It's actually not codified in law that you can force feed people (at least here in the UK). About 5 years ago friend of my father's was diagnosed with some disease that would undoubtedly kill him painfully and in fairly short order. Since it was (and still is) illegal for doctors to perform assisted euthanasia, he just stopped eating. He was perfectly compos mentis and made the choice that this was the form of death he preferred. (Disclaimer: I don't know whether or not you can force feed people who have been certified as unsound of mind.)
I think the main flaw in your argument came earlier: you assumed that the logically correct solution is the one that it is correct to apply to human society. While the "no smoking for anyone" position may be logically justifiable, positions on other related issues (such as the free will issue I alluded to above) can be logically justified which directly contradict the logically justified position you reached on the first issue. Therefore there can be no self-consistent set of logical rules to govern human behaviour - Godel's Incompleteness Theorems as applied to human morality, perhaps?
Why so? Although I agree it would be unethical to conduct the study on children who were currently smoking, you could monitor the continuing health of two groups of people, one group who (as adults) admitted to smoking when underage and another group who had not smoked as children. You would have to account for some of them being liars, but that's achievable.
It's perfectly legal to turn your building into a Faraday cage, which would have the same effect of blocking cellphone signals. The legal point is not whether or not you have the right to prevent cellphones working in your building - you do, and can do so by building a Faraday cage. It's difficult to make a perfect one, and expensive, and ideally requires consideration at the planning stage (e.g. for a new cinema) but it's perfectly legal. Someone unable to make an emergency call on their cellphone would have no legal basis for a complaint - there are areas where cellphone coverage is naturally blocked, say by mountains, and anyone relying absolutely on cellphone coverage is a fool.
The specific legal issue is non-compliance with FCC rules on transmissions. The rules are quite clear, and if you're caught breaking them then you should expect to pay the penalty. Whether you agree with the rules is, of course, another matter...
I have to say, I agree with Microsoft on this one. No doubt they have some sinister motive that I'm missing, but on the technical point I'd rather not see major changes to javascript. Radical upgrades to well-used languages are rarely an improvement as they have a habit of breaking so much existing code (you know the languages I'm on about...) Far better, in my opinion, to let javascript keep doing what it does and put all the new features into a separate language. It needn't add (runtime) bloat to browsers if the interpreters are modular, loaded as needed; and these days who cares about a few extra megabytes of hard disk bloat?
Many engines have claimed features like "destructible levels and terrain", but the engines were never fast enough to give both the eye candy demanded by the market and an engine capable of such free-form interaction. Ray Tracing could change all that.
Sorry, I don't see how a dog slow algorithm like ray tracing is going to help solve the problem of game engines not being fast enough. If your box has enough horsepower to raytrace quake it's got more than enough horsepower to have an algorithm to regenerate maps to allow for damage to scenery.
I'm sure there will be some really great raytraced games but if you want improved gameplay I reckon those cycles could in many instances be put to better use.
Sure, but the "primarily intended" bit leaves a bit of wriggle room that I would expect a competent lawyer to argue over for long enough to make the legal fight unaffordable unless the original authors have fairly deep pockets or can persuade the EFF to take up the case.
From what you say the site owner is making money from advertising, not directly from the content (e.g. by selling it). Now I understand that the authors of the content probably wouldn't be happy with the site owner making a profit even indirectly from advertising (which is only possible owing to the presence of their content on the site) but whether they can stop him presumably depends on the exact wording of their CC license. If the license doesn't stop him making this indirect profit then there is nothing they can do. I guess it should just serve as a warning to others to ensure that the license you release something under exactly matches your intent for how you want to allow it to be used.
"NBC's recent withdraw from the iTunes store leaves the millions of Apple's customers who have Macs or iPods without a legitimate way to purchase and watch NBC's content"
Uhh... since when weren't TVs a legitimate way to watch NBC's content?
I've had a small, self-contained filter like this for years and years. I wouldn't want to put the input straight into thick raw sewage but it's fine for contaminated river water.
I don't give a monkey's about downloading the adverts because I have a (reasonably) unlimited broadband connection. What I care about is having to view them. I have a certain (limited) degree of sympathy for the websites that rely on advertising revenue, largely because I hate the pay-per-view model more than the advertising-funded model. I'm sure there are other people in the same situation. Surely it would be pretty easy for someone to add an option to the Adblock extension so that it would download the advertising content, possibly at a throttled rate, and then just send it to/dev/null instead of displaying it. Then everyone's happy: the user doesn't get to see adverts, the websites he enjoys get their revenue and the advertisers get no more and no fewer sales than they would have done had I seen their adverts, as I have a moral reluctance to buy stuff based on flashy but largely irrelevant advertising productions.
I just hope google releases their Nazgûl rather than settling. It would be nice to see a few more of these trolls get ground into the dust, patents invalidated, all their money spent on lawyer's fees and countersued for being a royal pain in everyone's collective ass.
So if you feel strongly enough about it, kick out the government and elect one better suited to your wishes. Oh, I forgot, although you get the choice between 2 parties both of them are almost exactly the same...
Re:Is there a way to permanantly disable this?
on
Another Sony Rootkit?
·
· Score: 0
To disable this permanently:
1. Download kubuntu install CD 2. ??? 3. Profit! (Well, insomuch as you won't have to worry about this kind of crap anymore.)
Oh, you want to keep Windows? You're probably SOL then.
"So now, it's war. As they attempt to create "work arounds" for my blocks, I work on more comprehensive blocks that will defeat their work arounds. I also am informing other how to block people using the plug-in. The people who wrote the plug-in aren't terribly clever; thieves rarely are. But now they've inspired me, via their arrogance, to make sure a method for defeating their plug-in can be developed and distributed." --> Danny Carlton (http://jacklewis.net/weblog/, posted July 27, 2007)
So just use privoxy - it seems to work fine. (If you're really that bothered about seeing such sites, that is....)
That's the most fat-headed, self-indulgent tripe I've read in a long time. Humanity doesn't "deserve" to survive or to be extincted. The universe doesn't "owe" us anything and we don't justify the universe by our existence.
The only thing the author has shown is that he needs to pull his head out of his arse and be sent for a good long spell in a total perspective vortex.
Just because you can't envisage a reason to want to swap batteries more often than when the built-in one stops working doesn't mean the reasons don't exist. If you're going to be away from a wall socket for more than a few days (and don't fancy winding one of those annoying clockwork chargers for hours) it's incredibly handy to be able to take a few spare pre-charged batteries. I am very often in this situation. Dismiss my arguments if it will make you more comfortable in your belief in Apple's infallibility, but I still have a valid point. (And yes, I know that you can get recharging devices that are like jumbo batteries with which you recharge the built-in one but that is an incredibly klugey solution, and not very environmentally aware either - twice the energy loss.)
I'm glad you like your iPhone. Just don't try to claim it's the perfect phone.
Aren't managers *supposed* to be able to use judgement to make decisions? In fact, isn't that pretty much their entire reason for being? (That, and doing admin...) If they aren't capable of exercising leadership and judgement then why pay them any more than the popcorn machine operator?
If I wanted an expensive high quality phone I'd get a Bang and Olufsen "Serene". Nice and simple, no unnecessary gadgets or overspecification, just an extremely well thought out user interface and well made phone. And you can change the battery...
If I wanted a does-everything pda phone I'd get one of HTC's devices (I currently have a TyTN because of its slide-out keyboard; if I didn't need the keyboard I'd get a Touch).
The only reason I can see for buying an iPhone is as a piece of "jewellery" - because it's the latest fashionable thing to have. Which isn't by itself a good reason for buying anything.
So maybe after a great deal of effort the iPhone will actually be a tenth as good as the HTC Touch seems to be. The iPod was so successful because it actually was the best in its niche. The iPhone, on the other hand, is a shiny turd with a fraction of the capability of some other devices.
I guess the fear is that the batteries will flatten and the rovers will power off. But surely they would have thought to include a provision for bootup-on-power-restore? No? Oops...
Slashdot Mirror
It's actually not codified in law that you can force feed people (at least here in the UK). About 5 years ago friend of my father's was diagnosed with some disease that would undoubtedly kill him painfully and in fairly short order. Since it was (and still is) illegal for doctors to perform assisted euthanasia, he just stopped eating. He was perfectly compos mentis and made the choice that this was the form of death he preferred. (Disclaimer: I don't know whether or not you can force feed people who have been certified as unsound of mind.)
I think the main flaw in your argument came earlier: you assumed that the logically correct solution is the one that it is correct to apply to human society. While the "no smoking for anyone" position may be logically justifiable, positions on other related issues (such as the free will issue I alluded to above) can be logically justified which directly contradict the logically justified position you reached on the first issue. Therefore there can be no self-consistent set of logical rules to govern human behaviour - Godel's Incompleteness Theorems as applied to human morality, perhaps?
Why so? Although I agree it would be unethical to conduct the study on children who were currently smoking, you could monitor the continuing health of two groups of people, one group who (as adults) admitted to smoking when underage and another group who had not smoked as children. You would have to account for some of them being liars, but that's achievable.
It's perfectly legal to turn your building into a Faraday cage, which would have the same effect of blocking cellphone signals. The legal point is not whether or not you have the right to prevent cellphones working in your building - you do, and can do so by building a Faraday cage. It's difficult to make a perfect one, and expensive, and ideally requires consideration at the planning stage (e.g. for a new cinema) but it's perfectly legal. Someone unable to make an emergency call on their cellphone would have no legal basis for a complaint - there are areas where cellphone coverage is naturally blocked, say by mountains, and anyone relying absolutely on cellphone coverage is a fool.
The specific legal issue is non-compliance with FCC rules on transmissions. The rules are quite clear, and if you're caught breaking them then you should expect to pay the penalty. Whether you agree with the rules is, of course, another matter...
I have to say, I agree with Microsoft on this one. No doubt they have some sinister motive that I'm missing, but on the technical point I'd rather not see major changes to javascript. Radical upgrades to well-used languages are rarely an improvement as they have a habit of breaking so much existing code (you know the languages I'm on about...) Far better, in my opinion, to let javascript keep doing what it does and put all the new features into a separate language. It needn't add (runtime) bloat to browsers if the interpreters are modular, loaded as needed; and these days who cares about a few extra megabytes of hard disk bloat?
Many engines have claimed features like "destructible levels and terrain", but the engines were never fast enough to give both the eye candy demanded by the market and an engine capable of such free-form interaction. Ray Tracing could change all that.
Sorry, I don't see how a dog slow algorithm like ray tracing is going to help solve the problem of game engines not being fast enough. If your box has enough horsepower to raytrace quake it's got more than enough horsepower to have an algorithm to regenerate maps to allow for damage to scenery.
I'm sure there will be some really great raytraced games but if you want improved gameplay I reckon those cycles could in many instances be put to better use.
Sure, but the "primarily intended" bit leaves a bit of wriggle room that I would expect a competent lawyer to argue over for long enough to make the legal fight unaffordable unless the original authors have fairly deep pockets or can persuade the EFF to take up the case.
From what you say the site owner is making money from advertising, not directly from the content (e.g. by selling it). Now I understand that the authors of the content probably wouldn't be happy with the site owner making a profit even indirectly from advertising (which is only possible owing to the presence of their content on the site) but whether they can stop him presumably depends on the exact wording of their CC license. If the license doesn't stop him making this indirect profit then there is nothing they can do. I guess it should just serve as a warning to others to ensure that the license you release something under exactly matches your intent for how you want to allow it to be used.
Or better, libcaca. Though if the kid ends up watching caca porn (oblig. tubgirl link omitted ;-)) the mother might be even more pissed.
"NBC's recent withdraw from the iTunes store leaves the millions of Apple's customers who have Macs or iPods without a legitimate way to purchase and watch NBC's content"
Uhh... since when weren't TVs a legitimate way to watch NBC's content?
I've had a small, self-contained filter like this for years and years. I wouldn't want to put the input straight into thick raw sewage but it's fine for contaminated river water.
I don't give a monkey's about downloading the adverts because I have a (reasonably) unlimited broadband connection. What I care about is having to view them. I have a certain (limited) degree of sympathy for the websites that rely on advertising revenue, largely because I hate the pay-per-view model more than the advertising-funded model. I'm sure there are other people in the same situation. Surely it would be pretty easy for someone to add an option to the Adblock extension so that it would download the advertising content, possibly at a throttled rate, and then just send it to /dev/null instead of displaying it. Then everyone's happy: the user doesn't get to see adverts, the websites he enjoys get their revenue and the advertisers get no more and no fewer sales than they would have done had I seen their adverts, as I have a moral reluctance to buy stuff based on flashy but largely irrelevant advertising productions.
I just hope google releases their Nazgûl rather than settling. It would be nice to see a few more of these trolls get ground into the dust, patents invalidated, all their money spent on lawyer's fees and countersued for being a royal pain in everyone's collective ass.
So if you feel strongly enough about it, kick out the government and elect one better suited to your wishes. Oh, I forgot, although you get the choice between 2 parties both of them are almost exactly the same...
To disable this permanently:
1. Download kubuntu install CD
2. ???
3. Profit! (Well, insomuch as you won't have to worry about this kind of crap anymore.)
Oh, you want to keep Windows? You're probably SOL then.
Graph from /dev/urandom instead. It won't make any difference to the bossman's pie charts but you won't consume as much precious entropy :-)
"So now, it's war. As they attempt to create "work arounds" for my blocks, I work on more comprehensive blocks that will defeat their work arounds. I also am informing other how to block people using the plug-in. The people who wrote the plug-in aren't terribly clever; thieves rarely are. But now they've inspired me, via their arrogance, to make sure a method for defeating their plug-in can be developed and distributed." --> Danny Carlton (http://jacklewis.net/weblog/, posted July 27, 2007)
So just use privoxy - it seems to work fine. (If you're really that bothered about seeing such sites, that is....)
That's the most fat-headed, self-indulgent tripe I've read in a long time. Humanity doesn't "deserve" to survive or to be extincted. The universe doesn't "owe" us anything and we don't justify the universe by our existence.
The only thing the author has shown is that he needs to pull his head out of his arse and be sent for a good long spell in a total perspective vortex.
Doesn't matter. (Standards-wise anyway.) After a crash it is POSIX-compliant for the atime of a file to be undefined.
YA Hans Reiser AICMFP :-)
Just because you can't envisage a reason to want to swap batteries more often than when the built-in one stops working doesn't mean the reasons don't exist. If you're going to be away from a wall socket for more than a few days (and don't fancy winding one of those annoying clockwork chargers for hours) it's incredibly handy to be able to take a few spare pre-charged batteries. I am very often in this situation. Dismiss my arguments if it will make you more comfortable in your belief in Apple's infallibility, but I still have a valid point. (And yes, I know that you can get recharging devices that are like jumbo batteries with which you recharge the built-in one but that is an incredibly klugey solution, and not very environmentally aware either - twice the energy loss.)
I'm glad you like your iPhone. Just don't try to claim it's the perfect phone.
Aren't managers *supposed* to be able to use judgement to make decisions? In fact, isn't that pretty much their entire reason for being? (That, and doing admin...) If they aren't capable of exercising leadership and judgement then why pay them any more than the popcorn machine operator?
If I wanted an expensive high quality phone I'd get a Bang and Olufsen "Serene". Nice and simple, no unnecessary gadgets or overspecification, just an extremely well thought out user interface and well made phone. And you can change the battery...
If I wanted a does-everything pda phone I'd get one of HTC's devices (I currently have a TyTN because of its slide-out keyboard; if I didn't need the keyboard I'd get a Touch).
The only reason I can see for buying an iPhone is as a piece of "jewellery" - because it's the latest fashionable thing to have. Which isn't by itself a good reason for buying anything.
So maybe after a great deal of effort the iPhone will actually be a tenth as good as the HTC Touch seems to be.
The iPod was so successful because it actually was the best in its niche. The iPhone, on the other hand, is a shiny turd with a fraction of the capability of some other devices.
"white hats" uses less electronic paper than "computer security researchers" though. Obliterate nugatory verbiage.
I guess the fear is that the batteries will flatten and the rovers will power off. But surely they would have thought to include a provision for bootup-on-power-restore? No? Oops...