The terrorists were "first class, frequent fliers" if I rememeber corectly !!! So they would already get checked less that the average Joe and these measures are pointless for terrorists.
I'd like to mention I'm not american, but I do understand most of the political system you mention. Also I agree that many people are very short-sighted and racist. But on the other hand, isn't this creating an elite of 'higher citizens' which are allowed to enforce their 'better' views on the whole society? And aren't these the seeds of a tyranny, especially if you add big businesses and lobby groups to the mix?
Coming back to your example. I think that many USA citizens considered segregation wrong at that time. Wasn't this the reason for the whole Civil War? I'm not advocating for Congress to do what teenagers want, but the 'desirable outcome' most people want. In strong contradiction to what a few RIAA/MPAA groups want.
I agree with what you said about the entertainment industry.
Regarding software, I'm actually less concerned, even as I am a software developer. I realise that I'm probably biased because I always wrote dedicated applications which would be of no use to anyone downloading them. I think that business cannot afford to use illegal copies of software, because the law will always be harsh on them. And your point with software as a service comes into play here also. So that leaves only the home use as the main problem. For that most software is shareware or free. That leaves out games, antiviruses and some other software (without a free good enough alternative) which needs to be bought. Antiviruses are useless without some form of subscription or server side checking, at least. Thus, I only see game developers truly affected by illegal copies of there products. And this problem can be partilly solved by a server side authentification procedure, at least for online playing.
Yes, courts have to interpret the law againts new technology and social changes, but that doesn't always work on newer and newer technology. I'm thinking of the 'child porn' case with squid server, browser cache, prefeching techonogies all influencing the 'possesion' charge. And I don't see any clear cut way of dealing with this without a change in the law.
This reminds me of another idea I heard once. Laws should have time limits and be reevaluated and updated periodically. Probably it could only be done if there are much fewer laws than we have now. Interesting idea, thou.
I don't think the effects would be that severe. DVD / CD prices would plummet, but still make a profit from the non-Internet savvy consumers and those that want a better quality than mp3. Real life shows / movie theater prices probably won't change because of the added experience you get. All the money that comes from radio and TV stations will still be there. Media will still be produced, with a smaller profit margin. So, I don't think it would be the doom of the entertainment industry.
I agree with you that copyright shoud be protected. I just argue that the system must be more tuned with the public perspective.
I agree with you, probably the idea of 'desired outcome' really covers what the system should accomplish. But I think the connection the between elected officials and the people who elected them could be tight enough that most decision are understanded and agreed upon by most of the general public. And that is the direction I'd like political life to go. Oh well, I guess I'm just an idealist.
As a personal opinion, I think a critical analysis of all the consequences of a law must be thought of and the public should agree with that law before it is passed. For example, if people don't feel that downloading is illegal, then it shouldn't be. Law makers should first convince the people they represent that downloading should be illegal before they pass the law which makes it illegal. In this cae, you may argue that it was already established that copyright infringement should be illegal. True, but technology and our world as a whole changed, do we still think the same way about it ? You mentioned patents, the same issue appears there, they were created to encourage and foster innovation and now, with software patents, they stiffle it. A review is needed.
Now, I may be wrong, but the whole point of my post was to see what you, and others, think.
On the subject at hand: I agree that illegal downloading is copyright infringment and denies the copyright holder of revenue.
But I was wondering about the bigger picture here. If the public at large condones such behavior and doesn't see it as a crime, should it NOT be a crime in the legal sense? If laws and guverment are put in place to represent 'the people' shouldn't they reflect the people's view?
Here I'm thinking of: illegal downloading, speed limits, ID cards, airport security checks and other laws that differ from the general public's view.
I know little of the subject at hand and the research you talk about, but still I feel that 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' are inventions used when theory failed. This has happened many times in the past and a new theory was developed that dealt away with these inventions.
On the other hand you may be right and there is some form of energy and matter which is still 'dark' to us.
In my country we have an "Official Monitor", which is a paper issued by the government each week, I think. It includes all laws and other directives given by the guvernment or president and there is a law which states that any law comes into effect when it's published.
So, in my country there cannot be a secret law of regulation as everything is published. Isn't there a similar system everywhere ?
If there someone who knows how the things work in US, please explain.
That's 99% true, but then there are those 1% applications were it does matter. I'm writing real-time computer vision applications and 1/2 a millisecond still counts. And you have a piece of code running 1000's of times which MUST be as fast as possible.
So it's a valid question after all.
Richard
That's true if the RFID readers are ONLY in the classroom doors. But why not put them in EVERY door ( I mean they wanted to put some in the bathrooms, right ). Then the computer tracks EVERYTHING. What would you say, if the company you work for added this kind of monitoring and question why did you and a coworker stopped on the corridor for 20 minutes after a restroom brake and give you penalty for it. Kids or not, humans shouldn't be policed around like this. We reject to be considered cattle. YES, I am thinking this is a splippery slope were you start off with RFID tags in schools and end up with RFID implants. It's our citizens responsability to prevent this from happening.
So, I agree to a tag as long as it's used ONLY for attendance. And the school is fought whenever it tries to install additional scanners. But then again, something tragic happens and the schools easily uses that as justification to extend the system (see photo and fingerprinting at the borders) and here we go again....
There is a simple counter example to what you said:
In the arab world ( or a big chunk of it ) women are treated like slaves. Bought at marriage, with no rights whatsoever. For us this is wrong, but still everyone there considers it normal, so who are we to impose our views in there country ?
On the other hand, I agree that we must not stay idle when people are suffering in some part of the world, but a balance must be struck and destroying the whole infrastructure of a contry, disbanding the police and the army and starting all from scrach with 120k force is definetily NOT the way to do it.
Unfornately we, the civilized world, would not move a finger if there wasn't either a threat or profit for us, no matter the suffering. And this is the saddest part about our deemed "superiority".
>>>>Slashdot could implement something like this, it would make article comments meaningful again.
>>They could even selectively add or omit it based on the comment's moderation. Include the nofollow tag by default, but if a comment with a link in it is moderated highly, remove the tag so search engines can use it. Sounds like the best of both worlds..
Imagine that, spammers trying to get a +5 Interesting, not to mention Insightfull.
And so, a nice, friendly and safe human ANT COLONY is born.
PERSONAL RESPONSABILITY is required for any free society to work. Forcing everyone to follow 'the rules' only leads to dictatorship and that, in my opinion, never justifies the benefits.
A balance between individual freedom and society oversight must be kept.
Is far as I read, Israel never defined it's borders and forcefully pushed the palestians of the land in order to make space for Jewish settlers.
This seems to be an ongoing policy for the past decades, unfortunate choice for a country which deems it's self democratic.
A smart car will make a dummer driver. You will need a lot of will power to be as attentive as in a normal car once you get comfortable with the smart car. ( See Spooner's manual driving in I,Robot ).
The AI for the smart car must be VERY ROBUST and well TESTED, I know there isn't such a thing as a bugless program so I'll be very weary about putting my life in the hands of a computer.
The whole car computing must be unhackable or deaths may occour when the next worm hits the network.
Most drivers tend to break ( or drive at the edge of ) the law and I don't think we are ready to give that freedom up unless the system will allow us to move much faster, but a loooong time will pass until an automatic system will prouve safe.
The best option I see is to integrate 1 by 1 features in the car that will enhance our driveing performance while increasing safety. For example:
-- first have all cars have GPS navigation integrated with road signs and traffic data, so its easier to find the best road to wherever you wanna go;
-- add a smart emergency breaking system which will avoid a colision under all circumstances ( or choose the best outcome for all humans involved ); I know this is almost impossible but if it manages to stop asleep and drunk drivers, it's quite an improvement;
-- add a follow the leader option for highway driving;
-- add a follow the road markings for highway driving;
After we are comfortable with all these and it works properly add automous driving.
A system to visally read road signs, is just a bad joke that, hopefully, will never be introduced.
I stand behind your ideea of smart wheelchairs as it might be cheaper that all those ramps.
The same doesn't apply to cars. Let's say smart cars could, but we are WAYYYY of in technology, understand the road situation and 'see' the other cars. The whole system won't be efficient until cars can negotiate the optimal traffic arangement. So you need comunication, situational awareness, warning of hazards ahead, a.k.a. smart roads.
I wrote the first Memory resident program in assembler in DOS and blocked write access to my HDD... FAT data trashed, everything gone. Well, it was fun anyway.
Stupid accident: There was this guy I knew and took his processor out ( 486 ) and when he put it back in managed to put in the wrong position. Power ON. Some blue Smoke. No processor.
... ask him to think about the people around him. How they react to certain things, what they like doing and why.
I learnt a lot, just by watching others and thinking about them. It's good to talk about it with a close friend, too. These two can get you really up to speed on social skills, I think.
Well... Actuallt it doesn't. I used it a while but got really annoyed by a bug / feature. If a window stops processing messages ( i.e. just does some long algorithm) the whole thing freezez IF you try to switch desktops.
Hy there,
I've been in the same situations a few months ago when I got my
Cable Modem:D
I played UT a LOT on single player, so it was OK for me, thou on
advance servers I get fragged a lot.
For Unreal Turnament there is a beginner server:
"Truff's Newbie-Friendly Unreal Tournament Servers"
http://www.truff.net/
For CS, I don't know beginner servers, just stick to common public
servers. Make sure they run some anti-cheat, like: Cheating Death http://www.cheating-death.com/
Stick with your team or a good player and you'll learn from them.
Also try to read some tips and tricks. This is a good place to
start: http://www.csimmortals.com/
Slashdot Mirror
The terrorists were "first class, frequent fliers" if I rememeber corectly !!!
So they would already get checked less that the average Joe and these measures are pointless for terrorists.
> You cannot bring about peace with war. Haven't you heard: "WAR IS PEACE", Orwell 1984
I'd like to mention I'm not american, but I do understand most of the political system you mention.
Also I agree that many people are very short-sighted and racist.
But on the other hand, isn't this creating an elite of 'higher citizens' which are allowed to enforce their 'better' views on the whole society? And aren't these the seeds of a tyranny, especially if you add big businesses and lobby groups to the mix?
Coming back to your example. I think that many USA citizens considered segregation wrong at that time. Wasn't this the reason for the whole Civil War?
I'm not advocating for Congress to do what teenagers want, but the 'desirable outcome' most people want. In strong contradiction to what a few RIAA/MPAA groups want.
I agree with what you said about the entertainment industry.
Regarding software, I'm actually less concerned, even as I am a software developer. I realise that I'm probably biased because I always wrote dedicated applications which would be of no use to anyone downloading them.
I think that business cannot afford to use illegal copies of software, because the law will always be harsh on them. And your point with software as a service comes into play here also.
So that leaves only the home use as the main problem. For that most software is shareware or free. That leaves out games, antiviruses and some other software (without a free good enough alternative) which needs to be bought. Antiviruses are useless without some form of subscription or server side checking, at least.
Thus, I only see game developers truly affected by illegal copies of there products. And this problem can be partilly solved by a server side authentification procedure, at least for online playing.
Yes, courts have to interpret the law againts new technology and social changes, but that doesn't always work on newer and newer technology. I'm thinking of the 'child porn' case with squid server, browser cache, prefeching techonogies all influencing the 'possesion' charge. And I don't see any clear cut way of dealing with this without a change in the law.
This reminds me of another idea I heard once. Laws should have time limits and be reevaluated and updated periodically. Probably it could only be done if there are much fewer laws than we have now. Interesting idea, thou.
I don't think the effects would be that severe. DVD / CD prices would plummet, but still make a profit from the non-Internet savvy consumers and those that want a better quality than mp3. Real life shows / movie theater prices probably won't change because of the added experience you get. All the money that comes from radio and TV stations will still be there. Media will still be produced, with a smaller profit margin.
So, I don't think it would be the doom of the entertainment industry.
I agree with you that copyright shoud be protected. I just argue that the system must be more tuned with the public perspective.
I agree with you, probably the idea of 'desired outcome' really covers what the system should accomplish.
But I think the connection the between elected officials and the people who elected them could be tight enough that most decision are understanded and agreed upon by most of the general public. And that is the direction I'd like political life to go.
Oh well, I guess I'm just an idealist.
Richard
As a personal opinion, I think a critical analysis of all the consequences of a law must be thought of and the public should agree with that law before it is passed.
For example, if people don't feel that downloading is illegal, then it shouldn't be. Law makers should first convince the people they represent that downloading should be illegal before they pass the law which makes it illegal.
In this cae, you may argue that it was already established that copyright infringement should be illegal. True, but technology and our world as a whole changed, do we still think the same way about it ?
You mentioned patents, the same issue appears there, they were created to encourage and foster innovation and now, with software patents, they stiffle it. A review is needed.
Now, I may be wrong, but the whole point of my post was to see what you, and others, think.
Richard
On the subject at hand: I agree that illegal downloading is copyright infringment and denies the copyright holder of revenue.
But I was wondering about the bigger picture here. If the public at large condones such behavior and doesn't see it as a crime, should it NOT be a crime in the legal sense?
If laws and guverment are put in place to represent 'the people' shouldn't they reflect the people's view?
Here I'm thinking of: illegal downloading, speed limits, ID cards, airport security checks and other laws that differ from the general public's view.
Richard
I know little of the subject at hand and the research you talk about, but still I feel that 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' are inventions used when theory failed. This has happened many times in the past and a new theory was developed that dealt away with these inventions.
On the other hand you may be right and there is some form of energy and matter which is still 'dark' to us.
Is this idea of 'secret law' possible in the US ?
In my country we have an "Official Monitor", which is a paper issued by the government each week, I think. It includes all laws and other directives given by the guvernment or president and there is a law which states that any law comes into effect when it's published.
So, in my country there cannot be a secret law of regulation as everything is published. Isn't there a similar system everywhere ?
If there someone who knows how the things work in US, please explain.
That's 99% true, but then there are those 1% applications were it does matter. I'm writing real-time computer vision applications and 1/2 a millisecond still counts. And you have a piece of code running 1000's of times which MUST be as fast as possible. So it's a valid question after all. Richard
"On the other hand though, this system would be rather easy to beat"
They'll simply make it illegal to beat the system, problem solved.
That's true if the RFID readers are ONLY in the classroom doors. But why not put them in EVERY door ( I mean they wanted to put some in the bathrooms, right ). Then the computer tracks EVERYTHING.
:D
What would you say, if the company you work for added this kind of monitoring and question why did you and a coworker stopped on the corridor for 20 minutes after a restroom brake and give you penalty for it.
Kids or not, humans shouldn't be policed around like this. We reject to be considered cattle.
YES, I am thinking this is a splippery slope were you start off with RFID tags in schools and end up with RFID implants. It's our citizens responsability to prevent this from happening.
So, I agree to a tag as long as it's used ONLY for attendance. And the school is fought whenever it tries to install additional scanners.
But then again, something tragic happens and the schools easily uses that as justification to extend the system (see photo and fingerprinting at the borders) and here we go again....
I hope I don't sound too paranoid
There is a simple counter example to what you said:
In the arab world ( or a big chunk of it ) women are treated like slaves. Bought at marriage, with no rights whatsoever. For us this is wrong, but still everyone there considers it normal, so who are we to impose our views in there country ?
On the other hand, I agree that we must not stay idle when people are suffering in some part of the world, but a balance must be struck and destroying the whole infrastructure of a contry, disbanding the police and the army and starting all from scrach with 120k force is definetily NOT the way to do it.
Unfornately we, the civilized world, would not move a finger if there wasn't either a threat or profit for us, no matter the suffering. And this is the saddest part about our deemed "superiority".
>>>>Slashdot could implement something like this, it would make article comments meaningful again.
>>They could even selectively add or omit it based on the comment's moderation. Include the nofollow tag by default, but if a comment with a link in it is moderated highly, remove the tag so search engines can use it. Sounds like the best of both worlds..
Imagine that, spammers trying to get a +5 Interesting, not to mention Insightfull.
And so, a nice, friendly and safe human ANT COLONY is born.
PERSONAL RESPONSABILITY is required for any free society to work. Forcing everyone to follow 'the rules' only leads to dictatorship and that, in my opinion, never justifies the benefits.
A balance between individual freedom and society oversight must be kept.
Richard
Is far as I read, Israel never defined it's borders and forcefully pushed the palestians of the land in order to make space for Jewish settlers.
This seems to be an ongoing policy for the past decades, unfortunate choice for a country which deems it's self democratic.
A smart car will make a dummer driver. You will need a lot of will power to be as attentive as in a normal car once you get comfortable with the smart car. ( See Spooner's manual driving in I,Robot ).
The AI for the smart car must be VERY ROBUST and well TESTED, I know there isn't such a thing as a bugless program so I'll be very weary about putting my life in the hands of a computer.
The whole car computing must be unhackable or deaths may occour when the next worm hits the network.
Most drivers tend to break ( or drive at the edge of ) the law and I don't think we are ready to give that freedom up unless the system will allow us to move much faster, but a loooong time will pass until an automatic system will prouve safe.
The best option I see is to integrate 1 by 1 features in the car that will enhance our driveing performance while increasing safety. For example:
-- first have all cars have GPS navigation integrated with road signs and traffic data, so its easier to find the best road to wherever you wanna go;
-- add a smart emergency breaking system which will avoid a colision under all circumstances ( or choose the best outcome for all humans involved ); I know this is almost impossible but if it manages to stop asleep and drunk drivers, it's quite an improvement;
-- add a follow the leader option for highway driving;
-- add a follow the road markings for highway driving;
After we are comfortable with all these and it works properly add automous driving.
A system to visally read road signs, is just a bad joke that, hopefully, will never be introduced.
------
May the Code be with You.
I stand behind your ideea of smart wheelchairs as it might be cheaper that all those ramps.
The same doesn't apply to cars. Let's say smart cars could, but we are WAYYYY of in technology, understand the road situation and 'see' the other cars. The whole system won't be efficient until cars can negotiate the optimal traffic arangement. So you need comunication, situational awareness, warning of hazards ahead, a.k.a. smart roads.
I wrote the first Memory resident program in assembler in DOS and blocked write access to my HDD. ..
FAT data trashed, everything gone.
Well, it was fun anyway.
Stupid accident: There was this guy I knew and took his processor out ( 486 ) and when he put it back in managed to put in the wrong position.
Power ON. Some blue Smoke. No processor.
Bye.
Didn't GOOGLE take this April's Fool Joke too far ?
We should thank them for getting everyone to push the standard on web mail storage.
This would be the BEST April's Fool I know of.
... ask him to think about the people around him. How they react to certain things, what they like doing and why.
I learnt a lot, just by watching others and thinking about them. It's good to talk about it with a close friend, too. These two can get you really up to speed on social skills, I think.
Cheers.
Well... Actuallt it doesn't.
I used it a while but got really annoyed by a bug / feature.
If a window stops processing messages ( i.e. just does some long algorithm) the whole thing freezez IF you try to switch desktops.
So, be carefull when using it.....
Hy there, :D
I've been in the same situations a few months ago when I got my
Cable Modem
I played UT a LOT on single player, so it was OK for me, thou on
advance servers I get fragged a lot.
For Unreal Turnament there is a beginner server:
"Truff's Newbie-Friendly Unreal Tournament Servers"
http://www.truff.net/
For CS, I don't know beginner servers, just stick to common public
servers. Make sure they run some anti-cheat, like: Cheating Death http://www.cheating-death.com/
Stick with your team or a good player and you'll learn from them.
Also try to read some tips and tricks. This is a good place to
start: http://www.csimmortals.com/
Take care and have a Good Game,
Richard