I guess you don't complain about badly planned roads or government services then. After all, it takes a lot of information to get these things right - without the census how is anyone going to know how to find the best location for new high schools or the best transport option for a town?
I admit having a fine for not filling in this info is ridiculous, but is avoiding the risk of someone sending you junk mail worth the extra cost of bad government planning? You may also think some of the questions are too nosey and perhaps they are for you. However, some areas may appreciate having translated materials at the local government offices in the native languages of local populations.
I can see the justification for the paranoia of some US citizens against their government. However, censuses (censii?) do have a worthwhile purpose and you may be disadvantaging your community by not participating.
I suspect it is also justified as a test case. These cable could be much more useful for long distance, large-scale power transfers. For example, in Calif. at the moment, they are going to have to import power from other states, but this is wasteful because of the transmission distance.
Things will be easier if we don't have to produce power close to where it is consumed. This isn't just a case of moving pollution to someone else's back yard - the "power loss" due to having to transport fuel counts for a lot too.
I know here in Australia they have at least 2 long distance DC links due to the lower losses. Superconductiong cables would be wothwhile in this case due to huge power savings. As for maintenance, the main problem with ordinary cables is overheating when they are heavily loaded, the problems of SC cable will be totally different, and I think it's a bit premature to speculate on them. Obviously the SC cable will cost more in general but we're talking about a lot of power savings (and with the price increasing).
I think the complaints are about the realism of the violence, not the amount of violence. In "anime-style" cartoons someone is more likely to be actually dazed, bleeding or injured from being punched, stabbed or shot.
Personally, I think this is good. Most kids seem to think that violence is fun, I've known more than one who has been injured because his friend thought playing fights would be fun. If violence is portrayed, it's effect should also be portrayed.
BTW, the other main point the author missed was that most Japanese anime is not meant for young children - there is some such as Doraemon (sp?), which are less violent.
I'd just like to point out that currently PV cells take more energy to produce than they generate over their lifetime. This makes any use of solar cells futile until a better method is found - the only current uses are heavily subsidised, or where it's difficult to transport power.
Really, how would you feel about all the refugees from coastal areas turning up on your door step? That lake's going to be pretty crowded when half the population of New York decides to move to Minnesota.
I don't think this is valid. Why would advertisers what people who don't want to see their ads to see their ads? They aren't going to buy anything anyway.
What's the difference between a viewer who ignores ads and a viewer who blocks the ad and doesn't see it? Nothing - in both cases there is no click-through, no payment, no purchase.
Not a huge deal fiscally, but this is one of the areas where Linux is probably going to grow the most - hence companies like Lineo and others like them.
Actually, I think this is a big deal for RH. Maybe this contract isn't a lot of money, but any contract for the DoD looks pretty good on a company's books - they are very demanding in their specifications and getting the project right.
For a service-based company (which RH is really) it's very important to show you can satisfy demanding customers like this. I'm sure other companies who think Linux isn't useful or reliable in the real world will think twice when they hear the DoD is using it.
So, well done RedHat! Regardless of what anyone thinks of the moral issues, this is a very good indicator for OSS companies.
90% of all statistics are made up. I doubt anything will change in this area for a long time. The real reason software is so arcane is that software companies make it that way to try to enforce their proprietary standard, or just to add an extra buzzword to their marketing crap. Add this to the "need" to support protocols and applications all the way back to the stone age and your software's complexity can only move in 1 direction.
Of course, much OSS is far simpler by comparison, but because it doesn't have a nice GUI and an ad in a magazine, regular users think it's impossible unless you're a computer freak. I've lost count of the number of times I've tried to explain how I did something and got the response "Urgh, I don't use command lines". Not that they're any good with their fancy windows software - reading user manuals and computer books seems to be another lost art.
Not that I'm complaining - the worse the software is, the more I am appreciated. Crap software - where would we all be without it?
In short, you're used to Windows and you want something to work like it. Maybe you should use Windows. All of the things you mention stem from Linux's strengths. For example, you have a choice of Gnome and or KDE desktops, applications and various window managers. You have to choose which to use and configure them, how could you expect this to be as easy as Windows where you have 1 configuration and you can't really change it anyway?
As for third party tools - the ones I use under Linux as good or better than their windows equivalents. The difference is that when a Linux application crashes it doesn't screw the whole system like in windows 98.
If you just want to use Gnome and the default RH7 install you don't have to configure anything on the command line(don't know about NICs). I don't see how can complain that it's difficult to do neat stuff with Linux when you can't do it under windows anyway.
You know they'd just pay their accountants in stock options:-)
What bothers me is, if these companies paid no tax that should mean they effectively made no income last year. So what is keeping their value up? There has to be a missing piece somewhere.
First of all, what is the need of settling Mars, if not to satisfy the ego of 21st century manifest destiny?
I doubt they're too concerned about colonizing yet. There are considerable benefits, however, in simply visiting mars.
The main one is for scientific knowledge - we have never even brought anything back from mars, no lab has ever had a sample of martian soil to analyse. Being able to examine another planet's geology and atmosphere in detail will be extremely rewarding. Not to mention the possiblity of life, even if only long-dead bacteria.
Another big reason is industry - what if huge deposits of valuable minerals were found? It could become worth it to actually travel there.
And lastly, all the things which get to be "first... on mars!" OK, pretty trivial, but the first movie made on mars could be good.
As for the earth's current problems - I believe all the technical solutions necessary are already here. The problems are political, economic and social and thus beyond the capability of any scientist to fix.
And now, curtesy of slashdot, they also get a simulated attack on their internet connection.
(Apparently this was a problem with MIR and some shuttle missions - their communications getting DOSed at a critical point. Luckily NASA are good at building redundant systems)
If I hadn't already commented I would mod this up.
The real problem most producers (not distributors who call themselves producers) have with unlimited copying is not losing imaginary revenue, but people taking credit for other people's work.
If I release a piece of software, people are going to pirate it (unless it's GPLed), but I am going to receive the market value from my work. That is, assuming I price it reasonably, I am going to get back money according to what the piece of software is worth.
The same goes for music - if it's catchy people will pay for the MP3, if it's good enough, some people will buy the CD.
The problem is with people taking credit for other's work (something which record companies have been known for). If someone sells my MP3s in another country it _is_ ripping me off, because they should be buying it from me (they can probably get a better deal from the source, but they won't know that), or getting it from a friend, not paying some dude for it and thinking they are supporting the artist.
Can SDMI do something about this? Probably not, as it's designed for big distributors.
What I'd like to see is a reference in MP3s - a URL for the producer of the MP3 which is difficult to tamper with. Then whoever gets the MP3 can visit the artist's site, check out the music, maybe buy a CD and find out if they got ripped off.
<RANT>
This is the problem I have with napster, gnutella et. al. - I have got songs on my HD that have no ID3 tags - I don't even know who the artist is. Even if I like it, I'm not going to buy the CD because it's inconvenient. I can look for more "free" music, but actually compensating the artist is difficult.
Put references in and artists (maybe not record comapnies) will flock to digital music. Artists need attention - if their website is only a few clicks away who's not going to visit it if they like a song?
And, btw, I'm not talking about animated ads and annoying soundbytes every time you want to play an MP3 - a simple "go to website" button on the MP3 player is all it would take.
It sounds to me like SDMI devices will reject anything that is not authenticated. So you're MP3 player will no longer play ordinary MP3 files - just stuff you've downloaded securely using the authenticating downloader program. Furthermore, he implied that the devices would at first be fine, but that a trigger would make them stop accepting non-validated files:
If it says phase two has started, then a trigger piece of software tells the user that they need an upgrade. This upgrade implements the phase two screening technology, which looks for misappropriated content and then blocks it from being transferred, or just decides the content isn't misappropriated and lets it through.
I certainly will be asking for my money back if I buy a player which suddenly decides it won't play ordinary MP3s
The big joke is, apparently SDMI is going to be an open standard. If this is true, what the hell prevents me from writing a client which doesn't obey their security protocol? It will certainly make identifying the watermarks pretty easy. And you can bet that Linux support is going to be a problem (specifically because it is easier to reverse-engineer programs).
All i can say is, watch your back guys! You're going to be up against just about every hacker in the world. And good luck getting the system adopted if it even looks like being slightly inconvenient to consumers or able to be hacked.
I'm convinced the only answer for music companies is cheaper, more convenient things like mp3.com and emusic. The sooner the old RIAA dinosaurs are dead the better.
I have to agree that this phenomena is pretty disgusting. But I would argue that the RIAA and its ilk brought it upon themselves.
What do most people do each day? They watch TV, with ads promising them unrealistic dreams for little or no expense and shows about perfect places full of attractive, interestng people. They listen to radio full of meaningless, happy songs and generally try to ignore any serious problems. They eat at fast food joints or buy pre-made meals because it's convenient and they don't have to think about what they're doing. they have companies and governments which promise them that the roads will be safe and their children are protected from pornography. Don't even get me started on schools.
I'm not going to pretend that there was a time when everyone was actively involved in the government and made all their decisions ethically and rationally, but consumerism is a relatively new phenomena. 12th Century peasants may not have had a voice in government, but they weren't told they would be fine if they just bought the right brand of toothpaste.
The corporations came up with all this stuff. They're the reason people are so apathetic and unrealistic in their expectations. Perhaps you should ask yourself why most people never create anything of value. It's becuase it's easier to sit in front of the TV, turn on your Brittney Spears CD and whack off to your favourite porn site.
Of course, some people have been creating their own work independantly. But what are all the independant artists, writers, programmers etc. supposed to do if ways of distributing their efforts are illegal, controlled by powerful corporations or ineffective?
What really shits me is the huge ineffeciency all this bullshit has given us. how much money has been spent on marketing crappy music, encrypting DVDs and defending them legally, etc. while the cost is passed directly on to the consumer. Tried to buy a recent Anime DVD in Australia recently - well you can't because they aren't released, and you can't play an American DVD either. Wnat to record your own music? No problem, but the RIAA still rips you off via the taxes on blank media and recording devices. Want to make a better piece of software? Better make sure it doesn't violate any of the thousands of patents held by Microsoft, IBM, etc.
If the "entitlement generation" are sickening, you represent an equally obnoxious group - the "materialist generation". It seems to be a common opinion that a person's worth is proportional to their salary or the value of their house. It's a good thing past generations had some common sense in setting up democratic societies.
Healthy: maybe, but I think this is less a product of genetics and more a product of pizza, fast food, sugary diets, lack of exercise, etc. Besides, the germs seem to be able to keep up with medical technology fairly well, genetic tech shouldn't be much different. No to this one.
Cheerful: have you ever been depressed, or just a bit sad? There are many things which can help, but one thing really makes it worse - being around those happy shiny people. Definite no to this one.
Smart: I like smart people, but I find stupid people vastly amusing. No.
Attractive: sure, it'd be nice, but me and my kids would never be up to their standard. No.
I hate streaming media, being in Australia I usually can't get more than 2 megs without the connection stalling.
You can try putting the url into a download program (I use pavuk), or make an HTML file with a link directly to it and right click to download it. This is prevented on some sites by javascript and referencing scripts.
By the way, on the off-chance that the data says the equivalent of 'For The Love Of God, Stop Using This Device, We're Surprised You're Not Dead Yet,' does anyone think that people would stop using them?
Actually, this won't happen because these numbers won't mean shit to people.
"Buy our phone, it only has an SAR of 11.53, the competitor's phone is at 12.92 - it'll give you cancer 14% faster!"
We won't know whether the phones are actually killing us until the following has happened:
The media reports that the SAR numbers mean that mobile phones "could be harmful".
The phone companies produce research from the 1950s showing that the levels of radiation are "not significant", and says they comply with regulations.
A group called "Citizens Rejecting Annoying Phones" is formed which protests outside Motorola's headquaters and lobbies for the banning of anything which looks like a mobile phone.
A researcher in Belgium produces research which shows an 3.4% increase in Leukemia among mobile phone users. CRAP immediately claim this is ground for banning mobile phones.
The mobile phone companies claim the results of the Belgian study are inconclusive and fund their own study which shows that mobile phone users are healthier and more virile on average. this study is ridiculed by the media.
The US government spends a huge amount of money on a study of millions of mobile phone users over 25 years, covering all cultural and socio-economic groups. this study is totally inconclusive.
25 years later, the brain tumor rate has risen to 10 times its previous rate. No-one is able to prove any link to mobile phones because there are now 300 wireless devices for evey person on the planet.
I work for an electricity distributor, and we used to have a lot of complaints from people about the "radiation" from power lines. This was, of course, due to media attention and it seemed no amount of scientific facts can appease them once it's been mentioned on the nightly news. However, as the most recent such report was a few years ago most people don't actually bring it up anymore.
The funny thing is, the same people who are concerned about power lines and mobile phones have no qualms about sitting in front of a TV or computer for hours each day being bombarded with X-rays, or being subjected to large EM fields by electric blankets, hair dryers, etc. They just saw some reporter claiming an small, unsupported study found an extremely weak link between power lines and some disease.
Unlike power lines, mobile phones may actually damage cells due to the high frequencies used, but I doubt it will be significant. I predict the media will have a field day, a couple of groups of "concerned citizens" will call for a ban and mobile phone companies will have a new number to differentiate their products with. The funniest thing will be seeing whether lower radiation phones give poorer reception. In a few years the media will have a new bogie man and no-one will care less.
If any harmful effects do exists, they will only show up as statistical deviations in cancer rates many years hence. This will be explained by the medical community as "possibly due to mobile phone usage, but could have many other causes."
And another thing... I'm Canadian, but I use a U.S. ISP (@Home). If I link to, say, a site in the Netherlands about this stuff on my webspace (residing on their servers), am I going to get my account terminated?:^P
Almost definately. Try linking to a search engine page which gives the site as the first response. That should confuse 'em.
The other question is: what about Americans who put up web pages in other countries? The might not be able to get a page hosted in Kazakhstan taken down, but is it still illegal?
For reference, a porn sites in Australia have done this - even keeping their.au domain. People have complained, but the ABA has said that they are complying with the law and there's nothing they can do about it.
There was a story shomewhere about a firewall that could do it by filtering the packets, but it may not really be feasible. But then gnutella would have to encrypt it's connections and pretend to be ssh or something.
The point I was trying to make is that if anything, Gnutella is easier to attack than Napster, just not by litigation. And I wouldn't put it past the RIAA to at least sponsor smapping or monitoring.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess you don't complain about badly planned roads or government services then. After all, it takes a lot of information to get these things right - without the census how is anyone going to know how to find the best location for new high schools or the best transport option for a town?
I admit having a fine for not filling in this info is ridiculous, but is avoiding the risk of someone sending you junk mail worth the extra cost of bad government planning? You may also think some of the questions are too nosey and perhaps they are for you. However, some areas may appreciate having translated materials at the local government offices in the native languages of local populations.
I can see the justification for the paranoia of some US citizens against their government. However, censuses (censii?) do have a worthwhile purpose and you may be disadvantaging your community by not participating.
Actually, according to the second law of thermodynamics, everyone loses - eventually :-)
I suspect it is also justified as a test case. These cable could be much more useful for long distance, large-scale power transfers. For example, in Calif. at the moment, they are going to have to import power from other states, but this is wasteful because of the transmission distance.
Things will be easier if we don't have to produce power close to where it is consumed. This isn't just a case of moving pollution to someone else's back yard - the "power loss" due to having to transport fuel counts for a lot too.
I know here in Australia they have at least 2 long distance DC links due to the lower losses. Superconductiong cables would be wothwhile in this case due to huge power savings. As for maintenance, the main problem with ordinary cables is overheating when they are heavily loaded, the problems of SC cable will be totally different, and I think it's a bit premature to speculate on them. Obviously the SC cable will cost more in general but we're talking about a lot of power savings (and with the price increasing).
I think the complaints are about the realism of the violence, not the amount of violence. In "anime-style" cartoons someone is more likely to be actually dazed, bleeding or injured from being punched, stabbed or shot.
Personally, I think this is good. Most kids seem to think that violence is fun, I've known more than one who has been injured because his friend thought playing fights would be fun. If violence is portrayed, it's effect should also be portrayed.
BTW, the other main point the author missed was that most Japanese anime is not meant for young children - there is some such as Doraemon (sp?), which are less violent.
I'd just like to point out that currently PV cells take more energy to produce than they generate over their lifetime. This makes any use of solar cells futile until a better method is found - the only current uses are heavily subsidised, or where it's difficult to transport power.
Really, how would you feel about all the refugees from coastal areas turning up on your door step? That lake's going to be pretty crowded when half the population of New York decides to move to Minnesota.
I don't think this is valid. Why would advertisers what people who don't want to see their ads to see their ads? They aren't going to buy anything anyway.
What's the difference between a viewer who ignores ads and a viewer who blocks the ad and doesn't see it? Nothing - in both cases there is no click-through, no payment, no purchase.
Actually, I think this is a big deal for RH. Maybe this contract isn't a lot of money, but any contract for the DoD looks pretty good on a company's books - they are very demanding in their specifications and getting the project right.
For a service-based company (which RH is really) it's very important to show you can satisfy demanding customers like this. I'm sure other companies who think Linux isn't useful or reliable in the real world will think twice when they hear the DoD is using it.
So, well done RedHat! Regardless of what anyone thinks of the moral issues, this is a very good indicator for OSS companies.
90% of all statistics are made up. I doubt anything will change in this area for a long time. The real reason software is so arcane is that software companies make it that way to try to enforce their proprietary standard, or just to add an extra buzzword to their marketing crap. Add this to the "need" to support protocols and applications all the way back to the stone age and your software's complexity can only move in 1 direction.
Of course, much OSS is far simpler by comparison, but because it doesn't have a nice GUI and an ad in a magazine, regular users think it's impossible unless you're a computer freak. I've lost count of the number of times I've tried to explain how I did something and got the response "Urgh, I don't use command lines". Not that they're any good with their fancy windows software - reading user manuals and computer books seems to be another lost art.
Not that I'm complaining - the worse the software is, the more I am appreciated. Crap software - where would we all be without it?
In short, you're used to Windows and you want something to work like it. Maybe you should use Windows. All of the things you mention stem from Linux's strengths. For example, you have a choice of Gnome and or KDE desktops, applications and various window managers. You have to choose which to use and configure them, how could you expect this to be as easy as Windows where you have 1 configuration and you can't really change it anyway?
As for third party tools - the ones I use under Linux as good or better than their windows equivalents. The difference is that when a Linux application crashes it doesn't screw the whole system like in windows 98.
If you just want to use Gnome and the default RH7 install you don't have to configure anything on the command line(don't know about NICs). I don't see how can complain that it's difficult to do neat stuff with Linux when you can't do it under windows anyway.
You know they'd just pay their accountants in stock options :-)
What bothers me is, if these companies paid no tax that should mean they effectively made no income last year. So what is keeping their value up? There has to be a missing piece somewhere.
I doubt they're too concerned about colonizing yet. There are considerable benefits, however, in simply visiting mars.
The main one is for scientific knowledge - we have never even brought anything back from mars, no lab has ever had a sample of martian soil to analyse. Being able to examine another planet's geology and atmosphere in detail will be extremely rewarding. Not to mention the possiblity of life, even if only long-dead bacteria.
Another big reason is industry - what if huge deposits of valuable minerals were found? It could become worth it to actually travel there.
And lastly, all the things which get to be "first ... on mars!" OK, pretty trivial, but the first movie made on mars could be good.
As for the earth's current problems - I believe all the technical solutions necessary are already here. The problems are political, economic and social and thus beyond the capability of any scientist to fix.
And now, curtesy of slashdot, they also get a simulated attack on their internet connection.
(Apparently this was a problem with MIR and some shuttle missions - their communications getting DOSed at a critical point. Luckily NASA are good at building redundant systems)
If I hadn't already commented I would mod this up.
The real problem most producers (not distributors who call themselves producers) have with unlimited copying is not losing imaginary revenue, but people taking credit for other people's work.
If I release a piece of software, people are going to pirate it (unless it's GPLed), but I am going to receive the market value from my work. That is, assuming I price it reasonably, I am going to get back money according to what the piece of software is worth.
The same goes for music - if it's catchy people will pay for the MP3, if it's good enough, some people will buy the CD.
The problem is with people taking credit for other's work (something which record companies have been known for). If someone sells my MP3s in another country it _is_ ripping me off, because they should be buying it from me (they can probably get a better deal from the source, but they won't know that), or getting it from a friend, not paying some dude for it and thinking they are supporting the artist.
Can SDMI do something about this? Probably not, as it's designed for big distributors.
What I'd like to see is a reference in MP3s - a URL for the producer of the MP3 which is difficult to tamper with. Then whoever gets the MP3 can visit the artist's site, check out the music, maybe buy a CD and find out if they got ripped off.
<RANT>This is the problem I have with napster, gnutella et. al. - I have got songs on my HD that have no ID3 tags - I don't even know who the artist is. Even if I like it, I'm not going to buy the CD because it's inconvenient. I can look for more "free" music, but actually compensating the artist is difficult.
Put references in and artists (maybe not record comapnies) will flock to digital music. Artists need attention - if their website is only a few clicks away who's not going to visit it if they like a song?
And, btw, I'm not talking about animated ads and annoying soundbytes every time you want to play an MP3 - a simple "go to website" button on the MP3 player is all it would take.
</RANT>It sounds to me like SDMI devices will reject anything that is not authenticated. So you're MP3 player will no longer play ordinary MP3 files - just stuff you've downloaded securely using the authenticating downloader program. Furthermore, he implied that the devices would at first be fine, but that a trigger would make them stop accepting non-validated files:
I certainly will be asking for my money back if I buy a player which suddenly decides it won't play ordinary MP3s
The big joke is, apparently SDMI is going to be an open standard. If this is true, what the hell prevents me from writing a client which doesn't obey their security protocol? It will certainly make identifying the watermarks pretty easy. And you can bet that Linux support is going to be a problem (specifically because it is easier to reverse-engineer programs).
All i can say is, watch your back guys! You're going to be up against just about every hacker in the world. And good luck getting the system adopted if it even looks like being slightly inconvenient to consumers or able to be hacked.
I'm convinced the only answer for music companies is cheaper, more convenient things like mp3.com and emusic. The sooner the old RIAA dinosaurs are dead the better.
I have to agree that this phenomena is pretty disgusting. But I would argue that the RIAA and its ilk brought it upon themselves.
What do most people do each day? They watch TV, with ads promising them unrealistic dreams for little or no expense and shows about perfect places full of attractive, interestng people. They listen to radio full of meaningless, happy songs and generally try to ignore any serious problems. They eat at fast food joints or buy pre-made meals because it's convenient and they don't have to think about what they're doing. they have companies and governments which promise them that the roads will be safe and their children are protected from pornography. Don't even get me started on schools.
I'm not going to pretend that there was a time when everyone was actively involved in the government and made all their decisions ethically and rationally, but consumerism is a relatively new phenomena. 12th Century peasants may not have had a voice in government, but they weren't told they would be fine if they just bought the right brand of toothpaste.
The corporations came up with all this stuff. They're the reason people are so apathetic and unrealistic in their expectations. Perhaps you should ask yourself why most people never create anything of value. It's becuase it's easier to sit in front of the TV, turn on your Brittney Spears CD and whack off to your favourite porn site.
Of course, some people have been creating their own work independantly. But what are all the independant artists, writers, programmers etc. supposed to do if ways of distributing their efforts are illegal, controlled by powerful corporations or ineffective?
What really shits me is the huge ineffeciency all this bullshit has given us. how much money has been spent on marketing crappy music, encrypting DVDs and defending them legally, etc. while the cost is passed directly on to the consumer. Tried to buy a recent Anime DVD in Australia recently - well you can't because they aren't released, and you can't play an American DVD either. Wnat to record your own music? No problem, but the RIAA still rips you off via the taxes on blank media and recording devices. Want to make a better piece of software? Better make sure it doesn't violate any of the thousands of patents held by Microsoft, IBM, etc.
If the "entitlement generation" are sickening, you represent an equally obnoxious group - the "materialist generation". It seems to be a common opinion that a person's worth is proportional to their salary or the value of their house. It's a good thing past generations had some common sense in setting up democratic societies.
Push the eject button while they're not looking.
ls: command not foundHealthy: maybe, but I think this is less a product of genetics and more a product of pizza, fast food, sugary diets, lack of exercise, etc. Besides, the germs seem to be able to keep up with medical technology fairly well, genetic tech shouldn't be much different. No to this one.
Cheerful: have you ever been depressed, or just a bit sad? There are many things which can help, but one thing really makes it worse - being around those happy shiny people. Definite no to this one.
Smart: I like smart people, but I find stupid people vastly amusing. No.
Attractive: sure, it'd be nice, but me and my kids would never be up to their standard. No.
I hate streaming media, being in Australia I usually can't get more than 2 megs without the connection stalling.
You can try putting the url into a download program (I use pavuk), or make an HTML file with a link directly to it and right click to download it. This is prevented on some sites by javascript and referencing scripts.
Actually, this won't happen because these numbers won't mean shit to people.
"Buy our phone, it only has an SAR of 11.53, the competitor's phone is at 12.92 - it'll give you cancer 14% faster!"
We won't know whether the phones are actually killing us until the following has happened:
I work for an electricity distributor, and we used to have a lot of complaints from people about the "radiation" from power lines. This was, of course, due to media attention and it seemed no amount of scientific facts can appease them once it's been mentioned on the nightly news. However, as the most recent such report was a few years ago most people don't actually bring it up anymore.
The funny thing is, the same people who are concerned about power lines and mobile phones have no qualms about sitting in front of a TV or computer for hours each day being bombarded with X-rays, or being subjected to large EM fields by electric blankets, hair dryers, etc. They just saw some reporter claiming an small, unsupported study found an extremely weak link between power lines and some disease.
Unlike power lines, mobile phones may actually damage cells due to the high frequencies used, but I doubt it will be significant. I predict the media will have a field day, a couple of groups of "concerned citizens" will call for a ban and mobile phone companies will have a new number to differentiate their products with. The funniest thing will be seeing whether lower radiation phones give poorer reception. In a few years the media will have a new bogie man and no-one will care less.
If any harmful effects do exists, they will only show up as statistical deviations in cancer rates many years hence. This will be explained by the medical community as "possibly due to mobile phone usage, but could have many other causes."
It's a cruel world.
Um... I don't suppose you could tell me where you heard this one?
Why bother - the 7kg of Plutonium (and daughter isotoptes) should kill anything that gets too close anyway.
Almost definately. Try linking to a search engine page which gives the site as the first response. That should confuse 'em.
The other question is: what about Americans who put up web pages in other countries? The might not be able to get a page hosted in Kazakhstan taken down, but is it still illegal?
For reference, a porn sites in Australia have done this - even keeping their .au domain. People have complained, but the ABA has said that they are complying with the law and there's nothing they can do about it.
There was a story shomewhere about a firewall that could do it by filtering the packets, but it may not really be feasible. But then gnutella would have to encrypt it's connections and pretend to be ssh or something.
The point I was trying to make is that if anything, Gnutella is easier to attack than Napster, just not by litigation. And I wouldn't put it past the RIAA to at least sponsor smapping or monitoring.