Puh-lease! Don't confuse "Soviet" with USSR. Soviets were the democratic institutions that allowed representation of all people in Russia, including workers, farmers, etc., who were not represented in the State Duma before. Soviets, therefore were built on the free speech and to encourage free speech.
BTW, for those who like to compare the USSR with the USA today.
KGB - Komitet Gosudarstvennoj Bezopasnosti.
Komitet = Commitee, Department.
Gosudarstvennoj = State, Homeland.
Bezopasnosti = Safety, Security.
That's different. There is a presumption of innocence - a specific legal concept that is precisely defined. It does apply to us. They can suspect us all they want, but they can't call us criminals and they can't take do anything to us, only the court can after it finds out that we are indeed criminals.
We, on the other hand, are just expressing valid (at least to some extent) concerns about the particular technology, given the information that we currently have. We do not call MPAA murderers and we do not equal their scientists with doctor Mengele.
So we're not doing anything bad at all, just questioning some of the claims, given MPAA's unimpressive past record.
Sycraft-fu said that copy protection folks often talk shit. That is a fact - they often do. He also said that copy protection often interferes with normal use. Well, noone can argue about this, it really does. What will happen with the new scheme, no one knows, but we have good reasons to be suspicious.
Speaking from my personal experience, Tomb Raider games are the most popular games among my female relatives. It is actually the only game she played a lot, besides some logic games and my younger sister also enjoyed it very much, although she also plays many other games, like Sims, extreme sports (she is a skater herself), etc.
All this happened in a situation where there is practically ZERO advertisement by Eidos (because of piracy). So the game actually spoke for itself, was able to make a very favourable impression and again presented Lara as a strong female character that girls and women can identify with.
While you make an excellent point, I find it interesting what Merriam-Webster has to say on this topic:
Main Entry: joystick
Pronunciation: -"stik
Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps from English slang joystick penis
Date: 1910 1: a lever in an airplane that operates the elevators by a fore-and-aft motion and the ailerons by a side-to-side motion 2: a control for any of various devices (as a computer display) that resembles an airplane's joystick especially in being capable of motion in two or more directions
Perimeter by KD-Lab is an innovative real-time strategy featuring non-stop terraforming.
I guess it will take about 1.5-2 years after that for someone to produce a FPS (or a tactical shooter) with a more or less freely deformable world. After all, it is not that difficult to concieve and there first glimpses are already abound, such as Karma engine or curtains in Splinter Cell.:)
I never bought a CD. I bought only a couple of audio-casettes a LONG time ago (most of them pirated). But I do download pirated music. So what? I don't _need_ music. If it wasn't freely available, I would not listen for it. I would really (honestly) be able to (gasp!) live without it, as I still regularly do for long periods of time.
To me the song isn't worth 1$. May be it is worth 0.01$, may be even less. So by not buying them I am not depriving anyone of any significant income.
So what? I am not paying anything for MS software, but that's another story. What I would like to know is why is it a problem for Open Source that MS makes money?
A second comment saying essentially the same thing is modded to 5. Why? What difference does it make for the Open Source, which OS am I running? I am not likely to contribute to development, unlikely to fix bugs, not very likely to find many of them. I would not pay anything for the distro - either download it, or buy a "pirated" copy (1CD=2$ that go to pirates, not to developers).
Can you explain, why me using pirated M$ software is a bad thing for Open Source?
Well, there was a case when a girl had a questionable political poster (I think something about the president) on the wall in her apartment. Someone saw it (through the window?) and reported to the police. The girl was paid a visit by a police officer (not an FBI agent, IIRC). I don't remember what happened next, I think she didn't let him in, but let him see it through the door. He said the poster is fine, sorry, that's my job and the girl was left alone. I think that story was posted on Plastic.com some time ago.
This is quite similar to the issue of calling Bush an idiot. And remember when students were threatened by police for turning their backs to Bush during his visit to the university. And many other similar incidents. So, don't be so positive about the situation, for it isn't good. For me even the idea that police has the right to check what posters you hang in your room is outrageous. Apparently some people think it is ok. Good that I don't live in the US.
As far as I understand, to keepd data on the network all you need to do is store a copy of all files locally. Basically you need to provide a web-hosting, but without worrying about traffic. If demand is high, data is moved from you and closer to the users. If demand is low, you have to occasionally (but not often) reinsert it (probably automatically).
BTW, this is somewhat similar to how eDonkey works now. When you share a 700Mb file, you give out may be 7Gb (usually less) of it and then it basically spreads by itself, because everyone is downloading (therefore sharing) it. You keep it in your share and it will be forever available, even when demand (and availability) drops.
Child porn is currently illegal in Europe. It was legal, though, a few decades ago, when such magazines as Little Lolitas were freely available. Mainstream (more or less) films like Maladolescenca were made with 13 year olds having sex a lot (although that's not a porn flick - it's a drama about teenage love, and stuff).
Today child porn is essentially outlawed everywhere because of pressure from fundamentlist countries such as US.
A lot of child porn is made in countries where law enforcement is lax, such as Russia. But the idea that child porn is somehow made "for fun" is just ludicruos. It is made for $$$ and make no mistake about this.
Another thing to consider is that not porn is created equal. There is a big difference between a video of a man raping 6 year old and a video of 13 year old girl masturbating. And everyone who doesn't see the difference is hypocritic idiot.:) Their whole chain of logic goes like this: 1. Child porn = rape. 2. Viewing child porn = creating it. 3. Touching child porn, even unknowingly = viewing child porn. 4. Running Freenet node = distributing child porn. => If you have a Freenet node, you are a rapist.
For that child the fact that his image is available on the Internet is the least concern. Much more important are the facts that he is hungry, poor and homeless.
And it would make much more sense to address these problems, not prosecuting people for viewing images on their PC.
P.S. I guess you are also a voodoo practitioner if you think watching a picture can injure a kid... I guess you also don't have a driving license, since you probably refuse to have pictures taken of you...
It seems from your post's score that rational approach to kiddie porn is not welcome in present society...
I think you are completely right. If we can't eliminate child porn completely (and we can't, there being 6 billions people on this planets and stuff), it would make a lot of sense to minimize the number of children involved. If we can distribute the child porn more efficiently, it would take a smaller quantity of child porn to saturate the demand. If someone can take all existing child porn, digitally restore it, categorize, put in neat 650Mb rar files and make available of Freenet, nobody will need to create new child porn anymore. Those who enjoy jerking off looking at nekkid kids will be able to do so. Child pornographers will find new jobs and become respectable members of the society. Poor little kids will get back to pickpocketing and begging (well, hopefully not). Everyone happy. Viva la Freenet!
The lip-sync problems are really inexcusable. You can do better syncing a random video with completely different audio (I know, I've done it). You get better quality in some off-the-mill shoot-em up.:) I don't care about the lips moving right - it would be probably enough if the characters at least opened and closed them on time.
But they get credit for trying. Let's hope that this show enjoys at least a moderate success and that everyone learns a thing or two from these guys and does better next time.
There are much better techniques for motion capture. The guys from VirtuSphere had a great project some time ago, where a special suit recorded all movements. Judging from demos they had on the site (now apparently removed), the thing was very accurate (and dirt cheap).
And what would you do if you have a center of mass inside BOTH objects? Like with two nebulas or with two solid objects of weird form (like very elongated planetoids/asteroidoids that both swing over the center of gravity with its ends).:)))
Re:Any Definition Will Be Arbitrary
on
Defining "Planet"
·
· Score: 1
In a grand scheme of things, all objects that you listed are basically empty space. The only real objects are neutron stars, white dwarfs black holes and the like.
"Cells do not burst as a result of freezing in almost all circumstances, because not only are animal cell walls generally elastic enough to accomodate a 10% expansion, but most of the ice is formed outside the cells." (The Immortalist, Nov-Dec 2002. Vol. 34, p. 5.)
In addition, various techniques exist, such as perfusion with glycerol, that further reduce the freezing damage.
"In [another method] vitrification more than 60% of the water inside cells is replaced by a mixture of cryoprotectant (antifreeze) compounds so that tissue does not freeze (or freezes negligibly) during cooling. Instead, below a temperature of -130 degrees Celsius, the tissue becomes a rigid glass with no ice crystal damage." (http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/index.htm, Alcor website, Frequently Asked Questions)
Contrary to popular belief, ENIAC was
not the first general-purpose computer. In 1973 the patent for ENIAC was invalidated by the Judge Earl Larson of the US District Court in Minneapolis. Larson found that ENIAC was based on the ideas of John Vincent Atanasoff, who constructed ABC, the first electronic computer, around 1940 [1].
John Atanasoff was finally acknowledged as the true inventor of the electronic computer. However, ABC also wasn't the first general-purpose computer, because actually it wasn't general-purpose, as it wasn't programmable. It was hardwired for solving systems of linear equations [2].
The real first ever digital programmable general-purpose electronic computer was built around the same time in Germany. In 1941 Konrad Zuse, a German engineer, built Z3, a binary computer, controlled by perforated strips of film. The machine was fully programmable and in fact it contained almost all features of a modern computer, as defined by John von Neumann in Preliminary Discussion of the Logical Design of an Electronical Computing Instrument (1946) [3]. The only exception was that the program was not stored in the internal memory of Z3, but on the perforated film strip. However, ENIAC also did not posess this ability - the programming was done by manually rewiring part of the computer.
Now let's give our due respect to Konrad Zuse [4].
Apparently, Americans are among the worst in finding their own country on the world map. IIRC, in one global survey about 10% of Americans failed in this intricate task, compared with less than 1% in such countries as Sweden and Japan. BTW, Swedes and Japanese were pretty good in finding the US too.
Stupid. Americans haven't landed on the Moon, I agree, but not because the Moon is a hoax. It is ridiculous! You can see the Moon in the sky every night. The actual reason is that America itself is a hoax, perpetrated by one suspicious Genoa seafarer... I thought you should know - there is no such thing as America. If you sail to the West, there is only ocean. All the way to China.
How about getting some money from the community, than paying some spammer for assistance and sending millions (or, better, billions) of threatening e-mail to every website owner in the world, demanding to remove some random files. Just imagine all the havoc! People will have to wake up and realise what the world had turned into....
1) Who said that forwarding an e-mail is a violation of privacy of the sender? After all, she didn't write anything terribly personal there. 2) Given the nature of the e-mail, the benefits of sharing this information with the whole Internet far outweight the shortcomings. 3) Personally I think it is ok to sometimes violate the privacy of others.
Conclusion. Come on, people, try to be a little bit more flexible! Sometimes it is ok to cheat, to lie or to be a jerk. As long as you don't do it too often, think about the consequences and don't do anything too bad, you are fine.
Slashdot Mirror
BTW, for those who like to compare the USSR with the USA today.
KGB - Komitet Gosudarstvennoj Bezopasnosti.
Komitet = Commitee, Department.
Gosudarstvennoj = State, Homeland.
Bezopasnosti = Safety, Security.
A coincidence? Or are we up to something here?
So we're not doing anything bad at all, just questioning some of the claims, given MPAA's unimpressive past record.
Sycraft-fu said that copy protection folks often talk shit. That is a fact - they often do. He also said that copy protection often interferes with normal use. Well, noone can argue about this, it really does. What will happen with the new scheme, no one knows, but we have good reasons to be suspicious.
All this happened in a situation where there is practically ZERO advertisement by Eidos (because of piracy). So the game actually spoke for itself, was able to make a very favourable impression and again presented Lara as a strong female character that girls and women can identify with.
Main Entry: joystick : a lever in an airplane that operates the elevators by a fore-and-aft motion and the ailerons by a side-to-side motion : a control for any of various devices (as a computer display) that resembles an airplane's joystick especially in being capable of motion in two or more directions
Pronunciation: -"stik
Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps from English slang joystick penis
Date: 1910
1
2
Worms 3 will feature freely deformable landscapes.
Perimeter by KD-Lab is an innovative real-time strategy featuring non-stop terraforming.
I guess it will take about 1.5-2 years after that for someone to produce a FPS (or a tactical shooter) with a more or less freely deformable world. After all, it is not that difficult to concieve and there first glimpses are already abound, such as Karma engine or curtains in Splinter Cell. :)
I never bought a CD. I bought only a couple of audio-casettes a LONG time ago (most of them pirated). But I do download pirated music. So what? I don't _need_ music. If it wasn't freely available, I would not listen for it. I would really (honestly) be able to (gasp!) live without it, as I still regularly do for long periods of time.
To me the song isn't worth 1$. May be it is worth 0.01$, may be even less. So by not buying them I am not depriving anyone of any significant income.
So what? I am not paying anything for MS software, but that's another story. What I would like to know is why is it a problem for Open Source that MS makes money?
A second comment saying essentially the same thing is modded to 5. Why? What difference does it make for the Open Source, which OS am I running? I am not likely to contribute to development, unlikely to fix bugs, not very likely to find many of them. I would not pay anything for the distro - either download it, or buy a "pirated" copy (1CD=2$ that go to pirates, not to developers).
Can you explain, why me using pirated M$ software is a bad thing for Open Source?
Well, there was a case when a girl had a questionable political poster (I think something about the president) on the wall in her apartment. Someone saw it (through the window?) and reported to the police. The girl was paid a visit by a police officer (not an FBI agent, IIRC). I don't remember what happened next, I think she didn't let him in, but let him see it through the door. He said the poster is fine, sorry, that's my job and the girl was left alone. I think that story was posted on Plastic.com some time ago.
This is quite similar to the issue of calling Bush an idiot. And remember when students were threatened by police for turning their backs to Bush during his visit to the university. And many other similar incidents. So, don't be so positive about the situation, for it isn't good. For me even the idea that police has the right to check what posters you hang in your room is outrageous. Apparently some people think it is ok. Good that I don't live in the US.
As far as I understand, to keepd data on the network all you need to do is store a copy of all files locally. Basically you need to provide a web-hosting, but without worrying about traffic. If demand is high, data is moved from you and closer to the users. If demand is low, you have to occasionally (but not often) reinsert it (probably automatically).
BTW, this is somewhat similar to how eDonkey works now. When you share a 700Mb file, you give out may be 7Gb (usually less) of it and then it basically spreads by itself, because everyone is downloading (therefore sharing) it. You keep it in your share and it will be forever available, even when demand (and availability) drops.
Child porn is currently illegal in Europe. It was legal, though, a few decades ago, when such magazines as Little Lolitas were freely available. Mainstream (more or less) films like Maladolescenca were made with 13 year olds having sex a lot (although that's not a porn flick - it's a drama about teenage love, and stuff).
:) Their whole chain of logic goes like this:
Today child porn is essentially outlawed everywhere because of pressure from fundamentlist countries such as US.
A lot of child porn is made in countries where law enforcement is lax, such as Russia. But the idea that child porn is somehow made "for fun" is just ludicruos. It is made for $$$ and make no mistake about this.
Another thing to consider is that not porn is created equal. There is a big difference between a video of a man raping 6 year old and a video of 13 year old girl masturbating. And everyone who doesn't see the difference is hypocritic idiot.
1. Child porn = rape.
2. Viewing child porn = creating it.
3. Touching child porn, even unknowingly = viewing child porn.
4. Running Freenet node = distributing child porn.
=> If you have a Freenet node, you are a rapist.
You, my frend, are an idiot!
For that child the fact that his image is available on the Internet is the least concern. Much more important are the facts that he is hungry, poor and homeless.
And it would make much more sense to address these problems, not prosecuting people for viewing images on their PC.
P.S. I guess you are also a voodoo practitioner if you think watching a picture can injure a kid... I guess you also don't have a driving license, since you probably refuse to have pictures taken of you...
It seems from your post's score that rational approach to kiddie porn is not welcome in present society... I think you are completely right. If we can't eliminate child porn completely (and we can't, there being 6 billions people on this planets and stuff), it would make a lot of sense to minimize the number of children involved. If we can distribute the child porn more efficiently, it would take a smaller quantity of child porn to saturate the demand. If someone can take all existing child porn, digitally restore it, categorize, put in neat 650Mb rar files and make available of Freenet, nobody will need to create new child porn anymore. Those who enjoy jerking off looking at nekkid kids will be able to do so. Child pornographers will find new jobs and become respectable members of the society. Poor little kids will get back to pickpocketing and begging (well, hopefully not). Everyone happy. Viva la Freenet!
The lip-sync problems are really inexcusable. You can do better syncing a random video with completely different audio (I know, I've done it). You get better quality in some off-the-mill shoot-em up. :) I don't care about the lips moving right - it would be probably enough if the characters at least opened and closed them on time.
But they get credit for trying. Let's hope that this show enjoys at least a moderate success and that everyone learns a thing or two from these guys and does better next time.
There are much better techniques for motion capture. The guys from VirtuSphere had a great project some time ago, where a special suit recorded all movements. Judging from demos they had on the site (now apparently removed), the thing was very accurate (and dirt cheap).
And what would you do if you have a center of mass inside BOTH objects? Like with two nebulas or with two solid objects of weird form (like very elongated planetoids/asteroidoids that both swing over the center of gravity with its ends). :)))
In a grand scheme of things, all objects that you listed are basically empty space. The only real objects are neutron stars, white dwarfs black holes and the like.
"Cells do not burst as a result of freezing in almost all circumstances, because not only are animal cell walls generally elastic enough to accomodate a 10% expansion, but most of the ice is formed outside the cells." (The Immortalist, Nov-Dec 2002. Vol. 34, p. 5.)
In addition, various techniques exist, such as perfusion with glycerol, that further reduce the freezing damage.
"In [another method] vitrification more than 60% of the water inside cells is replaced by a mixture of cryoprotectant (antifreeze) compounds so that tissue does not freeze (or freezes negligibly) during cooling. Instead, below a temperature of -130 degrees Celsius, the tissue becomes a rigid glass with no ice crystal damage." (http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/index.htm, Alcor website, Frequently Asked Questions)
And on this photo you can see the ESA flag, floating on some experimental habitat.
Apparently, Americans are among the worst in finding their own country on the world map. IIRC, in one global survey about 10% of Americans failed in this intricate task, compared with less than 1% in such countries as Sweden and Japan. BTW, Swedes and Japanese were pretty good in finding the US too.
Stupid. Americans haven't landed on the Moon, I agree, but not because the Moon is a hoax. It is ridiculous! You can see the Moon in the sky every night. The actual reason is that America itself is a hoax, perpetrated by one suspicious Genoa seafarer... I thought you should know - there is no such thing as America. If you sail to the West, there is only ocean. All the way to China.
If only he managed to bug the bug by installing the webcam inside the fly...
How about getting some money from the community, than paying some spammer for assistance and sending millions (or, better, billions) of threatening e-mail to every website owner in the world, demanding to remove some random files. Just imagine all the havoc! People will have to wake up and realise what the world had turned into....
Isn't that a good idea?
1) Who said that forwarding an e-mail is a violation of privacy of the sender? After all, she didn't write anything terribly personal there.
2) Given the nature of the e-mail, the benefits of sharing this information with the whole Internet far outweight the shortcomings.
3) Personally I think it is ok to sometimes violate the privacy of others.
Conclusion. Come on, people, try to be a little bit more flexible! Sometimes it is ok to cheat, to lie or to be a jerk. As long as you don't do it too often, think about the consequences and don't do anything too bad, you are fine.