Ignoring for a moment the (significant) differences between the US and UK...
But you can't make that comment & ignore the difference in country.
I don't think UK news sources publish addresses, certainly not in a story of the kind you use as an example. It only becomes problematic if the one specific government censor different media in different ways.
I also find it strange that people think Indymedia saying they don't store IP addresses should have been enough for the Police. I wouldn't be happy if the police didn't ensure they got physical access to the system, not because I like them being heavy, simply because that's the only competent course of action.
If they both themselves make a particular statement which references from good quality AND different sources
... then reference the sources.
Unless you are only after an extremely basic summary of a subject area to help inform readers of an area that is relevant but they won't all be studied in I cannot see the point in referencing the encyclopedia.
Finally, it would seem to me that Wikipedia's math section is held in very high regard, even now. I'm not going to say it's a good thing to reference only that, but it wouldn't surprise me if in 10-100 years, it becomes so nigh on perfect that going to another source will be a relative waste of time, at least for the more basic, pre-PHD level.
A great deal of the material on Wikipedia is of good quality, and yes mathematics is one area where this is normally the case. However as long as Wikipedia continues in its current model it cannot be a good source for reputable work. Its policy on anonymous editing means that unless you already know about the subject you cannot tell if someone has intentionally mined the article with falsities, and any subject that is contentious is subject to members of the different 'factions' altering it to their view.
If I needed surgery, my car fixing or tax advice I would never allow a service run by anonymous volunteers to decide for me, even if I might use them to give me some direction before seeking advice from a qualified expert. References in a academic work should be treated in the same manner, anything less means your work is building a weak foundation for those who later wish to build upon it.
it doesn't do anything special if you have a PC with Windows
I believe Windows XP SP2 & Vista are the only operating systems that can stream media to the Xbox 360, or at the very least are the only ones that MS advertises the feature for.
I own an Xbox and really enjoy using it as a gaming console. That said there are many things about it that make me wish I wasn't supporting Microsoft.
1/ Where Sony is willing to let you use any Bluetooth headset with the PS3, MS charge a small fortune to license the propitiatory solution used in the xbox limiting choice to a few crap and overpriced units.
2/ Lock all downloadable content to the individual console giving purchases a very limited lifetime.
3/ Designing it so that the hard drive cannot be replaced easily with anything other than a massively overpriced licensed unit.
4/ Locking down the dashboard completely and not integrating any web browser (even the Wii has a browser ffs).
I got a 360 because I did and still do think Halo is a great series of games and I wanted to get the 3rd game. Since then a number of other games have come out as Xbox exclusives that I also want like Gears, Mass Effect and Fallout 3. So although I think the Xbox has the strongest range of games it doesn't mean I like the console itself or the way the company behind it operates.
I couldn't agree more with parent posters statement. It's strange how the same people who wildly rage about the RIAA's Jon Doe cases and their privacy implications, often think that giving out peoples personal details with no intent other than harassment is a god given right.
Given the quality of your post, I feel you provide a good example of the level of competence required to call wikipedia good and an excellent insight into why preview is least valued by those who most need it.
Teacher's shouldn't accept wikipedia as a source, for the same reasons they shouldn't accept other Encyclopedias. An encyclopedias entire point is to act as a reference, fine for casual research but only to be used as a starting point in finding academic material.
but obviously don't get what makes Wikipedia awesome at all.
They aren't the only ones, one of the biggest selling points traditional encyclopedia's had was that they weren't wikipedia if they emulate it too closely they will disenfranchise that audience.
Anyone who is happy with the encyclopedic equivalent of lucky dip is already gushing about the 'awesomeness' of Wikipedia, they are not about to start helping elsewhere. Although perhaps some of the authors with genuine knowledge who have given up on Wikipedia's editfests might be interested in a more closely controlled equivalent.
I appreciate the point you are trying to make, but the position is overly simplistic compared to the real world.
To give you an example of this consider pharmaceuticals. If I create a new drug that in 99 of my 100 test cases cures cancer should I be allowed to sell it immediately? Or should their be a requirement that I 'prove' it isn't dangerous with further medical trials?
In the above case I have 'proven' to some degree that it works, and there is no proof it is dangerous and "since we're talking science, that's enough disproof".
I have no intention of comparing the two matters; I just don't think your point has a lot of meaning in this situation.
KPMG is asking its workers to drop of hours (and pay to equivalent) of 4 day weeks or take a few months off at 30% pay to drop costs while demand is low, that was covered on the news. Story on BBC
including the UK where - for all the bureaucracy and wastage of the NPfIT initiative - it's been largely successful.
I don't work with and haven't used any of the NPfIT systems, however I have read a lot of coverage regarding this including recent material in IT and Medical news sources. I certainly haven't gotten the impression the system is remotely successful. I'm not saying it isn't, but I'm yet to see anything that doesn't make it sound like a gigantic project failure, that has completely lost site of its objectives and isn't finished even though it is massively over-budget and past-deadline.
If anyone can link to some decent sources that have a positive opinion on the services to come out of NPfIT then I genuinely would like to read them.
Seconded. I hadn't even heard of it before, let alone developed an understanding. I couldn't estimate where my Physics knowledge would fall compared to Slashdot's viewers distrobution but it seems pretty good compared to the none Physicists I've met.
Can I just ask why you would go to jail due to RIPA prosecution? I thought you had to disclose passwords/keys now, and I'm sure destroying evidence of a crime is itself a crime but I always thought you'd get away with it if you simply left an 'blank' box unless they already had proof it was evidence of criminal action.
I like the hypocrisy of the fact that it's insightful to think that innocent people should be deprived of rights because they are American citizens (especially given the fact that your constitution was written to protect everyone citizen or not) and yet it's trolling to say that someone who has suffered for 6 years without being found guilty of everything deserves more rights than someone who stood by and let it happen.
I have no issue with being branded as trolling, hell I've got Karma to spare and sometimes it's worth getting in people's face in the hope they begin to entertain the possibility they might be wrong. But Slashdot readers voting fascist bigotry and removal of rights as Insightful says volumes.
The issue with allowing the source code to be 'secret' is that it could hold an error or intentional backdoor/loophole added by the provider. I find it unlikely this would happen here, but that hardly is reason to exempt them.
I have no confidence that even a complete test of all possible inputs would be sufficient to cover lack of access to the code, especially in something that should have the same kind of failure rate as life-critical systems.
To me the prosecution standing up in court and saying "When the defendant used this device, the device by a method I cannot disclose informed the officer that the defendant was drunk as a skunk" doesn't sound like decent evidence. It sounds a little too much like the thinking that would make "When the defendant made that phonecall, the NSA using a process we are not able to explain to you here confirmed that he is a terrorist and needs detaining indefinitely" a good prosecution case.
While I am in favor of them getting trials, I don't think they should have the same rights as US citizens.
They should have more rights than most American citizens. The average American citizen has done nothing to deserve rights, even going so far as to be complicit in the holding without trial of people for over 6 years. It is the US administration, and those who supported it who should be tried.
For example, I don't want to hear about Ahmed being found not guilty because someone didn't read him his Miranda rights.
Then demand that your government employees acts within the laws they are bound by you ignorant fool or just give up the pretence of law, order and rights and let mob justice rule, then see how much further you can fall from grace.
I fail to see how this is a remotely better solution. Sometimes the fact representatives choose to do something that is not popular with the majority is a good thing. Going by even unbiased opinion polls the UK would have Biometric ID if we were a pure democracy so I fail to see how privacy is improved by this change.
Now if you could come up with a secure and open form of meritocracy you might be onto something.
Because that will really scare the tank, aircraft, warship, satellite and reaper drone operating military of your goverment. I have no issue with Americans being allowed to own guns, but are many of you really niave enough as to think gun ownership has any effect on goverment behaviour?
Although it'd be an amusing hack I can't see the real benefit from it.
The article is looking at this as a way of using things like home renewable energy in the most efficient way.
Personally I think this is also something that would work well on the 'grid'. Power companies work most efficiently within a small band of demand, when demand falls it is inefficient for them to stop running certain plants and when demand increases the cost of activating dormant supply is high.
If your house was 'aware' then power companies could dynamically vary power prices within a certain range to try and shape demand to a more normal distrobution. If energy storage tech got more advanced it might even go as far as people fitting small batteries/capacitors/flywheels within their house, that way you could charge power during the night when the power companies currently have an over-supply and drain it during the peak hours.
To give a real life example of this kind of behaviour, most labs working with plants (in the UK at least) will light their grow rooms during the very early morning. This is because they can get a large discount on energy during certain hours simply because the energy companies were going to generate and waste the energy if they didn't sell it.
I'm glad somebody finally made this point, as it is exactly what came to mind when I saw the article suggesting otherwise.
My second thought was that complete constant monitoring isn't right. He may well be the USA's elected leader, but I still think some framework for privacy needs to be in place. From a practical point of view, nothing short of a group of independant observers who NEVER allow him to leave their view, with video and audio recording equipment would be sufficient to actually manage recording everything.
You may think that is excessive but if you are worried about people at the top level of goverment trying to get information to the President under the radar then it should be obvious that the resources they have available to do this will be extensive.
The moment you decide that not to go the the extreme you have to accept that you can't record the things you really want to (the things they are trying to hide). If Bush emailed the DoJ something that could get him impeached, he did it because he knew he could remove the evidence. If he couldn't, then he would get the information through other channels that weren't monitored.
Perhaps the better thing to do is not to ensure that everything is recorded, but instead to ensure that only that which is recorded in the correct manner is official, and overhaul a number of areas of the law.
1/ The ability to retrospectively make something legal or illegal.
2/ The ability of the President to pardon people who commit crimes (or at least limit it to stop blatant abuse).
3/ Make it a crime for an employee of the State or Country to ask someone to commit a crime.
4/ Clarify and Define in law that noone may use the fact that an employee of the State or Country as a valid defence for committing a crime.
5/ Do some genuine research into the complexity of law and your citizens and employees knowledge of it. If as I expect, most people have very little idea what rights they have, what rights their goverment has and that the law is too complex to allow citizens to have a good knowledge of it then begin to reform it.
Some things would have to change to make the game saleable
Given your ID I'm assuming your old enough to remember older games. Surely what you should of noticed is that the things you are suggesting are the exact opposite of what has been going on in the gaming market, due to the fact most people don't want it.
Games have moved from Die=Restart through Die=Revert to last save to Die=Revert to before last challenge. Nintendo are even trying to patent the idea of a system that allows you to let the game play for you if you want (for example if something is too hard).
Their is a market for more involving games, and some games have persistent death for NPCs. Bethesdas Oblivion and Fallout 3 come to mind for this. However, very few people enjoy being pigeonholed. Hell, even the new DND4e has shifted this way and personally I think that was a massive improvement.
Although UK tax isn't the worst around, you really want to factor in National Insurance, Council Tax and VAT to try and compare it against a lot of other countries.
Slapping a warning label on a product will increase the likelihood of that product being banned as much as playing violent video games will increase the likelihood of committing violent acts.
Countering a slippery slope arguement with an arguement backed up by no facts?
Even if you are right there is still a reason to resist this measure, goverment should exert control of the freedoms of its people only where there is sufficient need. If your goverment can't give you a good reason for doing something you shouldn't support it.
It would already be trivially easy to make bullets that contained a lethal toxin, the reason we don't do it isn't because of inability. Yes, you could misuse this research (just like any other advance) but it certainly wouldn't be the bio-weapon of choice due to sheer inefficiency and slowness of effect.
How is it remotely new? You think Terrorists are waiting for flying cars to use when they can already buy proper aircraft with better lift capacity and speed for about 1/3rd of the price?
A lot of people posting here don't seem to realise that you still need a pilot's license to fly a "flying car". I'm more worried about the ability and safety of the vehicle for ground use than air use, but it's a null and void point as very few will be produced and the ones that are will be driven very little (to airports and back). My hope is that it is a catalyst for the market and brings in more competition.
Yeah, why would this be better? Unless it's open it's crap. I will just wait for more android/openmoko phones.
Take a seat, breathe deeply... The world doesn't revolve around you, in fact it doesn't even register than you exist and it certainly couldn't care what phone you are waiting for.
People who know what 'open' even means in terms of software are a tiny proportion of the market and the fact that you don't think a closed phone can be good is almost entirely irrelevant to how this will be reviewed.
In fact the fact it looks pretty ugly will be a far more important factor in how it is reviewed than how open it is.
Slashdot Mirror
But you can't make that comment & ignore the difference in country.
I don't think UK news sources publish addresses, certainly not in a story of the kind you use as an example. It only becomes problematic if the one specific government censor different media in different ways.
I also find it strange that people think Indymedia saying they don't store IP addresses should have been enough for the Police. I wouldn't be happy if the police didn't ensure they got physical access to the system, not because I like them being heavy, simply because that's the only competent course of action.
Unless you are only after an extremely basic summary of a subject area to help inform readers of an area that is relevant but they won't all be studied in I cannot see the point in referencing the encyclopedia.
A great deal of the material on Wikipedia is of good quality, and yes mathematics is one area where this is normally the case. However as long as Wikipedia continues in its current model it cannot be a good source for reputable work. Its policy on anonymous editing means that unless you already know about the subject you cannot tell if someone has intentionally mined the article with falsities, and any subject that is contentious is subject to members of the different 'factions' altering it to their view.
If I needed surgery, my car fixing or tax advice I would never allow a service run by anonymous volunteers to decide for me, even if I might use them to give me some direction before seeking advice from a qualified expert. References in a academic work should be treated in the same manner, anything less means your work is building a weak foundation for those who later wish to build upon it.
I believe Windows XP SP2 & Vista are the only operating systems that can stream media to the Xbox 360, or at the very least are the only ones that MS advertises the feature for.
I own an Xbox and really enjoy using it as a gaming console. That said there are many things about it that make me wish I wasn't supporting Microsoft.
1/ Where Sony is willing to let you use any Bluetooth headset with the PS3, MS charge a small fortune to license the propitiatory solution used in the xbox limiting choice to a few crap and overpriced units.
2/ Lock all downloadable content to the individual console giving purchases a very limited lifetime.
3/ Designing it so that the hard drive cannot be replaced easily with anything other than a massively overpriced licensed unit.
4/ Locking down the dashboard completely and not integrating any web browser (even the Wii has a browser ffs).
I got a 360 because I did and still do think Halo is a great series of games and I wanted to get the 3rd game. Since then a number of other games have come out as Xbox exclusives that I also want like Gears, Mass Effect and Fallout 3. So although I think the Xbox has the strongest range of games it doesn't mean I like the console itself or the way the company behind it operates.
I couldn't agree more with parent posters statement. It's strange how the same people who wildly rage about the RIAA's Jon Doe cases and their privacy implications, often think that giving out peoples personal details with no intent other than harassment is a god given right.
Given the quality of your post, I feel you provide a good example of the level of competence required to call wikipedia good and an excellent insight into why preview is least valued by those who most need it.
Teacher's shouldn't accept wikipedia as a source, for the same reasons they shouldn't accept other Encyclopedias. An encyclopedias entire point is to act as a reference, fine for casual research but only to be used as a starting point in finding academic material.
They aren't the only ones, one of the biggest selling points traditional encyclopedia's had was that they weren't wikipedia if they emulate it too closely they will disenfranchise that audience.
Anyone who is happy with the encyclopedic equivalent of lucky dip is already gushing about the 'awesomeness' of Wikipedia, they are not about to start helping elsewhere. Although perhaps some of the authors with genuine knowledge who have given up on Wikipedia's editfests might be interested in a more closely controlled equivalent.
I appreciate the point you are trying to make, but the position is overly simplistic compared to the real world.
To give you an example of this consider pharmaceuticals. If I create a new drug that in 99 of my 100 test cases cures cancer should I be allowed to sell it immediately? Or should their be a requirement that I 'prove' it isn't dangerous with further medical trials?
In the above case I have 'proven' to some degree that it works, and there is no proof it is dangerous and "since we're talking science, that's enough disproof".
I have no intention of comparing the two matters; I just don't think your point has a lot of meaning in this situation.
KPMG is asking its workers to drop of hours (and pay to equivalent) of 4 day weeks or take a few months off at 30% pay to drop costs while demand is low, that was covered on the news. Story on BBC
I don't work with and haven't used any of the NPfIT systems, however I have read a lot of coverage regarding this including recent material in IT and Medical news sources. I certainly haven't gotten the impression the system is remotely successful. I'm not saying it isn't, but I'm yet to see anything that doesn't make it sound like a gigantic project failure, that has completely lost site of its objectives and isn't finished even though it is massively over-budget and past-deadline.
If anyone can link to some decent sources that have a positive opinion on the services to come out of NPfIT then I genuinely would like to read them.
Seconded. I hadn't even heard of it before, let alone developed an understanding. I couldn't estimate where my Physics knowledge would fall compared to Slashdot's viewers distrobution but it seems pretty good compared to the none Physicists I've met.
Can I just ask why you would go to jail due to RIPA prosecution? I thought you had to disclose passwords/keys now, and I'm sure destroying evidence of a crime is itself a crime but I always thought you'd get away with it if you simply left an 'blank' box unless they already had proof it was evidence of criminal action.
Slashdot: Where fining people for copyright infringement is wrong but killing people for stealing login details is "Insightful".
I like the hypocrisy of the fact that it's insightful to think that innocent people should be deprived of rights because they are American citizens (especially given the fact that your constitution was written to protect everyone citizen or not) and yet it's trolling to say that someone who has suffered for 6 years without being found guilty of everything deserves more rights than someone who stood by and let it happen.
I have no issue with being branded as trolling, hell I've got Karma to spare and sometimes it's worth getting in people's face in the hope they begin to entertain the possibility they might be wrong. But Slashdot readers voting fascist bigotry and removal of rights as Insightful says volumes.
The issue with allowing the source code to be 'secret' is that it could hold an error or intentional backdoor/loophole added by the provider. I find it unlikely this would happen here, but that hardly is reason to exempt them.
I have no confidence that even a complete test of all possible inputs would be sufficient to cover lack of access to the code, especially in something that should have the same kind of failure rate as life-critical systems.
To me the prosecution standing up in court and saying "When the defendant used this device, the device by a method I cannot disclose informed the officer that the defendant was drunk as a skunk" doesn't sound like decent evidence. It sounds a little too much like the thinking that would make "When the defendant made that phonecall, the NSA using a process we are not able to explain to you here confirmed that he is a terrorist and needs detaining indefinitely" a good prosecution case.
They should have more rights than most American citizens. The average American citizen has done nothing to deserve rights, even going so far as to be complicit in the holding without trial of people for over 6 years. It is the US administration, and those who supported it who should be tried.
Then demand that your government employees acts within the laws they are bound by you ignorant fool or just give up the pretence of law, order and rights and let mob justice rule, then see how much further you can fall from grace.
I fail to see how this is a remotely better solution. Sometimes the fact representatives choose to do something that is not popular with the majority is a good thing. Going by even unbiased opinion polls the UK would have Biometric ID if we were a pure democracy so I fail to see how privacy is improved by this change.
Now if you could come up with a secure and open form of meritocracy you might be onto something.
Because that will really scare the tank, aircraft, warship, satellite and reaper drone operating military of your goverment. I have no issue with Americans being allowed to own guns, but are many of you really niave enough as to think gun ownership has any effect on goverment behaviour?
Although it'd be an amusing hack I can't see the real benefit from it.
The article is looking at this as a way of using things like home renewable energy in the most efficient way.
Personally I think this is also something that would work well on the 'grid'. Power companies work most efficiently within a small band of demand, when demand falls it is inefficient for them to stop running certain plants and when demand increases the cost of activating dormant supply is high.
If your house was 'aware' then power companies could dynamically vary power prices within a certain range to try and shape demand to a more normal distrobution. If energy storage tech got more advanced it might even go as far as people fitting small batteries/capacitors/flywheels within their house, that way you could charge power during the night when the power companies currently have an over-supply and drain it during the peak hours.
To give a real life example of this kind of behaviour, most labs working with plants (in the UK at least) will light their grow rooms during the very early morning. This is because they can get a large discount on energy during certain hours simply because the energy companies were going to generate and waste the energy if they didn't sell it.
I'm glad somebody finally made this point, as it is exactly what came to mind when I saw the article suggesting otherwise.
My second thought was that complete constant monitoring isn't right. He may well be the USA's elected leader, but I still think some framework for privacy needs to be in place. From a practical point of view, nothing short of a group of independant observers who NEVER allow him to leave their view, with video and audio recording equipment would be sufficient to actually manage recording everything.
You may think that is excessive but if you are worried about people at the top level of goverment trying to get information to the President under the radar then it should be obvious that the resources they have available to do this will be extensive.
The moment you decide that not to go the the extreme you have to accept that you can't record the things you really want to (the things they are trying to hide). If Bush emailed the DoJ something that could get him impeached, he did it because he knew he could remove the evidence. If he couldn't, then he would get the information through other channels that weren't monitored.
Perhaps the better thing to do is not to ensure that everything is recorded, but instead to ensure that only that which is recorded in the correct manner is official, and overhaul a number of areas of the law.
1/ The ability to retrospectively make something legal or illegal.
2/ The ability of the President to pardon people who commit crimes (or at least limit it to stop blatant abuse).
3/ Make it a crime for an employee of the State or Country to ask someone to commit a crime.
4/ Clarify and Define in law that noone may use the fact that an employee of the State or Country as a valid defence for committing a crime.
5/ Do some genuine research into the complexity of law and your citizens and employees knowledge of it. If as I expect, most people have very little idea what rights they have, what rights their goverment has and that the law is too complex to allow citizens to have a good knowledge of it then begin to reform it.
Given your ID I'm assuming your old enough to remember older games. Surely what you should of noticed is that the things you are suggesting are the exact opposite of what has been going on in the gaming market, due to the fact most people don't want it.
Games have moved from Die=Restart through Die=Revert to last save to Die=Revert to before last challenge. Nintendo are even trying to patent the idea of a system that allows you to let the game play for you if you want (for example if something is too hard).
Their is a market for more involving games, and some games have persistent death for NPCs. Bethesdas Oblivion and Fallout 3 come to mind for this. However, very few people enjoy being pigeonholed. Hell, even the new DND4e has shifted this way and personally I think that was a massive improvement.
Although UK tax isn't the worst around, you really want to factor in National Insurance, Council Tax and VAT to try and compare it against a lot of other countries.
Countering a slippery slope arguement with an arguement backed up by no facts?
Even if you are right there is still a reason to resist this measure, goverment should exert control of the freedoms of its people only where there is sufficient need. If your goverment can't give you a good reason for doing something you shouldn't support it.
It would already be trivially easy to make bullets that contained a lethal toxin, the reason we don't do it isn't because of inability. Yes, you could misuse this research (just like any other advance) but it certainly wouldn't be the bio-weapon of choice due to sheer inefficiency and slowness of effect.
How is it remotely new? You think Terrorists are waiting for flying cars to use when they can already buy proper aircraft with better lift capacity and speed for about 1/3rd of the price?
A lot of people posting here don't seem to realise that you still need a pilot's license to fly a "flying car". I'm more worried about the ability and safety of the vehicle for ground use than air use, but it's a null and void point as very few will be produced and the ones that are will be driven very little (to airports and back). My hope is that it is a catalyst for the market and brings in more competition.
Take a seat, breathe deeply... The world doesn't revolve around you, in fact it doesn't even register than you exist and it certainly couldn't care what phone you are waiting for.
People who know what 'open' even means in terms of software are a tiny proportion of the market and the fact that you don't think a closed phone can be good is almost entirely irrelevant to how this will be reviewed.
In fact the fact it looks pretty ugly will be a far more important factor in how it is reviewed than how open it is.