Here's a few key words from the article: "in emerging countries". Third-world countries don't generally have free computers to hand out, even lying around in dumpsters, and big companies aren't getting rid of them.
If you're in an emerging country and want to give people, say, very basic internet access in a library... Let's say you want ten computers... You're not going to scrounge them up, or even take them off peoples' hands. You won't FIND a lot of computers.
When you need mass quantity, or a computer for regions that just don't HAVE big computer corporations, these methods just don't apply. This is a solution for America... not China or somewhere in Africa.
Huh. After the article, *I* had a flashback about the old game Solar Winds, where you blow up if you get too far out from your solar system. It's a major plot point (though it just seems like a funny glitch 'til you get to that part), and there really are quarantines.
I think that would suck considerably more than being tugged back. Better that we find out with a probe than with a generation ship though...
Just to clarify, what right do they specifically lack? Even if the files they identify aren't what they say they are, they still have the right to protect the original, copyrighted works that they're looking for... At least, that's my understanding of it.
So maybe they are acting in bad faith. Still, IANAL but I think going after them for perjury in the place you're looking is not on the right track.
Isn't anyone worried that it may soon be illegal to have a file with a name like a copyrighted work?
The ones in the 'article' may have been just coincidences, but if you start intentionally naming things after copyrighted works to get their bots' attention... well, who knows what depths of stupidity they could sink to?
I think it's worth worrying about, and maybe even a legitimate legal question. Even if it is completely stupid.
That's funny, because I sure see them on my machine. Maybe yours is broken?
Look at the "June 2004 [HTML]" link under Monthly Updates, and in the upper right corner on the first screen, you can see "Operating systems used to access Google". This is the same statistic that the article references.
This should be a valuable lesson to everyone, always get permission before "investigating". Surprisingly often, you can get permission--especially if you represent something like a campus newspaper, where they can assume you'll be responsible.
I've used the none@yo.biz address as a dummy for years, long before the.biz address actually started being used. (Maxis used "None-yo-biz" as an option for gender, I think, on a registration card. I liked it.) I guess that if anyone actually signs up for yo.biz, it serves them right... but apparently noone has yet...
With a jury, at least you know they're generally ignorant and fairly easily swayed, but you can hope they'll all do alright. While a judge would supposedly be an expert on the subject, far too often they might not actually understand the technology at issue... and that's not even to mention what a little judicial activism -one direction or the other- could do.
"Hello World" in C or Java isn't all that bad to do... You can have a program in just a few lines, and it doesn't teach (too) bad programming practices. Find a good, easy-to-use (i.e. not vi) text editor, set up a batch file or script to compile and run in a single command, and walk through the basics. When I teach people to program, I teach them in C.
Lower solar input getting to plants means slowed plant growth, and that means it's now an average of 10% harder to grow food (naturally and outdoors) than it used to be. Ouch.
I bet the solar input issue alone is slowly preventing some plants from growing in regions where they used to. There's other factors, sure, but this is just one more.
Some forests are more wilderness-y than others. The trackless forest isn't going to be sprouting sensors any time soon... and there's already a huge gradient of trails, from guided trails with informational plaques every fifty feet to a canyon that maybe used to have a trail a decade ago.
I don't see the harm in making a couple trails paranoid-friendly...though they'd probably be so heavily populated that it would render the tracking system either irrelevant or unusable (can't tell the missing hiker from the crowd).
Actually, population is an important issue. If the trail is sparsely used enough to need sensors, it's probably sparsely used enough to not be worth the cost.
Why does death have to be depressing for all involved? Craft an elaborate game in your data that's complex enough to take (at least) weeks to fully unravel, such that if anyone starts getting into it while you're still alive, you'll know about it.
If nothing else, an aircraft maker ought to know about fuel efficiency and aerodynamics! It'll be nice to have a new brand on the market, too, one that doesn't have the same ties to oil companies.
It'd be a major undertaking just to get gas to Antarctica in the first place, they wouldn't keep large reserves, and even if they did sell it to him at a high price... It would still be a major problem for the base. Did I mention transporting things to Antarctica was EXPENSIVE?
It's not like they have massive facilities to store fuel there anyway, they wouldn't have reserves, and if they sold him gas they'd have to transport more gas out there. Major inconvenience for the base.
I saw some of the unofficial stuff about Fallout 3 just a couple days ago and I've been drooling about it ever since. Fate is cruel.
Of course, I also found this thing called IanOut, a third-party Fallout engine...
A scan that goes by IP address instead of host name would be as valid as it gets, in my opinion--parked domains would all be on the same IP address, and small sites are likely to be hosted on some other company's server. There isn't any need to drag popularity into it, though, IMO.
I saw them when I first saw it in the theatre, at least three times during the movie. Verified that I saw them with a friend at a different theatre, long before this got posted, so... yeah.
What I saw was clusters of orange dots that seemed to lie on a grid, in these patterns:
. .. . ..
. . . ..
Yes, they were pretty blatant. Near the middle of the screen, not very big. Definately not the same as the reel markers.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a few key words from the article: "in emerging countries". Third-world countries don't generally have free computers to hand out, even lying around in dumpsters, and big companies aren't getting rid of them. If you're in an emerging country and want to give people, say, very basic internet access in a library... Let's say you want ten computers... You're not going to scrounge them up, or even take them off peoples' hands. You won't FIND a lot of computers. When you need mass quantity, or a computer for regions that just don't HAVE big computer corporations, these methods just don't apply. This is a solution for America... not China or somewhere in Africa.
Huh. After the article, *I* had a flashback about the old game Solar Winds, where you blow up if you get too far out from your solar system. It's a major plot point (though it just seems like a funny glitch 'til you get to that part), and there really are quarantines. I think that would suck considerably more than being tugged back. Better that we find out with a probe than with a generation ship though...
Just to clarify, what right do they specifically lack? Even if the files they identify aren't what they say they are, they still have the right to protect the original, copyrighted works that they're looking for... At least, that's my understanding of it.
So maybe they are acting in bad faith. Still, IANAL but I think going after them for perjury in the place you're looking is not on the right track.
Isn't anyone worried that it may soon be illegal to have a file with a name like a copyrighted work? The ones in the 'article' may have been just coincidences, but if you start intentionally naming things after copyrighted works to get their bots' attention... well, who knows what depths of stupidity they could sink to? I think it's worth worrying about, and maybe even a legitimate legal question. Even if it is completely stupid.
That's funny, because I sure see them on my machine. Maybe yours is broken? Look at the "June 2004 [HTML]" link under Monthly Updates, and in the upper right corner on the first screen, you can see "Operating systems used to access Google". This is the same statistic that the article references.
Monthly updates in HTML format, here: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/archive.html
This should be a valuable lesson to everyone, always get permission before "investigating". Surprisingly often, you can get permission--especially if you represent something like a campus newspaper, where they can assume you'll be responsible.
I've used the none@yo.biz address as a dummy for years, long before the .biz address actually started being used. (Maxis used "None-yo-biz" as an option for gender, I think, on a registration card. I liked it.) I guess that if anyone actually signs up for yo.biz, it serves them right... but apparently noone has yet...
With a jury, at least you know they're generally ignorant and fairly easily swayed, but you can hope they'll all do alright. While a judge would supposedly be an expert on the subject, far too often they might not actually understand the technology at issue... and that's not even to mention what a little judicial activism -one direction or the other- could do.
"Hello World" in C or Java isn't all that bad to do... You can have a program in just a few lines, and it doesn't teach (too) bad programming practices. Find a good, easy-to-use (i.e. not vi) text editor, set up a batch file or script to compile and run in a single command, and walk through the basics. When I teach people to program, I teach them in C.
Lower solar input getting to plants means slowed plant growth, and that means it's now an average of 10% harder to grow food (naturally and outdoors) than it used to be. Ouch. I bet the solar input issue alone is slowly preventing some plants from growing in regions where they used to. There's other factors, sure, but this is just one more.
Some forests are more wilderness-y than others. The trackless forest isn't going to be sprouting sensors any time soon... and there's already a huge gradient of trails, from guided trails with informational plaques every fifty feet to a canyon that maybe used to have a trail a decade ago. I don't see the harm in making a couple trails paranoid-friendly...though they'd probably be so heavily populated that it would render the tracking system either irrelevant or unusable (can't tell the missing hiker from the crowd). Actually, population is an important issue. If the trail is sparsely used enough to need sensors, it's probably sparsely used enough to not be worth the cost.
Why does death have to be depressing for all involved? Craft an elaborate game in your data that's complex enough to take (at least) weeks to fully unravel, such that if anyone starts getting into it while you're still alive, you'll know about it.
Or at least, it did when I looked.
If nothing else, an aircraft maker ought to know about fuel efficiency and aerodynamics! It'll be nice to have a new brand on the market, too, one that doesn't have the same ties to oil companies.
There's no replacement for careful coding.
It WOULD have a good shot for the presidency still, in the United States at least.
As long as I can Alt-Tab to another window and turn off the sound, I don't care much. It's annoying but livable, and it sure doesn't work on me.
It'd be a major undertaking just to get gas to Antarctica in the first place, they wouldn't keep large reserves, and even if they did sell it to him at a high price... It would still be a major problem for the base. Did I mention transporting things to Antarctica was EXPENSIVE? It's not like they have massive facilities to store fuel there anyway, they wouldn't have reserves, and if they sold him gas they'd have to transport more gas out there. Major inconvenience for the base.
Fallout Online? I call shotgun!
I saw some of the unofficial stuff about Fallout 3 just a couple days ago and I've been drooling about it ever since. Fate is cruel. Of course, I also found this thing called IanOut, a third-party Fallout engine...
A scan that goes by IP address instead of host name would be as valid as it gets, in my opinion--parked domains would all be on the same IP address, and small sites are likely to be hosted on some other company's server. There isn't any need to drag popularity into it, though, IMO.