Here's something I've been doing all day with regards to the Real ID act and something you might be able to do with regards to this news on the Patriot Act: email the media and get them to cover the issue. Basic format of the email I've been trying to send out follows...
-To -media organiztaion here-,
First off, thank you for taking the time to read this email. While I realize that it is not in good taste for any news organization to take any political stance on matters, I do feel that it is in the best interests of both the media and for the nation if the media would do more to cover the less known topics that happen in Washington.
Case in point is the recent passge of the Real ID act. (H.R. 418, it can be found here: http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:H.R.418:) This act was attached to the recently passed emergency spending bill approved by the President. However, there are some scary details about this act, besides the intended effect of creating a national ID system. For instance, check out Section 102, which allows the Secretary of Homeland Security "the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section." It also prevents any oversight or judicial review of those actions.
There are several other topics on this bill that I think people would find rather enlightening. Here are a few links to other websites with articles over it:
At any rate, thank you again for taking the time to read this email. I hope that you will at least take the time to consider the impliciations of such an issue, and the rather underhanded means of having it been acheived.
I think the only way we're going to get word across is if we can get the media to reveal the implications of this on a much larger scale that what we might be able to do. Here's a general email I've been sending out to sites like the NYTimes and NBC's The Nightly News:
-To -insert media organization here-,
First off, thank you for taking the time to read this email. While I realize that it is not in good taste for any news organization to take any political stance on matters, I do feel that it is in the best interests of both the media and for the nation if the media would do more to cover the less known topics that happen in Washington.
Case in point is the recent passge of the Real ID act. (H.R. 418, it can be found here: http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:H.R.418:) This act was attached to the recently passed emergency spending bill approved by the President. However, there are some scary details about this act, besides the intended effect of creating a national ID system. For instance, check out Section 102, which allows the Secretary of Homeland Security "the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section." It also prevents any oversight or judicial review of those actions.
There are several other topics on this bill that I think people would find rather enlightening. Here are a few links to other websites with articles over it:
At any rate, thank you again for taking the time to read this email. I hope that you will at least take the time to consider the impliciations of such an issue, and the rather underhanded means of having it been acheived.
I agree totally. Yes, I know, the industry pushes DRM (as many have pointed out) because in reality they wish to lock all the sheep up out there.
But at the same time, DRM as a tool to prevent unauthorized redistribution is a picky subject.
You just can't trust people. Few bad apples and all that, as I pointed out in another comment.
DRM exists because the media companies can't trust the people to not abuse their fair use rights. DRM is a wonderful thing too, for the companies because it also can be used (for evil) to lock in customers.
If only the gods would raise up men (or women) with smarter brains that what we have now to solve this issue... cracking things, though, I feel isn't going to be the pebble that slays Goliath.
Right. There's a difference between hacking and CS. Well, its the same field, but hacking doesn't really require all those maths most people wind up taking in a CS degree.
I've got a friend who's a CS major (I thought about, then decided I abhor computers and made my major Physics) and he was amazed at how much math he had to take - more than he realized. Something I suspect alot of incoming CS majors don't realize.
As Edsger Dijkstra put it, "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
I'm tutoring Algebra as a part time job in addition to going to school. While I'd like to just focus on schooling and all that; I figure the more I put my time into productive things, the better. And if it so happens that that job I work at fits in with my schooling, all the better.
I keep hearing all these old people warning me about kids who keep going to school who "are only book smart" and who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag. I've found after working in a few fast food places myself (summer before first starting college to help pay for my own tuition) that I was one of those kinds of people. And I don't want to be that.
So I figure, find a job; or just find something that forces me to think outside of the books. I just might find something that works out for me, or helps me meet other people, or whatever.
But then again, my friends still label me as a complete nerd, and stare in amazement when I choose reading my old mathbooks for fun than going out to parties. (Not that I don't get out, its just that my current circle of friends don't exactly share my enthusiasm for learning as much as I do. To each his own.)
I didn't read the full article, but from a quick glance I'd love to participate in a program like this. Too bad I live in Oklahoma.
It's spring break right now over here and I'm the typical freshman college student still trying to figure out what the hell I wanna do with my life. Gas prices are at killer levels right now, and most of my friends had already left for various locations for vacation; so I spent most of spring break in the house.
I spent all of spring break pondering the 3x+1 problem (do a search of www.mathforge.net on it) and I think I've found what I want to do. Yes, I'm not all that clever (122 on an IQ test online and a 26 on the ACT; that and the highest math I've taken up to this semster is Trig) but simply working on such problems and forcing your mind to *think* - rather than being taught in school the proper 'rules' of math; is something I've never really done. (Also read up on Feynman and what he had to say about things like that.) I didn't bother reading all the background information on it either (since, well, to be honest, I didn't get all the fancy explanations that I've read online) but working on such problems is a feeling I've not experienced since I was very young. Somewhere in the process of being forced to grow up I lost that.
This is awesome that this program is rewarding folks for *thinking* and *working* rather than just being able to read a book and take a test. Three cheers for this. I really love the last line of the article as well:
"So the best thing you can do in college, whether you want to get into grad school or just be good at hacking, is figure out what you truly like. It's hard to trick professors into letting you into grad school, and impossible to trick problems into letting you solve them. College is where faking stops working. From this point, unless you want to go work for a big company, which is like reverting to high school, the only way forward is through doing what you love."
See, thats the thing; with the digital age (or whatever the hell you want to call it...) copying things is so much easier to do. Not so much years ago, but anyways.
It's all based on trust in the digital world [thats rather cliche, I know]. The industry can't trust people to *not* copy and give away the songs; hence we have DRM.
But people don't like DRM because people want their fair use rights without having to jump through hoops, which I think is fair.
We've got to come to a better solution for this mess. Sometimes I ponder on what a 'trust' model industry would be like; we eliminate DRM and essentially let people pay to download songs and do whatever the hell they want with them according to the fair use laws we already have. If you break your fair use rights, then you get sued into oblivion for breaking that trust.
But then again, there are so many problems with that model I can already see now. The sad truth is that we can't trust people. You just can't. How would you know when someone was breaking their fair use rights without DRM? Put unique ID tags on mp3s, and keep track of which ID goes to which individual?
Maybe we need to revamp the whole concept of IP. I don't know. I wish minds smarter than mine would arise and solve this mess soon though. And by that I mean I wish someone other than the -AA.
As for Apple, I hope this doesn't put them into a bad mojo with the music industry, which it will. I wish Apple in this case could just do nothing and ignore this but thats not gonna happen since the music industry will be up in arms over this.
Isn't it ironic, that DVDJon, in his fight for our rights (or whatever it is that he's doing) or whomever else, when they do things like these; often in the end make it harder to slay the beast?
We need a different way to kill this Goliath. Making programs and things like these isn't the pebble that will bring that b*tch down. We've got to rethink this.
But thats the thing about us humans, and why we keep failing. Funny thing it is. We impose these perfect ideas and our wonderful gradiose visions of utopia upon inherently imperfect humans that have created an inherently imperfect system.
I agree with another slashdotter's comment from another article awhile back. Until the gods tire of our idiocy, and they destroy us or create more perfect souls within us (or the idea of gods doesn't fly with you - until we either destory ourselves or transcend to some sort of superintelligence) we'll just have to thicken our skins.
"People wish to be deceived; therefore, let them be deceived," went the old Roman saying
I think people want to be lied to. Why else would the world be in the situation that it is today? And just look at the citizens (well, at least I know this works in the US anyway) and how they think...or lack thereof.
First, thanks for replying despite my horrid English.. its Saturday, my brain is offline. (yes, that's a rather lame excuse)
So, as someone else pointed out; then presumably these stars in this galaxy emit light (in the definition of light == everything in the EM spectrum) but they galaxies themselves are only visible in IF, and what we've done is pointed a telescope that senses the IF and saw a galaxy in that location which we've not noticed before, correct?
First off, thanks for replying; and sorry for my brain-deadedness (is that even a word?)
So then; these galaxies do emit light (as someone expounded earlier 'light' is everything in the EM spectrum, which I wasn't aware that's the proper defintion) but the reason we can only see them in IF is because of either of the two mentioned possiblities?
But I did mean to ask the question above in a serious sense... I thought the definition of a galaxy was nothing more than just a collection of stars held together by gravity?
So how then can these be called galaxies? Aren't they nothing more than blobs of heat? I read the article, but I don't really understand it. Any actual astonomers out there who can expond for me?
Speaking of which - what are the implications of this towards string theory, if any?
I've always been interested in string theory; but not too keen enough with science to fully understand it.
Anybody up to the challenge of explaining what this experiement might mean as regards string theory, if any? Or does it simply confirm our already existing knowlege of the universe?
Slashdot Mirror
lol.
they outta bring back the A-Team.
Remember them? Half of all the episodes were all about building something outta nothing.
Nevermind that they were quite absurd, it was still funny and cool at the same time.
Here's a thought:
Why would the supposed founder of Christianity (or the person of whom the religion is based on) say this, then?
(Matthew 26:52) Then Jesus said to him: "Return your sword to its place, for all those who take the sword will perish by the sword.
Did anyone else watch the movie and think to themselves:
man, that sorta looks like the inside of someone's head? I mean, like, the whole neural network, or such?
This shit has got to stop.
First the Real ID Act..
Now this...
When? When will it end?
mod up as interesting.
Here's something I've been doing all day with regards to the Real ID act and something you might be able to do with regards to this news on the Patriot Act: email the media and get them to cover the issue. Basic format of the email I've been trying to send out follows...
R .418:) This act was attached to the recently passed emergency spending bill approved by the President. However, there are some scary details about this act, besides the intended effect of creating a national ID system. For instance, check out Section 102, which allows the Secretary of Homeland Security "the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section." It also prevents any oversight or judicial review of those actions.
6 .html
o u/2100-1028_3-5697111.html
-To -media organiztaion here-,
First off, thank you for taking the time to read this email. While I realize that it is not in good taste for any news organization to take any political stance on matters, I do feel that it is in the best interests of both the media and for the nation if the media would do more to cover the less known topics that happen in Washington.
Case in point is the recent passge of the Real ID act. (H.R. 418, it can be found here: http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:H.
There are several other topics on this bill that I think people would find rather enlightening. Here are a few links to other websites with articles over it:
ArsTechnica Article about a Potential part of the RealID act breaking the Constition:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050509-488
CNet Article Overview:
http://news.com.com/FAQ+How+Real+ID+will+affect+y
At any rate, thank you again for taking the time to read this email. I hope that you will at least take the time to consider the impliciations of such an issue, and the rather underhanded means of having it been acheived.
Yours,
-name-
I think the only way we're going to get word across is if we can get the media to reveal the implications of this on a much larger scale that what we might be able to do. Here's a general email I've been sending out to sites like the NYTimes and NBC's The Nightly News:
R .418:) This act was attached to the recently passed emergency spending bill approved by the President. However, there are some scary details about this act, besides the intended effect of creating a national ID system. For instance, check out Section 102, which allows the Secretary of Homeland Security "the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section." It also prevents any oversight or judicial review of those actions.
6 .html
o u/2100-1028_3-5697111.html
-To -insert media organization here-,
First off, thank you for taking the time to read this email. While I realize that it is not in good taste for any news organization to take any political stance on matters, I do feel that it is in the best interests of both the media and for the nation if the media would do more to cover the less known topics that happen in Washington.
Case in point is the recent passge of the Real ID act. (H.R. 418, it can be found here: http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:H.
There are several other topics on this bill that I think people would find rather enlightening. Here are a few links to other websites with articles over it:
ArsTechnica Article about a Potential part of the RealID act breaking the Constition:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050509-488
CNet Article Overview:
http://news.com.com/FAQ+How+Real+ID+will+affect+y
At any rate, thank you again for taking the time to read this email. I hope that you will at least take the time to consider the impliciations of such an issue, and the rather underhanded means of having it been acheived.
Yours,
Brandon G.
Thank goodness.
I agree totally. Yes, I know, the industry pushes DRM (as many have pointed out) because in reality they wish to lock all the sheep up out there.
But at the same time, DRM as a tool to prevent unauthorized redistribution is a picky subject.
You just can't trust people. Few bad apples and all that, as I pointed out in another comment.
DRM exists because the media companies can't trust the people to not abuse their fair use rights. DRM is a wonderful thing too, for the companies because it also can be used (for evil) to lock in customers.
If only the gods would raise up men (or women) with smarter brains that what we have now to solve this issue... cracking things, though, I feel isn't going to be the pebble that slays Goliath.
without DRM and trust the consumers
But thats the thing. You can't trust people.
I know plenty of my classmates who'd much rather just copy music for free and freeload. There are alot of losers out there.
You just can't trust people. And until we live in a world where we can; DRM will be forced on by the media companies. Few bad apples and all that...
all emailed google about this problem, like, right now? You think possibly that the wrath of a million slashdotters would make them listen?
Already sent them an emaily.
Right. There's a difference between hacking and CS. Well, its the same field, but hacking doesn't really require all those maths most people wind up taking in a CS degree.
I've got a friend who's a CS major (I thought about, then decided I abhor computers and made my major Physics) and he was amazed at how much math he had to take - more than he realized. Something I suspect alot of incoming CS majors don't realize.
As Edsger Dijkstra put it, "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
Hehe, I wish it would work that way for me.
I'm tutoring Algebra as a part time job in addition to going to school. While I'd like to just focus on schooling and all that; I figure the more I put my time into productive things, the better. And if it so happens that that job I work at fits in with my schooling, all the better.
I keep hearing all these old people warning me about kids who keep going to school who "are only book smart" and who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag. I've found after working in a few fast food places myself (summer before first starting college to help pay for my own tuition) that I was one of those kinds of people. And I don't want to be that.
So I figure, find a job; or just find something that forces me to think outside of the books. I just might find something that works out for me, or helps me meet other people, or whatever.
But then again, my friends still label me as a complete nerd, and stare in amazement when I choose reading my old mathbooks for fun than going out to parties. (Not that I don't get out, its just that my current circle of friends don't exactly share my enthusiasm for learning as much as I do. To each his own.)
I didn't read the full article, but from a quick glance I'd love to participate in a program like this. Too bad I live in Oklahoma.
It's spring break right now over here and I'm the typical freshman college student still trying to figure out what the hell I wanna do with my life. Gas prices are at killer levels right now, and most of my friends had already left for various locations for vacation; so I spent most of spring break in the house.
I spent all of spring break pondering the 3x+1 problem (do a search of www.mathforge.net on it) and I think I've found what I want to do. Yes, I'm not all that clever (122 on an IQ test online and a 26 on the ACT; that and the highest math I've taken up to this semster is Trig) but simply working on such problems and forcing your mind to *think* - rather than being taught in school the proper 'rules' of math; is something I've never really done. (Also read up on Feynman and what he had to say about things like that.) I didn't bother reading all the background information on it either (since, well, to be honest, I didn't get all the fancy explanations that I've read online) but working on such problems is a feeling I've not experienced since I was very young. Somewhere in the process of being forced to grow up I lost that.
This is awesome that this program is rewarding folks for *thinking* and *working* rather than just being able to read a book and take a test. Three cheers for this. I really love the last line of the article as well:
"So the best thing you can do in college, whether you want to get into grad school or just be good at hacking, is figure out what you truly like. It's hard to trick professors into letting you into grad school, and impossible to trick problems into letting you solve them. College is where faking stops working. From this point, unless you want to go work for a big company, which is like reverting to high school, the only way forward is through doing what you love."
See, thats the thing; with the digital age (or whatever the hell you want to call it...) copying things is so much easier to do. Not so much years ago, but anyways.
It's all based on trust in the digital world [thats rather cliche, I know]. The industry can't trust people to *not* copy and give away the songs; hence we have DRM.
But people don't like DRM because people want their fair use rights without having to jump through hoops, which I think is fair.
We've got to come to a better solution for this mess. Sometimes I ponder on what a 'trust' model industry would be like; we eliminate DRM and essentially let people pay to download songs and do whatever the hell they want with them according to the fair use laws we already have. If you break your fair use rights, then you get sued into oblivion for breaking that trust.
But then again, there are so many problems with that model I can already see now. The sad truth is that we can't trust people. You just can't. How would you know when someone was breaking their fair use rights without DRM? Put unique ID tags on mp3s, and keep track of which ID goes to which individual?
Maybe we need to revamp the whole concept of IP. I don't know. I wish minds smarter than mine would arise and solve this mess soon though. And by that I mean I wish someone other than the -AA.
As for Apple, I hope this doesn't put them into a bad mojo with the music industry, which it will. I wish Apple in this case could just do nothing and ignore this but thats not gonna happen since the music industry will be up in arms over this.
Isn't it ironic, that DVDJon, in his fight for our rights (or whatever it is that he's doing) or whomever else, when they do things like these; often in the end make it harder to slay the beast?
We need a different way to kill this Goliath. Making programs and things like these isn't the pebble that will bring that b*tch down. We've got to rethink this.
Yah.
But thats the thing about us humans, and why we keep failing. Funny thing it is. We impose these perfect ideas and our wonderful gradiose visions of utopia upon inherently imperfect humans that have created an inherently imperfect system.
I agree with another slashdotter's comment from another article awhile back. Until the gods tire of our idiocy, and they destroy us or create more perfect souls within us (or the idea of gods doesn't fly with you - until we either destory ourselves or transcend to some sort of superintelligence) we'll just have to thicken our skins.
:)
The best discoveries in science don't come from 'Eureka!' but always 'That's funny..."
See also: Nice guys don't get laid
What's that old saying?
"People wish to be deceived; therefore, let them be deceived," went the old Roman saying
I think people want to be lied to. Why else would the world be in the situation that it is today? And just look at the citizens (well, at least I know this works in the US anyway) and how they think...or lack thereof.
First, thanks for replying despite my horrid English.. its Saturday, my brain is offline. (yes, that's a rather lame excuse)
So, as someone else pointed out; then presumably these stars in this galaxy emit light (in the definition of light == everything in the EM spectrum) but they galaxies themselves are only visible in IF, and what we've done is pointed a telescope that senses the IF and saw a galaxy in that location which we've not noticed before, correct?
First off, thanks for replying; and sorry for my brain-deadedness (is that even a word?)
So then; these galaxies do emit light (as someone expounded earlier 'light' is everything in the EM spectrum, which I wasn't aware that's the proper defintion) but the reason we can only see them in IF is because of either of the two mentioned possiblities?
But I did mean to ask the question above in a serious sense... I thought the definition of a galaxy was nothing more than just a collection of stars held together by gravity?
So how then can these be called galaxies? Aren't they nothing more than blobs of heat? I read the article, but I don't really understand it. Any actual astonomers out there who can expond for me?
And sorry 'bout the English.. It's Saturday.
emit; yes, that's my fault. It's early in the.. well, afternoon. :)
So wait a minute - it says it's found these galaxies in the infared spectrum...
So what exactly constitutes a galaxy now? I thought a galaxy had to be a collection of stars; which omit visible light?
Speaking of which - what are the implications of this towards string theory, if any?
I've always been interested in string theory; but not too keen enough with science to fully understand it.
Anybody up to the challenge of explaining what this experiement might mean as regards string theory, if any? Or does it simply confirm our already existing knowlege of the universe?
Call me ignorant, but isn't that a bit slow? Why not fly faster? Educate me on this, anyone?