The sad part really is... when doing this he honestly believes that he is discrediting Norm Kent rather then himself.
He is over estimating how 'horrified' people are by homosexuality, believing that by bringing these images to the courts attention that he is somehow unmasking the horrors of Mr Kent's orientation.
Actually, if you want to be technical. "they" did not try to ask her. An information booth worker tried to ask. That person fills a very different role then the security person.
This was functionally equivalent to an anonymous tip.
Wearing home brew electronics into an airport? The Boston police are being stupid here... not knowing what something is (esp given the average police officer does NOT have an EE degree and should, I don't know, ASK SOMEONE WHO DOES) is not an excuse to charge some poor girl with machine guns.
This level of incompetence and blame shifting by people who are supposed to be protecting us honestly scares me.
Thing is, you don't need real time. If a sequence can be recorded they can sit and break it at their leisure.
That aside, unless A and B are using on-time-pads then the situation you describe is more snake-oil encryption then anything else. At worst it just means they have to throw more computing power at the problem, but the power required would be linear, not logarithmic.
It reminds me of people who practice martial arts and learn to read when/how someone is going to attack by looking at which muscles are tensing and such.
And while I can see why people are mocking the entire 'aircraft' potential, any system that could potentially reduce reaction time by reading what someone will do faster then their body can do it could have application.
Explaining 'beyond the scope of this paper' _IS_ saying they do not know why.
And while yes the paper would have been more interesting if the authors could figure out why, but in reality it is far more valuable published without a why then holding onto the data till they have a plausible explanation.
That would probably be the proper way to handle it, though it would not satisfy the critics since they tend to loose interest in any particular title after it has been released. They live and breath in the ambiguity of unreleased games.
Another solution would be to give certain requesters access to the information under NDA (and non-compete requirements), and thus place legal liability on their heads should they leak information for their own benefit.
Lee, Thompson, CFCC, would probably be reluctant to put their necks on the line like that when they could potentially face massive lawsuits for contract violation if they drum up fear over games with confidential information.
True, they can not prevent it, but they can (and do) use their power to change what people put out.
From a video game perspective, a game that is blocked from being sold at Walmart quickly becomes economically un-viable to produce, for instance. So they get significant control of what does, and does not, get produced.
The problem with Walmart specifically is they have SO much economic clout that they can almost function as a government in some regards. And THAT is what people worry about....
Yeah, that is the other end of the problem, since adblock punishes far more sites then are really needed.
I am happy to be rid of many ads, or more specifically, ads that make my browsing experience inconvenient (slow, unstable, interfering, etc)... but simple 'there' ads I do not see a need to filter.
Oddly enough, my biggest use for blocking is my ISP (comcast) since they have invasive ads that can take down firefox...
websites can have a ligit right to want people to view their ads. What is at issue is HOW they push this desire.
Websites that depend on highly invasive pop-ups, pop-unders, and any number of 'tricky' ads are generally considered slimy and kept away from. That is one end of the spectrum that almost no one argues is 'good behavior'. The real question will be, is blocking entire browsers 'good behavior' or 'scummy tactic'.
Historically, any site that starts blocking large groups based off questionable 'demographics' ends up getting backlash from the geek community and eventually gets ignored. Linking to 'firefox myths' and 'firefox cult' do not exactly earn the TFA any points either since that tints ANYTHING the person says with ideology rather then economics. Even if the person has a real point, it is going to get lost in the FUD and venom.
Conversly, think about how webmasters tend to feel when people start building blacklists of sites that then start to get wide useage. They are none to happy either.
One way to think about a photon and it's masslessness is to get away from thinking about it _as_ something. It has been YEARS since I worked through the math of this though so I appologize if I get some of the details wrong.
Ok, picture this. You have a magnetic field. Magnetic fields themselves, I think we can agree, have no mass to them. They are mearly an effect at a range.
However, a magnetic field can cause an electrical field to form perpendicular to it. So now you have one field causing another within a specific area. That electrical field can then cause another magnetic field next to it. They then bounce back and for, propitiating through space as quickly as it can change form. That is light.
It is not about being allowed to raise one's kids as one sees fit, it is about making sure OTHER parents raise their kids in such a way that it doesn't interfere with one's own style. The off chance that one's kids might be exposed to things one does no approve of by parents who do approve. In other words, LCD parenting.
I can recall growing up, kids who's parents did not believe in soft drinks or TV going absolutely livid that their children hung out with families where such things were allowed, and thus all their carefully crafted isolation would go to pot when then kid got an option to make their own opinions on the things. Insufficient brainwashing time ^_^
"One of the things that struck us in relation to the video games industry is that while certain products that are out there, first aid kits and so on, that's certainly a problem--and our philosophy is that there's no emblem abuse that's too small to report, because you have to try to get them all" (full piece http://www.shacknews.com/extras/2006/020906_redcro ss_1.x)
So within that context it sounds like the Red Cross would consider J&J a legitimate target in the future.
And J&J, even within your take, has every right to be pissed. The Red Cross is a non-profit organization, it should not be giving out permission to use a symbol that is trademarked for commercial use by another organization.
As for dating the symbol, as you point out, it was in use well before the Red Cross came into existence and claimed the trademark, including national flags. So the Red Cross probably shouldn't have any claim to the symbol either, yet it is sending legal letters to commercial entities saying to stop using it, AND is producing commercial products using it.
J&J might be being asshats here, but the Red Cross is building up plenty of bad karma too and started the cross trademark fight. Doing good works does not give them a illy white get out of jail free card to be jerks themselves.
To extend on this line of thought. I could actually see J&J seeing this as a defensive move. If the ARC has been going around and suing companies to make them 'license' their cross, I could EASILY see them going after J&J once they feel confidant enough.
And any time a non-profit enters the commercial realm, then defends it's actions via 'anyone who tries to hurt us is really just hurting people we help!' one should be very, very cautious and cynical.....
I am picutring some super-advanced civilization who is already bored with making Dyson Shells going
Superbeing A:hey! what would happen if we built a full sized mock-up entierly out of balsa wood! Superbeing B:that sounds really pointless. where did you get such a stupid idea? Superbeing A:I heard it in some Fump song.... Superbeing B:Cool! I'll go grab the supervodka and the meta-Dremal!
Because the GPL only applies to what you distribute, so it puts no requirements on people who buy a device and play with it, but it does dictate the behavior of the person who develops and distributes devices.
The FSF also specifically caters to people who are NOT writing software for sale, so when it comes down to 'who's freedom is more important' they will tend to side with their core group.... non-professional coders, hobbyists, service-oriented coders, and web-centric coders. Notice how the GPL doesn't effect what any of those groups can program or how their hardware must behave?
Exelent example... I will have to remember the idea of games as preformance art.
Unfortunately, it is also an possible example of why games would have a hard time being considered 'high art'. Folklore, performance art, etc, are generally considered 'low art' since they tend to be 'pessent oriented' rather then aristocratic in origin.
While true you do not hear boardgame players wanting their thing to be 'art', you DO hear other creative mediums trying to get recognition.. such as film, comics, books (back in the day), etc.
I think the big thing is... people who are being creative and consider themselves artistic want their particular mode of expression treated with respect like other modes. So it is less the players and more the creators that really feel this.
Ebert's argument often seems to come down to 'any time the artist has to interact with the subject instead of 100% dictating the experience, it is lesser'.
The problem with 'games as art' is that tree plot lines are much harder to write then linear ones. But there are artists out there who can do it,... I think some of the backlash from people like Ebert is he represents artists who can not do this and are thus feel threatened.
Slashdot Mirror
The sad part really is... when doing this he honestly believes that he is discrediting Norm Kent rather then himself.
He is over estimating how 'horrified' people are by homosexuality, believing that by bringing these images to the courts attention that he is somehow unmasking the horrors of Mr Kent's orientation.
Actually, if you want to be technical. "they" did not try to ask her. An information booth worker tried to ask. That person fills a very different role then the security person.
This was functionally equivalent to an anonymous tip.
I think I will stick to my blogoring myself. That way if I get annoying comments I can just nudge it into the sun and kill everyone.
So does this mean the blogosphere will become the blogohypersphere? More dimensions makes it better.
To try _WHAT_ exactly?
Wearing home brew electronics into an airport?
The Boston police are being stupid here... not knowing what something is (esp given the average police officer does NOT have an EE degree and should, I don't know, ASK SOMEONE WHO DOES) is not an excuse to charge some poor girl with machine guns.
This level of incompetence and blame shifting by people who are supposed to be protecting us honestly scares me.
This "type" of device?????
They are going to have nightmares when chrismas comes around and you have those illuminated tree sweaters then....
What... the... f*ck... is... wrong... with... Boston....?????
Thing is, you don't need real time.
If a sequence can be recorded they can sit and break it at their leisure.
That aside, unless A and B are using on-time-pads then the situation you describe is more snake-oil encryption then anything else. At worst it just means they have to throw more computing power at the problem, but the power required would be linear, not logarithmic.
*headdesk* heaven forbid that solutions might be different depending on the situation and the data....
Nope! Apparently there is a new method and thus it must be the real One Twue Way.
Which even this has some interesting potential.
It reminds me of people who practice martial arts and learn to read when/how someone is going to attack by looking at which muscles are tensing and such.
And while I can see why people are mocking the entire 'aircraft' potential, any system that could potentially reduce reaction time by reading what someone will do faster then their body can do it could have application.
Explaining 'beyond the scope of this paper' _IS_ saying they do not know why.
And while yes the paper would have been more interesting if the authors could figure out why, but in reality it is far more valuable published without a why then holding onto the data till they have a plausible explanation.
That would probably be the proper way to handle it, though it would not satisfy the critics since they tend to loose interest in any particular title after it has been released. They live and breath in the ambiguity of unreleased games.
Another solution would be to give certain requesters access to the information under NDA (and non-compete requirements), and thus place legal liability on their heads should they leak information for their own benefit.
Lee, Thompson, CFCC, would probably be reluctant to put their necks on the line like that when they could potentially face massive lawsuits for contract violation if they drum up fear over games with confidential information.
Better translation: We don't want to get our asses sued off for releasing other company's confidential information.
Because they are thinking of the children?
Everyone knows video games are marketed towards children! But movies, well, real adults watch those!
True, they can not prevent it, but they can (and do) use their power to change what people put out.
From a video game perspective, a game that is blocked from being sold at Walmart quickly becomes economically un-viable to produce, for instance. So they get significant control of what does, and does not, get produced.
The problem with Walmart specifically is they have SO much economic clout that they can almost function as a government in some regards. And THAT is what people worry about....
Yeah, that is the other end of the problem, since adblock punishes far more sites then are really needed.
I am happy to be rid of many ads, or more specifically, ads that make my browsing experience inconvenient (slow, unstable, interfering, etc)... but simple 'there' ads I do not see a need to filter.
Oddly enough, my biggest use for blocking is my ISP (comcast) since they have invasive ads that can take down firefox...
websites can have a ligit right to want people to view their ads. What is at issue is HOW they push this desire.
Websites that depend on highly invasive pop-ups, pop-unders, and any number of 'tricky' ads are generally considered slimy and kept away from. That is one end of the spectrum that almost no one argues is 'good behavior'. The real question will be, is blocking entire browsers 'good behavior' or 'scummy tactic'.
Historically, any site that starts blocking large groups based off questionable 'demographics' ends up getting backlash from the geek community and eventually gets ignored. Linking to 'firefox myths' and 'firefox cult' do not exactly earn the TFA any points either since that tints ANYTHING the person says with ideology rather then economics. Even if the person has a real point, it is going to get lost in the FUD and venom.
Conversly, think about how webmasters tend to feel when people start building blacklists of sites that then start to get wide useage. They are none to happy either.
One way to think about a photon and it's masslessness is to get away from thinking about it _as_ something.
It has been YEARS since I worked through the math of this though so I appologize if I get some of the details wrong.
Ok, picture this. You have a magnetic field. Magnetic fields themselves, I think we can agree, have no mass to them. They are mearly an effect at a range.
However, a magnetic field can cause an electrical field to form perpendicular to it. So now you have one field causing another within a specific area. That electrical field can then cause another magnetic field next to it. They then bounce back and for, propitiating through space as quickly as it can change form. That is light.
And here we get to the crux of the issue.
It is not about being allowed to raise one's kids as one sees fit, it is about making sure OTHER parents raise their kids in such a way that it doesn't interfere with one's own style. The off chance that one's kids might be exposed to things one does no approve of by parents who do approve. In other words, LCD parenting.
I can recall growing up, kids who's parents did not believe in soft drinks or TV going absolutely livid that their children hung out with families where such things were allowed, and thus all their carefully crafted isolation would go to pot when then kid got an option to make their own opinions on the things. Insufficient brainwashing time ^_^
Quote from David Pratt, a CRC representative:
o ss_1.x)
"One of the things that struck us in relation to the video games industry is that while certain products that are out there, first aid kits and so on, that's certainly a problem--and our philosophy is that there's no emblem abuse that's too small to report, because you have to try to get them all" (full piece http://www.shacknews.com/extras/2006/020906_redcr
So within that context it sounds like the Red Cross would consider J&J a legitimate target in the future.
And J&J, even within your take, has every right to be pissed. The Red Cross is a non-profit organization, it should not be giving out permission to use a symbol that is trademarked for commercial use by another organization.
As for dating the symbol, as you point out, it was in use well before the Red Cross came into existence and claimed the trademark, including national flags. So the Red Cross probably shouldn't have any claim to the symbol either, yet it is sending legal letters to commercial entities saying to stop using it, AND is producing commercial products using it.
J&J might be being asshats here, but the Red Cross is building up plenty of bad karma too and started the cross trademark fight. Doing good works does not give them a illy white get out of jail free card to be jerks themselves.
If I had mod points....
To extend on this line of thought. I could actually see J&J seeing this as a defensive move. If the ARC has been going around and suing companies to make them 'license' their cross, I could EASILY see them going after J&J once they feel confidant enough.
And any time a non-profit enters the commercial realm, then defends it's actions via 'anyone who tries to hurt us is really just hurting people we help!' one should be very, very cautious and cynical.....
I am picutring some super-advanced civilization who is already bored with making Dyson Shells going
Superbeing A:hey! what would happen if we built a full sized mock-up entierly out of balsa wood!
Superbeing B:that sounds really pointless. where did you get such a stupid idea?
Superbeing A:I heard it in some Fump song....
Superbeing B:Cool! I'll go grab the supervodka and the meta-Dremal!
Because the GPL only applies to what you distribute, so it puts no requirements on people who buy a device and play with it, but it does dictate the behavior of the person who develops and distributes devices.
The FSF also specifically caters to people who are NOT writing software for sale, so when it comes down to 'who's freedom is more important' they will tend to side with their core group.... non-professional coders, hobbyists, service-oriented coders, and web-centric coders. Notice how the GPL doesn't effect what any of those groups can program or how their hardware must behave?
Exelent example... I will have to remember the idea of games as preformance art.
Unfortunately, it is also an possible example of why games would have a hard time being considered 'high art'. Folklore, performance art, etc, are generally considered 'low art' since they tend to be 'pessent oriented' rather then aristocratic in origin.
While true you do not hear boardgame players wanting their thing to be 'art', you DO hear other creative mediums trying to get recognition.. such as film, comics, books (back in the day), etc.
I think the big thing is... people who are being creative and consider themselves artistic want their particular mode of expression treated with respect like other modes. So it is less the players and more the creators that really feel this.
Ebert's argument often seems to come down to 'any time the artist has to interact with the subject instead of 100% dictating the experience, it is lesser'.
The problem with 'games as art' is that tree plot lines are much harder to write then linear ones. But there are artists out there who can do it,... I think some of the backlash from people like Ebert is he represents artists who can not do this and are thus feel threatened.