is informed enough to vote? Any standard, to me, seems arbitrary. A crux of democracy is that someone who cares ademently about an issue gets the same amount of representation who has a less strong opinion. Each person gets one vote, regardless of how informed they are.
Now, technology allows us to make voting even more accessible for those who might not have usually voted. Hypothetically, this person, even though they don't feel strongly enough about an issue to go to the pains of voting, may be much more informed about an issue (remember: informed, educated votes are what we want, not strength of opinion) than someone who'll vote b/c they're bored.
By saying "The people who should be elligble to vote are the people who are willing to register, reschedule appointments, and travel to their local voting booths" is similiar to saying that people elligble to vote should be able to read and interpret the constitution. (I'm citing the infamous "reading tests" used to deter black people from voting until the Civil Rights Movement).
My point here being that we shouldn't have any standards at all for voting (besides citizenship, or course). So, I say use technology to make voting as easy as possible. People still need to take the final step themselves to actually caste the vote, so it is possible to still abstain.
But everyone still gets one vote. The movie Bulworth seems to have left the impression on our society that the person with the biggest budget wins. This isn't *always* the case. I don't think we can start blaming people for having money, so it is imperative that we trust voters to make the right decision.