I've learned that to calligraph well (at least before you've absorbed it better than I have?;)), you need to think of it as DRAWING letters (and the spaces between), rather than WRITING letters. Changing that mindset has helped me immensely when doing calligraphy. (I suspect that if I were a professional calligrapher, I'd be able to do things faster and not need to think of it as "drawing" as much.)
Ironically, my handwriting is absolute crap, but when I toggle the brain switch to calligraphy mode, it improves dramatically. The speed is cut by probably an order of magnitude, though. People that have seen my calligraphy (which, admittedly, is only amateur) are shocked, shocked to see how bad my handwriting is.
If anyone's interested in learning calligraphy, I highly recommend Mark Drogin's Medieval Calligraphy. It spends a lot of time about the history of various hands (what one might call "fonts" now), and the way they developed. If you're at all a history geek, you might love it. I know that I found it much more enjoyable than I thought I would.
Make sure that you use a dip pen, rather than one of the cartridge ones. It's a pain in the ass to re-dip every few letters, but you get a more intimate feel for what you're doing. I started with a Schaefer cartridge pen, and it was great -- but it never worked right after I replaced the ink cartridge. (The Schaefer was a great starting pen, though, I just find I enjoy using a dip pen much more.)
Okay, so you create a game where the guitar tabs (or some analogue) is a central mechanic to the game. Some game not overtly guitar-related (so, I don't mean Guitar Hero). Or a sketch of improv comedy, who knows. In some way, the audience would need to be able to know how to convert what they'd just seen (or played) back into guitar tabs, but at the core would still be a new creative performance.
I suspect this might be an end-run around it, similar to how printing source code (in book form) for encryption was constitutionally protected for export.
You let me know when American soldiers start planting bombs timed for rush hour in London and Spain. You let me know when American soldiers start planting bombs to kill random civilians in Iraq, with follow-on bombs to kill first-responders. You let me know when American soldiers start cutting the heads off captives with swords, video tape it, and post the tapes to the Internet.
Isn't this a straw man?
I don't claim that our soldiers are behaving in the same way as some of our enemies do. However, it's difficult to feel that we are maintaining a moral high ground when our military maintains a base like Guantanamo bay, where the CIA kidnaps people for extraordinary rendition, and so on. Waterboarding is torture. Yes, it's not on the same level as putting molten glass in the urethra, or on the same level as random amputations, the rack, the wheel, or other such torturedevices, but it IS torture, and it makes us a nation of hypocrites if we condone it. This is on top of the fact that any information given while tortured is what the prisoner things the torturer wants to hear. I'd confess to having a third kidney, or of having been Hitler's butler if I were tortured -- though clearly neither are true. So, there's NO value for subjecting people to such things.
Our prisoners should be granted the protections of law, and get either a civilian trial or a military tribunal. If we refuse to grant them the rights accorded by the Geneva Conventions (which I thought was a set of treaties we were supposed to abide by), what is to stop our enemies from doing it to our soldiers? We can't expect an opponent to play by the rules of war and treat OUR people well if we show that we're willing to resort to savagery.
Sure, the current enemy might not be concerned with the rules of war. However... several of the people we've captured for such renditions were not connected at all, and were NOT enemies of our nation. Our mistreatment of them is a tragedy.
Please don't make my feelings as being unsupportive of our troops. I have the utmost respect for every soldier I've met personally, and I know that the vast, VAST majority of people overseas are putting their lives at risk every day. I'd like them all to be safe. I'd like our future soldiers to be safe, too, though. When we show that we as a nation don't want to play by the rest of the civilized world's rules, what will happen when another big power goes to war with us? Who will expect them to treat OUR people well if our soldiers get captured?
I applaud Lt. Col. Bircher's belief that we should hold ourselves to a "higher standard". I have no reason to doubt that he feels that way. However, institutionally, our administration's actions show that we do NOT hold ourselves to a higher standard.
It's about threat assessment. China is one of the only powers which, if it wanted to could do some bad things to us. Brazil? France? Nigeria? Not so much. China, on the other hand has a space program, a nuclear program, and a sufficiently large pool of potential military that IF they wanted to go to war with us, it could be pretty nasty.
When planning defense, you have to look at people as potential attackers -- even if they're friends, or just nonaggressive in the past. It's not aggression vs China, but rather a recognition that they are a potential threat. Just like when you look at (and plan) modes of risk management and escape when on a plane, so too do you look at ways of mitigating the harm that could come in case of a war.
The rules of war have always been their own; yet we have always held American forces to a higher standard.
Wow. While I applaud him for such a goal and motive, it is really hard to read that and not laugh when I remember what we do at places like Guantanamo.
There's very little that I've been able to find about font selections in XEmacs; I appear not to have an 'options' menu, and when I do 'M-x customize', I've not yet found anything for selecting the size of the font to use.:( Le sigh. I suspect I have a deliberately crippled version that was shipped with the proprietary almost-lisp that I use.
Anyhow, this is somewhat off topic, but I've had a really hard time finding useful stuff via search (:
The industry's business model (make music, sell it) is fine. Except that the people it wants to sell its product to are breaking the law to get their product by other means.
The idea of selling music is JUST fine. The success of iTunes is a testament to that. The trouble is that they want to overcharge for music, and thus people no longer want to pay for it. The existence of a "black market" which allows near cost-less redistribution of content (and which people collaborate in to share music with each other) is a genie which I don't think we can get back in the bottle. The entertainment industries need to adapt to this, rather than try to ignore it (or try to crush it with legislation).
If I were inclined to buy music (I rarely listen to music), I'd prefer to either buy used CDs, or buy non-DRM-encrusted songs from iTunes. My other options are to infringe copyrights to get it (which I don't feel is ethical or prudent), or to pay more than "market value" for an album. I prefer not to do the latter, because I feel that the RIAA has been abusing their monopoly position, and I just generally don't feel that music has the value they put on the price tag.
This is merely a matter of supply and demand. They're unwilling to supply music at a price I feel is reasonable, and I don't find myself feeling a demand for music atthe price they set. I'd be more likely to BUY CDs if I could sample an album for free (in a convenient manner), and just pay less for an album. I'd buy more music at $5/CD than I would at $15-$20/CD... but would even then be more likely to buy individual tracks that I like.
The costs that the recording companies charge for music includes costs for: - artist - recording service/equipment/expertise - profit - advertising - packaging/manufacture - distribution - ???
I'm OK with the first three (yes, even profit), but electronic distribution means that I no longer value packaging or distribution costs AT ALL. Bandwidth costs are miniscule by comparison. Additionally, if I can listen to an album for a while before buying it, or just hear songs (even in crappy net-radio bitrate), advertising and packaging design no longer mean as much. Sure, the shiny package is pretty and stuff, but... I look at that maybe twice in the lifetime of a CD. I'm not going to pay $10 or more for the experience of opening a CD case and looking at the liner packet.
The industry has two options. It can try to get law enforcement to go after a huge number of its customers until the enforcement is a deterrent to the law breaking. Or it can try to make it harder for people to break the law.
A third option is to discourage people from breaking the law by pricing their music competitively, and have it be available in such a way that it's more convenient than infringement is. Yes, this won't stop people from infringement, but MOST people would say, "meh, I can just buy it and have it in my music library." iTunes gets this right, for the most part. I'd prefer to be able to listen to a WHOLE song, or even a playlist, multiple times (and would even probably pay a subscrption if I were into listening to music), before buying a song.
he only problem with their business model is that it is easy to break the law and people are willing to do it.
I argue that this is precisely the problem with their business model. Kinko's no longer gets as much fax volume now that we can e-mail eachother PDFs, for example. The entertainment industry is built around the idea that Music should be scarce, and that we should pay for the priveledge of listening to it. They're wrong: music is plentiful, distribution can be (and is) nearly free. It's like trying to charge money for the shade from your tree, when people can walk around with umbrellas. For a car analogy, it would be like Amtrak or other public transit trying to prevent people from carpooling, as that reduces their potential revenue. (I know, weak car analogy.;))
I agree. People become "friends" for a variety of reasons. In at least the american sense, we often consider people our "friends" who are/anywhere/ along the spectrum of:
I'd drink in their presence I'd talk about politics I'd listen to their problems I'd congratulate them on achievements I'd invite them over for a BBQ I'd invite them over for dinner I'd help them fix their truck I'd defend them in a fight I'd help them bury a body. (I kid! I kid.)
Clearly, there are more degrees than this, but you can see that there's a big difference between someone you'd consider a "friend" at work vs your Best Friend Ever. When I learned German, I recall a much stronger distinction (and any Germans can likely identify many things incorrect about what I'm about to say;)) -- you have your Extremely Good Friends, and Acquaintences. Most people, however, are merely acquaintences. A large number of people that I consider friends (in an american sense) I'd consider only acquaintences if I were using German manners of address (Sie vs du).
Many of my "friends" are people I know and respect, having been introduced by my wife (then fiance) when I moved here. Over time, I've come to like and respect some of them on their own merits, but for a time they were primarily "my wife's friends". I imagine that this guy's friends will see the new person in the same way. They'll likely give him a chance to not be an ass, and who knows -- he may end up being a cool guy that they'd not have otherwise met.
Or he could be the creepy guy from the internet, of course.
How many hours of video that you're paying (in time, money, security against fire/damage/loss, etc) to keep up you're actually going to watch?
It's not about quantity that one WILL watch, but about what one can CHOOSE to watch.
I have a similar case -- I keep copious automatic logs of all of my IM conversations. Almoa=st all of it is inane crap. However, sometimes I ask myself, "What was ___'s address again? I know he IM'ed me....", or some similar bit of data which it's nice to have referenceable.
My son is 5 months old. We have video of him getting a bath, rolling on the floor, smiling at people, and other general cuteness. Twenty years from now, he probably won't care about "here he is getting a bath", but in thirty or sixty years, he might. I know that I would love to be able to see footage of bits and pieces of my childhood, and will never be able to. I'd love to see what the street looked like outside my house when I was 4, what the backyard and garden looked like (and how it compares to my memory), how I played, etc. Memories are a strange and potentially fragile thing; how am I supposed to know what my son will find interesting decades from now? I'm not advocating recording *EVERYTHING*, but even being able to say "here you are drinking a bottle in Dad's arms" is pretty precious.
If, God forbid, my wife or I pass away, I'd like to have footage of us expressing our love for each other, for our son, etc. Let my son decide if he wants to keep it. His grandparents are not young, either, and I know *I* would love to have more than still photos of my grandparents.
So... it's not about sitting down to "here's a 40 day marathon of Your Life On Camera!", but rather allowing us (and him) to reminisce about things which would otherwise be lost to fuzzy memories.
If I lived in the States I'd think about going "thin" client. Have all data on a remote server somewhere in Sweden; the local machine is a client with nothing but a barebones OS and an obscene amount of RAM/volatile storage
While that seems like the failsafe strategy ("My computer can't have copyrighted information on it, it has no hard drive"), a less extreme alternative might be to run Linux on your computer, run applications which are Free software (or otherwise provably OK for you to use), and make sure that you have a CD for every mp3/ogg that you have on the machine. Don't have any p2p sharing apps like Kazaa, that way they can't claim you were distributing said music/etc.
- By not running windows, they can't really claim that your copy of Photoshop isn't legit, since you won't HAVE a copy of Photoshop. - Ensuring that your music library is ripped directly from source material (esp if you have logs which corroborate;)) helps protect you as well. - Not sharing stuff via p2p ensures that you likely won't come under their radar in the first place.
This is all based around the idea of maintaining REAL innocence, not the "You can't touch this" aspect of remote storage, as well as some degree of CYA showing that you actually took effort to ensure that you WERE compliant with the law. When the IPThugs come and confiscate your machine, the proving that what is on there is yours and legit should be much more straightforward.
do those reps think that this will make law enforcement give one whit about people stealing albums? They already have enough to deal with in terms of real crime, and they're going to utterly ignore this anyway.
The key is to create NEW law enforcement positions whose job is specifically to care about copyright infringement (claimed or actual). This way, it's their JOB to care about it, and you can bet that they'll be tenacious about it as it justifies their own funding. (Not that I think it's a GOOD thing, mind you.)
I'm 30 -- so I was playing Duke3d around the time that I was in high school. While I never really liked the single player gameplay (it got old fast, as do most FPSs for me), it did have funny moments, and the multiplayer was just Damnably Fun.
It's good memories like that which will lead me to (probably;)) buy DNF when it comes out. I miss being able to lay traps - literally - for my opponents, or play a game that actually has working bathrooms. (OK, Half Life 2 had some bathrooms, if I recall right.)... of course, I'm also cynical enough that I don't think $50 is a good value for a game, though I'd buy it for $20 or even $25. When World of Warcraft costs me $14/month, I tend to view other game values as "how many months will I play this, x $15". (Exception: Portal.:))
Then, how DO you make money from writing Free software? I don't mean to troll, I'm genuinely curious. Clearly, many people do, I just don't quite grasp how devoting one's time to writing Free software can actually make you money.
Linux servers and desktops probably don't need to reboot often, but I imagine a laptop would be much more prone to restarts - and when you want to boot something, faster booting makes for a more pleasant user experience. (yes, I realize they could just hibernate.)
You must not have enjoyed Schindler's List, or movies like Million Dollar Baby which have crushingly sad endings. That doesn't make them BAD movies, though.
I appreciate Episodes 4-6 on a different level than 1-3. 4-6 are, I'm sure many (but not all) would agree, a good introduction. Learn about good and evil, etc. The Bad Guys are clearly evil (torturing Leia, blowing up planets, choking people to death, etc), and so on. In the prequels, the bad guys are -- as the GP mentioned -- much more ambiguous. The "REAL" menace, Palpatine, is only visible as more than a politician to those of us who already know who he is going to be. It isn't until later on that you can see the machinations going on behind the scenes.
I liked that the prequels answered many ofthe questions one might have about the Republic, the Empire, etc: - How did the Republic become a dictatorship? - Who were "the clones" in the Clone War? - Where did Stormtroopers come from? - Was Darth Vader always evil? If not, what made him evil?
Also, it brings up several sticky questions, such as the nature of evil, and allows us to watch as someone explores a path few of us would want to go down.
What's really interesting also, when I watch Episode 3 again, is that I can (as a father and husband) really identify with Anakin. Somehow, it's tempting to let moral absolutes (don't be evil!) slide when thinking about loved ones -- if I "knew" that an evil act, which would doom me, would save and protect my wife and children, it's tempting to think that it's good to pursue it. (The movie is also a good reminder that such things are not a certainty.;)) Still, it makes for a real moral quandary.
In the first movie, we see Amidala/Padme saying that she can't do nothing while her people suffer and die -- and leads them in a war against the Trade Federation. Later, her husband has a premonition that his wife -- infinitely more dear than any ruler's populace -- is indeed going to die. Who among us would willingly, knowing that such was a "vision" and not just a nightmare, LET IT HAPPEN? I hate to admit my moral frailty, but I fear that I might have followed a similar path as Anakin. ALL through the movie, up until he cut off Mace Windu's hands, he was driven by the desire to help his wife. He was masterfully played by Palpatine's deceptions, even after that. I don't think he even knew that the Trade Federation (and separatists) were in cahoots.
I ended up feeling pity and sadness for Vader, even knowing the monster he had become, and thus appreciate the redemption at the very end all the more. These movies will be among my favourites for a long time.
I was going to rant about posting a torrent to a crack of the game, and how it was nothing but contemptible to do so.
HOWEVER -- this isn't that. (thank god for checking the torrent link before I posted!:)) It's a torrent of the demo, apparently the same as you can download from their website. Kudos to you for posting that, then. =)
There are still new players coming in (still got 330$ for my Rogue), but WoW is loosing a lot of experienced players currently.
How do you sell a character, yet mitigate the risk of identity theft? When I consider that my Blizzard account has both credit card information and personal information about me (name), I'm hesitant to sell my character -- especially as the backing of gold/character selling sites are often of questionable origin. However, the prospect of Getting Out is tempting -- while I do enjoy some aspects of play, the money (and the chance to jump at a new game?;)) is tempting.
Where are the dolphin justice mechanisms? If they're so peaceful and moral, where are the dolphin courts and prisons?
Prisons and courts do not create a peaceful and moral society. If anything, they're an indicator that said society is imperfectly peaceful or moral, as otherwise they wouldn't need them.
The metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (may not be worksafe;)) http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/ (I enjoyed this more than LB, though LB was very engaging as well.)
Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers...
From my discussions with my Jewish friends, it is my understanding that most Jews believe that we believe in the same deity; differences arise in opinions about the nature of a certain rabbi from ~2000 years ago (and whether he really was the son of God, etc). So, going from a jewish faith to a christian (or probably even Muslim) organization down the street, I believe, is unlikely to earn you a stoning.;)
YMMV, IANJ so this may not be a tehcnically correct interpretation.;)
Write down your complex passwords, store them in a safe. (Just like using Bruce Schneier's crypto key safe software.) It's now just as safe as any of your OTHER vital information (SS card, passport, birth certificates, etc).
From the perspective of a married person, I want to make sure that I don't have secrets of this sort from my wife. If I die, or she dies, it's much easier if the other can still access online banking sites, ISP account information, etc.
If, after you're dead, unsavory details about you surface... will it hurt your feelings?
If it's something that you'd rather never were found out, as others have said -- make it secret, and explicitly state that you'd like it destroyed. "Any drives with red circular labels on them shall be physically destroyed. I Swear that these drives will not contain anything which might indicate suicidal intents, but rather are just my porn which I'd rather my children never see." If you don't, how is it different from your "stash" of dirty magazines being discovered behind the water heater once you've died?
... don't do anything which could alter the drives. This means don't boot up his laptop, etc. Correspondingly, you probably don't want to log in to Myspace, as that might trigger "Oh, he was active ___" things in logs; I'd rely on Myspace (and so forth) to provide the data to you in a way which is forensically sound.
Better yet, hire a computer forensics expert to advise you. (Local lawyers may know some good expert witnesses?)
I'm not a forensic investigator, and I'm not even certain such policy as I mentioned is sufficient to prevent pooch-screwing the evidence (or lack thereof). Make sure you document everything you do, especially since if you've had access to it the insurance will question whether you deleted evidence of his suicidal intent. You, being a friend of the family, might not be sufficiently separated from the INTERESTS of the estate to be considered neutral enough.
Get a lawyer, find out what they feel you need to do to establish that it wasn't suicide, and to protect the evidence from contamination.
As for the ethics of {someone} poking in someone else's machine after death... I think that proving that there was no suicidal intent (and thereby greatly benefiting the survivors) seems like something I'd want people to do.
Strange that the inquest (if there was one?) ruled it a suicide, though.
Neat, in a way. I recall playing a very VERY small bit with this ~5ish years ago, I believe. Not sure how useful it is, but it still warms my perl-loving heart.
How is proprietary software anti-freedom? Its a product. You want it, you pay for it and then you can use it. What more is there to consider? Open source is only of value to those who either want to freeload, or like to tinker without paying for access.
Bruce can certainly answer this better than I can, but I'll give a shot.
"Freedom", in the variety which Bruce and open-source devotees care about, is not about "I don't have to pay for this" (though, that IS nice), but rather "I am free to tinker with this, improve it, and fix any limitations it may have." This freedom to tinker without restriction is fundamental to the concept of Free Software.
If you have proprietary software, without source, you can't easily change it. Proprietary software usually has licenses which make it illegal to change+distribute it. This means that when Company X decides that they don't want people running version Y of their software anymore, users are forced to either upgrade, or stop using it. Free Software, however, always gives users the option to just keep running it as-is. (As an example, many commercial software packages use FlexLM or other license management tools to ensure that only a certain number of people use the software.)
Often, Company X gives out some software, free of charge, but doesn't open-source it. For example, various media playing software from Real, Micorsoft, etc. Proprietary software, especially if it can contain DRM, restricts the ways in which users can use it. Users are not free to use it in whatever manner they desire. In fact, the entire goal of DRM is to restrict the manner, time, duration, or number of times in which a user can use information (such as e-books or music or video). Open Source software, because users are free to modify and redistribute, will never have DRM in it -- because someone will inevitably remove the DRM support, and redistribute that (perhaps as a fork of the original project).
Not all proprietary software is evil. I could make some free-as-in-beer software, and release it with source code, and choose not to do anything if people infringed on the copyright. (This would, I believe, make it public domain, which may as well be open source -- but IANAL and I could be wrong on that point.) However, in general, vendors of proprietary software have to make an explicit effort not to make freedom-restricting software.
Free Software is not about charging for it or not, but rather about the Freedom to Modify and Distribute. Richard Stallman and others (not to mention Bruce Perens, I believe?) have written a LARGE amount of prose on the merits of Freedom, as opposed to merely not-necessary-to-pay-for. I recommend reading Stallman's "the right to read" essay ( http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html ), for example. (Bruce: If you read this,I apologize for not linking any of your own work. Though Wikipedia lists plenty of links, I haven't read them yet.;))
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I've learned that to calligraph well (at least before you've absorbed it better than I have? ;)), you need to think of it as DRAWING letters (and the spaces between), rather than WRITING letters. Changing that mindset has helped me immensely when doing calligraphy. (I suspect that if I were a professional calligrapher, I'd be able to do things faster and not need to think of it as "drawing" as much.)
Ironically, my handwriting is absolute crap, but when I toggle the brain switch to calligraphy mode, it improves dramatically. The speed is cut by probably an order of magnitude, though. People that have seen my calligraphy (which, admittedly, is only amateur) are shocked, shocked to see how bad my handwriting is.
If anyone's interested in learning calligraphy, I highly recommend Mark Drogin's Medieval Calligraphy. It spends a lot of time about the history of various hands (what one might call "fonts" now), and the way they developed. If you're at all a history geek, you might love it. I know that I found it much more enjoyable than I thought I would.
Make sure that you use a dip pen, rather than one of the cartridge ones. It's a pain in the ass to re-dip every few letters, but you get a more intimate feel for what you're doing. I started with a Schaefer cartridge pen, and it was great -- but it never worked right after I replaced the ink cartridge. (The Schaefer was a great starting pen, though, I just find I enjoy using a dip pen much more.)
Okay, so you create a game where the guitar tabs (or some analogue) is a central mechanic to the game. Some game not overtly guitar-related (so, I don't mean Guitar Hero). Or a sketch of improv comedy, who knows. In some way, the audience would need to be able to know how to convert what they'd just seen (or played) back into guitar tabs, but at the core would still be a new creative performance.
I suspect this might be an end-run around it, similar to how printing source code (in book form) for encryption was constitutionally protected for export.
Isn't this a straw man?
I don't claim that our soldiers are behaving in the same way as some of our enemies do. However, it's difficult to feel that we are maintaining a moral high ground when our military maintains a base like Guantanamo bay, where the CIA kidnaps people for extraordinary rendition, and so on. Waterboarding is torture. Yes, it's not on the same level as putting molten glass in the urethra, or on the same level as random amputations, the rack, the wheel, or other such torturedevices, but it IS torture, and it makes us a nation of hypocrites if we condone it. This is on top of the fact that any information given while tortured is what the prisoner things the torturer wants to hear. I'd confess to having a third kidney, or of having been Hitler's butler if I were tortured -- though clearly neither are true. So, there's NO value for subjecting people to such things.
Our prisoners should be granted the protections of law, and get either a civilian trial or a military tribunal. If we refuse to grant them the rights accorded by the Geneva Conventions (which I thought was a set of treaties we were supposed to abide by), what is to stop our enemies from doing it to our soldiers? We can't expect an opponent to play by the rules of war and treat OUR people well if we show that we're willing to resort to savagery.
Sure, the current enemy might not be concerned with the rules of war. However ... several of the people we've captured for such renditions were not connected at all, and were NOT enemies of our nation. Our mistreatment of them is a tragedy.
Please don't make my feelings as being unsupportive of our troops. I have the utmost respect for every soldier I've met personally, and I know that the vast, VAST majority of people overseas are putting their lives at risk every day. I'd like them all to be safe. I'd like our future soldiers to be safe, too, though. When we show that we as a nation don't want to play by the rest of the civilized world's rules, what will happen when another big power goes to war with us? Who will expect them to treat OUR people well if our soldiers get captured?
I applaud Lt. Col. Bircher's belief that we should hold ourselves to a "higher standard". I have no reason to doubt that he feels that way. However, institutionally, our administration's actions show that we do NOT hold ourselves to a higher standard.
It's about threat assessment. China is one of the only powers which, if it wanted to could do some bad things to us. Brazil? France? Nigeria? Not so much. China, on the other hand has a space program, a nuclear program, and a sufficiently large pool of potential military that IF they wanted to go to war with us, it could be pretty nasty.
When planning defense, you have to look at people as potential attackers -- even if they're friends, or just nonaggressive in the past. It's not aggression vs China, but rather a recognition that they are a potential threat. Just like when you look at (and plan) modes of risk management and escape when on a plane, so too do you look at ways of mitigating the harm that could come in case of a war.
Wow. While I applaud him for such a goal and motive, it is really hard to read that and not laugh when I remember what we do at places like Guantanamo.
There's very little that I've been able to find about font selections in XEmacs; I appear not to have an 'options' menu, and when I do 'M-x customize', I've not yet found anything for selecting the size of the font to use. :( Le sigh. I suspect I have a deliberately crippled version that was shipped with the proprietary almost-lisp that I use.
Anyhow, this is somewhat off topic, but I've had a really hard time finding useful stuff via search (:
The idea of selling music is JUST fine. The success of iTunes is a testament to that. The trouble is that they want to overcharge for music, and thus people no longer want to pay for it. The existence of a "black market" which allows near cost-less redistribution of content (and which people collaborate in to share music with each other) is a genie which I don't think we can get back in the bottle. The entertainment industries need to adapt to this, rather than try to ignore it (or try to crush it with legislation).
If I were inclined to buy music (I rarely listen to music), I'd prefer to either buy used CDs, or buy non-DRM-encrusted songs from iTunes. My other options are to infringe copyrights to get it (which I don't feel is ethical or prudent), or to pay more than "market value" for an album. I prefer not to do the latter, because I feel that the RIAA has been abusing their monopoly position, and I just generally don't feel that music has the value they put on the price tag.
This is merely a matter of supply and demand. They're unwilling to supply music at a price I feel is reasonable, and I don't find myself feeling a demand for music atthe price they set. I'd be more likely to BUY CDs if I could sample an album for free (in a convenient manner), and just pay less for an album. I'd buy more music at $5/CD than I would at $15-$20/CD... but would even then be more likely to buy individual tracks that I like.
The costs that the recording companies charge for music includes costs for:
- artist
- recording service/equipment/expertise
- profit
- advertising
- packaging/manufacture
- distribution
- ???
I'm OK with the first three (yes, even profit), but electronic distribution means that I no longer value packaging or distribution costs AT ALL. Bandwidth costs are miniscule by comparison. Additionally, if I can listen to an album for a while before buying it, or just hear songs (even in crappy net-radio bitrate), advertising and packaging design no longer mean as much. Sure, the shiny package is pretty and stuff, but ... I look at that maybe twice in the lifetime of a CD. I'm not going to pay $10 or more for the experience of opening a CD case and looking at the liner packet.
A third option is to discourage people from breaking the law by pricing their music competitively, and have it be available in such a way that it's more convenient than infringement is. Yes, this won't stop people from infringement, but MOST people would say, "meh, I can just buy it and have it in my music library." iTunes gets this right, for the most part. I'd prefer to be able to listen to a WHOLE song, or even a playlist, multiple times (and would even probably pay a subscrption if I were into listening to music), before buying a song.
I argue that this is precisely the problem with their business model. Kinko's no longer gets as much fax volume now that we can e-mail eachother PDFs, for example. The entertainment industry is built around the idea that Music should be scarce, and that we should pay for the priveledge of listening to it. They're wrong: music is plentiful, distribution can be (and is) nearly free. It's like trying to charge money for the shade from your tree, when people can walk around with umbrellas. For a car analogy, it would be like Amtrak or other public transit trying to prevent people from carpooling, as that reduces their potential revenue. (I know, weak car analogy. ;))
I agree. People become "friends" for a variety of reasons. In at least the american sense, we often consider people our "friends" who are /anywhere/ along the spectrum of:
I'd drink in their presence
I'd talk about politics
I'd listen to their problems
I'd congratulate them on achievements
I'd invite them over for a BBQ
I'd invite them over for dinner
I'd help them fix their truck
I'd defend them in a fight
I'd help them bury a body. (I kid! I kid.)
Clearly, there are more degrees than this, but you can see that there's a big difference between someone you'd consider a "friend" at work vs your Best Friend Ever. When I learned German, I recall a much stronger distinction (and any Germans can likely identify many things incorrect about what I'm about to say ;)) -- you have your Extremely Good Friends, and Acquaintences. Most people, however, are merely acquaintences. A large number of people that I consider friends (in an american sense) I'd consider only acquaintences if I were using German manners of address (Sie vs du).
Many of my "friends" are people I know and respect, having been introduced by my wife (then fiance) when I moved here. Over time, I've come to like and respect some of them on their own merits, but for a time they were primarily "my wife's friends". I imagine that this guy's friends will see the new person in the same way. They'll likely give him a chance to not be an ass, and who knows -- he may end up being a cool guy that they'd not have otherwise met.
Or he could be the creepy guy from the internet, of course.
It's not about quantity that one WILL watch, but about what one can CHOOSE to watch.
I have a similar case -- I keep copious automatic logs of all of my IM conversations. Almoa=st all of it is inane crap. However, sometimes I ask myself, "What was ___'s address again? I know he IM'ed me....", or some similar bit of data which it's nice to have referenceable.
My son is 5 months old. We have video of him getting a bath, rolling on the floor, smiling at people, and other general cuteness. Twenty years from now, he probably won't care about "here he is getting a bath", but in thirty or sixty years, he might. I know that I would love to be able to see footage of bits and pieces of my childhood, and will never be able to. I'd love to see what the street looked like outside my house when I was 4, what the backyard and garden looked like (and how it compares to my memory), how I played, etc. Memories are a strange and potentially fragile thing; how am I supposed to know what my son will find interesting decades from now? I'm not advocating recording *EVERYTHING*, but even being able to say "here you are drinking a bottle in Dad's arms" is pretty precious.
If, God forbid, my wife or I pass away, I'd like to have footage of us expressing our love for each other, for our son, etc. Let my son decide if he wants to keep it. His grandparents are not young, either, and I know *I* would love to have more than still photos of my grandparents.
So ... it's not about sitting down to "here's a 40 day marathon of Your Life On Camera!", but rather allowing us (and him) to reminisce about things which would otherwise be lost to fuzzy memories.
While that seems like the failsafe strategy ("My computer can't have copyrighted information on it, it has no hard drive"), a less extreme alternative might be to run Linux on your computer, run applications which are Free software (or otherwise provably OK for you to use), and make sure that you have a CD for every mp3/ogg that you have on the machine. Don't have any p2p sharing apps like Kazaa, that way they can't claim you were distributing said music/etc.
- By not running windows, they can't really claim that your copy of Photoshop isn't legit, since you won't HAVE a copy of Photoshop.
- Ensuring that your music library is ripped directly from source material (esp if you have logs which corroborate
- Not sharing stuff via p2p ensures that you likely won't come under their radar in the first place.
This is all based around the idea of maintaining REAL innocence, not the "You can't touch this" aspect of remote storage, as well as some degree of CYA showing that you actually took effort to ensure that you WERE compliant with the law. When the IPThugs come and confiscate your machine, the proving that what is on there is yours and legit should be much more straightforward.
The key is to create NEW law enforcement positions whose job is specifically to care about copyright infringement (claimed or actual). This way, it's their JOB to care about it, and you can bet that they'll be tenacious about it as it justifies their own funding. (Not that I think it's a GOOD thing, mind you.)
I'm 30 -- so I was playing Duke3d around the time that I was in high school. While I never really liked the single player gameplay (it got old fast, as do most FPSs for me), it did have funny moments, and the multiplayer was just Damnably Fun.
;)) buy DNF when it comes out. I miss being able to lay traps - literally - for my opponents, or play a game that actually has working bathrooms. (OK, Half Life 2 had some bathrooms, if I recall right.) ... of course, I'm also cynical enough that I don't think $50 is a good value for a game, though I'd buy it for $20 or even $25. When World of Warcraft costs me $14/month, I tend to view other game values as "how many months will I play this, x $15". (Exception: Portal. :))
It's good memories like that which will lead me to (probably
Then, how DO you make money from writing Free software? I don't mean to troll, I'm genuinely curious. Clearly, many people do, I just don't quite grasp how devoting one's time to writing Free software can actually make you money.
Linux servers and desktops probably don't need to reboot often, but I imagine a laptop would be much more prone to restarts - and when you want to boot something, faster booting makes for a more pleasant user experience. (yes, I realize they could just hibernate.)
You must not have enjoyed Schindler's List, or movies like Million Dollar Baby which have crushingly sad endings. That doesn't make them BAD movies, though.
;)) Still, it makes for a real moral quandary.
I appreciate Episodes 4-6 on a different level than 1-3. 4-6 are, I'm sure many (but not all) would agree, a good introduction. Learn about good and evil, etc. The Bad Guys are clearly evil (torturing Leia, blowing up planets, choking people to death, etc), and so on. In the prequels, the bad guys are -- as the GP mentioned -- much more ambiguous. The "REAL" menace, Palpatine, is only visible as more than a politician to those of us who already know who he is going to be. It isn't until later on that you can see the machinations going on behind the scenes.
I liked that the prequels answered many ofthe questions one might have about the Republic, the Empire, etc:
- How did the Republic become a dictatorship?
- Who were "the clones" in the Clone War?
- Where did Stormtroopers come from?
- Was Darth Vader always evil? If not, what made him evil?
Also, it brings up several sticky questions, such as the nature of evil, and allows us to watch as someone explores a path few of us would want to go down.
What's really interesting also, when I watch Episode 3 again, is that I can (as a father and husband) really identify with Anakin. Somehow, it's tempting to let moral absolutes (don't be evil!) slide when thinking about loved ones -- if I "knew" that an evil act, which would doom me, would save and protect my wife and children, it's tempting to think that it's good to pursue it. (The movie is also a good reminder that such things are not a certainty.
In the first movie, we see Amidala/Padme saying that she can't do nothing while her people suffer and die -- and leads them in a war against the Trade Federation. Later, her husband has a premonition that his wife -- infinitely more dear than any ruler's populace -- is indeed going to die. Who among us would willingly, knowing that such was a "vision" and not just a nightmare, LET IT HAPPEN? I hate to admit my moral frailty, but I fear that I might have followed a similar path as Anakin. ALL through the movie, up until he cut off Mace Windu's hands, he was driven by the desire to help his wife. He was masterfully played by Palpatine's deceptions, even after that. I don't think he even knew that the Trade Federation (and separatists) were in cahoots.
I ended up feeling pity and sadness for Vader, even knowing the monster he had become, and thus appreciate the redemption at the very end all the more. These movies will be among my favourites for a long time.
I was going to rant about posting a torrent to a crack of the game, and how it was nothing but contemptible to do so.
:)) It's a torrent of the demo, apparently the same as you can download from their website. Kudos to you for posting that, then. =)
HOWEVER -- this isn't that. (thank god for checking the torrent link before I posted!
How do you sell a character, yet mitigate the risk of identity theft? When I consider that my Blizzard account has both credit card information and personal information about me (name), I'm hesitant to sell my character -- especially as the backing of gold/character selling sites are often of questionable origin. However, the prospect of Getting Out is tempting -- while I do enjoy some aspects of play, the money (and the chance to jump at a new game?
Any advice on this would be interesting.
Prisons and courts do not create a peaceful and moral society. If anything, they're an indicator that said society is imperfectly peaceful or moral, as otherwise they wouldn't need them.
I've found several interesting OLDER stories at Wikisource which I found quite enjoyable:
;))
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Sleeper_Awakes
and others by H.G.Wells:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:H._G._Wells
Similarly, you can read classic stuff from Jules Verne. Lots of short stories and such by various authors.
Their index of stuff doesn't seem very complete, but if you search for an author (google "wikisource $AUTHOR"), it seems to work very well.
Other good stories I've read recently:
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow
http://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.htm
The metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (may not be worksafe
http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/
(I enjoyed this more than LB, though LB was very engaging as well.)
From my discussions with my Jewish friends, it is my understanding that most Jews believe that we believe in the same deity; differences arise in opinions about the nature of a certain rabbi from ~2000 years ago (and whether he really was the son of God, etc). So, going from a jewish faith to a christian (or probably even Muslim) organization down the street, I believe, is unlikely to earn you a stoning.
YMMV, IANJ so this may not be a tehcnically correct interpretation.
I think it's a very good idea, actually.
Write down your complex passwords, store them in a safe. (Just like using Bruce Schneier's crypto key safe software.) It's now just as safe as any of your OTHER vital information (SS card, passport, birth certificates, etc).
From the perspective of a married person, I want to make sure that I don't have secrets of this sort from my wife. If I die, or she dies, it's much easier if the other can still access online banking sites, ISP account information, etc.
If, after you're dead, unsavory details about you surface ... will it hurt your feelings?
If it's something that you'd rather never were found out, as others have said -- make it secret, and explicitly state that you'd like it destroyed. "Any drives with red circular labels on them shall be physically destroyed. I Swear that these drives will not contain anything which might indicate suicidal intents, but rather are just my porn which I'd rather my children never see." If you don't, how is it different from your "stash" of dirty magazines being discovered behind the water heater once you've died?
... don't do anything which could alter the drives. This means don't boot up his laptop, etc. Correspondingly, you probably don't want to log in to Myspace, as that might trigger "Oh, he was active ___" things in logs; I'd rely on Myspace (and so forth) to provide the data to you in a way which is forensically sound.
Better yet, hire a computer forensics expert to advise you. (Local lawyers may know some good expert witnesses?)
I'm not a forensic investigator, and I'm not even certain such policy as I mentioned is sufficient to prevent pooch-screwing the evidence (or lack thereof). Make sure you document everything you do, especially since if you've had access to it the insurance will question whether you deleted evidence of his suicidal intent. You, being a friend of the family, might not be sufficiently separated from the INTERESTS of the estate to be considered neutral enough.
Get a lawyer, find out what they feel you need to do to establish that it wasn't suicide, and to protect the evidence from contamination.
As for the ethics of {someone} poking in someone else's machine after death... I think that proving that there was no suicidal intent (and thereby greatly benefiting the survivors) seems like something I'd want people to do.
Strange that the inquest (if there was one?) ruled it a suicide, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PerlScript
Neat, in a way. I recall playing a very VERY small bit with this ~5ish years ago, I believe. Not sure how useful it is, but it still warms my perl-loving heart.
Bruce can certainly answer this better than I can, but I'll give a shot.
"Freedom", in the variety which Bruce and open-source devotees care about, is not about "I don't have to pay for this" (though, that IS nice), but rather "I am free to tinker with this, improve it, and fix any limitations it may have." This freedom to tinker without restriction is fundamental to the concept of Free Software.
If you have proprietary software, without source, you can't easily change it. Proprietary software usually has licenses which make it illegal to change+distribute it. This means that when Company X decides that they don't want people running version Y of their software anymore, users are forced to either upgrade, or stop using it. Free Software, however, always gives users the option to just keep running it as-is. (As an example, many commercial software packages use FlexLM or other license management tools to ensure that only a certain number of people use the software.)
Often, Company X gives out some software, free of charge, but doesn't open-source it. For example, various media playing software from Real, Micorsoft, etc. Proprietary software, especially if it can contain DRM, restricts the ways in which users can use it. Users are not free to use it in whatever manner they desire. In fact, the entire goal of DRM is to restrict the manner, time, duration, or number of times in which a user can use information (such as e-books or music or video). Open Source software, because users are free to modify and redistribute, will never have DRM in it -- because someone will inevitably remove the DRM support, and redistribute that (perhaps as a fork of the original project).
Not all proprietary software is evil. I could make some free-as-in-beer software, and release it with source code, and choose not to do anything if people infringed on the copyright. (This would, I believe, make it public domain, which may as well be open source -- but IANAL and I could be wrong on that point.) However, in general, vendors of proprietary software have to make an explicit effort not to make freedom-restricting software.
Free Software is not about charging for it or not, but rather about the Freedom to Modify and Distribute. Richard Stallman and others (not to mention Bruce Perens, I believe?) have written a LARGE amount of prose on the merits of Freedom, as opposed to merely not-necessary-to-pay-for. I recommend reading Stallman's "the right to read" essay ( http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html ), for example. (Bruce: If you read this,I apologize for not linking any of your own work. Though Wikipedia lists plenty of links, I haven't read them yet.