I'm not one to defend congress (hell, I'm not a US citizen, so it's almost mandatory that I hate them), but isn't/wasn't blocking trade with China
1) Called "an embargo", ie, an act of war (and given that China are a nuclear power, and have been a significant military power for the past 50 years...)
2) Anti free-market
3) Not in the immediate interests of the consumer-voter (and given that politicians are not even aware that time stretches further than 8 years into the future)
4) Not in the interest of their private island estate managers ^H^H^H^H^H corporations
5) Simply going to make the next guy bring it in with even more vigour?
>> I'm sure that the GP "gets off on underage naked kids" and not making a joke about tracking UK students with RFID chips in their clothing. I'm glad you're here to keep watch on such amoral people. Do you have a newsletter that I can subscribe to?
For starters, you could easily get an extra 24g of sugar (just as easily as you could get 24g less), whereas with hard drives you'll always get the same number of bytes in every identical model. Secondly, it'd be closer to buying a bag of sugar advertised as 1kg when it's really 2 pounds of sugar, or buying a car with an advertised fuel efficiency of 16 L/100mi when it's really 16 L/100km. Thirdly, computers work in base 2, so it makes sense to make disks in base 2 (unlike cars/explosives/sugar, which work in base 10).
I think it's about time that hard disk advertisers started claiming responsibility for what is perhaps the only unit disparity of it's kind (nothing else fudges the definition of a measurement unit to save a few bucks, as far as I'm aware). It's doubleplusgood that it's Seagate who's doing it, considering that they're leading the field and therefore will (hopefully) set an example to WD/Samsung/etc.
>> Basically it's because people usually don't agree universally on how to do things, and compete for attention.
>> don't care for the OS X UI.
Great-grandparent - QED.
(replying to GGP) I think though, saying it's a difference in design is not what the die-hard (insert-OS-here) fans are arguing about, it's the flaws in each system. For example, you could argue about OSX's cost, or Linux's compatibility, or Windows' stability, and none of these are design issues, they are more technical limitations. No linux contributor sat down and said "Screw making drivers for XYZ" (in fact, quite the opposite, they've done a remarkable job reverse engineering and coding-from-scratch for difficult hardware), nor did anyone in Microsoft management say "I don't care about stability, just get the OS out the door". You could argue that linux is like that because of their distaste for closed-source drivers (a design choice), or Microsoft is like that because of all the backwards compatibility (another design choice), or Mac hardware is expensive but at the end of the day it's not impossible to make an OS which is stable/compatible or compatible/open, just very difficult.
>> Who uses 32-bits anymore
Windows has 90% (give or take 5%) of the desktop market. Only a small percentage of Windows users have upgraded to Vista, and only about half of THOSE are using the 64 bit version. So to answer your question, very few.
(Although it's hard to say for 2009, since I can't read the future:P)
Whilst I'd be opposed to such an idea being put into practice, why doesn't comcast request that legitimate torrent/tracker sites register with them in exchange for guaranteed non-filtering (similar to proposals against Net Neutrality)? It'd make comcast happy, since they're able to reduce the amount of traffic on their network and say that they provide options for legal P2P. I know that it would likely result in
1) Comcast charging for the privilege
2) Outcry from legitimate sites
3) Losing paying customers who pirate
Digital actually gives you more choice if you're savvy - you can jam that DVD in your computer (something that's possible, but difficult to do with VHS), and most decent DVD playing programs let you open a specific VTS/PGC (ironically, the only people who don't have to see those anti-pirate message films are pirates who are ripping the movie). Similarly, digital TV broadcast is just as easy to get into your computer as analogue (just a different capture card). Given that VHS tapes were starting to come with 10 minutes of ads on the beginning (that's about 1-2 minutes in fast forward mode, as you have to sit there and watch it), I don't think that putting it in your computer takes as much time/effort.
>> They want to know what you watch and when you watch it.
So, like a Nielsen box then?
>> They want you to buy new TVs.
Given that the upgrade cycle for connections (ie, Belling-Lee->RCA->SVideo->Component->HDMI->???) has been going on for a lot longer than digital TV tech, and has converters available (just like digital TV does), I don't think it's fair to blame digital for inciting this upgrade-or-die mentality. The only thing you could say is that the connectors have offered (limited) backwards compatibility, which really isn't feasible with digital TV.
>> And in the case of photo cameras, quality
Just like film-based cameras, quality is all about how much you're willing to spend. A cheapo digital camera is only going to be bad in a DIFFERENT way to a cheapo 35mm. The price difference is only because digital is a much newer tech (compare a high quality CRT to a high quality LCD in price).
>> I can't watch multiple channels at the same time in case two or more happen to show something I want to see
You can watch multiple channels if your TV has PiP - which is available via DVRs and many new DVD players.
>> They want to be able to cut off your signal when they feel like it.
Why is this possible with digital and not analogue?
Probably the only regrettable thing about the switch from VHS to DVD was the loss of ease of recording, but that is starting to come back with DVRs (which are even more convenient than VHS, as they offer things like timeshifting of live TV and some offer a DECENT scheduled recording menu).
China are NOT against crippling their own economy to ruin the US's (if they wanted the fight) - just look at their current tactic of debasing other industrial interests by underselling them (at cost to their own people/economy). If they wanted conflict with the US, dumping the US dollar would be similar to mutually-assured-destruction, only China would still be able to manage with their (as you mentioned) industrial strength. They wouldn't even have to deploy their (massive) army - they could save the army to fight any groups/nations which retaliate for America's downfall. Perhaps the only thing stopping them is the threat of the US just flipping out and starting an all-out nuclear war (which they cannot defend against, but if they really wanted a fight they may just build a decent anti-ballistic shield).
>> That's where you're spot on though. All these fools who don't see how overextending ourselves in two expensive and unwinnable (militarily) conflicts isn't eroding our national security need to get off fox news and go read some history. Islamofascism (whatever that is) might be a threat, but hardly on the scale of cold-war USSR, modern-day china, north korea... or more importantly our domestic education, health-care, social security, and sundry economic problems, to say nothing of global climate change, which threatens to be a bigger threat than all of the above.
Not to be the annoying tourist who comes to a country and complains about it, but most (if not all) of the world have been seeing that for a while - (believe it or not) there is a widespread belief that America's aggressive foreign policy (bombing small European countries in the mid-90s etc.) greatly contributed to 9/11, and that recent foreign wars are (partly) a distraction provided to Americans for the dangerous political, social, (and now) economic problems within the country.
It's google VIDEO, not google SEARCH ENGINE. They are actively serving the files, not just indexing them.
Come to think of it, why aren't they making a furore over youtube piracy? (From my experience) you can watch tonnes of copyrighted videos on youtube (albeit in sections only), and iirc google bought youtube. Can someone explain the difference between youtube piracy and google video piracy?
That's both crappy and stupid of them to do. Generally, most "pirates" are just people who are willing to cross into the legally grey zone of copying vs re-encoding if "no harm" was done (what's the harm in copying a dvd in one way which does work, if it's legal to do it another way which doesn't but which has the same end result?)
This also means that when people DO shrink the file, it is that much easier if they want to share the video over the internet/"schoolyard trading". It doesn't necessarily result in a loss of quality (MPEG2 is not exactly the most compressible codec compared to DivX/Xvid/other commonly playable files), so quality degradation is a non-issue.
In fact, the only thing "lost" is the menu (which is often not lost depending on encoding method, and if it is it can be easily appended to the new file, assuming that it was worth keeping - it rarely is). This is a good trade for more videos on the one disc imho. It also means that the annoying trailers can be removed (fortunately, they're stored in a separate PGC); all bad things for dvd producers.
I'd be willing to bet that the dvd shrinking process would be less developed/prevalent/user-friendly if they allowed bit-for-bit copying of the DVDs (which would benefit the dvd manufacturers, since people would buy more discs); all because people reason that it's OK to do something which is "the same" as something legal, and demand/supply took over.
To play devil's advocate (it's scary how appropriate "devil" is here) for a moment, GP might have meant "day 1 of diary entries.
Having said that, it's just ridiculous (and incredibly dubious/propaganda-erific) to try and ascribe self-awareness qualities to something that couldn't possibly be self aware. Also, it seems to me that the amount of effort/money/etc going into anti-abortion advertising could be better spent curing diseases, and you'd likely break even (depending on what disease you solve)... OOPS, LOOKS LIKE YOU ANTI-ABORTION NUTCASES CARE MORE ABOUT CONTROLLING PEOPLE THAN SAVING LIVES!
I think the easiest way to measure "randomness" is to (whilst keeping the environment the same) generate a massive number of "random" numbers, and check the number of occurrences of values to their expected number of occurrences. Probability would dictate that a true random number generator would return values to within a tiny margin of what would be expected. The "unit" would probably be "standard deviations" (ie, the bad random number generator has a bias for $SOME_VALUE of 2 standard deviations)
MODERATORS MOD THIS GUY UP - if I had any meta mod points they'd all go to you.
Up until about 12 years old, I was horribly confused as to how on earth millions of people ended up actually meeting, loving, and BEING LOVED IN RETURN by "Mr/Mrs Right". These (disney/romantic/etc) movies had misled me so much that I literally thought that there was only one person you would ever actually possibly fall in love with. I thought it ridiculously improbable that they would also fall in love with you in return (seemed to be more likely that their "one" person could be a different, third person, and the third persons' "one" could be a fourth, etc etc). As in porn, there was no realistic alternate view offered, but unlike porn, these movies were not presented as blatantly 'fantastic'.
>>In short, by taking the $20, you're helping them learn what they suck at so they can choose another job
You can't be serious! That's about as logical as saying "Well I feel justified to steal a car that isn't locked, because I'm teaching them to lock their car" or "It's ok to steal someone's dog, because it followed me home and they didn't weld the collar onto the dog and implant a tracking chip". What if said cashier is a wonderful people-person (or otherwise not deserving of being fired), but having a bad day, or not mathematically/fiscally minded, or some other mitigating factor? They could easily be replaced by someone worse, that's not giving customers "a better service". It's not doing them a favour either, because they won't get re-employed as a cashier (or any other job where they have to deal with something worth money, ie, any job) with that record.
For someone who can't understand a simple argument like, "Stop being a self-centered douchebag and start helping people so that they don't suffer needlessly for one small mistake", you sure are a self righteous bastard.
>>And why won't Reiser talk about the car seat?
It sounds like he was really excited about an idea he had about his file system - he probably had A LOT of thinking time in prison, and hit onto a great idea or concept that he had to share with someone who wouldn't beat him up for prattling on about data structures. Whenever I think I have a good idea, it's really difficult to shut me up or get me talking about something different, and this would only be excacerbated if he were mildly autistic (which an earlier post suggested).
>>don't think that us slashdot nerds are the right people to be evaluating the pros & cons.
Don't you know? EVERY slashdotter is the FOREMOST expert on ANY field! I know I am!
>>Ok, mod me down for this if you will, but why not just vote with your feet and go to a different ISP?
Not always feasible - for one thing, many many areas have a limited number of ISPs available in their area - some rural regions may only have access to one broadband provider. Also, big companies only understand one type of complaint, and that's litigious type of complaint. If everyone moves to the only other ISP in town, this *other* ISP will destroy the first, and then immediately start putting ads right in content, now that the first ISP can't stop it. Thirdly, nearly every ISP (can anyone name an exception?) locks you into an xyz-month contract, which costs you an arm and a leg to get out of. If you're locked into this contract (which likely allows for this kind of thing, it'd be too massive an oversight of theirs to make), then there's very little you can do that won't result in them getting large gobs of cash, EXCEPT sueing the pants off them (or at least making them pay through the nose to defend from a class action suit). I'm against the ridiculously amount of litigation in modern society too, but sometimes it's best to fight fire with fire.
The problem with all these incidences of people spying on their children to replace good parenting is that it is the symptoms, not the cause of the problem. Imagine what the childs' conception of acceptable adult behaviour will be when the message they have been given is that "privacy is not as important as convenience". No-one is saying it's easy to be a parent, but taking shortcuts at the expense of something they themselves would not consent to forego is hypocritical at best. The "argument" that it's acceptable to restrict childrens' freedoms for their safety would technically justify locking a child in a cage (no harm could possibly come to them this way), something which is clearly incorrect.
I'm glad to hear about initiatives like this; hopefully the parent filling out all these proofs to prove they are who they say they are will realise what a burden it is to have to go through these things.
This is a particular problem in Australia, where no *truly* unlimited consumer internet plan exists. All of the plans that advertise themselves as "unlimited" will actually cap you after xGBs (although I've seen this go as high as 120gb, which isn't exactly something you'd have to work to ration). The reason for this is that the main telecom provider (Telstra) does not sell bandwidth to it's competitors; it rents it (the other ISPs cannot possibly provide unlimited internet at a reasonable price and stay afloat), and Telstra cannot itself offer truly unlimited broadband (same reason, plus it would be held up on anti-competitive charges). Although as far as I'm aware, no ISP here shapes p2p bandwidth (although some ISPs count uploading towards the usage limit/severely restrict the upload speeds to ridiculously slow rates compared with the download speeds, in part to combat p2p).
An interesting side-note; Telstra were moderately recently held up on false advertising charges for using the word "unlimited" to describe their capped service. They have now changed the name to "Liberty".
Slashdot Mirror
Yes.,
/WHOIS nuzak
They can't tax the internet - that's double dipping! Isn't porn ALREADY taxed?
I think the easiest way to measure "randomness" is to (whilst keeping the environment the same) generate a massive number of "random" numbers, and check the number of occurrences of values to their expected number of occurrences. Probability would dictate that a true random number generator would return values to within a tiny margin of what would be expected. The "unit" would probably be "standard deviations" (ie, the bad random number generator has a bias for $SOME_VALUE of 2 standard deviations)