People talk about "1984" all the time, but I think Ray Bradbury was more on the mark. Every day we get closer to the world described in "Fahrenheit 451".
Unfortunately, if you try to tell people about this, they get all confused due to that recent documentary (which stole the name).
That is why nothing can beat a book. No matter what story is told, the book is printed, and it will NOT change. You can't just take a bottle of white out and a pen and make a change. If you want to know what Lenin thought, you can find his words printed on paper. Somewhere, on a bookshelf, is a copy of his works. No matter how hard government tries to take away those books, they are out there, in attics, in basements, in places people forgot about.
If something is on electronic format, how long until there are hacks, and patches, and confusion, and chaos?
Student #1:"But Professor, my book said Iraq did have WMD".
Student #2:"Professor, my book was hacked, it says there are no WMD and that Halliburton made a billion dollars." Professor: "Those damn hackers! This is why we need another guantanamo."
This is more like 1984 than Fahrenhite 451. Fahrenhite 451 was about government kicking in doors and burning books. That will never happen as long as the USA has the 2nd Amendment. But what is more likely to happen is 1984, where government changes facts. What is told today as fact is told tomorrow as fiction.
That is why it is so alarming that a PUBLIC library would decide to get rid of books.
I hope the first hack is not to change the electronic database to say the 2nd Amendment gaurentees the right to 2 dollars an hour employment.
and buck teeth. and big ears. but the damn sexy accent gets me every time. it is an instant turn on. no matter how ugly a british person is, people will always be attracted to their proper pronunciation of the english language.
Or I should say the royal family need the undies to stop inbreeding. I guess 1000 years of marriying cousins to keep power concentrated is a bad thing. For those who don't know history, you would be suprised at how many cousins married cousins in british royal family history.
[/joke]
I wonder how many soldiers get infection because of dirty underwear? Wouldn't it make better sense to give soldiers a couple of individually packaged wet wipes instead?
if this gets popular, how long till someone is offering ads for it?
LOL, I can just see it now. Some little kid asking his mommy: "How long until we get to see grand pappy on the screen". The mom anwsers "Right after these important messages from grand pappys sponsers". Then the kid gets to watch a 2 minute Oxyclean infomercial about how it takes stains right out of anything, followed by a message how the kid can save money on car insurance.
I hate to say it, but there is too much advertising. I bet if the casket was not burried, there would be some company paying money to put advertising on the casket, much like a nascar.
I think having a video is kinda morbid. But people put pictures on headstones, so I guess a video is not that much different. Maybe what is cheaper and better is a lcd that changes 6 or 7 pictures, rather than having video.
Plus, who will these messages be played to? Can the screen be set up so there is one message to family, and one for strangers? Will there be a code to be entered?
Anyways, none of this will apply to me. I don't plan on dying. What I want done with my body is to be frozen, and to wait until technology can bring me back. If science can make clones of people, how far off are we from taking the neural patterns of people and transplanting then into a mechanized human? Seriously, no sci-fi here. I think the day is comming when artificial hearts will be better than real hearts. Anyone see the experiment that was done a couple years ago? They took people with bad hearts, and fixed them like they normally would (bipass or whatever). But these doctors went one step further. The doctors added a very small one valve pump to the vena cava (I could be wrong, maybe it was not a vein, but I seem to remember it was). This did 2 things, it helped circulation, and if a person did have a heart attack, the second pump acted as a means to give the person a chance to get to a hospital. I can see little additions like this in the future, maybe some oxygen pump in the lungs. Maybe once science gets good enough, they can find some way of stimulating brain nerve cells so they don't die, of making sure the mylen sheeth does not degenerate. Who knows, maybe science will even figure out how memory works, and we can add little SD cards our body to know more data. Then again, that might not work. Some things are learned by muscle cells, like repetitive movements. What makes a baseball pitcher so good? Not that he can throw 100 mph, but that he can throw 93 mph 100 times and hit whatever spot he wants 90 feet away 90 out of 100 times. Having the SD memeory chip might tell the person the rules of where to throw and when, but it can not program the arm to make the same movement over and over again.
I see a new world in 100 years where people can live to 200 years of age with good quality, not the kind of life that many 90 year olds have of getting up in the morning and going from a bed to a chair where they wait to go back to the bed 12 hours later.
I have heard over and over and over again, that Einsteins wife is more responsible for his work than Einstein is. I wonder if any other./'ers have heard the same?
While we are at giving credit where it is due, why not give Nikola Tesla credit for his work with electricity.
The USA has a bad habit of stealing technology and breakthroughs from other countries and then saying they invented it. There is no way that Benjamin Franklin invented everything from bifocal eyeglasses to a furnace, and still had time to fly kites and discover electricity.
But m = \gamma m_0, where \gamma = 1/sqrt(1 - \beta^2), and, of course \beta = v/c.
I.e., E = mc^2 = m_0 c^2 / sqrt(1 - (v^2/c^2))
Oh, m_0 is rest mass, in case you didn't know that, and m is the relativistic mass.
Do you get laid much? I can just imagine the bar talk.
So, ladies, did you know that if. wait. I need my blackboard. Would you mind pushing the pints down a little, I need more space to show you this. Screw it, lets just go back to my TA office. I sure hope professor Greennuts is not there. He steals all my women with his theory of relativity- they're not related to him. bada-boom-bang.
I admit it, I am crazy and my mind entertains me.
BTW, I am shocked you would put a link on slashdot to your picture. You will have to let us know if this has brought you any nerd on nerd love?
I think there would be very different anwsers depending what part of the world you ask. I am sure the people of Nagasaki would have a very different anwser than the people of smalltown, USA. To some, it gave the world a horrible wepon. For others, it gave modern day comforts.
I don't know if I fully believe that energy equals mass. The only way that makes sense if something like SuperString theory is true, that we have more than the 4 dimensions (X, Y, Z, and time). To take mass, and BANG, the mass is gone and there is enegery, does not ring true to me. Something more happened than we do not understand. It is like the uncertanty principle. The electron is still there. Or is it? If it is not there, where is it? How many examples are there of the opposite happening. Taking just energy, with no starting mass, and making mass?
What I think is more usefull from E=MC2 is the idea of relativity. It is true, not just for science, but for almost every field of study.
What would be even more clever is watching him figure out how to make prision rape less painfull. Maybe he can make a nice slippery substance out of soap.
Seriously, this criminal is not funny. Other people invested time and money in this game, only to be cheated. This guy is a crook. If someone can do a crime on-line, they can do it in real life. It is exactly like when a child beats a dog. You just know in 10 years that kid will become a murderer. The kid lacks apathy, and that is a serious personality flaw. That is like a pit bull that bites, that specific animal is no good for anyone anymore. You have to seperate the bad from the good. Otherwise you will have 1 person costing everyone else an enjoyable life. It is a small price to pay.
Maybe one day the internet can be used to catch people with criminal tendencies. By monitoring the actions of the young, say ages 5 to 12, I am sure an algorithm can be made that can predict with 95%+ certainty which people will end up commiting violent crimes. Society could protect itself by locking these people up before the violence.
Players who played by the rules were cheated of their time and that means money.
Just because it happened on-line does not lessen the crime. There are victims.
If some real person spent 20 hours working to get an item from a quest, and then someone used a BOT to steal that item, that is theft. The first person is out the 20 hours of work it took.
It is the same as if I work 20 hours at a store to save up enough to buy a watch, and someone steals the watch.
The RIAA taught us that theft is not just physically stealing something like a chair. Theft can be stealing a right to something.
By performing tasks within a game repetitively or very quickly, bots can easily outplay human-controlled characters, giving unscrupulous players an unfair advantage.
This is cheating.
These hackers are causing more problems than they realize. They ruin the game for everyone else.
There should be new rules. #1, no selling of characters or items. That would take care of the cheaters who do it for money. These people are the same people who would make spam, just to make a few bucks off everyones misery. Rule #2 should be anyone who uses a bot would be fined a large sum of money, something like $1000.
On-line games should do what banks in the USA do. Before anyone can open a checking account in most USA banks, the bank will call the CHECKS system. This is a private organization that keeps a database of anyone who ever opened a checking account. If a person is listed as owing money to any bank, then no other bank will accept that persons buisness. The only way to clear the complaint is to contact the original bank that issued the complaint, and settle the problem with them.
It comes down to fair play. The only cheaters are the stupid people who could not do it on their own. They need a crutch.
Plus, how fun can a game be when there is no real accomplishment? The cheaters did not win, they did not accomplish anything.
Dude....call your local gov't and complain. it works.
Here in Fairfax, VA, when the local cable (Media General) wanted to increase rates...the local gov looked at the massive stack of complaints and said...um..sure, right after you solve all these other problems for your current promised service.
So make sure you aren't just whining on/. do it someplace that actually makes a difference;-)
Who do you complain to? Local city hall? What can they do? I thought only the FCC can do anything?
I can give you a list of crap comcast has done that stinks.
They keep raising fee's. Just looking at a bill, I can't tell what is a government tax and what is a comcast fee. Just a few months ago they raised the cost for basic cable. Then two months later, they removed Sci-Fi from the lineup. I called and comcast said that Sci-Fi was now only available with their digital package, but that costs more. I said "Since I was paying $80 a month for all these channels, and you took one away, how much will you lower my bill?". I got a laugh at the other end of the phone. Comcast said I was paying for a service, not any specific channels.
And I swear, the picture quality is worse than just last year. Every now and then, when I am watching a baseball game, the screen will freeze and little boxes will form all over the screen. Once this happens, it takes them an hour to fix the problem, but that does nothing for me because I can't watch the game. And on the lower channels I get small little squiggly lines that just barely distort the picture. The only way I can describe it is if one line of the picture was a string, that someone was making a wave with the string. I went to a second TV just to double check, and the same problem was there too. It is barely noticable, like on a flat screen monitor the 2 little strings. But once you see them, you see them.
And the damn cable modem is crap too. I mentioned it goes out at least twice a month, often for more than a couple of hours. But it will also re-set itself, at random. When it re-sets itself, it takes about 5 minutes for the internet connection to come back again. Pretty much what happens is all the lights on the cable modem are on, then it shuts off, then it blinks for five minutes. I called comcast, and they said that is normal. It sucks if I am in the middle of a download or if I was posting, and I get cut off.
And for about 3 months last winter, I had no DNS service. If I wanted to visit a website, I had to know the IP address and enter it as numerals. Someone here at slashdot told me to change the DNS myself, and I used verizon for a month. I felt like a thief.
And every time I call comcast, it is the same thing. I speak with someone who knows less about computers than your avarage 14 year old. They are often rude. They often want to put you on hold, for long amounts of time. And they end the call before the problem was fixed.
the cable company and dsl companies don't want to compete with each other. they pretty much split up territory. where dsl is available, often cable modems are not available. and where cable modems are available, dsl is not. this is not 100% true, but i would bet it is 80%+ true.
it costs a lot of money to set up the equipment to deliver broadband (cable or dsl). neither company wants to invest a lot of money in a market where the other is. they rather saturate the market they currently have.
i want dsl too. i want to be done with comcast once and for all. i hate comcast, they are the new mafia. i have had the cable modem go out at least 2 times a month, for at least 2 or 3 hours each time. i call comcast and they don't give a crap.
and what burns me is a friend who does have dsl gets it for $29.99 a month, i pay $49.99 a month for the same service.
i swear, one day, i will get a big c-band dish in the back yard, i will subscribe to only 3 or 4 channels i care about (like c-span which is free, sci-fi which i think is $2 a month, and espn). everything else that i want is free over the air. hopefully by then my town will have free broadband too. they keep talking about setting up a wireless system, so anyone in town can have free internet like the library. so far, they have it wired at all the public buildings, but they want to expand. then i can tell comcast to go to hell.
I don't have Flash on my computer, and don't want it.
At one point and time, I had the following on my computer:
Flash
Real Media Player
Quicktime Player
God knows how many codecs, I lost track.
DivX Player
WinDVD
Others I forgot the name of
I needed all of those just so I could play video, since every website had its own different format. And my system was crawling at a slow when it loaded. When I looked at the system tray, it was filled with 15+ icons.
So I got rid of them all. I got tired of keeping track of what program was calling home. I got tired of Flash loading into websites when I did not want the Flash (like ESPN). I think the final straw was the slashdot story saying how Flash was not secure, that programs could exploit it. I figure the less programs running on a computer, the more secure that computer is.
Why can't everyone use one standard like MPEG? What is wrong with MPEG? It is perfect, anyone can play it, it does not require anything extra. The video quality of MPEG is better than any WMV or quicktime I have seen. And it does not require any downloads or special programs to play.
In the old days, if you wanted to frustrate someone, it took time, and you did it 1 on 1. With computers, 1 person can annoy the hell out of thousands of people at once. For example- In 1980 if I wanted to defraud someone out of money, I had to find a gullible person, work at convincing them that my con was legit. Today, People send out thousands of emails and the gullible go to them!
So what will happen with this guy in jail? I can just see the conversation-
Scott: I'm new here Inmate #1: I'm in armed robbery. Motherfuckers locked me up for 12 god damn years. Can you believe that shit? Inmate #2: I'm in for not paying child support for 8 years, and not paying taxes. I have to serve two years. Can you believe what the bitch did to me, the father of her kids?
Inmate #3: I'm in because the bitch said I raped her. She was all "yes, yes, yes". Bitch set me up. Can you believe this shit? Hey, Scott, what are you in for? Scott: I got 640 years. I sent out millions of emails offering people a breakthrough product that enlarges penis size. Inmates #1, #2, and #3 (all together): Aaa... yay. We gonna get along just fine.
Inmate #2 talking to Inmate #3: You hold his head in the toilet while I prop his ass up. Inmate #1: You gonna forget about me? What does a brother have to do to get some props. Gimme a piece of that creamy white ass. Scott (heard through the bubbles comming out of the toilet water:Oh, shit!
I don't want to defend spammers. But did society make a toy (computers) that can no cause massive harm to many people (spam), and society did not make any safegaurds. Look at script kiddes. Download and run, it takes no brains. I hate to say it, but people are very stupid. And if you get a stupid person that is desperate, they just might become a spammer. Who wants to spend out their whole life in a 2 bedroom trailer home in a crappy area with savages? The lure to riches can be hard to resist.
And how do we sentance a wrong do'er? Do we sentance based on each act, that every single peice of email is a seperate offense? Or do we sentance based on the whole of what he did? For example, if someone rapes one person, that is very different than if someone rapes 10 people. But what about spam?
I think if they made a BIG example out of him, took away all his money, sent him to prision for 2 years, and humiliated him, that would be a detterent. Look at Martha Stewart. How much money did she steal? I would like to compare numbers in terms of monitary loss.
I wonder if there is a way to change email, so before any email is passed on, there is some visual confermation that has to be entered by the sender. Kinda like joining a forum. Hopefully that will stop the mass emails.
You have no idea what you are talking about. You are mixing up laws and court rulings left and right, comparing apples with oranges.
And obscenity doesn't mean what you think it does. Even the cheesiest softcore porn probably has some 'educational or social value' and/or isn't 'patently offensive'.
I have read the obsenity cases, and then some. There is no "patently offensive" standard. But there is a "prurient interest" test in the law. You must have gotten those two confused.:p
Your state does not enforce movie ratings by law, as that is UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Once again, that is wrong. It might be unconstitutional to abridge speech or a movie to all people, but it is definitly not unconsititutional to deny admittance to a movie to a minor. There was a theater near me where the police sent in minors to buy tickets to R rated movies, and when the theater sold those tickets, the police moved in and issued citations. If the constitution applied equally to minors and adults, then public schools could not enforce dress codes, or search all lockers without warrents; the way a police officer can not stop an adult on a public street because the guy is wearing an offensive t-shirt, or search the guys car just because the police officer suspected something. Schools can and will search whenever they want.
If you want a real constitutional issue, I can give you one that is much more problematic. Have you noticed how freedoms have been narrowed the past decade? Have you noticed the camera's popping up in cities, like the 3,000 camera's the police installed in Boston and Chicago? Or have you read the latest court rulings regarding checkpoints? There was a case in Michigan, where the state police decided they had too much drunk driving, driving without insurance, violations. So they closed off roads and FORCED every car to stop and checked for a drivers license, to make sure the driver did not drink too much, to check out the tail lights. And they ticketed and arrested people when they found infractions. The police had no probable cause, they stopped all.
And it's just as unconstitutional to do that indirectly via a private rating organization.
Call Walmart. They are already doing it. Did you hear they decided to not carry John Stearts book even after ordering it, because someone at Walmart decided it was "offensive" to their tastes.
Private organizations have much more leeway in prohibiting people from speech or activities. Constitutional law more often applies to what governemnt does, not 2 private entites. So if a theater decided not to carry the movie "The Aristocrats" because of foul language, then they can do so (for the record, that movie has George Carlin, Drew Carey, Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Alexander, Jon Stewart and others, and AMC decided to ban it because it was too "dirty" for an R rated movie).
Did you know there are some privately run golf courses in the USA where women are denied admission and membership? Now if it was a public park, and the city decided to deny women admission, that would be unconstitutional, but not for a private organization.
Flat out, no exceptions, that movie is legal to give or sell to minors as long as the 1st amendment stands
Once again, you are wrong. If government decided tomorrow to outlaw red t-shirts for those under 18, they could do it. For the record, it was in the paper yesterday that a school district will ban anyone who wears red and gold, because that is a gang color. Now if a college tried to do that, where students are over 18, it would be illegal.
You are a troll, but I will respond. The best way to eliminate darkness is to shine a light.:p
I see no good reason why I, a consenting adult, should have to be subject to legal infrastructure standing between me and a video game because a bunch of uptight parents can't be bothered to raise their children themselves.
You make a few points. So I will start with part 1) you believe you should not be subject to showing an ID to buy a 18+ game. Try doing that when you go buy beer. Most places will ID people who are 24 or 25 or 26, just because they look under 21 or near 21. If stores did not ask for ID's, do you know how many underage people would buy beer? Before my state banned cigarette machines, lots of 14 and 15 year olds who would be turned away at the gas stations would put 2 $1 bills in the machine and get their menthols. Since my state outlawed them, it is much harder for kids to get cigarettes. It only takes 5 seconds to show an ID. Part 2 of your rant is you call parents "uptight". Well who the hell are you? Don't you know most kids will break the rules whenever they can. They will do things which are fun and pleasurable to them, even if they might be harmful. How many 16 year olds with new drivers licenses love to go speeding down a street at twice the speed limit? Is it fun? Yes. Is it dangerous. Yes, even more dangerous for a kid who has little experience driving, who is more likely to make a fatal mistake. A 28 year old who looses control of his car on a rainy highway will have 10 more years experiance than a 18 year old. Who has the better odds of getting control of their car back? What about alcohol? Is it fun at age 17 to hang out at a beer party and drink with friends. Yes, it is fun. Is it harmful? Yes it is harmful. Same thing with video games. Is it fun to play something very violent with nudity or sex? Yes it is fun. Is it harmful at age 13? Yes. What values do these games teach. Kids have not lived long enough to have experiance to understand. That is why some things are banned at age 16 that are freely available at age 21. Hopefully those few extra years of living will have imparted some wisdom. Is it arbitrary to say 18 years old is the cut off? Yes, but it is better than having 13 year olds who start smoking. Who is more influanced by peer pressure? I remember highschool, it was easy to get pressured into crap, probably 80% of the students did something they did not want to do because of peer pressure. By the time college hits, that number might be 40% of people do something stupid becuase of peer pressure. How many 28 year olds do you see with a beer bong because 20 people are yelling chug, chug, chug? I'll give you one example. Who is most likely to go hang out with friends when there is work/homework/responsibility? A 15 year old who has a test the next day in math, a 20 year old who has a test the next day in his college buisness class, or a 25 year old who has an important meeting the next day at work at 9am? I'll bet you the thinking goes as follows. The 15 year old says "fuck it, i want to see my friends, to hell with all this bullshit". The 20 year old says "I want to see my friends, but I also want to get a good grade and good internship this summer", and the 25 year old says "I want to move out of this apartment into a house, so I better be prepared for tomorrow".
Not by law. Not in America.
My state enforces it by LAW. Not because the industry says they will have self oversight. We all know the industry is there to make money. If that means selling 18+ games to kids, many stores will look the other way. Maybe a Best Buy will enforce rules, but a smaller store that is not making lots of money will make the sale.
There are some communities which passed laws saying grocery stores could not sell alcohol in the main store area. Rather, they had to be off to the side, with only one entrance and exit, and someone to check ID's. Alcohol was only sold at that one register, with a specially trained worker (someone who will check ID's). The result in the community was less DUI's and less underage drinking. The downside was there were longer lines to get beer, and then the shopper still had to wait in line a second time to buy groceries in the regular check out line.
States can pass whatever laws they want. My local grocery store will not sell any alcohol on sundays. Why sundays? Because the town voted the law in.
When it comes to video games that are rated 18+, I don't think it is too much to ask a store to seperate those games from all the others. If a 12 year old is looking for a game, he will look through all the titles. Perhaps a 18+ game will catch his eye and the kid will think "COOL!! I WANT THIS!!!!!". Then the kid will either try and sneak the game into his parents cart, or hope the parent does not look at the game to see the rating, or if the parent objects, the kid will throw a tantrum. If the 18+ game was not mixed in with all the others, it would avoid the problem. That kid would not be comparing some car racing game with GTA and looking at both backs trying to decide which one he wanted.
Perhaps that would get the parents attention if there was a law saying 18+ games must be purchased by 18+ year olds. Most movie theaters enforce R ratings by not selling tickets to 14 year olds. Why not have the same rules apply to video game sales?
Plus, maybe the 18+ games should not be mixed in with the other games. Maybe they should be kept in an area where kids can't shop them with all the other titles. Like they keep 18+ magazines behind the counter. If a parent wants to buy it, they can ask for it.
OK, I like bashing Microsoft just as much as the next guy. But I just skimmed through the application and they're not simply trying to patent "displaying numbers in a box." The application is for dynamically highlighting (or whatever) all numeric elements within a document, even if the numerics are expressed in words (e.g., "one thousand") in any supported language. While possibly of limited use, this does seem to be a unique feature.
Now, whether Microsoft (or anyone) should be allowed to patent such thing... I don't know.
Doesn't the javascript rollover do the same thing? For example, having a white text, but when the mouse rolls over the text, it changes to yellow?
Plus, formatting text as a patent? That is like having a patent for a type of art. I want to patent the use of blue whenever it is used for painting highlights in sky images.
microsoft, WTF!!
Or maybe I should patent the I, or the B. Just imagine how much better the world would be if the people who thought that up made a patent first.
What is next. When I buy my next ink pen, will there be a EULA that states I must pay royalties whenever I make certain pen movements?
I remember back in the 70's and 80's when test pilots for the air force flew fighterjets that were considered "unstable" and the air force wanted to test different designs. The common understanding was, there is a greater chance of it crashing than landing. Yet, many good pilots wanted the chance to fly. What motivated them even when they knew there was a greater chance of crashing than landing?
There are some jobs that are very dangerous.
Can man make a shuttle that is perfect, that will never have a mishap? Does anyone know the statistsics, of how many launches and how many crashes? I am just guessing, but I would think NASA has an over 90% success rate. If that was my college physics class, I would be jumping up and down with joy. It is not like these astronauts took "physics for poets". They studied their topics in great detail, and they know it.
Getting back to my analogy. If the old air force test fighter pilot program had a failure rate over 50%, and NASA is under 10% failure (just a guess), then perhaps what is needed is a new understanding. Congress did not shut down the test pilot program because of accidents, it was considered too important. What is NASA? Eye candy? Do they want to put on a show, where the first injury causes a shut down? Or do they want to explore space, learn, and understand there will be terrible accidents along the way.
There is a great quote NASA should try and understand better. Life is the master teacher. Unfortunatly, it gives the tests first, and the lessons second.
these password thefts are crimes. throw the bastards who did it in jail, and move on. the prosecutors should ask everyone who lost hours of work to call in, so they can get an estimate to the damages.
there are two choices. make stuff easy, with very little security. or make things difficult with good security. no matter what choice a comany picks, that should have no bearing on criminal prosecutions. just because site #1 is easier to break into does not mean the punishment should be less for breaking into it.
we either punish thieves, or everyone will have to start carring around time-watch-algorithm generators for when they want to log into their accounts.
okay, i commented on the story. now here is what i really want to talk to the slashdot crowd about. check this out, i went to search for kazaa, just to see if it was still around, and i got this from google:
what makes it so interesting is the notice at the bottom of the page:
In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results.
is google now censoring what websites it returns in search requests? is the next great search engine going to be housed outside the USA? and where will good people get their non-copywrited music from?? even emp3world is filled with broken links.
The sooner the online porn stuff just moves offshore (ala the casinos), the better. Then they can tell the Govt. to find a new whipping boy.
Then government can charge terrifs. Government has for a long time charged taxes on products imported. What is the difference with a web service? Governments can pass a law saying that web services will have a terrif. If the web service does not originate in the USA, then a terrif must be paid. I am sure that most nations would not want to be humiliated by having their nation blacklisted, so no websites can be viewed inside the USA. Just imagine Bush visiting Russia and telling Putin "sorry, we have to block any web content from your country because you are a haven for porn".
Government can do all sorts of things. They can tell banks it is illegal to transfer money to a country. Look at what the USA is doing to cuba. No american, or anybody for that fact, can use a credit card issued by an american bank in Cuba. The american bank will deny the transaction no matter how much money you have.
And the USA can pressure other countries to make laws that collect taxes. For example, if Bush wanted to control the amount of porn that Russia sends to the USA, Putin could be told "we won't approve these IMF loans your country needs unless you rewrite your web tax laws". Even the carrot can be used, the stick might not be needed. Bush can say "Putin, this is a billion dollar industry, don't you want to tax it?".
The point is those places in the world where people move to set up web services that are illegal in the USA, it would not be too hard to shut them down, and often the USA would not have to do it, we can just pressure the other country to do it for us.
The only reason the USA does not have laws going after offshore casinos is because polticians have not figured out it can generate votes. Just imagine a politician who says "I want to stop the terrorists from using american money that was generated by mob run casinos in the Caymen Islands. My opponent did nothing to stop this illegal gambling racket in the last 4 years in office. Why? Why didn't you do anything?"
Stopping porn from being viewed by children is something that most people would support. I would say over 90%, republicans and democrats. And most would not loose any sleep if it was taxed just like other vices, like cigarettes or alcohol. They have always been taxed higher than other items.
And just who gets to decide what constitutes Pornography?
Are we going to tax web pages which talk about breast cancer, just because they contain the word breast?
And how would such taxes be collected, Especially if the server resides outside the US?
They will have a definition of porn as anything with penetration. Or anything used for a prurient purpose. Anyone can tell the difference between porn and a breast cancer website. I highly doubt the breast cancer website will has pictures of the ass, or women moaning.
If the server is outside the USA, it will be blocked. Just like a tarriff, if a company does not pay, they can not sell their product inside this country.
Taxes would be collected by forcing pornographic websites to register with the IRS. If they don't and get caught, then the owner will probably go to jail for tax evasion.
What is the fixation with sex? Why would a child seeing two consenting adults having sex "corrupt" them. Sex is a natural thing that happens between two people who like each other a lot. It's nothing
You are an idiot. What does on-line porn and "two people who like each other a lot" have in common? Have you seen on-line porn? It sucks. Wham, bam, thank you mam, here is your $150. Porn is nothing like a loving relationship. And for you to say it is okay for a child to watch it, that makes you a pedophile. You belong in jail, or at the very least, to be registered with a sex offender database. You want children to watch porn, how sick are you??
The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party)
That is B.S.. If you know anything, most catholics register as democrats. Maybe the baptists are more republican. But as a group, they don't vote for just one side or the other. Or are you talking about lutherans?
As young as twelve or thirteen I was viewing pornography because I was curious and felt a drive to seek out such material. Far from damaging my psyche, it made me a lot less nervous about my sexuality.
Maybe sex is something that should be nervous and new and wonderful when you meet the one person who you want to be with forever. Maybe sex is a choice a 14 year old can not make, because they don't have the maturity to understand what it means. Maybe if sex is something sacred, then the divorce rate and infidelity would not be so high.
You are what is wrong with this world.
You may not agree with abortion or gay marriage but believing in freedom is about having the maturity to realize that the people who are gay or have abortions are consenting adults and are fully aware of the consequences of their actions.
And the next thing we will see is beastiality becomming normal. Maybe one day HBO will air "Farm Diaries". After all, the person is free to make a choice, even if everyone else says it is wrong. That is what you are saying.
I don't want to troll, but I have always wondered...
Why are there two major windows manager projects? Not like lots of other smaller projects like IceWM. It seems that so much time is put in KDE and Gnome, that if the two teams worked together, they might make something superior to what they made on their own. Does KDE and Gnome have the same goals, or are they very different?
And which is better? I know "better" can be a subjective term. What is the difference between them. They are both rather large compared to smaller WM that can run on older machines.
I personally have alwyas liked Gnome more. If you asked me to tell you why, I don't think I could, except to say I like the look and feel of it. KDE does not look as nice. But every now and then, when I use KDE, I will find a cool little tool or application that Gnome does not have, at least not from a clean instal.
This is my guess, correct me if I am wrong. KDE has more developers and money. Gnome has fewer people, but more creative people. KDE will give you everything and the kitchen sink. Gnome will find ways put a twist into things, to make it fun.
Of course, those thought above are just my feelings, not facts.
I wonder what people like about their WM that is not available in other flavors??
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, if you try to tell people about this, they get all confused due to that recent documentary (which stole the name).
That is why nothing can beat a book. No matter what story is told, the book is printed, and it will NOT change. You can't just take a bottle of white out and a pen and make a change. If you want to know what Lenin thought, you can find his words printed on paper. Somewhere, on a bookshelf, is a copy of his works. No matter how hard government tries to take away those books, they are out there, in attics, in basements, in places people forgot about.
If something is on electronic format, how long until there are hacks, and patches, and confusion, and chaos?
Student #1:"But Professor, my book said Iraq did have WMD".
Student #2:"Professor, my book was hacked, it says there are no WMD and that Halliburton made a billion dollars."
Professor: "Those damn hackers! This is why we need another guantanamo."
This is more like 1984 than Fahrenhite 451. Fahrenhite 451 was about government kicking in doors and burning books. That will never happen as long as the USA has the 2nd Amendment. But what is more likely to happen is 1984, where government changes facts. What is told today as fact is told tomorrow as fiction.
That is why it is so alarming that a PUBLIC library would decide to get rid of books.
I hope the first hack is not to change the electronic database to say the 2nd Amendment gaurentees the right to 2 dollars an hour employment.
Or I should say the royal family need the undies to stop inbreeding. I guess 1000 years of marriying cousins to keep power concentrated is a bad thing. For those who don't know history, you would be suprised at how many cousins married cousins in british royal family history.
[/joke]
I wonder how many soldiers get infection because of dirty underwear? Wouldn't it make better sense to give soldiers a couple of individually packaged wet wipes instead?
LOL, I can just see it now. Some little kid asking his mommy: "How long until we get to see grand pappy on the screen". The mom anwsers "Right after these important messages from grand pappys sponsers". Then the kid gets to watch a 2 minute Oxyclean infomercial about how it takes stains right out of anything, followed by a message how the kid can save money on car insurance.
I hate to say it, but there is too much advertising. I bet if the casket was not burried, there would be some company paying money to put advertising on the casket, much like a nascar.
I think having a video is kinda morbid. But people put pictures on headstones, so I guess a video is not that much different. Maybe what is cheaper and better is a lcd that changes 6 or 7 pictures, rather than having video.
Plus, who will these messages be played to? Can the screen be set up so there is one message to family, and one for strangers? Will there be a code to be entered?
Anyways, none of this will apply to me. I don't plan on dying. What I want done with my body is to be frozen, and to wait until technology can bring me back. If science can make clones of people, how far off are we from taking the neural patterns of people and transplanting then into a mechanized human? Seriously, no sci-fi here. I think the day is comming when artificial hearts will be better than real hearts. Anyone see the experiment that was done a couple years ago? They took people with bad hearts, and fixed them like they normally would (bipass or whatever). But these doctors went one step further. The doctors added a very small one valve pump to the vena cava (I could be wrong, maybe it was not a vein, but I seem to remember it was). This did 2 things, it helped circulation, and if a person did have a heart attack, the second pump acted as a means to give the person a chance to get to a hospital. I can see little additions like this in the future, maybe some oxygen pump in the lungs. Maybe once science gets good enough, they can find some way of stimulating brain nerve cells so they don't die, of making sure the mylen sheeth does not degenerate. Who knows, maybe science will even figure out how memory works, and we can add little SD cards our body to know more data. Then again, that might not work. Some things are learned by muscle cells, like repetitive movements. What makes a baseball pitcher so good? Not that he can throw 100 mph, but that he can throw 93 mph 100 times and hit whatever spot he wants 90 feet away 90 out of 100 times. Having the SD memeory chip might tell the person the rules of where to throw and when, but it can not program the arm to make the same movement over and over again.
I see a new world in 100 years where people can live to 200 years of age with good quality, not the kind of life that many 90 year olds have of getting up in the morning and going from a bed to a chair where they wait to go back to the bed 12 hours later.
While we are at giving credit where it is due, why not give Nikola Tesla credit for his work with electricity.
The USA has a bad habit of stealing technology and breakthroughs from other countries and then saying they invented it. There is no way that Benjamin Franklin invented everything from bifocal eyeglasses to a furnace, and still had time to fly kites and discover electricity.
I.e., E = mc^2 = m_0 c^2 / sqrt(1 - (v^2/c^2))
Oh, m_0 is rest mass, in case you didn't know that, and m is the relativistic mass.
Do you get laid much? I can just imagine the bar talk.
So, ladies, did you know that if. wait. I need my blackboard. Would you mind pushing the pints down a little, I need more space to show you this. Screw it, lets just go back to my TA office. I sure hope professor Greennuts is not there. He steals all my women with his theory of relativity- they're not related to him. bada-boom-bang.
I admit it, I am crazy and my mind entertains me.
BTW, I am shocked you would put a link on slashdot to your picture. You will have to let us know if this has brought you any nerd on nerd love?
I don't know if I fully believe that energy equals mass. The only way that makes sense if something like SuperString theory is true, that we have more than the 4 dimensions (X, Y, Z, and time). To take mass, and BANG, the mass is gone and there is enegery, does not ring true to me. Something more happened than we do not understand. It is like the uncertanty principle. The electron is still there. Or is it? If it is not there, where is it? How many examples are there of the opposite happening. Taking just energy, with no starting mass, and making mass?
What I think is more usefull from E=MC2 is the idea of relativity. It is true, not just for science, but for almost every field of study.
It's pretty clever
What would be even more clever is watching him figure out how to make prision rape less painfull. Maybe he can make a nice slippery substance out of soap.
Seriously, this criminal is not funny. Other people invested time and money in this game, only to be cheated. This guy is a crook. If someone can do a crime on-line, they can do it in real life. It is exactly like when a child beats a dog. You just know in 10 years that kid will become a murderer. The kid lacks apathy, and that is a serious personality flaw. That is like a pit bull that bites, that specific animal is no good for anyone anymore. You have to seperate the bad from the good. Otherwise you will have 1 person costing everyone else an enjoyable life. It is a small price to pay.
Maybe one day the internet can be used to catch people with criminal tendencies. By monitoring the actions of the young, say ages 5 to 12, I am sure an algorithm can be made that can predict with 95%+ certainty which people will end up commiting violent crimes. Society could protect itself by locking these people up before the violence.
Just because it happened on-line does not lessen the crime. There are victims.
If some real person spent 20 hours working to get an item from a quest, and then someone used a BOT to steal that item, that is theft. The first person is out the 20 hours of work it took.
It is the same as if I work 20 hours at a store to save up enough to buy a watch, and someone steals the watch.
The RIAA taught us that theft is not just physically stealing something like a chair. Theft can be stealing a right to something.
This is cheating.
These hackers are causing more problems than they realize. They ruin the game for everyone else.
There should be new rules. #1, no selling of characters or items. That would take care of the cheaters who do it for money. These people are the same people who would make spam, just to make a few bucks off everyones misery. Rule #2 should be anyone who uses a bot would be fined a large sum of money, something like $1000.
On-line games should do what banks in the USA do. Before anyone can open a checking account in most USA banks, the bank will call the CHECKS system. This is a private organization that keeps a database of anyone who ever opened a checking account. If a person is listed as owing money to any bank, then no other bank will accept that persons buisness. The only way to clear the complaint is to contact the original bank that issued the complaint, and settle the problem with them.
It comes down to fair play. The only cheaters are the stupid people who could not do it on their own. They need a crutch.
Plus, how fun can a game be when there is no real accomplishment? The cheaters did not win, they did not accomplish anything.
Here in Fairfax, VA, when the local cable (Media General) wanted to increase rates...the local gov looked at the massive stack of complaints and said...um..sure, right after you solve all these other problems for your current promised service.
So make sure you aren't just whining on /. do it someplace that actually makes a difference ;-)
Who do you complain to? Local city hall? What can they do? I thought only the FCC can do anything?
I can give you a list of crap comcast has done that stinks.
They keep raising fee's. Just looking at a bill, I can't tell what is a government tax and what is a comcast fee. Just a few months ago they raised the cost for basic cable. Then two months later, they removed Sci-Fi from the lineup. I called and comcast said that Sci-Fi was now only available with their digital package, but that costs more. I said "Since I was paying $80 a month for all these channels, and you took one away, how much will you lower my bill?". I got a laugh at the other end of the phone. Comcast said I was paying for a service, not any specific channels.
And I swear, the picture quality is worse than just last year. Every now and then, when I am watching a baseball game, the screen will freeze and little boxes will form all over the screen. Once this happens, it takes them an hour to fix the problem, but that does nothing for me because I can't watch the game. And on the lower channels I get small little squiggly lines that just barely distort the picture. The only way I can describe it is if one line of the picture was a string, that someone was making a wave with the string. I went to a second TV just to double check, and the same problem was there too. It is barely noticable, like on a flat screen monitor the 2 little strings. But once you see them, you see them.
And the damn cable modem is crap too. I mentioned it goes out at least twice a month, often for more than a couple of hours. But it will also re-set itself, at random. When it re-sets itself, it takes about 5 minutes for the internet connection to come back again. Pretty much what happens is all the lights on the cable modem are on, then it shuts off, then it blinks for five minutes. I called comcast, and they said that is normal. It sucks if I am in the middle of a download or if I was posting, and I get cut off.
And for about 3 months last winter, I had no DNS service. If I wanted to visit a website, I had to know the IP address and enter it as numerals. Someone here at slashdot told me to change the DNS myself, and I used verizon for a month. I felt like a thief.
And every time I call comcast, it is the same thing. I speak with someone who knows less about computers than your avarage 14 year old. They are often rude. They often want to put you on hold, for long amounts of time. And they end the call before the problem was fixed.
it costs a lot of money to set up the equipment to deliver broadband (cable or dsl). neither company wants to invest a lot of money in a market where the other is. they rather saturate the market they currently have.
i want dsl too. i want to be done with comcast once and for all. i hate comcast, they are the new mafia. i have had the cable modem go out at least 2 times a month, for at least 2 or 3 hours each time. i call comcast and they don't give a crap.
and what burns me is a friend who does have dsl gets it for $29.99 a month, i pay $49.99 a month for the same service.
i swear, one day, i will get a big c-band dish in the back yard, i will subscribe to only 3 or 4 channels i care about (like c-span which is free, sci-fi which i think is $2 a month, and espn). everything else that i want is free over the air. hopefully by then my town will have free broadband too. they keep talking about setting up a wireless system, so anyone in town can have free internet like the library. so far, they have it wired at all the public buildings, but they want to expand. then i can tell comcast to go to hell.
At one point and time, I had the following on my computer:
I needed all of those just so I could play video, since every website had its own different format. And my system was crawling at a slow when it loaded. When I looked at the system tray, it was filled with 15+ icons.
So I got rid of them all. I got tired of keeping track of what program was calling home. I got tired of Flash loading into websites when I did not want the Flash (like ESPN). I think the final straw was the slashdot story saying how Flash was not secure, that programs could exploit it. I figure the less programs running on a computer, the more secure that computer is.
Why can't everyone use one standard like MPEG? What is wrong with MPEG? It is perfect, anyone can play it, it does not require anything extra. The video quality of MPEG is better than any WMV or quicktime I have seen. And it does not require any downloads or special programs to play.
So what will happen with this guy in jail? I can just see the conversation-
Scott: I'm new here
Inmate #1: I'm in armed robbery. Motherfuckers locked me up for 12 god damn years. Can you believe that shit?
Inmate #2: I'm in for not paying child support for 8 years, and not paying taxes. I have to serve two years. Can you believe what the bitch did to me, the father of her kids? Inmate #3: I'm in because the bitch said I raped her. She was all "yes, yes, yes". Bitch set me up. Can you believe this shit? Hey, Scott, what are you in for?
Scott: I got 640 years. I sent out millions of emails offering people a breakthrough product that enlarges penis size.
Inmates #1, #2, and #3 (all together): Aaa... yay. We gonna get along just fine.
Inmate #2 talking to Inmate #3: You hold his head in the toilet while I prop his ass up.
Inmate #1: You gonna forget about me? What does a brother have to do to get some props. Gimme a piece of that creamy white ass.
Scott (heard through the bubbles comming out of the toilet water: Oh, shit!
I don't want to defend spammers. But did society make a toy (computers) that can no cause massive harm to many people (spam), and society did not make any safegaurds. Look at script kiddes. Download and run, it takes no brains. I hate to say it, but people are very stupid. And if you get a stupid person that is desperate, they just might become a spammer. Who wants to spend out their whole life in a 2 bedroom trailer home in a crappy area with savages? The lure to riches can be hard to resist.
And how do we sentance a wrong do'er? Do we sentance based on each act, that every single peice of email is a seperate offense? Or do we sentance based on the whole of what he did? For example, if someone rapes one person, that is very different than if someone rapes 10 people. But what about spam?
I think if they made a BIG example out of him, took away all his money, sent him to prision for 2 years, and humiliated him, that would be a detterent. Look at Martha Stewart. How much money did she steal? I would like to compare numbers in terms of monitary loss.
I wonder if there is a way to change email, so before any email is passed on, there is some visual confermation that has to be entered by the sender. Kinda like joining a forum. Hopefully that will stop the mass emails.
And obscenity doesn't mean what you think it does. Even the cheesiest softcore porn probably has some 'educational or social value' and/or isn't 'patently offensive'.
I have read the obsenity cases, and then some. There is no "patently offensive" standard. But there is a "prurient interest" test in the law. You must have gotten those two confused. :p
Your state does not enforce movie ratings by law, as that is UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Once again, that is wrong. It might be unconstitutional to abridge speech or a movie to all people, but it is definitly not unconsititutional to deny admittance to a movie to a minor. There was a theater near me where the police sent in minors to buy tickets to R rated movies, and when the theater sold those tickets, the police moved in and issued citations. If the constitution applied equally to minors and adults, then public schools could not enforce dress codes, or search all lockers without warrents; the way a police officer can not stop an adult on a public street because the guy is wearing an offensive t-shirt, or search the guys car just because the police officer suspected something. Schools can and will search whenever they want.
If you want a real constitutional issue, I can give you one that is much more problematic. Have you noticed how freedoms have been narrowed the past decade? Have you noticed the camera's popping up in cities, like the 3,000 camera's the police installed in Boston and Chicago? Or have you read the latest court rulings regarding checkpoints? There was a case in Michigan, where the state police decided they had too much drunk driving, driving without insurance, violations. So they closed off roads and FORCED every car to stop and checked for a drivers license, to make sure the driver did not drink too much, to check out the tail lights. And they ticketed and arrested people when they found infractions. The police had no probable cause, they stopped all.
And it's just as unconstitutional to do that indirectly via a private rating organization.
Call Walmart. They are already doing it. Did you hear they decided to not carry John Stearts book even after ordering it, because someone at Walmart decided it was "offensive" to their tastes.
Private organizations have much more leeway in prohibiting people from speech or activities. Constitutional law more often applies to what governemnt does, not 2 private entites. So if a theater decided not to carry the movie "The Aristocrats" because of foul language, then they can do so (for the record, that movie has George Carlin, Drew Carey, Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Alexander, Jon Stewart and others, and AMC decided to ban it because it was too "dirty" for an R rated movie).
Did you know there are some privately run golf courses in the USA where women are denied admission and membership? Now if it was a public park, and the city decided to deny women admission, that would be unconstitutional, but not for a private organization.
Flat out, no exceptions, that movie is legal to give or sell to minors as long as the 1st amendment stands
Once again, you are wrong. If government decided tomorrow to outlaw red t-shirts for those under 18, they could do it. For the record, it was in the paper yesterday that a school district will ban anyone who wears red and gold, because that is a gang color. Now if a college tried to do that, where students are over 18, it would be illegal.
Point is that kids don't have the same rights.
I see no good reason why I, a consenting adult, should have to be subject to legal infrastructure standing between me and a video game because a bunch of uptight parents can't be bothered to raise their children themselves.
You make a few points. So I will start with part 1) you believe you should not be subject to showing an ID to buy a 18+ game. Try doing that when you go buy beer. Most places will ID people who are 24 or 25 or 26, just because they look under 21 or near 21. If stores did not ask for ID's, do you know how many underage people would buy beer? Before my state banned cigarette machines, lots of 14 and 15 year olds who would be turned away at the gas stations would put 2 $1 bills in the machine and get their menthols. Since my state outlawed them, it is much harder for kids to get cigarettes. It only takes 5 seconds to show an ID. Part 2 of your rant is you call parents "uptight". Well who the hell are you? Don't you know most kids will break the rules whenever they can. They will do things which are fun and pleasurable to them, even if they might be harmful. How many 16 year olds with new drivers licenses love to go speeding down a street at twice the speed limit? Is it fun? Yes. Is it dangerous. Yes, even more dangerous for a kid who has little experience driving, who is more likely to make a fatal mistake. A 28 year old who looses control of his car on a rainy highway will have 10 more years experiance than a 18 year old. Who has the better odds of getting control of their car back? What about alcohol? Is it fun at age 17 to hang out at a beer party and drink with friends. Yes, it is fun. Is it harmful? Yes it is harmful. Same thing with video games. Is it fun to play something very violent with nudity or sex? Yes it is fun. Is it harmful at age 13? Yes. What values do these games teach. Kids have not lived long enough to have experiance to understand. That is why some things are banned at age 16 that are freely available at age 21. Hopefully those few extra years of living will have imparted some wisdom. Is it arbitrary to say 18 years old is the cut off? Yes, but it is better than having 13 year olds who start smoking. Who is more influanced by peer pressure? I remember highschool, it was easy to get pressured into crap, probably 80% of the students did something they did not want to do because of peer pressure. By the time college hits, that number might be 40% of people do something stupid becuase of peer pressure. How many 28 year olds do you see with a beer bong because 20 people are yelling chug, chug, chug? I'll give you one example. Who is most likely to go hang out with friends when there is work/homework/responsibility? A 15 year old who has a test the next day in math, a 20 year old who has a test the next day in his college buisness class, or a 25 year old who has an important meeting the next day at work at 9am? I'll bet you the thinking goes as follows. The 15 year old says "fuck it, i want to see my friends, to hell with all this bullshit". The 20 year old says "I want to see my friends, but I also want to get a good grade and good internship this summer", and the 25 year old says "I want to move out of this apartment into a house, so I better be prepared for tomorrow".
Not by law. Not in America.
My state enforces it by LAW. Not because the industry says they will have self oversight. We all know the industry is there to make money. If that means selling 18+ games to kids, many stores will look the other way. Maybe a Best Buy will enforce rules, but a smaller store that is not making lots of money will make the sale.
Not really.
There are some communities which passed laws saying grocery stores could not sell alcohol in the main store area. Rather, they had to be off to the side, with only one entrance and exit, and someone to check ID's. Alcohol was only sold at that one register, with a specially trained worker (someone who will check ID's). The result in the community was less DUI's and less underage drinking. The downside was there were longer lines to get beer, and then the shopper still had to wait in line a second time to buy groceries in the regular check out line.
States can pass whatever laws they want. My local grocery store will not sell any alcohol on sundays. Why sundays? Because the town voted the law in.
When it comes to video games that are rated 18+, I don't think it is too much to ask a store to seperate those games from all the others. If a 12 year old is looking for a game, he will look through all the titles. Perhaps a 18+ game will catch his eye and the kid will think "COOL!! I WANT THIS!!!!!". Then the kid will either try and sneak the game into his parents cart, or hope the parent does not look at the game to see the rating, or if the parent objects, the kid will throw a tantrum. If the 18+ game was not mixed in with all the others, it would avoid the problem. That kid would not be comparing some car racing game with GTA and looking at both backs trying to decide which one he wanted.
Plus, maybe the 18+ games should not be mixed in with the other games. Maybe they should be kept in an area where kids can't shop them with all the other titles. Like they keep 18+ magazines behind the counter. If a parent wants to buy it, they can ask for it.
Now, whether Microsoft (or anyone) should be allowed to patent such thing... I don't know.
Doesn't the javascript rollover do the same thing? For example, having a white text, but when the mouse rolls over the text, it changes to yellow?
Plus, formatting text as a patent? That is like having a patent for a type of art. I want to patent the use of blue whenever it is used for painting highlights in sky images.
microsoft, WTF!!
Or maybe I should patent the I, or the B. Just imagine how much better the world would be if the people who thought that up made a patent first.
What is next. When I buy my next ink pen, will there be a EULA that states I must pay royalties whenever I make certain pen movements?
There are some jobs that are very dangerous.
Can man make a shuttle that is perfect, that will never have a mishap? Does anyone know the statistsics, of how many launches and how many crashes? I am just guessing, but I would think NASA has an over 90% success rate. If that was my college physics class, I would be jumping up and down with joy. It is not like these astronauts took "physics for poets". They studied their topics in great detail, and they know it.
Getting back to my analogy. If the old air force test fighter pilot program had a failure rate over 50%, and NASA is under 10% failure (just a guess), then perhaps what is needed is a new understanding. Congress did not shut down the test pilot program because of accidents, it was considered too important. What is NASA? Eye candy? Do they want to put on a show, where the first injury causes a shut down? Or do they want to explore space, learn, and understand there will be terrible accidents along the way.
There is a great quote NASA should try and understand better. Life is the master teacher. Unfortunatly, it gives the tests first, and the lessons second.
Well, actually, Kazaa Lite. Close enough.
thanks for the link. :)
there are two choices. make stuff easy, with very little security. or make things difficult with good security. no matter what choice a comany picks, that should have no bearing on criminal prosecutions. just because site #1 is easier to break into does not mean the punishment should be less for breaking into it.
we either punish thieves, or everyone will have to start carring around time-watch-algorithm generators for when they want to log into their accounts.
okay, i commented on the story. now here is what i really want to talk to the slashdot crowd about. check this out, i went to search for kazaa, just to see if it was still around, and i got this from google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=kaza a&spell=1
what makes it so interesting is the notice at the bottom of the page:
In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results.
is google now censoring what websites it returns in search requests? is the next great search engine going to be housed outside the USA? and where will good people get their non-copywrited music from?? even emp3world is filled with broken links.
Then government can charge terrifs. Government has for a long time charged taxes on products imported. What is the difference with a web service? Governments can pass a law saying that web services will have a terrif. If the web service does not originate in the USA, then a terrif must be paid. I am sure that most nations would not want to be humiliated by having their nation blacklisted, so no websites can be viewed inside the USA. Just imagine Bush visiting Russia and telling Putin "sorry, we have to block any web content from your country because you are a haven for porn".
Government can do all sorts of things. They can tell banks it is illegal to transfer money to a country. Look at what the USA is doing to cuba. No american, or anybody for that fact, can use a credit card issued by an american bank in Cuba. The american bank will deny the transaction no matter how much money you have.
And the USA can pressure other countries to make laws that collect taxes. For example, if Bush wanted to control the amount of porn that Russia sends to the USA, Putin could be told "we won't approve these IMF loans your country needs unless you rewrite your web tax laws". Even the carrot can be used, the stick might not be needed. Bush can say "Putin, this is a billion dollar industry, don't you want to tax it?".
The point is those places in the world where people move to set up web services that are illegal in the USA, it would not be too hard to shut them down, and often the USA would not have to do it, we can just pressure the other country to do it for us.
The only reason the USA does not have laws going after offshore casinos is because polticians have not figured out it can generate votes. Just imagine a politician who says "I want to stop the terrorists from using american money that was generated by mob run casinos in the Caymen Islands. My opponent did nothing to stop this illegal gambling racket in the last 4 years in office. Why? Why didn't you do anything?"
Stopping porn from being viewed by children is something that most people would support. I would say over 90%, republicans and democrats. And most would not loose any sleep if it was taxed just like other vices, like cigarettes or alcohol. They have always been taxed higher than other items.
They will have a definition of porn as anything with penetration. Or anything used for a prurient purpose. Anyone can tell the difference between porn and a breast cancer website. I highly doubt the breast cancer website will has pictures of the ass, or women moaning.
If the server is outside the USA, it will be blocked. Just like a tarriff, if a company does not pay, they can not sell their product inside this country.
Taxes would be collected by forcing pornographic websites to register with the IRS. If they don't and get caught, then the owner will probably go to jail for tax evasion.
You are an idiot. What does on-line porn and "two people who like each other a lot" have in common? Have you seen on-line porn? It sucks. Wham, bam, thank you mam, here is your $150. Porn is nothing like a loving relationship. And for you to say it is okay for a child to watch it, that makes you a pedophile. You belong in jail, or at the very least, to be registered with a sex offender database. You want children to watch porn, how sick are you??
The Christian faith (who's political wing is the Republican party)
That is B.S.. If you know anything, most catholics register as democrats. Maybe the baptists are more republican. But as a group, they don't vote for just one side or the other. Or are you talking about lutherans?
As young as twelve or thirteen I was viewing pornography because I was curious and felt a drive to seek out such material. Far from damaging my psyche, it made me a lot less nervous about my sexuality.
Maybe sex is something that should be nervous and new and wonderful when you meet the one person who you want to be with forever. Maybe sex is a choice a 14 year old can not make, because they don't have the maturity to understand what it means. Maybe if sex is something sacred, then the divorce rate and infidelity would not be so high.
You are what is wrong with this world.
You may not agree with abortion or gay marriage but believing in freedom is about having the maturity to realize that the people who are gay or have abortions are consenting adults and are fully aware of the consequences of their actions.
And the next thing we will see is beastiality becomming normal. Maybe one day HBO will air "Farm Diaries". After all, the person is free to make a choice, even if everyone else says it is wrong. That is what you are saying.
Why are there two major windows manager projects? Not like lots of other smaller projects like IceWM. It seems that so much time is put in KDE and Gnome, that if the two teams worked together, they might make something superior to what they made on their own. Does KDE and Gnome have the same goals, or are they very different?
And which is better? I know "better" can be a subjective term. What is the difference between them. They are both rather large compared to smaller WM that can run on older machines.
I personally have alwyas liked Gnome more. If you asked me to tell you why, I don't think I could, except to say I like the look and feel of it. KDE does not look as nice. But every now and then, when I use KDE, I will find a cool little tool or application that Gnome does not have, at least not from a clean instal.
This is my guess, correct me if I am wrong. KDE has more developers and money. Gnome has fewer people, but more creative people. KDE will give you everything and the kitchen sink. Gnome will find ways put a twist into things, to make it fun.
Of course, those thought above are just my feelings, not facts.
I wonder what people like about their WM that is not available in other flavors??