Summary -- Computer programmer Clinton Eugene Curtis testifies under oath before the U.S. House Judiciary Members in Ohio. Stephen Pizzo writes:
If you can watch this entire video, and still use an electronic voting machine, you deserve the government you get. If your state or district has decided to use electronic voting machines this November demand an absentee ballot today. Watch this video. Then join those of us who have decided that since paper was good enough for our constitution, it's good enough for our vote too.
Oh, and when you're done watching the whole video... pass it along. November is only a a few weeks off and the last thing Republicans want to see is either house returned to Democrat control. Because if that happens, hearings happen. And if hearings happen... well, who knows - someone(s) could go to jail. So, demand a paper ballot or an absentee ballot in Nov. and leave the cheaters with a pocket full of worthless Diebold electrons.
A partial transcript: Are there computer programs that can be used to secretly fix elections? Yes. How do you know that to be the case? Because in October of 2000, I wrote a prototype for Congressman Tom Feeney [R-FL]... It would rig an election? It would flip the vote, 51-49. Whoever you wanted it to go to and whichever race you wanted to win. And would that program that you designed, be something that elections officials... could detect? They'd never see it.
a little more mass and we'd be in a binary star system, with jupiter shining bright
Just wanted to point out that we'd need quite a bit more than "a little more mass" for Jupiter to become a star. Jupiter would need to be roughly 75x larger than it currently is to begin nuclear fusion.
Which of these people is more likely to provide an accurate translation? And how can they tell whose translation is correct?
Well, if they receive multiple translations of each document it probably wouldn't be too hard to pick out the ones that look similar. While certainly not foolproof it would probably be a reasonable way to separate the good from the bad.
Then Copernicus came along and pointed out that it was not so complicated at all... the planets just travelled in ellipses.
Actually all Copernicus said was that planets go around the sun, not the earth. His model was often criticized because it didn't fit the model perfectly either. It wasn't until Kepler came along and made extensive analysis of Brahe's observations that we had the concept of planets moving in ellipses.
Now, we have a similar situation where a reluctance to delve into the nasty territory of nonlinear analysis has blinded scientists to the 'simple' solution right in front of them and lead them to propose all sorts of overly complex additions to, a basically simple and elegant, theory.
I disagree. In the Copernicus/Aristotle debate we had observations of planetary movement. That was it. When Galileo came along and observed cycles of Venus it directly contradicted the Aristotlian theory. On the other hand, we have observations of Galactic rotation, Universe expansion, CMB radiation, measurements of Baryonic mass in the universe, that all point to a common conclusion. This theory does not explain the other observations that we have. Before accepting it we will need to explain those other observations as well.
I had to catch myself before my brain exploded thinking about what characters you would have to use to do base 1024, and how bloody hard it would be to remember them all.
Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever
use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult
position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with
another solution.
From the FAQ found here you should be able to see that if you were not intending to distribute the program, then you wouldn't have to make the source code available to anyone. In fact you only have to make the source available to people you distribute the program to. It sounds like you need some more competant lawyers.
Q: If I know someone has a copy of a GPL-covered program, can I demand he give me a copy?
A: No. The GPL gives him permission to make and redistribute copies of the program if he chooses to do so. He also has the right not to redistribute the program, if that is what he chooses.
It's worth noting that nuclear waste, although not air pollution, is still pollution. Nuclear power is not "clean" then, but it doesn't pollute the air much.
Actually you are wrong. Emulation is the process of imitating another program for the purposes of creating compatibility. If you really want to you can call it a compatibility layer, but it is an emulator nonetheless. It emulates the Win32 API on an non Win32 machine. The acronym actually stands for Wine Is Not a (CPU) Emulator.
By junk gas he may be referring to the "Super Ultra Low Mart" down the street that sells gas for 40 cents less than all the other gas stations on the block.
If something sounds too good to be true...it probably is.
The only cool new thing is the bottom Find-as-you-type bar.
Yes...but for some reason they removed the plain slashless "Find links as you type" mode. Does anyone have any idea why they removed that? I always found it useful for quickly jumping around forums by just typing a word or two in a post I wanted to see. Instead now I have to push slash for it to start searching, and I end up catching text instead.
A better solution is for ISPs to block port 25 for all consumer connections, and only allow port 25 traffic to their own SMTP servers. Why put the onus on the consumers, when it is the ISPs who seem to be failing us?
The problem with this is that those of us who use a mail account from work, school, and our home ISP may want to send mail from each of these accounts. An ISP blocking our school and work SMTP servers would be a pain.
I believe the big deal is that technically its illegal to use those libraries since you haven't paid the licencing fee to actually have the right to play DVDs. The advent of commecial DVD software means that you can now legally play DVDs on your Linux box.
The fact that this software even exists commercially is a step towards commercial recognition of Linux as a viable desktop platform.
Immortality is just around the corner if successful brain transplants can take place.
Immortality has nothing to do with the brain transplant. All evidence points to the fact that our brains could keep on going indefinitely, but this shell of a body withers away. Radical life extension will only occur if we find a way to halt or significantly slow the oxidation of body cells, which is the real reason people die of old age.
Besides that, I don't see how a brain transplant would help you, since memories and the sense of self are all presumably stored in the brain you would be getting rid of.
Unless, of course, you meant transplanting your brain into newborn or young child bodies, which makes a bit more sense, but is IMO sick.
Well...the rest of the arable land in the world could be used for that...
Again, a practical example would use a more sizable land mass. The point is not that putting everyone in Texas is a good idea, the point is that you could put everyone in the world in Texas and have room left over, even though everyone complains about world overpopulation.
No really, it is. Any time anyone ever tries to tell you that the world is overpopulated, look at them funny, then calmly explain the following.
Every person in the entire world can be given 1000 sq. ft. of land all to themself, and all that land would fit inside of Texas.
World population: About 6 Billion Land Area of Texas: 261,914 Square Miles (or about 1,912,428,000,000,000,000 (1.9 Quintillion) Square Feet)
Using handy dandy Google calculator on the following: (261914^(.5)*5280)^2/6 billion
We get about 1217 Square Feet per PERSON if we only consider Texas.
This doesnt even begin to think about how much space every person would have if we built buildings so we could use multiple stories of space, or even if we divided the world down into family units that would live together.
Now granted it would be silly to put everyone into Texas, but the point is that it could be done, and you wouldn't be mashed up against 15 other people with literally only enough space to breathe.
Overpopulation is a myth, anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't been properly informed.
Exactly how many games out there have any of you played that don't at some point in time require you to make use of more than one button at a time? Perhaps puzzle games and even many of those require, or at least are easier if you can push more than one button at a time...
This seems like a pretty useless invention, though I suppose it could be seen as some sort of first step towards something more useful.
But...we already DO skip February 29th. The leap year occurs every 4 years, unless said year ends in "00." But if that year is divisible by 400 (like 2000) then it is a leap year.
Which is why 2000 was a leap year, and nearly everyone alive today will assume that leap years always occur every four years. If anyone is lucky enough to live until 2100 they will realize that that is not a leap year.
Of course if you really want to get technical...Encyclopedia Britannica states: For still more precise reckoning, every year evenly divisible by 4,000 (i.e., 16,000, 24,000, etc.) is made a common (not leap) year.
...its more than likely that it will never occur that you can only view protected content via things like media player. Are you seriously telling me that you believe MS will make it impossible for people to watch their home videos on their computers? Or, are you saying that I won't be able to record myself playing the piano, making speeches, or otherwise recording audio and play it back to myself? I'm sorry, but I just dont see this happening. Ever.
Slashdot Mirror
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/40755/
Summary --
Computer programmer Clinton Eugene Curtis testifies under oath before the U.S. House Judiciary Members in Ohio. Stephen Pizzo writes:
A partial transcript:
Are there computer programs that can be used to secretly fix elections?
Yes.
How do you know that to be the case?
Because in October of 2000, I wrote a prototype for Congressman Tom Feeney [R-FL]...
It would rig an election?
It would flip the vote, 51-49. Whoever you wanted it to go to and whichever race you wanted to win.
And would that program that you designed, be something that elections officials... could detect?
They'd never see it.
a little more mass and we'd be in a binary star system, with jupiter shining bright
Just wanted to point out that we'd need quite a bit more than "a little more mass" for Jupiter to become a star. Jupiter would need to be roughly 75x larger than it currently is to begin nuclear fusion.
From what I've seen we are as near to creating decent AI as we are to producing fusion power stations.
I think what you meant to say was:
From what I've seen we are as near to creating decent AI as we are to completing Duke Nukem Forever.
Which of these people is more likely to provide an accurate translation? And how can they tell whose translation is correct?
Well, if they receive multiple translations of each document it probably wouldn't be too hard to pick out the ones that look similar. While certainly not foolproof it would probably be a reasonable way to separate the good from the bad.
Actually all Copernicus said was that planets go around the sun, not the earth. His model was often criticized because it didn't fit the model perfectly either. It wasn't until Kepler came along and made extensive analysis of Brahe's observations that we had the concept of planets moving in ellipses.
Now, we have a similar situation where a reluctance to delve into the nasty territory of nonlinear analysis has blinded scientists to the 'simple' solution right in front of them and lead them to propose all sorts of overly complex additions to, a basically simple and elegant, theory.
I disagree. In the Copernicus/Aristotle debate we had observations of planetary movement. That was it. When Galileo came along and observed cycles of Venus it directly contradicted the Aristotlian theory. On the other hand, we have observations of Galactic rotation, Universe expansion, CMB radiation, measurements of Baryonic mass in the universe, that all point to a common conclusion. This theory does not explain the other observations that we have. Before accepting it we will need to explain those other observations as well.
Or, perhaps, base 2?
I had to catch myself before my brain exploded thinking about what characters you would have to use to do base 1024, and how bloody hard it would be to remember them all.
Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with another solution.
From the FAQ found here you should be able to see that if you were not intending to distribute the program, then you wouldn't have to make the source code available to anyone. In fact you only have to make the source available to people you distribute the program to. It sounds like you need some more competant lawyers.
Q: If I know someone has a copy of a GPL-covered program, can I demand he give me a copy?
A: No. The GPL gives him permission to make and redistribute copies of the program if he chooses to do so. He also has the right not to redistribute the program, if that is what he chooses.
It's worth noting that nuclear waste, although not air pollution, is still pollution. Nuclear power is not "clean" then, but it doesn't pollute the air much.
Actually you are wrong. Emulation is the process of imitating another program for the purposes of creating compatibility. If you really want to you can call it a compatibility layer, but it is an emulator nonetheless. It emulates the Win32 API on an non Win32 machine. The acronym actually stands for Wine Is Not a (CPU) Emulator.
Proof Search for "Wine is not a"
By junk gas he may be referring to the "Super Ultra Low Mart" down the street that sells gas for 40 cents less than all the other gas stations on the block.
If something sounds too good to be true...it probably is.
The only cool new thing is the bottom Find-as-you-type bar.
Yes...but for some reason they removed the plain slashless "Find links as you type" mode. Does anyone have any idea why they removed that? I always found it useful for quickly jumping around forums by just typing a word or two in a post I wanted to see. Instead now I have to push slash for it to start searching, and I end up catching text instead.
A better solution is for ISPs to block port 25 for all consumer connections, and only allow port 25 traffic to their own SMTP servers. Why put the onus on the consumers, when it is the ISPs who seem to be failing us?
The problem with this is that those of us who use a mail account from work, school, and our home ISP may want to send mail from each of these accounts. An ISP blocking our school and work SMTP servers would be a pain.
I believe the big deal is that technically its illegal to use those libraries since you haven't paid the licencing fee to actually have the right to play DVDs. The advent of commecial DVD software means that you can now legally play DVDs on your Linux box.
The fact that this software even exists commercially is a step towards commercial recognition of Linux as a viable desktop platform.
You meant, "They cast Tobey Maguire as Spiderman." That was their first mistake.
Immortality is just around the corner if successful brain transplants can take place.
Immortality has nothing to do with the brain transplant. All evidence points to the fact that our brains could keep on going indefinitely, but this shell of a body withers away. Radical life extension will only occur if we find a way to halt or significantly slow the oxidation of body cells, which is the real reason people die of old age.
Besides that, I don't see how a brain transplant would help you, since memories and the sense of self are all presumably stored in the brain you would be getting rid of.
Unless, of course, you meant transplanting your brain into newborn or young child bodies, which makes a bit more sense, but is IMO sick.
Well...the rest of the arable land in the world could be used for that... Again, a practical example would use a more sizable land mass. The point is not that putting everyone in Texas is a good idea, the point is that you could put everyone in the world in Texas and have room left over, even though everyone complains about world overpopulation.
No really, it is. Any time anyone ever tries to tell you that the world is overpopulated, look at them funny, then calmly explain the following.
Every person in the entire world can be given 1000 sq. ft. of land all to themself, and all that land would fit inside of Texas.
World population: About 6 Billion
Land Area of Texas: 261,914 Square Miles (or about 1,912,428,000,000,000,000 (1.9 Quintillion) Square Feet)
Using handy dandy Google calculator on the following:
(261914^(.5)*5280)^2/6 billion
We get about 1217 Square Feet per PERSON if we only consider Texas.
This doesnt even begin to think about how much space every person would have if we built buildings so we could use multiple stories of space, or even if we divided the world down into family units that would live together.
Now granted it would be silly to put everyone into Texas, but the point is that it could be done, and you wouldn't be mashed up against 15 other people with literally only enough space to breathe.
Overpopulation is a myth, anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't been properly informed.
1 patent is invalid.
By induction...
Exactly how many games out there have any of you played that don't at some point in time require you to make use of more than one button at a time? Perhaps puzzle games and even many of those require, or at least are easier if you can push more than one button at a time... This seems like a pretty useless invention, though I suppose it could be seen as some sort of first step towards something more useful.
But...we already DO skip February 29th. The leap year occurs every 4 years, unless said year ends in "00." But if that year is divisible by 400 (like 2000) then it is a leap year.
Which is why 2000 was a leap year, and nearly everyone alive today will assume that leap years always occur every four years. If anyone is lucky enough to live until 2100 they will realize that that is not a leap year.
Of course if you really want to get technical...Encyclopedia Britannica states:
For still more precise reckoning, every year evenly divisible by 4,000 (i.e., 16,000, 24,000, etc.) is made a common (not leap) year.
...its more than likely that it will never occur that you can only view protected content via things like media player. Are you seriously telling me that you believe MS will make it impossible for people to watch their home videos on their computers? Or, are you saying that I won't be able to record myself playing the piano, making speeches, or otherwise recording audio and play it back to myself? I'm sorry, but I just dont see this happening. Ever.