6.7% per year? That would be nice... in our area (rural southern county with only one cable company in town), cable rates went up slightly over 10% during each of the first two years I lived here, and jumped almost 12% a few months ago.
My solution: as soon as I got the notice that rates would be increasing again (helpfully buried in paragraphs of tiny text on one of those glossy cards they slip in with your bill that you ignore because they're usually advertisements), I canceled the service. Turn the TV off, go outside, enjoy some fresh air; after a while you realize that you don't even miss cable TV any more. There are other (legal) ways to get your favorite TV shows.
First, when the GPS unit itself calculates the speed, it records your instantaneous velocity, not an average. It calculates this using the doppler shift present in the GPS signals picked up by the unit, not from how far the unit has travelled.
Second, even the cheapest GPS units I've seen update at least once per second.
Yes, the GPS signal is updated about once per second, but what matters (at least in terms of a legal defense) is the frequency at which data is recorded. Just because it is being updated once per second doesn't necessarily mean that the data is being recorded that frequently.
The article is not clear on whether the receiver used is a handled consumer GPS, or the type of GPS tracking device used by law enforcement to track vehicles. In the latter case, it is my understanding (though I don't have a reference to back me up) that data points are recorded less frequently than in a handheld GPS, maybe once a minute or more.
With my Garmin, I can save a track log which contains the following data for each point recorded: latitude, longitude, and time. All I am able to do with this information is take two points, calculate the distance between them, and use that along with the difference in time to estimate my average speed during that interval.
If the GPS device used in this case only recorded points at a rate of, say, one per minute, the likelihood increases that our average speed over the whole minute and our speed at any given time within that minute may be different. that's because a car's speed (usually) doesn't change much over the course of one second, but can change wildly in a minute. If I'm driving 10 MPH over the speed limit for the first 30 seconds, see the cop, and slow down to 10 under for the next 30, my average speed for that minute will be close to the speed limit. But I was still speeding.
I'm assuming, of course, that the only data recorded are position and time. Who knows, maybe the particular unit used in this case also calculates and records speed data, as well.
I know it's a slippery slope, but what if this trend causes developers to start focusing more on games which can provide ad revenue- shunning the medieval setting, for example, in favor of a more modern one into which they can slip ads that "feel right"?
Or worse, if level design starts to focus less on gameplay and strategy, and more on maximizing advertising visibility and number of impressions.
I don't know how it is in many other parts of the world, but on domestic flights in the US, usually the biggest bottleneck is not at the ticket counter (unless you're checking a bag) or at the gate, but at security. If you already carry on all of your luggage and print your boarding pass at home, would this technology really speed things up that much?
...that so many people have a bad habit of composing even a simple text message in Word, then emailing it out as an attachment. We have a number of people who do this at work, despite being repeatedly reminded that they can simply write their message within their email program. It's aggravating to receive an email that simply reads "see attached", then to actually read the 3-sentence message one has to save the.doc file to their computer, fire up word, and open the file, potentially exposing themselves to whatever the newest exploit is.
The fact that the use of ad blocking software has doubled over the last few years really doesn't surprise me. In fact, as much as advertising has inundated the online world, I'm surprised that the use of blocking software hasn't grown faster than that. I've been using a combination of tools such as Adblock and Privoxy for years now, to the point that I'm pretty spoiled and can't imagine browsing any site "unprotected". Every so often I find myself at a public computer, say in a computer lab or library, and I can't imagine how people get anything done with all the obnoxious distractions from flashy animations to those floating windows that cover the small paragraph of meaningful text I'm trying to pick out of that sea of ads. Then again, I guess your average Joe User doesn't mind seeing all that advertising, or doesn't always know how to block it. That 81% mentioned in the article includes people who use spam filters (and probably their browsers' bulit-in popup blockers, too), so I imagine that the number of people who go farther to block ads on web pages is actually much lower.
It's not just online, either. Our society has become a culture saturated with advertising at every turn. You can hardly even use a gas pump or cook an egg anymore without marketers seeing another opportunity to make an "impression". Thankfully, there are some aspects of our lives where we can do something to help filter out some of that crap, and the internet is still one of them- at least until the marketers get creative and figure out new ways to bypass filtering software.
...if you're the family member of an airline employee. Sure, flying at a discount (it's not free these days) can be an advantage, but dealing with security can actually be more difficult than it usually is for other passengers. Never mind that your parent/spouse/child is the one in the cockpit, you're more likely to be flagged as suspicious under this system for several reasons:
- "Non Rev" travel arrangements are usually made at the last minute, since you're at the bottom of the standby list and need to make travel plans around flight loads. It's not uncommon to make changes to an itinerary or to wait to book a flight until the day before, in order to maximize your chances of avoiding an oversold flight.
- Although you may be making a round trip journey, the way the system works, you are considered to be traveling on a one way ticket- twice.
- It's very common to be seated in exit rows or the very rear of the aircraft, since these seats are typically less popular and are usually the only ones open on a mostly full flight. Remember that during 9/11, the attackers chose seats on exit rows and at the very front and rear of the aircraft, so it would make sense that people who routinely sat in these seats would be flagged as more suspicious.
A few years ago, when the TSA was young and still trying to work the kinks out of the system, these and other factors (particularly the one-way-ticket thing) led to an unusually high number of airline employees and their family members being "selected" for additional screening on domestic flights. Thankfully it didn't take them long to fix the mistake, but in the meantime it was frustrating to travel and know that a good 80% of the time (from my personal experience), you'd see those dreaded S's on your boarding pass and knew that you'd be getting special service at the security line. I've traveled internationally several times since 9/11, and after learning about the ATS I'm surprised that I've only been pulled aside for questioning at Customs once. It wasn't as much of an ordeal more than an inconvenience (it delayed me for about 25 minutes), but it's not exactly fun trying to convince a customs agent that you were just spending your fall break hiking in a National Park in Canada when their computer indicates you may be a security threat (just speculation there, of course, since they wouldn't actually tell you if you were flagged by the system, but I wouldn't doubt that it was the case).
Way to go FCC, actually doing something that benefits the little guy!
From a legal standpoint though, doesn't the airline own the cables in the airport, and hence could restrict access to high speed connections? Or were the airlines using wireless?
Actually, the airlines rent space in an airport just like any retailer who rents space in a shopping center, or an individual who rents an apartment. This goes for offices, ticket counters, and even individual gates. Most larger airports are overseen by an airport authority which acts as a landlord by letting airlines rent/lease space, but the airlines are probably paying an ISP for the internet connection (just like in an apartment, where you pay the cable bill to the local cable company, not your landlord). From my understanding of the article, the airlines have an agreement with their ISP which allows them to offer their internet connection to the public (through wifi), but the airport authority (Massport) is trying to put a stop to it. In this case, the FCC ruled that Massport has no authority to dictate how the airlines use their internet connection.
Many airlines have exclusive clubs or lounges which offer travelers free internet access, among other perks (well, you could argue that it isn't exactly free, because of membership dues...). Other alternatives are private companies which set up wireless routers throughout terminals to provide exorbitantly priced internet access for passengers (T-Mobile is another example mentioned in the article). Similarly, my father works in flight operations for a major airline at an international airport, and their offices have a lounge where pilots can go between flights to get free wifi using the airline's internet connection (and, if you know exactly where to stand upstairs in the terminal, you could probably hop online for free, too). This is the type of thing the airport is trying to shut down, in an attempt to gain a monopoly on expensive internet access for travelers.
will it show up as "Sony.CDcopyprotection.malware"?
Close... it's described as XCP.Sony.Rootkit on the Computer Associates website, who have classified it as a trojan. I approve... Let's hope some major vendors catch on soon.
from the link:
Reasons For Retention
Installs without user permission, presenting only a vague and misleading EULA
Changes system configuration without user permission at time of change.
Defends against removal of, or changes to, its components
Silently modifies other programs' information or website content as displayed.
Includes mechanisms to thwart removal by security or anti-spyware products.
Cannot be uninstalled by Windows Add/Remove Programs and no uninstaller is provided with application.
...like the iPod battery lawsuit, if it goes anywhere. iPod owners with a "defective" product will get a gift certificate for the Apple store worth only a fraction of what they paid for their Nano...
...In the meantime, the lawyers make off with millions.
Try OSX. As of some update about a year ago, OSX stopped having "default permit" for launching applications by double-clicking. If you double-click and that leads to launching an executable that hasn't been run before, it pops up a dialog to ask you about it.
Actually, this will not stop you from launching an application (that is, an executable) by clicking on the application icon, it only prevents documents from opening applications that you have never run before. Say you double click what you think is a.jpg file expecting it to open in Preview, but another application is launched instead. You'll get a message that reads, "You are opening the application 'mysterious suspicious program' for the first time. Are you sure you want to open this application?....to see the application in the Finder without opening it, click Show Application."
You can open the application by clicking it directly, and it will run without first presenting you with any warning. If I remember correctly, this was introduced by Apple to prevent users from inadvertently launching new (possibly malicious) applications that had somehow tricked the OS into associating certain file extensions with them. However, it's useless if you open a "document" that is actually an executable in disguise, as these will run without prompting you.
2. The new imagery doesn't have any obvious copyright notices. Did they skip this step or is there a new invisible watermark?
Because the images were taken by NOAA and are freely available on the National Weather Service Website, I think the images are in the public domain. In fact, from the same website where the original (and higher resolution) images can be found, I dug up this disclaimer:
The information on government servers are in the public domain, unless specifically annotated otherwise, and may be used freely by the public...
Not only is Verizon Wireless keen for both companies to cease their actions, it is also seeking "monetary damages".
So, I wonder, who gets to pocket the money? I'd bet its not the customer, who's footing most of the bill for these calls and burning up precious minutes over them, not to mention having to put up with them. Verizon is just the carrier.
Several months ago, we started receiving repeated text messages from some online casino. We never use this feature, so we never purchased an "unlimited messaging plan" or whatever they're calling them. Instead, when the bill came, we were charged between $1-$2 for each message we received. Fortunately, the messages stopped after a while, but we were still out a few bucks for messages we never wanted in the first place.
Exactly. And not just the fact that most of New Orleans sits below sea level. We like to build in high risk areas. Because we like the ocean, we put up condos and houses along the beach. Because we like views, we build homes on slide-prone hilltops in California. And unfortunately, over time, we become complacent. We like to sit in our homes or drive through our cities and think that we have "conquered" nature by walling it in.
The problem is that we build something semi-permanent in a dynamic environment. Dunes are constantly growing, moving, shifting, and being washed away; it's just a natural process. But we want to be as close to the water as possible, so we put our houses and roads right on top of shifting sand. As horrible and unimaginable as the flooding in NO is, it's just nature doing it's thing. In an environment untouched by man, catastrophic flooding washes tons of nutrients and organic matter into the marshes and swamps. As we have built levees and dams to control the flow of water, we have cut off this supply of silt and organic material, and our marshes are slowly growing deeper with no influx of silt to settle on the bottom.
I can't see the film industry or consumers going for this. As the article states, this technology would be used to produce DVDs that can be played at home as soon as the movie is released in theaters. Sounds nice, but the MPAA makes money off of movies twice- once when it is released in theaters and again several months later when it is released on DVD. Their hope is that the same person who went out and already paid to see the film on screen will buy a copy once it comes out on disc, effectively paying twice to have access to the same content. One person will chose to watch the movie in the theater, while somebody else might choose to watch it in the comfort of their home at the same time, but very few people will watch it both in the theater and in their home if they have a choice the day the movie is released. This is one reason why movies aren't released on DVD for several months after they hit theaters.
Plus, who in their right mind would buy another DVD player just to play a few heavily DRMmed movies that you can't watch without first connecting to the internet? I'd rather wait a few months and get a copy that I can watch when I want to, without having to rely on an external server (that may not always be available for various reasons) to verify that I own a legal copy of the movie.
I agree. At what point are materials not considered "basic" enough? Even living organisms use premade structures taken from the environment. Similar to the robot, one can look at a living organism as simply an entity that uses a preprogrammed set of instructions (DNA) to collect and assemble materials found in it's environment (in the form of amino acids, lipids, sugars, etc) into structures that allow it to create offspring more or less similar to itself. At some point, the organism (or robot) must use a preassembled structure- most, if not all, organisms do not assemble proteins entirely from raw atoms, but use amino acids or other partially assembled materials taken from their environment (although some reactions do involve fixing atmospheric nitrogen, splitting oxygen or water, etc, and using these atoms in a variety of cellular processes). As another example, some insects incorporate secondary plant products into their own cells as a defense mechanism, saving themselves the trouble of having to expend energy producing these compounds themselves.
Of course, the difference here is that the robot is replicating itself using much more complex preassembled subunits at a level analogous to an organ or appendage. It is not hard to imagine that this "self-replicating" robot could be designed to assemble itself from increasingly smaller and more simple materials. Instead of blocks, what if the robot were given numerous prefab pieces that could be stuck together in a predetermined fashion to assemble a block? Of course, you would need a storage medium for information (maybe the robot's "environment" is stocked with small blank hard drives or the materials to create them, and the robot is designed to copy the contents of it's drive to that of it's offspring). If an environment were set up with plenty of usable materials, and the robot was designed with the ability to sense these materials nearby and move freely toward them rather than be given them in predetermined locations, you start to have something that begins to more closely mimic a real living organism. Once this is perfected, one could instruct a robot to randomly change some part of the instructions it uses to replicate itself at very infrequent intervals (analagous to a mutation), and stock the "environment" with a near endless supply of materials of varying shapes, maybe even shapes not used by the original robot. Let it run for a few million or billion generations and interesting things may happen.
As a plus, this service finally provides an easy way to keep count of just how many Google searches you do by way of a counter on the "My Search History" page. Previously, my homespun solution involved creating a PHP script on my personal site which generated a counter graphic that I stuck onto the search result pages using a custom filter for Privoxy. It would even include a list of my searches in my site stats, but I eventually filtered it out because it added alot of noise to the list of google searches that led other people to my site.
One interesting thing I noticed is the number of times throughout the course of an average day that I toss something into Google. Not sure about the definition or correct spelling of a word? Just Google it. I found that it isn't unusual for me to use Google 20+ times in just a few hours.
Using our MAP-TAG technology, you can not only track the document but you can shut them down. You can deactivate your PDF files - in general or for specific people to help prevent unauthorized readers.
Elsewhere in the FAQ: How can I track them if they're not on the Internet?
We are currently beta testing a version of Remote Approach that allows you to specify that if your reader is not connected to the Internet, then they cannot read the document.
Does this mean that some sort of encryption is involved? I can imagine something similar to password protected PDF files, except perhaps that the reader must provide the correct information, which is sent to the server in exchange for the "key" that actually unlocks the document. It sounds like this can be used to limit viewing by unintended audiences, but neither the website nor the articles hint at how this could be enforced. For example, will I need a password, or will viewing be restricted to computers with certain IP addresses?
I wonder what the effect will be in programs that do not support javascript? It doesn't seem like any special reader software is needed, but the javascript requirement apparently rules out viewing these in programs like Preview on OSX. Not to mention the impact this will have on people who save PDF files for offline browsing (maybe to be read during a long flight), or who read them on a PDA.
Does anybody know of a link to one of these specially tagged PDF's?
Actually, I live on a college campus, and our Programming Board regularly announces upcoming events by driving around residence halls and shouting from the back of a pickup with a megaphone. Granted, it's not advertising in a true sense, but it's still pretty obnoxious.;)
Now, if they drove around shouting ads for products, they'd probably be shot...
Slashdot Mirror
Cue the grammarians in 3... 2... 1...
6.7% per year? That would be nice... in our area (rural southern county with only one cable company in town), cable rates went up slightly over 10% during each of the first two years I lived here, and jumped almost 12% a few months ago.
My solution: as soon as I got the notice that rates would be increasing again (helpfully buried in paragraphs of tiny text on one of those glossy cards they slip in with your bill that you ignore because they're usually advertisements), I canceled the service. Turn the TV off, go outside, enjoy some fresh air; after a while you realize that you don't even miss cable TV any more. There are other (legal) ways to get your favorite TV shows.
First, when the GPS unit itself calculates the speed, it records your instantaneous velocity, not an average. It calculates this using the doppler shift present in the GPS signals picked up by the unit, not from how far the unit has travelled.
Second, even the cheapest GPS units I've seen update at least once per second.
Yes, the GPS signal is updated about once per second, but what matters (at least in terms of a legal defense) is the frequency at which data is recorded. Just because it is being updated once per second doesn't necessarily mean that the data is being recorded that frequently.
The article is not clear on whether the receiver used is a handled consumer GPS, or the type of GPS tracking device used by law enforcement to track vehicles. In the latter case, it is my understanding (though I don't have a reference to back me up) that data points are recorded less frequently than in a handheld GPS, maybe once a minute or more.
With my Garmin, I can save a track log which contains the following data for each point recorded: latitude, longitude, and time. All I am able to do with this information is take two points, calculate the distance between them, and use that along with the difference in time to estimate my average speed during that interval.
If the GPS device used in this case only recorded points at a rate of, say, one per minute, the likelihood increases that our average speed over the whole minute and our speed at any given time within that minute may be different. that's because a car's speed (usually) doesn't change much over the course of one second, but can change wildly in a minute. If I'm driving 10 MPH over the speed limit for the first 30 seconds, see the cop, and slow down to 10 under for the next 30, my average speed for that minute will be close to the speed limit. But I was still speeding.
I'm assuming, of course, that the only data recorded are position and time. Who knows, maybe the particular unit used in this case also calculates and records speed data, as well.
I know it's a slippery slope, but what if this trend causes developers to start focusing more on games which can provide ad revenue- shunning the medieval setting, for example, in favor of a more modern one into which they can slip ads that "feel right"?
Or worse, if level design starts to focus less on gameplay and strategy, and more on maximizing advertising visibility and number of impressions.
I don't know how it is in many other parts of the world, but on domestic flights in the US, usually the biggest bottleneck is not at the ticket counter (unless you're checking a bag) or at the gate, but at security. If you already carry on all of your luggage and print your boarding pass at home, would this technology really speed things up that much?
...that so many people have a bad habit of composing even a simple text message in Word, then emailing it out as an attachment. We have a number of people who do this at work, despite being repeatedly reminded that they can simply write their message within their email program. It's aggravating to receive an email that simply reads "see attached", then to actually read the 3-sentence message one has to save the .doc file to their computer, fire up word, and open the file, potentially exposing themselves to whatever the newest exploit is.
The fact that the use of ad blocking software has doubled over the last few years really doesn't surprise me. In fact, as much as advertising has inundated the online world, I'm surprised that the use of blocking software hasn't grown faster than that. I've been using a combination of tools such as Adblock and Privoxy for years now, to the point that I'm pretty spoiled and can't imagine browsing any site "unprotected". Every so often I find myself at a public computer, say in a computer lab or library, and I can't imagine how people get anything done with all the obnoxious distractions from flashy animations to those floating windows that cover the small paragraph of meaningful text I'm trying to pick out of that sea of ads. Then again, I guess your average Joe User doesn't mind seeing all that advertising, or doesn't always know how to block it. That 81% mentioned in the article includes people who use spam filters (and probably their browsers' bulit-in popup blockers, too), so I imagine that the number of people who go farther to block ads on web pages is actually much lower.
It's not just online, either. Our society has become a culture saturated with advertising at every turn. You can hardly even use a gas pump or cook an egg anymore without marketers seeing another opportunity to make an "impression". Thankfully, there are some aspects of our lives where we can do something to help filter out some of that crap, and the internet is still one of them- at least until the marketers get creative and figure out new ways to bypass filtering software.
...if you're the family member of an airline employee. Sure, flying at a discount (it's not free these days) can be an advantage, but dealing with security can actually be more difficult than it usually is for other passengers. Never mind that your parent/spouse/child is the one in the cockpit, you're more likely to be flagged as suspicious under this system for several reasons:
- "Non Rev" travel arrangements are usually made at the last minute, since you're at the bottom of the standby list and need to make travel plans around flight loads. It's not uncommon to make changes to an itinerary or to wait to book a flight until the day before, in order to maximize your chances of avoiding an oversold flight.
- Although you may be making a round trip journey, the way the system works, you are considered to be traveling on a one way ticket- twice.
- It's very common to be seated in exit rows or the very rear of the aircraft, since these seats are typically less popular and are usually the only ones open on a mostly full flight. Remember that during 9/11, the attackers chose seats on exit rows and at the very front and rear of the aircraft, so it would make sense that people who routinely sat in these seats would be flagged as more suspicious.
A few years ago, when the TSA was young and still trying to work the kinks out of the system, these and other factors (particularly the one-way-ticket thing) led to an unusually high number of airline employees and their family members being "selected" for additional screening on domestic flights. Thankfully it didn't take them long to fix the mistake, but in the meantime it was frustrating to travel and know that a good 80% of the time (from my personal experience), you'd see those dreaded S's on your boarding pass and knew that you'd be getting special service at the security line. I've traveled internationally several times since 9/11, and after learning about the ATS I'm surprised that I've only been pulled aside for questioning at Customs once. It wasn't as much of an ordeal more than an inconvenience (it delayed me for about 25 minutes), but it's not exactly fun trying to convince a customs agent that you were just spending your fall break hiking in a National Park in Canada when their computer indicates you may be a security threat (just speculation there, of course, since they wouldn't actually tell you if you were flagged by the system, but I wouldn't doubt that it was the case).
Way to go FCC, actually doing something that benefits the little guy!
From a legal standpoint though, doesn't the airline own the cables in the airport, and hence could restrict access to high speed connections? Or were the airlines using wireless?
Actually, the airlines rent space in an airport just like any retailer who rents space in a shopping center, or an individual who rents an apartment. This goes for offices, ticket counters, and even individual gates. Most larger airports are overseen by an airport authority which acts as a landlord by letting airlines rent/lease space, but the airlines are probably paying an ISP for the internet connection (just like in an apartment, where you pay the cable bill to the local cable company, not your landlord). From my understanding of the article, the airlines have an agreement with their ISP which allows them to offer their internet connection to the public (through wifi), but the airport authority (Massport) is trying to put a stop to it. In this case, the FCC ruled that Massport has no authority to dictate how the airlines use their internet connection.
Many airlines have exclusive clubs or lounges which offer travelers free internet access, among other perks (well, you could argue that it isn't exactly free, because of membership dues...). Other alternatives are private companies which set up wireless routers throughout terminals to provide exorbitantly priced internet access for passengers (T-Mobile is another example mentioned in the article). Similarly, my father works in flight operations for a major airline at an international airport, and their offices have a lounge where pilots can go between flights to get free wifi using the airline's internet connection (and, if you know exactly where to stand upstairs in the terminal, you could probably hop online for free, too). This is the type of thing the airport is trying to shut down, in an attempt to gain a monopoly on expensive internet access for travelers.
Here's an idea... I'm going to patent the idea of patenting ideas.
;)
Prior art? That hasn't stopped people from filing patents before.
Who will be the first to go to jail for running a p2p client?
I can guarantee you that they won't be knocking on my door anytime soon.
My neighbor with the open wireless access point, however...
will it show up as "Sony.CDcopyprotection.malware"?
Close... it's described as XCP.Sony.Rootkit on the Computer Associates website, who have classified it as a trojan. I approve... Let's hope some major vendors catch on soon.
from the link:
Reasons For Retention
Installs without user permission, presenting only a vague and misleading EULA
Changes system configuration without user permission at time of change.
Defends against removal of, or changes to, its components
Silently modifies other programs' information or website content as displayed.
Includes mechanisms to thwart removal by security or anti-spyware products.
Cannot be uninstalled by Windows Add/Remove Programs and no uninstaller is provided with application.
...like the iPod battery lawsuit, if it goes anywhere. iPod owners with a "defective" product will get a gift certificate for the Apple store worth only a fraction of what they paid for their Nano...
...In the meantime, the lawyers make off with millions.
Try OSX. As of some update about a year ago, OSX stopped having "default permit" for launching applications by double-clicking. If you double-click and that leads to launching an executable that hasn't been run before, it pops up a dialog to ask you about it.
.jpg file expecting it to open in Preview, but another application is launched instead. You'll get a message that reads, "You are opening the application 'mysterious suspicious program' for the first time. Are you sure you want to open this application? ....to see the application in the Finder without opening it, click Show Application."
Actually, this will not stop you from launching an application (that is, an executable) by clicking on the application icon, it only prevents documents from opening applications that you have never run before. Say you double click what you think is a
You can open the application by clicking it directly, and it will run without first presenting you with any warning. If I remember correctly, this was introduced by Apple to prevent users from inadvertently launching new (possibly malicious) applications that had somehow tricked the OS into associating certain file extensions with them. However, it's useless if you open a "document" that is actually an executable in disguise, as these will run without prompting you.
2. The new imagery doesn't have any obvious copyright notices. Did they skip this step or is there a new invisible watermark?
Because the images were taken by NOAA and are freely available on the National Weather Service Website, I think the images are in the public domain. In fact, from the same website where the original (and higher resolution) images can be found, I dug up this disclaimer:
The information on government servers are in the public domain, unless specifically annotated otherwise, and may be used freely by the public...
Not only is Verizon Wireless keen for both companies to cease their actions, it is also seeking "monetary damages".
So, I wonder, who gets to pocket the money? I'd bet its not the customer, who's footing most of the bill for these calls and burning up precious minutes over them, not to mention having to put up with them. Verizon is just the carrier.
Several months ago, we started receiving repeated text messages from some online casino. We never use this feature, so we never purchased an "unlimited messaging plan" or whatever they're calling them. Instead, when the bill came, we were charged between $1-$2 for each message we received. Fortunately, the messages stopped after a while, but we were still out a few bucks for messages we never wanted in the first place.
To what degree have we done this to ourselves?
Exactly. And not just the fact that most of New Orleans sits below sea level. We like to build in high risk areas. Because we like the ocean, we put up condos and houses along the beach. Because we like views, we build homes on slide-prone hilltops in California. And unfortunately, over time, we become complacent. We like to sit in our homes or drive through our cities and think that we have "conquered" nature by walling it in.
The problem is that we build something semi-permanent in a dynamic environment. Dunes are constantly growing, moving, shifting, and being washed away; it's just a natural process. But we want to be as close to the water as possible, so we put our houses and roads right on top of shifting sand. As horrible and unimaginable as the flooding in NO is, it's just nature doing it's thing. In an environment untouched by man, catastrophic flooding washes tons of nutrients and organic matter into the marshes and swamps. As we have built levees and dams to control the flow of water, we have cut off this supply of silt and organic material, and our marshes are slowly growing deeper with no influx of silt to settle on the bottom.
I can't see the film industry or consumers going for this. As the article states, this technology would be used to produce DVDs that can be played at home as soon as the movie is released in theaters. Sounds nice, but the MPAA makes money off of movies twice- once when it is released in theaters and again several months later when it is released on DVD. Their hope is that the same person who went out and already paid to see the film on screen will buy a copy once it comes out on disc, effectively paying twice to have access to the same content. One person will chose to watch the movie in the theater, while somebody else might choose to watch it in the comfort of their home at the same time, but very few people will watch it both in the theater and in their home if they have a choice the day the movie is released. This is one reason why movies aren't released on DVD for several months after they hit theaters.
Plus, who in their right mind would buy another DVD player just to play a few heavily DRMmed movies that you can't watch without first connecting to the internet? I'd rather wait a few months and get a copy that I can watch when I want to, without having to rely on an external server (that may not always be available for various reasons) to verify that I own a legal copy of the movie.
I agree. At what point are materials not considered "basic" enough? Even living organisms use premade structures taken from the environment. Similar to the robot, one can look at a living organism as simply an entity that uses a preprogrammed set of instructions (DNA) to collect and assemble materials found in it's environment (in the form of amino acids, lipids, sugars, etc) into structures that allow it to create offspring more or less similar to itself. At some point, the organism (or robot) must use a preassembled structure- most, if not all, organisms do not assemble proteins entirely from raw atoms, but use amino acids or other partially assembled materials taken from their environment (although some reactions do involve fixing atmospheric nitrogen, splitting oxygen or water, etc, and using these atoms in a variety of cellular processes). As another example, some insects incorporate secondary plant products into their own cells as a defense mechanism, saving themselves the trouble of having to expend energy producing these compounds themselves.
Of course, the difference here is that the robot is replicating itself using much more complex preassembled subunits at a level analogous to an organ or appendage. It is not hard to imagine that this "self-replicating" robot could be designed to assemble itself from increasingly smaller and more simple materials. Instead of blocks, what if the robot were given numerous prefab pieces that could be stuck together in a predetermined fashion to assemble a block? Of course, you would need a storage medium for information (maybe the robot's "environment" is stocked with small blank hard drives or the materials to create them, and the robot is designed to copy the contents of it's drive to that of it's offspring). If an environment were set up with plenty of usable materials, and the robot was designed with the ability to sense these materials nearby and move freely toward them rather than be given them in predetermined locations, you start to have something that begins to more closely mimic a real living organism. Once this is perfected, one could instruct a robot to randomly change some part of the instructions it uses to replicate itself at very infrequent intervals (analagous to a mutation), and stock the "environment" with a near endless supply of materials of varying shapes, maybe even shapes not used by the original robot. Let it run for a few million or billion generations and interesting things may happen.
Dang. Site won't load up because it's being /.
Yeah, I bet their server couldn't handle all the extra traffic, and it overheated...
The site appears to be down, but here's a Google cache of the article.
As a plus, this service finally provides an easy way to keep count of just how many Google searches you do by way of a counter on the "My Search History" page. Previously, my homespun solution involved creating a PHP script on my personal site which generated a counter graphic that I stuck onto the search result pages using a custom filter for Privoxy. It would even include a list of my searches in my site stats, but I eventually filtered it out because it added alot of noise to the list of google searches that led other people to my site.
One interesting thing I noticed is the number of times throughout the course of an average day that I toss something into Google. Not sure about the definition or correct spelling of a word? Just Google it. I found that it isn't unusual for me to use Google 20+ times in just a few hours.
These corporations say that they're shutting down homegrown broadband efforts to safeguard the best interests of American free enterprise
Since when does the law have to bend over backwards to ensure that companies can continue to make a profit?
From the websiteFAQ:
Using our MAP-TAG technology, you can not only track the document but you can shut them down. You can deactivate your PDF files - in general or for specific people to help prevent unauthorized readers.
Elsewhere in the FAQ:
How can I track them if they're not on the Internet?
We are currently beta testing a version of Remote Approach that allows you to specify that if your reader is not connected to the Internet, then they cannot read the document.
Does this mean that some sort of encryption is involved? I can imagine something similar to password protected PDF files, except perhaps that the reader must provide the correct information, which is sent to the server in exchange for the "key" that actually unlocks the document. It sounds like this can be used to limit viewing by unintended audiences, but neither the website nor the articles hint at how this could be enforced. For example, will I need a password, or will viewing be restricted to computers with certain IP addresses?
I wonder what the effect will be in programs that do not support javascript? It doesn't seem like any special reader software is needed, but the javascript requirement apparently rules out viewing these in programs like Preview on OSX. Not to mention the impact this will have on people who save PDF files for offline browsing (maybe to be read during a long flight), or who read them on a PDA.
Does anybody know of a link to one of these specially tagged PDF's?
Actually, I live on a college campus, and our Programming Board regularly announces upcoming events by driving around residence halls and shouting from the back of a pickup with a megaphone. Granted, it's not advertising in a true sense, but it's still pretty obnoxious. ;)
Now, if they drove around shouting ads for products, they'd probably be shot...