"If the breach can be characterized as fraud (i.e., you lied about your bravery to get the contract to fight the bull), then you can be arrested for it in America as well."
No, you can't, It's very difficult to be arrested in the US for fraud... not that I've ever been accused of fraud, but it takes many complaints to an attorney state general and they have to file charges based on evidence and testimonies and then they can put a warrant out for you to be picked up for questioning. It takes more than just a few incidents, those are civil manners because it's more of a "he said/she said" situation, buyer cries fraud but of course the seller has his own opinion of what happened... but again I've never been accused... ok I have been but it was a huge misunderstanding and I explained to the detectives what happened, but I think what really saved me is the individual amounts were small and no one wanted to travel here for court for such small amounts.
"I can't help but think that adding like 10 cents for 1-3 meters of wire between the panels and the bulb would help"
and make it detachable, so you can unscrew the top and hey there's the 1-3 meter of wire let's run it outside now... oh you don't need the wire anymore ok just wrap the wire back inside and screw the top back on and voila wire's gone.
"You do realize that a tree does not block all sunlight in a everywhere under its brances?"
Whaaaaa....? Do you have magic non-light blocking trees where you are? My trees are like deep dark caves you walk underneath and you're like Whoa who turned off the lights where's my cellphone so I can use it like a flashlight.
/sarcasm
Seems more like a publicity stunt from a no name film maker... sorry there's no link, I couldn't find him on IMDB, unless he's this Robert Spence who's earned such illustrious titles as "additional assistant production office coordinator" in recent years (is that the assistant to the assistant to the coordinator?)
Now if he could actually see with this device that'd be different, that's a bionic eye, but all he did was replace his false eye with a small streaming webcam. That's not a bionic eye anymore than a false arm with a webcam is a bionic arm.
Finally someone said it. Does the internet look different in 7 vs XP? Considering my last few jobs had everything done over the company's intranet I don't see why anyone would need 7 vs XP. Only reason I'm considering it at home is 64-bit so I can rise above 4gb
But this one is deserved. I'm sorry casino, if you have a machine that says someone won $11 million, that's what they won.
Let's not forget this is the second time in 3 months: "It's the second time in three months a Colorado slot machine has made a multi-million dollar mistake."
So when's the lottery going to start this scam? "Oh sorry, I know we read your winning numbers but you really didn't win"
"If these people are able to detect objects around them via arriving photons, then it's sight."
Did you read the summary? "The device consists of a computer, two video cameras, and a scanning light source; it audibly alerts the individual of objects"
So not sight, anymore then saying bats can see at night because they're using sonar.
Also this article is darn right awful, from the horrible use of stock photo usage to the inaccurate use of the word radar, meaning electromagnetic waves, not the two video cameras this system is using. Where's the photos of the device? Pics or it didn't happen.
I also love how the article says that guide dogs are color blind so that's a "deadly disadvantage" when reading street signs, yet this system only "alerts the individual of objects that are close in proximity" with no warning about street signs at all. Yeah, I'm going to have to go with the color blind guide dog because at least it can tell me there's a sign there and I need to stop instead of just beeping.
I'm also a bit surprised something similar doesn't exist already: you mean to tell me no one's thought of having a camera tell the blind they're too close? Proximity sensorshave existed in cars for years and it's essentially the same idea: get to close to an object and the system beeps, and the closer you are the faster it beeps. No one thought "Gee blind people could use this too". Although maybe no one bothered because guide dogs sure seem like the better solution according to this article.
"Does this case have much wider implications (as summary hints at) for the software licensing at large?"
If you pay monthly for it, yes.
That's one thing the article seems to leave out: there is no single player element of WoW, it's all multiplayer, and you must pay a monthly fee to continue playing. That monthly fee means users are obviously licensing the right to use the software.
The fact that a user "paid for it, you have the DVD in your drive and the box on the floor next to your desk" really doesn't matter at all if users don't pay that monthly fee, they can shut them out at any time for any TOS violation.
The article then goes on to say "If you own your software, you have the right to resell it and the right to make copies and adaptations as necessary to use it." Huh? This is a online game, what are you reselling, the WoW servers? Are users going to copy all the online content and make a single player version of WoW to play by themselves?
The article's really written like the author has never heard of WoW
"as such I support this principal in putting a stop to it as quickly as possible."
Agreed, and I'm shocked at the parent's reaction: "The student's mother has said punishing the girl should have been left up to her.
Wow: your daughter is very publicly (shouting it in a classroom is publicly, posting it on myspace is very publicly) accusing school officials of being pedophiles, and you want to send her to her room without dinner? So, I guess next time she falsely accuses a boy of rape she gets no TV for a week?
The student should have definitely been sued, and I'm disappointed the ACLU is defending them, because if their defense is successful my kids will be going to school with teachers and principals that are pedophiles, rapist, murders and drug dealers... or at least that's what it says when I do a google search if the ACLU gets their way.
Oh and the "did this at home doesn't count" excuse doesn't fly: when you tell the whole world your actions you're doing it at school too. 20 yrs ago this would have been the equivalent of coming to school and passing out flyers to every student and staff member.
These kids definitely should have been suspended for their off-campus online actions, because when they get to the real world and create fake myspace profiles of their bosses they'll get a lot more than 10 day suspensions.
"I think you miss the point...there's always something new and having been exposed to the previous generation will always give you an appreciation for the state of the art."
True, but computers and the internet has lead to a huge boom in instantly shared information, so the rate of advancement has been faster now than ever before.
This has happened many times in history, whenever there was a significant leap in information distribution. The printing press was probably the largest, followed by telegraph, telephone, cars, radio and TV.
"On the other hand, I wonder how much amazing stuff I would see had I been born even just 20 years later (than 1984)"
If you were born in 2004 you would have missed out on everything. All you'd know is multi-core processors, terabytes and petabytes, touchscreen everything, wireless internet everywhere, 24/7 access to everyone you don't really know and directions to anywhere from anywhere available in your pocket. You'd have no appreciation for any of it and probably know nothing about computers because modern operating systems are far better than offerings in the 90s.
Trust me when I say you were born at the right time.
I want police to be video recorded but I also don't want them to be harassed by every asshole with a cameraphone. If the cop says "Your camera is making me uncomfortable please stop taking photos" like he does in that video you should comply. That goes for everyone, not just cops.
while I'm all for manners, refusing vital blood tests when doctors forget to put the word "please" on weekend requests just seems damn right stupid and dangerous. How can any manager sit there and support this measure?
This sounds like something out of a Dilbert cartoon or from Office Space, I could just see him saying "Yeah... you didn't put please on your TPS reports... so I'm going to need you to come in Saturday, m'kay?"
"If all of these legions of people are SO upset then why the fuck haven't they been actively helping? Where are their code patches?"
You think all XBMC users should be programmers? That's the wrong approach, you need the soccer mom's, the regular people using these devices, not just hackers and geeks, otherwise you'll never get support for cheap set-top devices or people interested in developing it. You tell soccer mom "hey all your movies and tv shows free for just $50 one time" and they'll listen, but you tell them $350 and they'll pass.
"You realize that right? you would if you read the forums. "
Again you fail to see the purpose of XBMC. The genius of the XBMC is that you don't have to live your life on a forum to keep it going. Think Soccer Mom Sally wants to visit yet another forum weekly so she can watch TV? Hell no, who does? XBMC was exceedingly simplicity, plug in, turn on, watch streaming videos over network.
By telling people $50 XBMC is dead, buy something else (they never did give examples of successors) they're fragmenting the community and that's suicide. Like Sony with the PS2 you don't kill your community, you move on and offer them something else but you don't tell them "stop buying/using our product, find something else". If they had done some statistics to see how many people were running on a Xbox vs other devices I'm sure they'd see the Xbox is the most popular device.
I haven't had TV service in 3 years, all media has been through the XBMC and I've never had a problem with downloaded content not working. 1080p isn't a popular downloaded format, you search for any video content and 480i or similar DVD quality will be easier to find than 1080p. Unless there's a huge jump in cheap bandwidth 1080p will continue to be unpopular, especially with Comcast and Earthlink announcing monthly caps. Who'd want to waste 5gb on 1080p when 700mb 480i DivX suffices?
Like I said support is huge, you start putting the software on dozens of different kinds of hardware and OSes and you're going to have support problems. What happens when you post on a forum "1080p is jumpy"? Now they have to look at the cpu and video card and OS and other software and all these other potential problems, and while people might help you today with your dual core 1.6ghz atom in 5 years time they'll laugh at you and say your PC isn't fast enough and to upgrade.
I agree with one thing you said: "If that's just too much for you by all means keep your old XBOX too." I can give my parents a Xbox with XBMC on it and not worry about support because I know there's no problems with it, can you say the same about your $350 personal computer? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
This will not end well for XBMC, this will push people off Xboxes and on to Boxee and other competitors because why bother with XBMC when you're already running a dual core PC? Might as well upgrade to Boxee or MythTV.
I don't mind the developers making a XBMC2 for modern devices, but to end support for the highly successful XBMC and close the forums and start removing things from the wiki is suicide and I can't believe they don't see that. What would happen if Sony or Microsoft announced they'd no longer support the PS3 or Xbox360 and they're focusing on next gen consoles? Think anyone that read that would buy a ps3 or 360? Sony's a genius when it comes to that: while M$ ended support for the Xbox, you can still buy a brand new ps2 and new games at most retail stores and it's paid off big, with 1.8 million Playstation 2s sold in 2009. Yes, Sony sold 1.8 million 10 yr old ps2s in 2009, and brand new ps2 games are still being released in 2010. See you don't slaughter the fatted calf as soon as the next gen comes out, and the fact that XBMC developers are doing so prove they don't care about their community and will drop you whenever it's convenient for them.
I'll give you ten reasons:
1. ASRock looks like a PC and IMHO won't look as good as the Xbox does in the living room
2. Xbox with XBMC = $50 vs $350+ for ASRock
3. XBMC on Xbox has huge community for help and support spanning many years
4. Controllers and other devices are very cheap for the Xbox
5. Hundreds of games are natively supported
6. Menus and functions are all easily navigated using controller or remote
7. It's quiet
8. almost instant boot-time
9. proprietary hardware makes it easier to support
10. lack of software incompatibilities makes it easier to support
"Though you reference a good deal of local network traffic. I don't believe you are accurately measuring your upstream/downstream bandwidth."
True, the upload might be mostly transferring from PC to XBMC, but being a media server it mostly downloads it's all of it's content from the website and the download alone is 367 GiB this past month, far more than Comcast's allowed 250gb. Also of note netmeter measures in GiB, which is 2^30 or ~1.074 GB, rather than GB, defined as 10^9 or 1,000,000,000 bytes.
Slashdot Mirror
"If the breach can be characterized as fraud (i.e., you lied about your bravery to get the contract to fight the bull), then you can be arrested for it in America as well."
No, you can't, It's very difficult to be arrested in the US for fraud... not that I've ever been accused of fraud, but it takes many complaints to an attorney state general and they have to file charges based on evidence and testimonies and then they can put a warrant out for you to be picked up for questioning. It takes more than just a few incidents, those are civil manners because it's more of a "he said/she said" situation, buyer cries fraud but of course the seller has his own opinion of what happened... but again I've never been accused... ok I have been but it was a huge misunderstanding and I explained to the detectives what happened, but I think what really saved me is the individual amounts were small and no one wanted to travel here for court for such small amounts.
^--- spoiled US resident, posting on a US-owned and English speaking website
"I can't help but think that adding like 10 cents for 1-3 meters of wire between the panels and the bulb would help"
and make it detachable, so you can unscrew the top and hey there's the 1-3 meter of wire let's run it outside now... oh you don't need the wire anymore ok just wrap the wire back inside and screw the top back on and voila wire's gone.
quick, someone patent that!
"You do realize that a tree does not block all sunlight in a everywhere under its brances?"
Whaaaaa....? Do you have magic non-light blocking trees where you are? My trees are like deep dark caves you walk underneath and you're like Whoa who turned off the lights where's my cellphone so I can use it like a flashlight.
/sarcasm
No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!
if you bothered to RTFA you'd see that it has a hook to hang like a lantern. Thinking is to hang it from a branch or something.
Obviously if you're in a house you probably already have electric power or some other more reliable source of lighting
"the comments read "fascinating future" "imagination" "great stuff" etc. "
I guess I missed those comments, I saw spooky, porn and banned from theaters.
Seems more like a publicity stunt from a no name film maker... sorry there's no link, I couldn't find him on IMDB, unless he's this Robert Spence who's earned such illustrious titles as "additional assistant production office coordinator" in recent years (is that the assistant to the assistant to the coordinator?)
We all have cellphones, we've all see how teeny-tiny the camera chips can be (head of a pen) and pair that with wifi that fits in a SD card and your favor power source and you're done. Not really newest worthy, certainly not best invention of 2009.
Now if he could actually see with this device that'd be different, that's a bionic eye, but all he did was replace his false eye with a small streaming webcam. That's not a bionic eye anymore than a false arm with a webcam is a bionic arm.
FTA:
"High-tech school: In Beverly, the new high school academic wing includes a built-in wireless infrastructure designed to support laptops..."
HOLY CRAP THEY HAVE WI-FI! OMG they're l337! wait... what year was this written?
"Operating systems do not matter much anymore."
Finally someone said it. Does the internet look different in 7 vs XP? Considering my last few jobs had everything done over the company's intranet I don't see why anyone would need 7 vs XP. Only reason I'm considering it at home is 64-bit so I can rise above 4gb
"Law Suit!!!! Its the American way."
But this one is deserved. I'm sorry casino, if you have a machine that says someone won $11 million, that's what they won.
Let's not forget this is the second time in 3 months: "It's the second time in three months a Colorado slot machine has made a multi-million dollar mistake."
So when's the lottery going to start this scam? "Oh sorry, I know we read your winning numbers but you really didn't win"
Sure, it's as sharp as the images are tight
I think Michael Bolton from Office Space wrote this review.
"If these people are able to detect objects around them via arriving photons, then it's sight."
Did you read the summary?
"The device consists of a computer, two video cameras, and a scanning light source; it audibly alerts the individual of objects"
So not sight, anymore then saying bats can see at night because they're using sonar.
Also this article is darn right awful, from the horrible use of stock photo usage to the inaccurate use of the word radar, meaning electromagnetic waves, not the two video cameras this system is using. Where's the photos of the device? Pics or it didn't happen.
I also love how the article says that guide dogs are color blind so that's a "deadly disadvantage" when reading street signs, yet this system only "alerts the individual of objects that are close in proximity" with no warning about street signs at all. Yeah, I'm going to have to go with the color blind guide dog because at least it can tell me there's a sign there and I need to stop instead of just beeping.
I'm also a bit surprised something similar doesn't exist already: you mean to tell me no one's thought of having a camera tell the blind they're too close? Proximity sensors have existed in cars for years and it's essentially the same idea: get to close to an object and the system beeps, and the closer you are the faster it beeps. No one thought "Gee blind people could use this too". Although maybe no one bothered because guide dogs sure seem like the better solution according to this article.
"Does this case have much wider implications (as summary hints at) for the software licensing at large?"
If you pay monthly for it, yes.
That's one thing the article seems to leave out: there is no single player element of WoW, it's all multiplayer, and you must pay a monthly fee to continue playing. That monthly fee means users are obviously licensing the right to use the software.
The fact that a user "paid for it, you have the DVD in your drive and the box on the floor next to your desk" really doesn't matter at all if users don't pay that monthly fee, they can shut them out at any time for any TOS violation.
The article then goes on to say "If you own your software, you have the right to resell it and the right to make copies and adaptations as necessary to use it." Huh? This is a online game, what are you reselling, the WoW servers? Are users going to copy all the online content and make a single player version of WoW to play by themselves?
The article's really written like the author has never heard of WoW
"as such I support this principal in putting a stop to it as quickly as possible."
Agreed, and I'm shocked at the parent's reaction: "The student's mother has said punishing the girl should have been left up to her.
Wow: your daughter is very publicly (shouting it in a classroom is publicly, posting it on myspace is very publicly) accusing school officials of being pedophiles, and you want to send her to her room without dinner? So, I guess next time she falsely accuses a boy of rape she gets no TV for a week?
The student should have definitely been sued, and I'm disappointed the ACLU is defending them, because if their defense is successful my kids will be going to school with teachers and principals that are pedophiles, rapist, murders and drug dealers... or at least that's what it says when I do a google search if the ACLU gets their way.
Oh and the "did this at home doesn't count" excuse doesn't fly: when you tell the whole world your actions you're doing it at school too. 20 yrs ago this would have been the equivalent of coming to school and passing out flyers to every student and staff member.
These kids definitely should have been suspended for their off-campus online actions, because when they get to the real world and create fake myspace profiles of their bosses they'll get a lot more than 10 day suspensions.
"I think you miss the point...there's always something new and having been exposed to the previous generation will always give you an appreciation for the state of the art."
True, but computers and the internet has lead to a huge boom in instantly shared information, so the rate of advancement has been faster now than ever before.
This has happened many times in history, whenever there was a significant leap in information distribution. The printing press was probably the largest, followed by telegraph, telephone, cars, radio and TV.
Just look how quickly modern society advanced over the past 100 years compared to the past 2,000 years. At the beginning of the 1900s "modern medicine" was still hacking off legs and no sanitation and airplanes consisted of spruce wood. By 1967 we were transplating hearts and in 1969 we walked on the moon.
That's strange, because I rarely read anything on idle I don't enjoy or at least find interesting. IMHO Idle's one of the best parts of /.
"On the other hand, I wonder how much amazing stuff I would see had I been born even just 20 years later (than 1984)"
If you were born in 2004 you would have missed out on everything. All you'd know is multi-core processors, terabytes and petabytes, touchscreen everything, wireless internet everywhere, 24/7 access to everyone you don't really know and directions to anywhere from anywhere available in your pocket. You'd have no appreciation for any of it and probably know nothing about computers because modern operating systems are far better than offerings in the 90s.
Trust me when I say you were born at the right time.
"and the general apathetic public sleeps soundly."
I'm not a fan of the police, but the flipside is this guy chasing police down the street with camera snapping while they're just doing a traffic stop
I want police to be video recorded but I also don't want them to be harassed by every asshole with a cameraphone. If the cop says "Your camera is making me uncomfortable please stop taking photos" like he does in that video you should comply. That goes for everyone, not just cops.
"Some police officer are awesome people who risk their lives to protect others."
And the rest can be found on Injustice Everywhere. I visit that blog daily and I'm shocked by the number of daily police misconduct incidents.
"...protecting all their buddies no matter what they have done."
Not always, some cops harass other cops
while I'm all for manners, refusing vital blood tests when doctors forget to put the word "please" on weekend requests just seems damn right stupid and dangerous. How can any manager sit there and support this measure?
This sounds like something out of a Dilbert cartoon or from Office Space, I could just see him saying "Yeah... you didn't put please on your TPS reports... so I'm going to need you to come in Saturday, m'kay?"
"If all of these legions of people are SO upset then why the fuck haven't they been actively helping? Where are their code patches?"
You think all XBMC users should be programmers? That's the wrong approach, you need the soccer mom's, the regular people using these devices, not just hackers and geeks, otherwise you'll never get support for cheap set-top devices or people interested in developing it. You tell soccer mom "hey all your movies and tv shows free for just $50 one time" and they'll listen, but you tell them $350 and they'll pass.
"You realize that right? you would if you read the forums. "
Again you fail to see the purpose of XBMC. The genius of the XBMC is that you don't have to live your life on a forum to keep it going. Think Soccer Mom Sally wants to visit yet another forum weekly so she can watch TV? Hell no, who does? XBMC was exceedingly simplicity, plug in, turn on, watch streaming videos over network.
By telling people $50 XBMC is dead, buy something else (they never did give examples of successors) they're fragmenting the community and that's suicide. Like Sony with the PS2 you don't kill your community, you move on and offer them something else but you don't tell them "stop buying/using our product, find something else". If they had done some statistics to see how many people were running on a Xbox vs other devices I'm sure they'd see the Xbox is the most popular device.
I haven't had TV service in 3 years, all media has been through the XBMC and I've never had a problem with downloaded content not working. 1080p isn't a popular downloaded format, you search for any video content and 480i or similar DVD quality will be easier to find than 1080p. Unless there's a huge jump in cheap bandwidth 1080p will continue to be unpopular, especially with Comcast and Earthlink announcing monthly caps. Who'd want to waste 5gb on 1080p when 700mb 480i DivX suffices?
Like I said support is huge, you start putting the software on dozens of different kinds of hardware and OSes and you're going to have support problems. What happens when you post on a forum "1080p is jumpy"? Now they have to look at the cpu and video card and OS and other software and all these other potential problems, and while people might help you today with your dual core 1.6ghz atom in 5 years time they'll laugh at you and say your PC isn't fast enough and to upgrade.
I agree with one thing you said: "If that's just too much for you by all means keep your old XBOX too." I can give my parents a Xbox with XBMC on it and not worry about support because I know there's no problems with it, can you say the same about your $350 personal computer? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Fragmenting the XBMC is the same mistake Android made: sure the OS is free, but the software that runs on your Android might not run on mine and many have speculated this fragmentation will destroy Android. Windows Mobile did the the same thing for many years and developers had to publish long lists of supported and unsupported Windows Mobile smartphones. That's one of the reasons the iPhone is so successful: every app works on every iPhone.
This will not end well for XBMC, this will push people off Xboxes and on to Boxee and other competitors because why bother with XBMC when you're already running a dual core PC? Might as well upgrade to Boxee or MythTV.
I don't mind the developers making a XBMC2 for modern devices, but to end support for the highly successful XBMC and close the forums and start removing things from the wiki is suicide and I can't believe they don't see that. What would happen if Sony or Microsoft announced they'd no longer support the PS3 or Xbox360 and they're focusing on next gen consoles? Think anyone that read that would buy a ps3 or 360? Sony's a genius when it comes to that: while M$ ended support for the Xbox, you can still buy a brand new ps2 and new games at most retail stores and it's paid off big, with 1.8 million Playstation 2s sold in 2009. Yes, Sony sold 1.8 million 10 yr old ps2s in 2009, and brand new ps2 games are still being released in 2010. See you don't slaughter the fatted calf as soon as the next gen comes out, and the fact that XBMC developers are doing so prove they don't care about their community and will drop you whenever it's convenient for them.
"Why would you do this? "
I'll give you ten reasons:
1. ASRock looks like a PC and IMHO won't look as good as the Xbox does in the living room
2. Xbox with XBMC = $50 vs $350+ for ASRock
3. XBMC on Xbox has huge community for help and support spanning many years
4. Controllers and other devices are very cheap for the Xbox
5. Hundreds of games are natively supported
6. Menus and functions are all easily navigated using controller or remote
7. It's quiet
8. almost instant boot-time
9. proprietary hardware makes it easier to support
10. lack of software incompatibilities makes it easier to support
"Which was purchased by Comcast after they went bankrupt."
-1, Inaccurate
No, Charter Communications was not bought by Comcast
"Though you reference a good deal of local network traffic. I don't believe you are accurately measuring your upstream/downstream bandwidth."
True, the upload might be mostly transferring from PC to XBMC, but being a media server it mostly downloads it's all of it's content from the website and the download alone is 367 GiB this past month, far more than Comcast's allowed 250gb. Also of note netmeter measures in GiB, which is 2^30 or ~1.074 GB, rather than GB, defined as 10^9 or 1,000,000,000 bytes.