Actually, supprisingly they did not just burn up in the sky when hit. Helium is a good flame retardant and will not burn as it is an inert gas. Hydrogen requires at least 3% oxygen to burn. So, when hit they mostly leaked and slowly fell to the ground... It's just that they were so big and slow that they were fairly easy to hit.
Ive been wondering... When the RIAA copies the files off of a computer in an effort to show infringement, aren't they breaking the law when they copy the mp3's generated from music that they did not produce (made by other record companies)? That is to say, If they copy 100 mp3's off a computer and analyze them only to find that 50 of them are copied from music that they produced, doesn't that mean that they have illegally copied 50 songs? Perhaps if this is the case, then a defendent or an ISP such as yourself may be able to use this as a tactic to get the RIAA off of their back.
"I could also claim that butter is, in fact, puppies, and then say to have conclusively proved that butter has a cold wet nose.
Delicious, spreadable puppies."
I love it! That is my new E-mail sig!
My apologies Shanen. My comment was not actually directed at you, although I did nothing to clarify that. I had a lengthy discussion with one of my more "conservative" relatives this weekend in which she had used the "I have nothing to hide and neither should you" approach while we were arguing the issue of domestic spying. So when I read your comment, even though I agreed with what you said, I just had to say something about the "nothing to hide" comment. I too am not sure that I am not on someone's list somewhere for my more liberal views.
BTW, your link is broken. Let me fix that, since I wouldn't mind of others saw your site.
"However, if I had any actual reason to be paranoid, then the situation would be very different"
I hate this argument. It completely forgets the real reason for government oversight and restrictions. Nobody cares wether you have some thing to hide. What I do care about is if the people in charge are wire tapping people like Cindy Sheehan or the leaders of Greenpeace or any other political group. It makes me wonder if there was any wiretapping going on against John Kerry (fits their m.o.. Even they may not have anything to "hide" but if the wrong people knew what they were planning (legaly) they could be obstructed or kept from making a positive change. Even if they are not spying on these people (and they are) it would still be a problem because you could not trust the government not to be spying on them. This survaliance erodes the already weak trust the people (me) have in our government, which is clearly bad.
Ironically, sometimes It is very difficult to question the government if they are listening. Just ask the Chinese... Oh wait you can't because they are being monitored by their government so you will always get a positive answer.
I think that the argument is that Google Earth only makes the data a little easier to access for the purpose of terror attacks. In your really simple equation: Y ~ X, or at best Y+somesmallnumber ~ X. At least so much that X Delta Y is small enough that a terrorist would not be stopped let alone slowed down. The other point to make is that these satilite images probably supply far less information about security than say the picture on a postcard sold at the shop down the street from the target. The resolution is just too low and is often very old.
Well put. However, I think that all of these arguments fail to take into account truely "new" technology that still is very much in the domain of the homebrew crowd. Home automation, robotics, and other computer controlled technologies can still be freely explored by the those of us that like to dabble. Computer software and hardware may be moving into a closed box world, but this is analogus to ICs in the early days. Most tech geeks stopped playing with specific circuits and moved into a higher level of playing with computers. Now, the next generation of geeks may move away from playing with the computer and start playing with the technologies that are computer controlled.
Wow. That is one good example of complete misinformation and apparent misunderstanding of the basic concepts of relativity, fusion, fission, thermodynamics, electro-magnetic physics, chemistry, kinetic energy storage systems, hydrogen generation systems, automobile mechanics and possibly several other fields). Nothing to learn here. Please move on.
Or, you could just write a layer that goes between BD hardware and it's driver that prevents anything besides start/stop/seek commands from getting through to it. That would make it so that the hardware would not be updatable... that is unless SONY hacks MY DRM (protecting my pseudo driver) and I can then sue them.
My argument against "If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide" is one word..
The wiretap laws that the patriot act has wiped away were put there for a reason. It's just that most people have forgotten that reason.
I realize that we are so far off topic now that there is no point in even mentioning the parent post. However, I am enjoying our debate and would like to continue it. There appears to be no better place than here.
Interesting. Most interesting is that you attempt to separate religion and faith. I do not subscribe to that tactic. I use the term Religion to denote a faith in what your are told to believe about a God or Gods. Some may also consider the lack of faith in God a religion, though I don't think that it fits my definition so well since most atheists and agnostics don't rely on the words of others for their and it is more of a lack of faith than a faith. However you do not answer my question. Why Christianity and not Buddhism, Hindu, etc... The question is important. It is important because your religion is the source of who tells you what God says is true. You clearly believe in Jesus, but why? Who told you about him? Why do you believe them? Who told you about the bible? Why do you believe them? Perhaps you would believe everything that God says. But why do you believe a single class of people that claim to know what God holds to be true? Why not listen and to and take faith in any part of the rest of the world that disagrees with you? Why are worldly pleasures considered Sin? Because God says so, I suppose your answer would be. My next question is; who told you that God says so? The bible? Who told you that God had any say into what went into the bible? Are there other works out there that claim to be from the words of God that disagree with the bible? Why would you take the side of the bible and not the other words? Why take any of their words as the truth at all? Why not read all of these words and take what makes the most sense. While reading these works, don't forget to include the most prominent scientific works as well. After all, scientists are a class of people that are asking you to believe what they hold to be "true" as well. The major difference is that a good scientist will make sure that his or her work is reproducible regardless of the current political and religious beliefs.
I also disagree that such a simple solution such as "You can't go wrong with love" is good for you or the world. I ask you to think very hard where love may be misused, or at least misdirected. It has happened. It happens often. Think mother overprotecting her baby. Think about how too much love can lead to suicide if the object of the love finds tragedy. Think about how love can lead to ignoring a loved ones crimes for fear of hurting them. My advice, forget religion. Take nothing that you are told as the "truth". Neither you, nor your preachers know the mind of God, let alone if there is one. Use common sense. Your own drive for self fulfillment will lead you on the right path; as long as you keep the long view in mind. This is not a simple solution. It takes constant vigilance, but the reward is self evident. I help those that I love, not because someone that claims to speak for God told me to or because I get a "special place" in somewhere that may not exist, but because I feel good doing so and because they will most likely help me when I need it. I don't litter because I don't want to see trash on the ground. I am not racist because I see the ugliness that is racism or bigotry in others and don't want to be like that. There is no need
I knew that, I was just making sure that you were paying attention. (insert stupid sheepish grin).
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Perhaps I should have said that Santa Claus and environmentalists...
That is assuming that the "spiritual world" actually exists. Penguins and Santa Clause can co-exist easily since Santa Clause does not disrupt the penguins so much. But if he were real, I doubt that would be the case with all of the industrial toy making going on and all.
Of course the problem is not remembering 10 passwords. That is easy. What is difficult is rememberign whether or not you have updated the password for the site since the last time that it has changed. 10 passwords can easily turn into 30 passwords if you don't update ALL passwords for a given level when it changes. Now that is hard to remember.
You are kidding right? Let's think about this for a second... IC engines use an explosive propulsion. An electric engine does not. Which is safer? When your single IC engine dies on the freeway, you will to (or at least you are not going anywhere). If one of your 4 an electric motors die on the freeway, you loose some (25%) power but can drive home anyway. If you are worried about the car pulling to one side, I'm sure that the controller that is undoubtedly making several thousand adjustment per second will adjust the power to the other motors to compensate. If one of the bearings on your wheels hubs of your IC engine powered car freezes up, you might flip. If one of the bearings on the electric motor sieze up, you might flip... Ok, that one is equal, but how often does this happen anyway? Your average IC engine has hundreds of moving parts with thousands of things that can go wrong with them. Then we get to the transmission, the differential, the fuel system, the smog systems, the electrical systems, etc... Your average electric motor has as few as 1 moving part and a limited number of failure points (a blown fuse would be the main one). Your IC engine gets so hot and has so much friction that it requires several fresh quarts of oil per year. Your average electric motor will probably need to be regreased once or twice in it's life because it is several times more efficient (read cool and less friction). As for accurate voltage... Where do you get this idea? Try hooking up a variable pot to an electric motor some time and see what happens as you turn up and down the resistance (and thus the voltage to the motor). All that happens is that the motor speeds up and slows down. There are many very well tested and proven methods of using resistance or speed feedback from an electric motor to very precisely control it's RPM and torque. These are not "far in the future" concepts but rather "far in the past" inventions. Nothing new or particularly difficult here. I would be VERY suprised if electric motors are not orders of magnitude more reliable and safe than Internal Combustion engines.
Not repressive to its own people perhaps. Those in Guantanamo probably don't feel the same however. Anyways, it is hard to know when you are repressed until you cannot tell anyone about it. Better to tell people that you foresee oppression before you cannot do much about it. And if you are right, you will probably need to be anonymous about it.
Also, are you anonymous because you are repressed or just because you are a coward?
When was the last time Grandma spent over 4 hrs. or $100 making You and only You cookies. Did your brother come to your house and spend a full session holding your hand through your exercises? Would you have gotten irritated at him if your ankle still hurt the next day?
Next time your friends or family have a computer problem, you should make them a nice little list of typical solutions and a mouse pad. At least that way you could just copy the list every time you get a call and mail it to them (the slow way). Seriously though, I dont mind giving some friendly advice over the phone. I do mind that every time I go home for CristmaHolloGiving, I spend almost an entire day working on family computers instead of going skiing.
Hmmm. Looking at your Karma points, one would think that you and Amiga Trombone (592952) were up to something. Tell me if I'm wrong....
+1 for EVERY post. Seems a little unlikely.
I don't know about Charter, but Cox and Time Warner uses Scientific Atlanta DVRs. There is a location on Scientific Atlanta's site that contains all of the API's and tools that you need to build a controller. IF you do this, then you can connect their DVR to your computer and use the computer to control the DVR. The Scientific Atlanta boxes have Digital out, so you can control the box to play out everything that was recorded that day at midnight and record the uncompressed / non-encrypted signal directly to your computer. I am working on something like this now.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, supprisingly they did not just burn up in the sky when hit. Helium is a good flame retardant and will not burn as it is an inert gas. Hydrogen requires at least 3% oxygen to burn. So, when hit they mostly leaked and slowly fell to the ground... It's just that they were so big and slow that they were fairly easy to hit.
Ive been wondering... When the RIAA copies the files off of a computer in an effort to show infringement, aren't they breaking the law when they copy the mp3's generated from music that they did not produce (made by other record companies)? That is to say, If they copy 100 mp3's off a computer and analyze them only to find that 50 of them are copied from music that they produced, doesn't that mean that they have illegally copied 50 songs? Perhaps if this is the case, then a defendent or an ISP such as yourself may be able to use this as a tactic to get the RIAA off of their back.
obligatory disclaimer... IANAL. Duh.
"I could also claim that butter is, in fact, puppies, and then say to have conclusively proved that butter has a cold wet nose.
Delicious, spreadable puppies." I love it! That is my new E-mail sig!
My apologies Shanen. My comment was not actually directed at you, although I did nothing to clarify that. I had a lengthy discussion with one of my more "conservative" relatives this weekend in which she had used the "I have nothing to hide and neither should you" approach while we were arguing the issue of domestic spying. So when I read your comment, even though I agreed with what you said, I just had to say something about the "nothing to hide" comment. I too am not sure that I am not on someone's list somewhere for my more liberal views. BTW, your link is broken. Let me fix that, since I wouldn't mind of others saw your site.
"However, if I had any actual reason to be paranoid, then the situation would be very different"
I hate this argument. It completely forgets the real reason for government oversight and restrictions. Nobody cares wether you have some thing to hide. What I do care about is if the people in charge are wire tapping people like Cindy Sheehan or the leaders of Greenpeace or any other political group. It makes me wonder if there was any wiretapping going on against John Kerry (fits their m.o.. Even they may not have anything to "hide" but if the wrong people knew what they were planning (legaly) they could be obstructed or kept from making a positive change. Even if they are not spying on these people (and they are) it would still be a problem because you could not trust the government not to be spying on them. This survaliance erodes the already weak trust the people (me) have in our government, which is clearly bad.
Ironically, sometimes It is very difficult to question the government if they are listening. Just ask the Chinese... Oh wait you can't because they are being monitored by their government so you will always get a positive answer.
I think that the argument is that Google Earth only makes the data a little easier to access for the purpose of terror attacks. In your really simple equation: Y ~ X, or at best Y+somesmallnumber ~ X. At least so much that X Delta Y is small enough that a terrorist would not be stopped let alone slowed down. The other point to make is that these satilite images probably supply far less information about security than say the picture on a postcard sold at the shop down the street from the target. The resolution is just too low and is often very old.
Well put. However, I think that all of these arguments fail to take into account truely "new" technology that still is very much in the domain of the homebrew crowd. Home automation, robotics, and other computer controlled technologies can still be freely explored by the those of us that like to dabble. Computer software and hardware may be moving into a closed box world, but this is analogus to ICs in the early days. Most tech geeks stopped playing with specific circuits and moved into a higher level of playing with computers. Now, the next generation of geeks may move away from playing with the computer and start playing with the technologies that are computer controlled.
By the way, I love the reference to "Sneakers".
Too Many Secrets
Wow. That is one good example of complete misinformation and apparent misunderstanding of the basic concepts of relativity, fusion, fission, thermodynamics, electro-magnetic physics, chemistry, kinetic energy storage systems, hydrogen generation systems, automobile mechanics and possibly several other fields). Nothing to learn here. Please move on.
Or, you could just write a layer that goes between BD hardware and it's driver that prevents anything besides start/stop/seek commands from getting through to it. That would make it so that the hardware would not be updatable... that is unless SONY hacks MY DRM (protecting my pseudo driver) and I can then sue them.
My argument against "If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide" is one word. .
The wiretap laws that the patriot act has wiped away were put there for a reason. It's just that most people have forgotten that reason.
I realize that we are so far off topic now that there is no point in even mentioning the parent post. However, I am enjoying our debate and would like to continue it. There appears to be no better place than here. Interesting. Most interesting is that you attempt to separate religion and faith. I do not subscribe to that tactic. I use the term Religion to denote a faith in what your are told to believe about a God or Gods. Some may also consider the lack of faith in God a religion, though I don't think that it fits my definition so well since most atheists and agnostics don't rely on the words of others for their and it is more of a lack of faith than a faith. However you do not answer my question. Why Christianity and not Buddhism, Hindu, etc... The question is important. It is important because your religion is the source of who tells you what God says is true. You clearly believe in Jesus, but why? Who told you about him? Why do you believe them? Who told you about the bible? Why do you believe them? Perhaps you would believe everything that God says. But why do you believe a single class of people that claim to know what God holds to be true? Why not listen and to and take faith in any part of the rest of the world that disagrees with you? Why are worldly pleasures considered Sin? Because God says so, I suppose your answer would be. My next question is; who told you that God says so? The bible? Who told you that God had any say into what went into the bible? Are there other works out there that claim to be from the words of God that disagree with the bible? Why would you take the side of the bible and not the other words? Why take any of their words as the truth at all? Why not read all of these words and take what makes the most sense. While reading these works, don't forget to include the most prominent scientific works as well. After all, scientists are a class of people that are asking you to believe what they hold to be "true" as well. The major difference is that a good scientist will make sure that his or her work is reproducible regardless of the current political and religious beliefs. I also disagree that such a simple solution such as "You can't go wrong with love" is good for you or the world. I ask you to think very hard where love may be misused, or at least misdirected. It has happened. It happens often. Think mother overprotecting her baby. Think about how too much love can lead to suicide if the object of the love finds tragedy. Think about how love can lead to ignoring a loved ones crimes for fear of hurting them. My advice, forget religion. Take nothing that you are told as the "truth". Neither you, nor your preachers know the mind of God, let alone if there is one. Use common sense. Your own drive for self fulfillment will lead you on the right path; as long as you keep the long view in mind. This is not a simple solution. It takes constant vigilance, but the reward is self evident. I help those that I love, not because someone that claims to speak for God told me to or because I get a "special place" in somewhere that may not exist, but because I feel good doing so and because they will most likely help me when I need it. I don't litter because I don't want to see trash on the ground. I am not racist because I see the ugliness that is racism or bigotry in others and don't want to be like that. There is no need
I did not mean to post that last one as AC.
I knew that, I was just making sure that you were paying attention. (insert stupid sheepish grin). That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Perhaps I should have said that Santa Claus and environmentalists...
And now for something completely different...
A man once said, "To an unbeliever, the ways of God are foolishness."
That does not necessarily mean that the unbeliever is incorrect, does it?
That is assuming that the "spiritual world" actually exists. Penguins and Santa Clause can co-exist easily since Santa Clause does not disrupt the penguins so much. But if he were real, I doubt that would be the case with all of the industrial toy making going on and all.
Of course the problem is not remembering 10 passwords. That is easy. What is difficult is rememberign whether or not you have updated the password for the site since the last time that it has changed. 10 passwords can easily turn into 30 passwords if you don't update ALL passwords for a given level when it changes. Now that is hard to remember.
You are kidding right? Let's think about this for a second...
IC engines use an explosive propulsion. An electric engine does not. Which is safer?
When your single IC engine dies on the freeway, you will to (or at least you are not going anywhere). If one of your 4 an electric motors die on the freeway, you loose some (25%) power but can drive home anyway. If you are worried about the car pulling to one side, I'm sure that the controller that is undoubtedly making several thousand adjustment per second will adjust the power to the other motors to compensate.
If one of the bearings on your wheels hubs of your IC engine powered car freezes up, you might flip. If one of the bearings on the electric motor sieze up, you might flip... Ok, that one is equal, but how often does this happen anyway?
Your average IC engine has hundreds of moving parts with thousands of things that can go wrong with them. Then we get to the transmission, the differential, the fuel system, the smog systems, the electrical systems, etc... Your average electric motor has as few as 1 moving part and a limited number of failure points (a blown fuse would be the main one).
Your IC engine gets so hot and has so much friction that it requires several fresh quarts of oil per year. Your average electric motor will probably need to be regreased once or twice in it's life because it is several times more efficient (read cool and less friction).
As for accurate voltage... Where do you get this idea? Try hooking up a variable pot to an electric motor some time and see what happens as you turn up and down the resistance (and thus the voltage to the motor). All that happens is that the motor speeds up and slows down. There are many very well tested and proven methods of using resistance or speed feedback from an electric motor to very precisely control it's RPM and torque. These are not "far in the future" concepts but rather "far in the past" inventions. Nothing new or particularly difficult here. I would be VERY suprised if electric motors are not orders of magnitude more reliable and safe than Internal Combustion engines.
Not repressive to its own people perhaps. Those in Guantanamo probably don't feel the same however. Anyways, it is hard to know when you are repressed until you cannot tell anyone about it. Better to tell people that you foresee oppression before you cannot do much about it. And if you are right, you will probably need to be anonymous about it.
Also, are you anonymous because you are repressed or just because you are a coward?
When was the last time Grandma spent over 4 hrs. or $100 making You and only You cookies. Did your brother come to your house and spend a full session holding your hand through your exercises? Would you have gotten irritated at him if your ankle still hurt the next day?
Next time your friends or family have a computer problem, you should make them a nice little list of typical solutions and a mouse pad. At least that way you could just copy the list every time you get a call and mail it to them (the slow way).
Seriously though, I dont mind giving some friendly advice over the phone. I do mind that every time I go home for CristmaHolloGiving, I spend almost an entire day working on family computers instead of going skiing.
No, just forgetfull... and running on little sleep.
Oy, sorry. Scratch that. I just re-read the Karma FAQ. DOh!
Hmmm. Looking at your Karma points, one would think that you and Amiga Trombone (592952) were up to something. Tell me if I'm wrong.... +1 for EVERY post. Seems a little unlikely.
Duh... That is why the term "unqualified amateurs" is in quotes. Besides, who said that they were not paid?
I don't know about Charter, but Cox and Time Warner uses Scientific Atlanta DVRs. There is a location on Scientific Atlanta's site that contains all of the API's and tools that you need to build a controller. IF you do this, then you can connect their DVR to your computer and use the computer to control the DVR. The Scientific Atlanta boxes have Digital out, so you can control the box to play out everything that was recorded that day at midnight and record the uncompressed / non-encrypted signal directly to your computer. I am working on something like this now.