The second is so damn obvious that Von Braun was talking about it in the '40s. But it has never been done. Which might be a good sign that while it's obvious, it may not be quite as easy to actually do it. You already mentioned the first problem: Size. "Just make it big enough" isn't a very good answer when you realize that the ISS has a "living volume" of about 425 m^3 - that's a large appartment, no a spaceship like you see in the movies.
These monitor the same things that any police officer can without a warrant. Except that he couldn't store it, send it to a computer for face or license-plate recognition, then search for every other clip with you in it.
Spore was on my list of "certain buy" games, and that list is pretty short these days. It just got unlisted. I'll get the better, more convenient and more customer-friendly version of it, which will be released by some warez group. I'd be happy to pay money for Spore (and a few other games), but I'm not moving into 1984-country in order to do so.
I'm surprised at the 10 days though. That seems kind of long to me. Sounds like something a cracker could exploit. If there is a timer there is a way to stop it. That's awful logic. If there is a timer that can be stopped, it doesn't matter how short or long it is. 10 days or 10 minutes is just a different number in some memory location.
Obviously we can't honestly compare downloads to seats in theaters. Off course we can! If the RIAA can, so can we.
Forget theaters. Those were 8 million DVD sales, at $16.99 each. Those bloody commis just swindled the movie industry out of 136 million bucks! And that's not even figuring in piracy!
How I would change copyright: What I learned about lawyers:
Before your change is even signed into law, every major copyright litigation firm will have a thick binder with all the loopholes, possible exploits and workarounds, and every conceivable trick to abuse it sitting in their library.
In some respects, lawyers are very much like hackers.
Oh please, pretty please, let them win this one and set a precedent.
I'm just dying for writing interesting EULAs that disallow you from using my software during full moon on thursdays if there is a cat in the house, or to write any letters that are stupid, or to access any website that contains the word "republican".
Please. The more idiotic, stupid and obvious the rules get, the better our chances that they're reworked altogether, instead of simply being patched onto indefinitely.
Almost all of the people who you and I would think have more money than they can possibly want think of themselves that they would very much like to have even more.
You probably have to be greedy to become a billionaire, and that personality trait doesn't stop once you are.
Ballmer is responsible for: No, he isn't. Most of these were underway or on the horizon when he took over.
Gates was simply smart enough to leave at the high point, so he'll be remembered for the good (for MS) things he did. He bailed out before the crap he did started biting him in the behind. He probably told Balmer in a closed-door meeting that his job would be to take the shit straight in the face without flinching, and that he'd get $$$ for it.
As much as I dislike him, but it's not Balmer who needs to go, it's Microsoft. The problem isn't that Balmer drove the company into a corner, but that it's been driving towards that corner for at least ten, if not twenty, years. Nothing that has happened surprised anyone who's been watching MS for some time, it's all just standard operating procedure. Their problem is that the world has changed, and what worked in 1998 simply doesn't work anymore in 2008.
What's stored in outsourced datacenters is mostly customer data. You know, names, addresses, credit card numbers, social security numbers - the stuff you can find for sale in the underground for a few cents.
For the valuable data, like technology, the chinese have developed a much better way to get at it - cooperatives between chinese companies and western companies who absolutely want to produce in or sell to China. You know, you can't just open a factory in China. You have to cooperate with a chinese company. One that will take all your technology and build another factory doing the same products without your involvement in the next city. Everyone knows it, but everyone still invests in China, because everyone thinks it's still worth it.
Makes me feel we are just as programmed as many of the chinese. Probably less. Most chinese probably know that their government is oppressing them, censoring their media and running surveilance on its own population. Most americans still think their government may be incompetent, but at least it's not evil.
No matter how much you dislike the chinese government's position, what this is nevertheless is enforcing rules on them, in their own country. Who cares if the hotels in question are "US-owned"? Would you accept that "chinese-owned" factories in, say, Texas, operate according to chinese rules?
If you start a hotel in China, you know that you're in China, and that chinese laws and customs apply to you. You may not like them, for whatever reason. You may think they are inhuman and evil, but they are the law of the land.
If you don't like it, there's a simple solution: Don't do business there!.
But no, our corporate masters want to have it both ways. None of the large international corporations would want to leave the huge chinese market to the competitors.
I don't support the chinese government in their position on censorship, oppression or the liberal application of the death penalty, but I do support them on their strong stand towards international corporations and anyone else messing with their internal politics. I think right now China is the only government not falling over backwards when some RIAA or Microsoft comes calling, and instead reminding them just who owns the land and the tanks.
my request to Microsoft PR to do something about the blatant lack of integrity displayed. You are questioning MS PR's modus operandi?
The whole thing is a FUD campaign. It's purpose is to be blatant, to lack any integrity, and to cause as much uncertainty and doubt as possible. Yes, that includes doubt about the integrity of MS. Any doubt is good doubt, as long as it stops people from switching to Linux.
Richard Dawkins has created an institute for the advancement of science or something. There's a video on YouTube where he explains evolution to very young children, so some of his stuff is probably appropriate.
Here is the first part of a documentary, I don't know if that part is in this or the second part, but they're both worth watching.
Unfortunately, lying under oath has become largely penalty free.
I speak from experience. I've just been through this with our lawyer, when in a recent court case someone from the opposite side did lie very obviously under oath. We can prove it beyond any reasonable doubt.
But, according to our lawyer, it's not worth the effort. It's very unlikely he'll actually be punished.
It's not much of a difference. August 6, 1991 was the magic date. But 1993 was more important, with the "free for all" announcement and the release of Mosaic.
When you're thinking in economics, it's easy to do the math:
If the penalty for deleting mails that you are by law required to archive is less then the penalty for whatever those mails document, then it's the better choice to delete them.
It really is that simple.
And the only solution around that is one that's got its own problems, namely when you are required to have/show records in a case, and you can't or don't, you are assumed guilty and the penalty for deleting or not keeping those records is in addition to the penalty of the crime.
I stand by my opinion that we should kill spammers.
We, as a society, accept way too many crimes against us, the society. Crimes against individuals are punished much harsher. Crimes against virtual entities (corporations, money, information) even more so.
Doesn't anyone else think we have this kind of backwards?
Might I remind you that a lot of the reason computers have been able to advance as quickly as they have is because we have a single majority platform. Which, of course, explains why windos is lagging behind OS X in virtually everything except market share, and why there is absolutely no innovation at all in markets without a monopoly, like, say, the car market, the mobile phone market, or, for that matter, almost every other market.
There was an anti-exploit for one of the early windos worms, I forgot which one. My website was running it for several years. Essentially, it was a perl script that hid behind the well-known URL that the exploit was targetting, hit the machine back with said exploit (after all, it had already proven to be not only vulnerable, but actually infected) and shut it down with a log message that should tell the sysadmin after reboot that his machine is infected.
Worked fairly well. Few hosts tried my site more than once.:-)
This raises the old moral dilemma about a hypothetical 'friendly worm' No, it doesn't.
It raises the old moral dilemma about messing with other people's computers, for a good purpose.
But the "friendly worm" issue is a different one. The main problem is control. I've done the math and published a paper on this. You do not want to be the author of an out-of-control autonomous, self-replicating entity, no matter what it does.
So, like a dog, can you guarantee that it will listen to you, instantly, in all situations especially unfamiliar ones?
(except that the researchers' vector is a server that can be turned off, not an autonomous worm that can't be recalled once released) That's not a small difference! Pushing an update to a known list of hosts is a vastly different thing from starting a self-replicating autonomous agent.
There is still the "messing with other people's computer" issue, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
...for them.
Spore was on my list of "certain buy" games, and that list is pretty short these days. It just got unlisted. I'll get the better, more convenient and more customer-friendly version of it, which will be released by some warez group. I'd be happy to pay money for Spore (and a few other games), but I'm not moving into 1984-country in order to do so.
Forget theaters. Those were 8 million DVD sales, at $16.99 each. Those bloody commis just swindled the movie industry out of 136 million bucks! And that's not even figuring in piracy!
Before your change is even signed into law, every major copyright litigation firm will have a thick binder with all the loopholes, possible exploits and workarounds, and every conceivable trick to abuse it sitting in their library.
In some respects, lawyers are very much like hackers.
Oh please, pretty please, let them win this one and set a precedent.
I'm just dying for writing interesting EULAs that disallow you from using my software during full moon on thursdays if there is a cat in the house, or to write any letters that are stupid, or to access any website that contains the word "republican".
Please. The more idiotic, stupid and obvious the rules get, the better our chances that they're reworked altogether, instead of simply being patched onto indefinitely.
Almost all of the people who you and I would think have more money than they can possibly want think of themselves that they would very much like to have even more.
You probably have to be greedy to become a billionaire, and that personality trait doesn't stop once you are.
Gates was simply smart enough to leave at the high point, so he'll be remembered for the good (for MS) things he did. He bailed out before the crap he did started biting him in the behind. He probably told Balmer in a closed-door meeting that his job would be to take the shit straight in the face without flinching, and that he'd get $$$ for it.
As much as I dislike him, but it's not Balmer who needs to go, it's Microsoft. The problem isn't that Balmer drove the company into a corner, but that it's been driving towards that corner for at least ten, if not twenty, years. Nothing that has happened surprised anyone who's been watching MS for some time, it's all just standard operating procedure. Their problem is that the world has changed, and what worked in 1998 simply doesn't work anymore in 2008.
And that would be?
What's stored in outsourced datacenters is mostly customer data. You know, names, addresses, credit card numbers, social security numbers - the stuff you can find for sale in the underground for a few cents.
For the valuable data, like technology, the chinese have developed a much better way to get at it - cooperatives between chinese companies and western companies who absolutely want to produce in or sell to China. You know, you can't just open a factory in China. You have to cooperate with a chinese company. One that will take all your technology and build another factory doing the same products without your involvement in the next city. Everyone knows it, but everyone still invests in China, because everyone thinks it's still worth it.
You're late, take a number. ;-)
No matter how much you dislike the chinese government's position, what this is nevertheless is enforcing rules on them, in their own country. Who cares if the hotels in question are "US-owned"? Would you accept that "chinese-owned" factories in, say, Texas, operate according to chinese rules?
If you start a hotel in China, you know that you're in China, and that chinese laws and customs apply to you. You may not like them, for whatever reason. You may think they are inhuman and evil, but they are the law of the land.
If you don't like it, there's a simple solution: Don't do business there!.
But no, our corporate masters want to have it both ways. None of the large international corporations would want to leave the huge chinese market to the competitors.
I don't support the chinese government in their position on censorship, oppression or the liberal application of the death penalty, but I do support them on their strong stand towards international corporations and anyone else messing with their internal politics. I think right now China is the only government not falling over backwards when some RIAA or Microsoft comes calling, and instead reminding them just who owns the land and the tanks.
The whole thing is a FUD campaign. It's purpose is to be blatant, to lack any integrity, and to cause as much uncertainty and doubt as possible. Yes, that includes doubt about the integrity of MS. Any doubt is good doubt, as long as it stops people from switching to Linux.
Richard Dawkins has created an institute for the advancement of science or something. There's a video on YouTube where he explains evolution to very young children, so some of his stuff is probably appropriate.
Here is the first part of a documentary, I don't know if that part is in this or the second part, but they're both worth watching.
If this one goes through, I'm for re-writing the 1st amendment. Or shooting the judges.
Really, why is this even allowed a hearing? Of course you have the right to say what you want. But you don't have the right to force me to listen!
Unfortunately, lying under oath has become largely penalty free.
I speak from experience. I've just been through this with our lawyer, when in a recent court case someone from the opposite side did lie very obviously under oath. We can prove it beyond any reasonable doubt.
But, according to our lawyer, it's not worth the effort. It's very unlikely he'll actually be punished.
I figure it's the same for McBride.
It's not much of a difference. August 6, 1991 was the magic date. But 1993 was more important, with the "free for all" announcement and the release of Mosaic.
When you're thinking in economics, it's easy to do the math:
If the penalty for deleting mails that you are by law required to archive is less then the penalty for whatever those mails document, then it's the better choice to delete them.
It really is that simple.
And the only solution around that is one that's got its own problems, namely when you are required to have/show records in a case, and you can't or don't, you are assumed guilty and the penalty for deleting or not keeping those records is in addition to the penalty of the crime.
I stand by my opinion that we should kill spammers.
We, as a society, accept way too many crimes against us, the society. Crimes against individuals are punished much harsher. Crimes against virtual entities (corporations, money, information) even more so.
Doesn't anyone else think we have this kind of backwards?
Been there, done that.
:-)
There was an anti-exploit for one of the early windos worms, I forgot which one. My website was running it for several years. Essentially, it was a perl script that hid behind the well-known URL that the exploit was targetting, hit the machine back with said exploit (after all, it had already proven to be not only vulnerable, but actually infected) and shut it down with a log message that should tell the sysadmin after reboot that his machine is infected.
Worked fairly well. Few hosts tried my site more than once.
It raises the old moral dilemma about messing with other people's computers, for a good purpose.
But the "friendly worm" issue is a different one. The main problem is control. I've done the math and published a paper on this. You do not want to be the author of an out-of-control autonomous, self-replicating entity, no matter what it does.
So, like a dog, can you guarantee that it will listen to you, instantly, in all situations especially unfamiliar ones?
There is still the "messing with other people's computer" issue, of course.