Actually, this is a good start, but not towards what they intended to do. Using photos like this, as well as ones taken specifically for this purpose, the international law enforcement community could start to construct a database of images of potential crimes scenes. Yes, I know, everywhere is a potential crime scene, but still, how wonderful would it be to able to use a computer algorythm to search for images with backgrounds matching those of a crime photo?
Sour grapes, get your sour grapes! Who wants some?
I'll take some sour grapes, I am so tired of hearing about how great all the people at Google have it while I rot away in my part-time retail job because all of my computer experience is financially valueless outside of India. I love Google as a company and I am glad that they have shown themselves truely appreciative of the work that their workers do, but man am I jealous!
How dare you speak ill of the dead! Why I remember the day Kingfox alerted us to the site's suspension::sniffle:: I couldn't believe it at first, but with time came acceptance.....stupid Christmas Island Internet Administration...
Before it gets/.'ed... here is a little more information about the project that spawned this list:
"The authors are studying Internet filtering in countries worldwide, including restrictions on Web access in China. There is no master list of blocked sites that we (or, from what we can tell, anyone else) can access. Rather, we test "twenty questions" style, asking about individual URLs, whether based upon a domain name or an IP address.
To date, we have obtained lists of sites to check via web directories, search engines, and other automated data-extraction systems. To help broaden the list of pages tested and to provide the general public a means of finding out whether particular pages of interest are filtered, we have created the form below, which will run a realtime query via our methods. We consider this approach an experiment in "open research"; we are as yet uncertain whether sites submitted and tested using this system will in fact broaden our pool of tested sites, but we will analyze submissions and publish results when available."
I'd like to request that the links to LiveJournal be removed from the Slashdot post. It's not as if people don't know how to get there, but at least they are less likely to click just for the hell of it or because they didn't think before hand. I doubt that it will get the servers back up quicker, but at least we won't have to be concerned that we're part of the problem. Thanks for hearing me out.
You want to know what's funny about that? I know that you are going to have trouble believing this, but William Gibson's Pattern Recognition is actually marketed by BzzAgent: http://www2.bzzagent.com/downloads/book_rewards_in fo/pattern_recognition/
You aren't a BzzAgent, are you?
It always pisses me off when somebody tries to do this because they never seem to do it right. That is to say, they never fully document the settings that they adjust on each software installation. News orgs are always coming up with statements that Mozilla or Spybot isn't that great, but that's always with out of the box settings. All I have to say is: "Hey, it's not the software's fault if you don't know how to use it!"
Also, I felt that this statement was particularly telling: "The test results reported here constitute but a few tests with three collections of spyware and adware programs. The anti-spyware scanners tested here may perform differently with other collections of spyware and adware."
Okay, so to bring the discussion back to things that are non-lethal but still effective, I recommend this: Take that existing motion detecting light, attach it to a timer so that it goes on after dark, then put the highest powered strobe light (entire fixture in a bulb, they do exist) into that sucker.
If you do this, not only will it be effective, but you can laugh at the intruder as he or she stumbles about trying to get out of the driveway without falling down. Also, the light will attract tons of attention as well as disorienting the would be thief so much that they can't break into anything let alone walk straight.
Make sure to include no tresspassing signs to cover yourself legally, and of course an overide switch inside.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, this is a good start, but not towards what they intended to do. Using photos like this, as well as ones taken specifically for this purpose, the international law enforcement community could start to construct a database of images of potential crimes scenes. Yes, I know, everywhere is a potential crime scene, but still, how wonderful would it be to able to use a computer algorythm to search for images with backgrounds matching those of a crime photo?
Sour grapes, get your sour grapes! Who wants some? I'll take some sour grapes, I am so tired of hearing about how great all the people at Google have it while I rot away in my part-time retail job because all of my computer experience is financially valueless outside of India. I love Google as a company and I am glad that they have shown themselves truely appreciative of the work that their workers do, but man am I jealous!
How dare you speak ill of the dead! Why I remember the day Kingfox alerted us to the site's suspension ::sniffle:: I couldn't believe it at first, but with time came acceptance. ....stupid Christmas Island Internet Administration...
Before it gets /.'ed... here is a little more information about the project that spawned this list:
"The authors are studying Internet filtering in countries worldwide, including restrictions on Web access in China. There is no master list of blocked sites that we (or, from what we can tell, anyone else) can access. Rather, we test "twenty questions" style, asking about individual URLs, whether based upon a domain name or an IP address.
To date, we have obtained lists of sites to check via web directories, search engines, and other automated data-extraction systems. To help broaden the list of pages tested and to provide the general public a means of finding out whether particular pages of interest are filtered, we have created the form below, which will run a realtime query via our methods. We consider this approach an experiment in "open research"; we are as yet uncertain whether sites submitted and tested using this system will in fact broaden our pool of tested sites, but we will analyze submissions and publish results when available."
Here is a comprehensive list of sites banned in China: http://asp-cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/list.ht ml
I'd like to request that the links to LiveJournal be removed from the Slashdot post. It's not as if people don't know how to get there, but at least they are less likely to click just for the hell of it or because they didn't think before hand. I doubt that it will get the servers back up quicker, but at least we won't have to be concerned that we're part of the problem. Thanks for hearing me out.
You want to know what's funny about that? I know that you are going to have trouble believing this, but William Gibson's Pattern Recognition is actually marketed by BzzAgent: http://www2.bzzagent.com/downloads/book_rewards_in fo/pattern_recognition/
You aren't a BzzAgent, are you?
It always pisses me off when somebody tries to do this because they never seem to do it right. That is to say, they never fully document the settings that they adjust on each software installation. News orgs are always coming up with statements that Mozilla or Spybot isn't that great, but that's always with out of the box settings. All I have to say is: "Hey, it's not the software's fault if you don't know how to use it!" Also, I felt that this statement was particularly telling: "The test results reported here constitute but a few tests with three collections of spyware and adware programs. The anti-spyware scanners tested here may perform differently with other collections of spyware and adware."
Okay, so to bring the discussion back to things that are non-lethal but still effective, I recommend this: Take that existing motion detecting light, attach it to a timer so that it goes on after dark, then put the highest powered strobe light (entire fixture in a bulb, they do exist) into that sucker. If you do this, not only will it be effective, but you can laugh at the intruder as he or she stumbles about trying to get out of the driveway without falling down. Also, the light will attract tons of attention as well as disorienting the would be thief so much that they can't break into anything let alone walk straight. Make sure to include no tresspassing signs to cover yourself legally, and of course an overide switch inside.