When you get a telemarketing call on your cell, ask them their name, the company they're calling for, and their return phone number. They are legally required to give you all of this information, if you ask.
Then, ask to speak to the person's manager/supervisor. Inform him/her that this is a cell phone. It is illegal for them to call cell phones. At this point, you've already got their information, so they can't just hang up and run. Inform them that you wish to recoup the cost of this call, and that you want them to send you a cheque for $100 USD. If they refuse, tell them you will take it up with the FCC, and the fine they will levy will be much, much more than that.
we also need strong social change, to teach people that eating too much is bad, and that violence is bad.
This is a very naive ideology. A nice ideal, but unrealistic. You assume that everyone is the same inside. They have the same potential to either be thin or fat, nice or mean, peaceful or violent. You believe that it is just as easy for me to control my temper as it is for you to control yours. You are wrong.
Genes are at work inside our brains. Violent people aren't violent simply because no one taught them not to be - it's a combination of things. Negative upbringing, unfortunate neighborhood, social factors, but also (and this is the part you neglect) physiology. Studies have shown that many violent offenders have overactive frontal lobes. You cannot reason with a person and "teach" their frontal lobe to be less active, nor can you "teach" your prostate gland to produce less testosterone. Sure, as a civilized society, we can control these urges, but you must understand that different people experience different urges in different magnitudes.
Sure, simply having a body that happens to generate too much of the hormones that promote violent tendencies does not in itself doom one to be a violent offender. They still have free will. But it is a factor. Combined with the right mix of other factors, that person could potentially become a criminal. Indeed, this is usually exactly how it happens. Many people come from bad upbringings and still turn out normal (partly because they have good genes). Many people raised in "normal" families turn into criminals (partly because they have "violent" genes).
Of course, I chose the more difficult analogy to illustrate this to you. It is trivially easy to demonstrate that the notion of eliminating obesity by simply "teaching" people to eat less is absurd. Plenty of people diet like crazy and can't lose the weight. Plenty more eat whatever they want and never gain a pound. It's not as simple as you seem to believe it is. Genes cannot simply be rendered irrelevant by sheer willpower.
Tweaking a person's genes to give them the foundation of a healthy, non-violent life wouldn't make them lazy, sloppy, or arrogant. There are plenty of people out there already who aren't prone to violent outbursts, and who have healthy, active metabolisms, and yet they don't go around getting themselves into volatile situations or consuming everything in sight.
What if a child is found to have some disease while in the womb, and doctors perform GM and fix the disease, but the modification also CAUSES the child to have MS? Think about it, how many times have you made a minor change to some code that couldn't possibly affect anything else only to find that it blows out everything else?
Even with the advancements in science and medicine this century much of what doctors do is guesswork.
Oh, come on. If the "Powers that Be" in the medical community made a habit of heeding such fearmongering, then the organ donation program wouldn't exist. "We can't go around transplanting organs from one person into another - what if their genes mix together and produce some kind of mutant disease that we can't even conceive of?"
Fortunately, they went ahead anyway, and countless lives have been saved.
Re:When did we decide "no more progress?"
on
The Rights of GM Humans
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Have you ever seen GATTACA?
Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but "GATTACA" was a MOVIE. Not a documentary. Ever seen "The Matrix?" Should we stop developing AI immediately, lest we inevitably become slaves to the machines?
In a world of selected humans, insurance companies would refuse to cover defective beings
So? How is this a bad thing? It is not the jobs of insurance companies to give away free health care. That is the job of the government. Insurance companies already discriminate based on health. They ask you if you have a history of diabetes, heart disease, whatever, they ask if you smoke, if you're overweight, etc. It's not a fair system, nor should it be. The healthy should subsidize the sick, but not through insurance companies. They should do it through taxes. This is already how it works in Canada. Yes, it would require overhauling some aspects of your health care, insurance, and taxation systems. Too bad. Do you think those systems are perfect, as they are right now? That they'll never need changing, forever? Of course not. They can be improved upon, and should be, for the good of the human race. If they're a barrier to extending human lives and erradicating disease, then you're darn right they should be overhauled.
Look, you're citing some relatively trivial, short-term economic issues as a reason to permanently stifle artificial evolution, and I guess I just tend to see the big picture instead. I see incredible long-term gains for those short-term pains.
Incidentally, in your photo example, YOU have broken the law, too. By profiting from your photo of the bum, you owe the bum compensation (unless he's agreed to a model release form in which he declines any compensation). The law in the US generally states that you can take pictures of anything you want in public (certain landmarks excepted, thanks to terrorism panic). But if you take a photo of a person, and the person is clearly identifiable in said photo, then you need their permission. And if you profit from that photo, then you owe them compensation/royalties.
Weren't the guns in "Eraser" railguns? Wasn't the whole movie *about* those railguns? As I recall, the guns used an electromagnetic channel down the barrel of the gun to accelerate tiny pieces of aluminum to near-light speeds, causing lots of damage. The effect was a greenish beam... looked pretty cool, I thought.
For thousands of years, the whole point of human existence was to perpetuate and improve both quality and quantity of life. Every hospital, every ultrasound, every drug and every anti-smoking poster exists solely to increase our lifespans and improve our quality of life. So why all of a sudden are people saying "No" to taking this quest to the gene level?
My sister-in-law has her masters in biology and is persuing another masters in genetic counselling. Curiously, she feels differently than I do about this. I believe that if we have the knowledge and the power to identify a Parkinson's, cancer, MS, Autistic, Down's, Lou Gehrig's, or a thousand other markers in our zygote's genetic code, and to eliminate that threat, then who in their right mind *wouldn't* do it? Why *wouldn't* you want your child to not have to go through the agony of being deaf or suffering through their twilight years consumed in the sad cloud of Alzheimer's?
She, on the other hand, believes that we shouldn't meddle, because if we do as I just described, it's a small step to handing prospective parents a form, letting them choose their baby's sex, hair colour, height, etc. I say, "so what?" Once again, why *wouldn't* you want to let people choose what their children will look like? The child has to have SOME eye colour, it's going to be either brown or blue or green or something ANYWAY, so what's the harm in letting the parents pick?
"We shouldn't be playing God," they say. But aren't we already? Haven't we been playing God since we started artificially extending peoples' lives through drugs and machines? Aren't contraceptive drugs "Playing God?" Aren't C-section births "Playing God?" Why do people accept all of those unnatural interventions, but draw the line at the next logical improvement of life?
I believe that if society can eliminate those horrible genetic diseases from our gene pool, along with reducing obesity and the violent tendencies that produce dangerous criminals (yes, physiological links have been shown), then the sooner society will improve. Yes, it might suck for those of us who are already here and can't re-write our genetic code, but this is not without precedent. Do we deny cancer treatment to everyone, just because there are people who are beyond treatment? Since they won't survive cancer, then no one should? It's ridiculous.
Science, medicine, and arguably society as a whole exist for the sole purpose of improving life. Evolving. I believe if we're at the threshold of these discoveries, that bring such amazing promises to our children and grandchildren, then it'd be counter to all the progress we've made so far in the last few centuries to stop now. We owe it to our children to use our knowledge to improve their lives. That's WHY technology exists.
You can't say in-vitro fertilization and abortion are OK, but genetic manipulation is not. It's hypocritical.
It is? Name one single move in which a CGI character moves so naturally that it doesn't look incredibly fake. How about the fight scenes in "Blade 2?" Maybe the roof-jumping scene in "Spiderman?" No, wait, what about when Robert Patrick walks out of the burning truck wreckage in "Terminator 2?"
Humans are innately good at detecting unnatural motion. We don't even have to think about it - it's built into our evolution. We see something moving, and we can tell whether it's natural or not. All of the things I listed above looked fake in the movies. Why? I don't know - it's hard to say. It's the little things. Like when Spidey was jumping from rooftop to rooftop, it just didn't look like someone was actually doing it. He was falling too fast on the downward parts, or something.
Don't get me wrong, CGI is getting better, but simulating natural human motion (especially when they're doing things that humans wouldn't ordinarily be strong/fast enough to do) is incredibly difficult, and contrary to your comment, no, the technology is not there yet. Or at least, if it is, I can't think of a single example of it yet.
If they use CGI actors in the Matrix, then I'm just praying they've managed to find a way to make it look natural and real. Otherwise, it'll ruin the movie for me. The original Matrix blew me away because they used just the right mix of wires and slow-motion to make the scenes look very realistic. I just hope the sequels can maintain these expectations, or even raise the bar.
I actually liked DareDevil much more than Spiderman. The CGI in Spiderman was *terrible*. Sure, it was pretty faithful to the comic, but that's only because they were setting it up to milk the franchise for as many sequels as people will pay to see. DareDevil, on the other hand, didn't have the luxury of such a guaranteed sequel, so it had to have a story that stood on its own. Did they take liberties from the comics? I'm sure they did, but I wouldn't know - I only read a couple comics when I was much younger. But as far as the two movies go, on their own merits, I found the story, acting, and effects much better in DareDevil than Spiderman.
Now that's something to be proud of. I like the smiley you put at the end, too, as if being a theif is funny. Let's see if you're still laughing when your car is stolen. You see, I never pay for cars. Or food. Or gas.
Question though - assuming you eventually leave elementary school, where's the money to pay you going to come from if everyone is like you, and is just stealing everything? Who's going to make new movies, computer games, or CDs if everyone is just stealing them online, like you do?
Bah, best not bother you with such hard-hitting questions, eh? Let someone else sort all that out. All you care about is stealing the next song or movie. Carry on then, child.
I don't usually respond to ACs, but hey, it's a long weekend. My point was to shut down people who enthusiastically (and incorrectly) say "Why did the article call him a 'hacker', when clearly he was doing illegal things, therefore they should have called him a 'cracker'?"
The answer, of course, is that they called him a hacker because what he did meets the accepted definition of "hacker," and no one except us geeks is even aware of this peculiar and obscure definition of "cracker" that some zealots try to foist upon society's general usage (with little to no success).
Uhm, how, precisely, did they "misuse" the word? Their use of it seems to agree with every dictionary I've checked. Perhaps you're unfamiliar with English?
Ah, I see, thank you very much. You see, all along, I've been relying on fringe definitions like the one from a little-known dictionary called "Merriam-Webster": "4 : a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system", and dictionary.com: "One who uses programming skills to gain illegal access to a computer network or file."
Clearly, what I should have done right from the beginning was consult the authoritative source of etymology, the one you cited, namely Costas Tavernarakis' homepage on some freakin' personal homepage in Greece!
Look, you've lost. "Hacker" is someone who breaks into computer systems illegally. That's the accepted use in English. It will never mean anything else, regardless of how much a handful of computer hobbiests like yourself will it to. So you found someone's homepage that carries about as much weight as your own post on Slashdot, as far as redefining a word goes. Big deal. It's over. Let it go. Find a new word.
Your entire post is wrong because of this one, absurdly false assertion:
Hacking is an addiction.
That's so ridiculous I don't know where to start. Hacking is no more an "addition" than baseball, "Survivor," or collecting stamps is an addiction.
You wouldn't give a 5 time convicted drunk driver their license, even if they haven't touched alcohol for years.
This ludicrous comparison is incredibly offensive to anyone who has ever been trapped in the grip of alcoholism. Alcoholism IS an addiction - a life-destroying, all-encompassing addiction which affects entire families. That you would compare such a real, actual addiction which such a trivial pastime as poking at computer systems over a network shows that you have no idea what a real addiction is.
Cocaine is addictive. Heroin is addictive. Alcohol is addictive. Hacking is NOT addictive.
I've however pointed out that any idiot who was gonna do something in the dorms would do what everyone else does, and that is follow someone who swiped before you, and not swipe themselves.
It's not always that simple. You ignore the case where the person had no intention of committing any mischief when they arrived at the dorms. They showed up for a party, drank a few too many beers, got carried away, raped someone and ran. The next day, they're questioned by campus security and deny having been in the residence at all.
This is the worst kind of security through obscurity.
Why are people so down on "security through obscurity?" Do any of you have any idea what the inside of Fort Knox looks like? No? Has it ever been successfully robbed? No? Sounds like "security through obscurity" is working GREAT to me. Ditto for the pentagon, the security protocols for Air Force One, and a thousand other installations that require "Top Secret" security control.
I will concede that there are some situations where a security model can benefit from open review and grow stronger, but why do some people refuse to believe that there can also exist some circumstances where open public knowledge would WEAKEN the system?
Take my Fort Knox example again. None of us know what it looks like inside. If we hoped to rob it, we'd have our work cut out for us. On the other hand, if it had been designed by an open forum, then the architecture and security practices within would be public knowledge, and it would be comparitively easier to launch a robbery attack on it. The only way it could be otherwise is if cost was ignored, and the open solution that was adopted was something along the lines of "construct the vault 200 feet underground, with a single entrance, guarded 24/7 by 8 multilingual guards, all of whom are former secret service, CIA, NSA, or Navy Seal operatives."
Sometimes, obscurity *is* feasible. How many people do you think would have liked to have seen McVeigh's execution? It was broadcast to two locations via closed-circuit TV, using some type of encryption and authentication that was, of course, not public knowledge. Now if it *had* been a public protocol, then you might be able to log onto Kazaa today and do a quick search for "McVeigh Lethal Injection" and come up with something, but since it was a closed, private implementation ("security through obscurity"), your logic suggests that the video would be rampant on the net, but the opposite is true. The video wasn't leaked. We'll never see that video, because security through obscurity worked.
It most definitely will not. In order for the world population to double in such a short period, it would have to be increasing at a rate of exactly 10% per year. Considering that many developed countries (eg., Canada) have negative birth rates (that is, would be shrinking if it weren't for immigration), and the countries that do have positive birth rates have very low life expectancies (third world countries), we are nowhere near 10% annual population growth on a global scale.
1. Computers didn't stop 4 planes from crashing Sept. 11.
2. Engine failures in conventional aircraft are never "disasterous" unless all 2/3/4 engines fail during critical times (such as take off, as you mentioned). But in order for it to be "disasterous", all engines would have to fail; an extremely unlikely event. With a Harrier-style jet, however, even a single engine failure during takeoff would be disasterous.
You nailed one of the main points on the head - lifting such a heavy craft vertically would consume an enormous amount of fuel. And of course, fuel is also very heavy, so the amount of thrust needed to lift the craft, the people, and the large amount of fuel would be massive. Burning through so much fuel so fast would require bigger tanks, which would be even heavier... you see where I'm going with this. The space shuttle has the same problem. The vast majority of the fuel is spent in the first minute of shuttle launch, lifting the rest of the fuel!
Also, safety concerns must be considered. VTOL flight training is very counter-intuitive for pilots. When the USAF started training with Harriers, they lost quite a few pilots and planes. Hovering in a Harrier has been described as "balancing on the blade of a knife." Quite often, even if pilots were able to get the thing up off the ground, they'd try to transition to horizontal flight too quickly, aiming the thrusters directly backward before they had enough forward speed to generate lift over the wings. Surely you've seen numerous videos on the History channel of these things nosing into the ground and exploding? Sometimes the pilot got out, sometimes he didn't. But what chance would passengers have?
Why would you ruin a work of art like that? Why would you rob yourself of such an experience?
If the long-lost finale to Beethoven's 9th (make believe) were discovered today, and was going to be premiered by the London Philharmonic, heard for the first time in centuries, would you tune in and listen to it on your AM radio?
Pay the 6 bucks, grant yourself the once-in-a-lifetime experience of seeing this movie for the first time in the way that can do it the most justice: on a massive screen, with an awesome sound system, and with a bucket of overpriced, greasy (and yet oh-so-delicious) movie popcorn in your lap.
First of all, exactly how many computers have you bought? Secondly, you never used the operating system that came with it? You always immediatly blanked it and installed some other operating system, every time? Thirdly, why did you have to buy Windows every time you bought a PC? Ever hear of "clones?" Only the big, appliance-PC vendors (Dell, Compaq, IBM) require you to purchase a Windows license - go to a small, local shop. They don't have the same contracts and will happily sell you a Windows-free PC. And finally, if you're so technologically-savvy that you never use Windows, why are you so incapable of building your own damn PC? Geez man, what's the problem? You buy a case, a motherboard, a CPU, a hard drive, some cables, connect it all together, and ta-da: you've got a cheap PC and didn't have to buy a Windows license.
I'm left to conclude that you are either an idiot, or a troll.
First of all, you're talking about encryption, when the real topic here is anti-piracy keys. As far as I can tell, they are two completely different issues. I don't see how making the key-checking algorithm public is going to make the product more secure - indeed, the exact opposite appears obvious to me.
Secondly, you say "you don't and really can't have this same kind of security with a closed encryption standard.", referring to DES encryption, but this statement can easily be proven false by simply supposing that DES had been developed in private, rather than publicly. Your comment assumes that such an algorithm could only have been the result of an open, public, collaborative effort, which is not necessarily the case. There is no reason that it could not have been developed privately, by a single individual. In such a case, it would be even more secure than it already is, would it not?
Slashdot Mirror
When you get a telemarketing call on your cell, ask them their name, the company they're calling for, and their return phone number. They are legally required to give you all of this information, if you ask.
Then, ask to speak to the person's manager/supervisor. Inform him/her that this is a cell phone. It is illegal for them to call cell phones. At this point, you've already got their information, so they can't just hang up and run. Inform them that you wish to recoup the cost of this call, and that you want them to send you a cheque for $100 USD. If they refuse, tell them you will take it up with the FCC, and the fine they will levy will be much, much more than that.
Hey, it's worth a shot.
we also need strong social change, to teach people that eating too much is bad, and that violence is bad.
This is a very naive ideology. A nice ideal, but unrealistic. You assume that everyone is the same inside. They have the same potential to either be thin or fat, nice or mean, peaceful or violent. You believe that it is just as easy for me to control my temper as it is for you to control yours. You are wrong.
Genes are at work inside our brains. Violent people aren't violent simply because no one taught them not to be - it's a combination of things. Negative upbringing, unfortunate neighborhood, social factors, but also (and this is the part you neglect) physiology. Studies have shown that many violent offenders have overactive frontal lobes. You cannot reason with a person and "teach" their frontal lobe to be less active, nor can you "teach" your prostate gland to produce less testosterone. Sure, as a civilized society, we can control these urges, but you must understand that different people experience different urges in different magnitudes.
Sure, simply having a body that happens to generate too much of the hormones that promote violent tendencies does not in itself doom one to be a violent offender. They still have free will. But it is a factor. Combined with the right mix of other factors, that person could potentially become a criminal. Indeed, this is usually exactly how it happens. Many people come from bad upbringings and still turn out normal (partly because they have good genes). Many people raised in "normal" families turn into criminals (partly because they have "violent" genes).
Of course, I chose the more difficult analogy to illustrate this to you. It is trivially easy to demonstrate that the notion of eliminating obesity by simply "teaching" people to eat less is absurd. Plenty of people diet like crazy and can't lose the weight. Plenty more eat whatever they want and never gain a pound. It's not as simple as you seem to believe it is. Genes cannot simply be rendered irrelevant by sheer willpower.
Tweaking a person's genes to give them the foundation of a healthy, non-violent life wouldn't make them lazy, sloppy, or arrogant. There are plenty of people out there already who aren't prone to violent outbursts, and who have healthy, active metabolisms, and yet they don't go around getting themselves into volatile situations or consuming everything in sight.
What if a child is found to have some disease while in the womb, and doctors perform GM and fix the disease, but the modification also CAUSES the child to have MS? Think about it, how many times have you made a minor change to some code that couldn't possibly affect anything else only to find that it blows out everything else?
Even with the advancements in science and medicine this century much of what doctors do is guesswork.
Oh, come on. If the "Powers that Be" in the medical community made a habit of heeding such fearmongering, then the organ donation program wouldn't exist. "We can't go around transplanting organs from one person into another - what if their genes mix together and produce some kind of mutant disease that we can't even conceive of?"
Fortunately, they went ahead anyway, and countless lives have been saved.
Have you ever seen GATTACA?
Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but "GATTACA" was a MOVIE. Not a documentary. Ever seen "The Matrix?" Should we stop developing AI immediately, lest we inevitably become slaves to the machines?
In a world of selected humans, insurance companies would refuse to cover defective beings
So? How is this a bad thing? It is not the jobs of insurance companies to give away free health care. That is the job of the government. Insurance companies already discriminate based on health. They ask you if you have a history of diabetes, heart disease, whatever, they ask if you smoke, if you're overweight, etc. It's not a fair system, nor should it be. The healthy should subsidize the sick, but not through insurance companies. They should do it through taxes. This is already how it works in Canada. Yes, it would require overhauling some aspects of your health care, insurance, and taxation systems. Too bad. Do you think those systems are perfect, as they are right now? That they'll never need changing, forever? Of course not. They can be improved upon, and should be, for the good of the human race. If they're a barrier to extending human lives and erradicating disease, then you're darn right they should be overhauled.
Look, you're citing some relatively trivial, short-term economic issues as a reason to permanently stifle artificial evolution, and I guess I just tend to see the big picture instead. I see incredible long-term gains for those short-term pains.
Incidentally, in your photo example, YOU have broken the law, too. By profiting from your photo of the bum, you owe the bum compensation (unless he's agreed to a model release form in which he declines any compensation). The law in the US generally states that you can take pictures of anything you want in public (certain landmarks excepted, thanks to terrorism panic). But if you take a photo of a person, and the person is clearly identifiable in said photo, then you need their permission. And if you profit from that photo, then you owe them compensation/royalties.
Weren't the guns in "Eraser" railguns? Wasn't the whole movie *about* those railguns? As I recall, the guns used an electromagnetic channel down the barrel of the gun to accelerate tiny pieces of aluminum to near-light speeds, causing lots of damage. The effect was a greenish beam... looked pretty cool, I thought.
For thousands of years, the whole point of human existence was to perpetuate and improve both quality and quantity of life. Every hospital, every ultrasound, every drug and every anti-smoking poster exists solely to increase our lifespans and improve our quality of life. So why all of a sudden are people saying "No" to taking this quest to the gene level?
My sister-in-law has her masters in biology and is persuing another masters in genetic counselling. Curiously, she feels differently than I do about this. I believe that if we have the knowledge and the power to identify a Parkinson's, cancer, MS, Autistic, Down's, Lou Gehrig's, or a thousand other markers in our zygote's genetic code, and to eliminate that threat, then who in their right mind *wouldn't* do it? Why *wouldn't* you want your child to not have to go through the agony of being deaf or suffering through their twilight years consumed in the sad cloud of Alzheimer's?
She, on the other hand, believes that we shouldn't meddle, because if we do as I just described, it's a small step to handing prospective parents a form, letting them choose their baby's sex, hair colour, height, etc. I say, "so what?" Once again, why *wouldn't* you want to let people choose what their children will look like? The child has to have SOME eye colour, it's going to be either brown or blue or green or something ANYWAY, so what's the harm in letting the parents pick?
"We shouldn't be playing God," they say. But aren't we already? Haven't we been playing God since we started artificially extending peoples' lives through drugs and machines? Aren't contraceptive drugs "Playing God?" Aren't C-section births "Playing God?" Why do people accept all of those unnatural interventions, but draw the line at the next logical improvement of life?
I believe that if society can eliminate those horrible genetic diseases from our gene pool, along with reducing obesity and the violent tendencies that produce dangerous criminals (yes, physiological links have been shown), then the sooner society will improve. Yes, it might suck for those of us who are already here and can't re-write our genetic code, but this is not without precedent. Do we deny cancer treatment to everyone, just because there are people who are beyond treatment? Since they won't survive cancer, then no one should? It's ridiculous.
Science, medicine, and arguably society as a whole exist for the sole purpose of improving life. Evolving. I believe if we're at the threshold of these discoveries, that bring such amazing promises to our children and grandchildren, then it'd be counter to all the progress we've made so far in the last few centuries to stop now. We owe it to our children to use our knowledge to improve their lives. That's WHY technology exists.
You can't say in-vitro fertilization and abortion are OK, but genetic manipulation is not. It's hypocritical.
The technology is there,
It is? Name one single move in which a CGI character moves so naturally that it doesn't look incredibly fake. How about the fight scenes in "Blade 2?" Maybe the roof-jumping scene in "Spiderman?" No, wait, what about when Robert Patrick walks out of the burning truck wreckage in "Terminator 2?"
Humans are innately good at detecting unnatural motion. We don't even have to think about it - it's built into our evolution. We see something moving, and we can tell whether it's natural or not. All of the things I listed above looked fake in the movies. Why? I don't know - it's hard to say. It's the little things. Like when Spidey was jumping from rooftop to rooftop, it just didn't look like someone was actually doing it. He was falling too fast on the downward parts, or something.
Don't get me wrong, CGI is getting better, but simulating natural human motion (especially when they're doing things that humans wouldn't ordinarily be strong/fast enough to do) is incredibly difficult, and contrary to your comment, no, the technology is not there yet. Or at least, if it is, I can't think of a single example of it yet.
If they use CGI actors in the Matrix, then I'm just praying they've managed to find a way to make it look natural and real. Otherwise, it'll ruin the movie for me. The original Matrix blew me away because they used just the right mix of wires and slow-motion to make the scenes look very realistic. I just hope the sequels can maintain these expectations, or even raise the bar.
I actually liked DareDevil much more than Spiderman. The CGI in Spiderman was *terrible*. Sure, it was pretty faithful to the comic, but that's only because they were setting it up to milk the franchise for as many sequels as people will pay to see. DareDevil, on the other hand, didn't have the luxury of such a guaranteed sequel, so it had to have a story that stood on its own. Did they take liberties from the comics? I'm sure they did, but I wouldn't know - I only read a couple comics when I was much younger. But as far as the two movies go, on their own merits, I found the story, acting, and effects much better in DareDevil than Spiderman.
Now that's something to be proud of. I like the smiley you put at the end, too, as if being a theif is funny. Let's see if you're still laughing when your car is stolen. You see, I never pay for cars. Or food. Or gas.
Question though - assuming you eventually leave elementary school, where's the money to pay you going to come from if everyone is like you, and is just stealing everything? Who's going to make new movies, computer games, or CDs if everyone is just stealing them online, like you do?
Bah, best not bother you with such hard-hitting questions, eh? Let someone else sort all that out. All you care about is stealing the next song or movie. Carry on then, child.
I don't usually respond to ACs, but hey, it's a long weekend. My point was to shut down people who enthusiastically (and incorrectly) say "Why did the article call him a 'hacker', when clearly he was doing illegal things, therefore they should have called him a 'cracker'?"
The answer, of course, is that they called him a hacker because what he did meets the accepted definition of "hacker," and no one except us geeks is even aware of this peculiar and obscure definition of "cracker" that some zealots try to foist upon society's general usage (with little to no success).
Uhm, how, precisely, did they "misuse" the word? Their use of it seems to agree with every dictionary I've checked. Perhaps you're unfamiliar with English?
I think it's the shortest definition and the most accurate.
... other than that, sure, it's a great definition.
Uh, yeah, except that it disagrees with every single REAL dictionary on the planet
Ah, I see, thank you very much. You see, all along, I've been relying on fringe definitions like the one from a little-known dictionary called "Merriam-Webster": "4 : a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system", and dictionary.com: "One who uses programming skills to gain illegal access to a computer network or file."
Clearly, what I should have done right from the beginning was consult the authoritative source of etymology, the one you cited, namely Costas Tavernarakis' homepage on some freakin' personal homepage in Greece!
Look, you've lost. "Hacker" is someone who breaks into computer systems illegally. That's the accepted use in English. It will never mean anything else, regardless of how much a handful of computer hobbiests like yourself will it to. So you found someone's homepage that carries about as much weight as your own post on Slashdot, as far as redefining a word goes. Big deal. It's over. Let it go. Find a new word.
Your entire post is wrong because of this one, absurdly false assertion:
Hacking is an addiction.
That's so ridiculous I don't know where to start. Hacking is no more an "addition" than baseball, "Survivor," or collecting stamps is an addiction.
You wouldn't give a 5 time convicted drunk driver their license, even if they haven't touched alcohol for years.
This ludicrous comparison is incredibly offensive to anyone who has ever been trapped in the grip of alcoholism. Alcoholism IS an addiction - a life-destroying, all-encompassing addiction which affects entire families. That you would compare such a real, actual addiction which such a trivial pastime as poking at computer systems over a network shows that you have no idea what a real addiction is.
Cocaine is addictive. Heroin is addictive. Alcohol is addictive. Hacking is NOT addictive.
I've however pointed out that any idiot who was gonna do something in the dorms would do what everyone else does, and that is follow someone who swiped before you, and not swipe themselves.
It's not always that simple. You ignore the case where the person had no intention of committing any mischief when they arrived at the dorms. They showed up for a party, drank a few too many beers, got carried away, raped someone and ran. The next day, they're questioned by campus security and deny having been in the residence at all.
But their card was swiped.
This is the worst kind of security through obscurity.
Why are people so down on "security through obscurity?" Do any of you have any idea what the inside of Fort Knox looks like? No? Has it ever been successfully robbed? No? Sounds like "security through obscurity" is working GREAT to me. Ditto for the pentagon, the security protocols for Air Force One, and a thousand other installations that require "Top Secret" security control.
I will concede that there are some situations where a security model can benefit from open review and grow stronger, but why do some people refuse to believe that there can also exist some circumstances where open public knowledge would WEAKEN the system?
Take my Fort Knox example again. None of us know what it looks like inside. If we hoped to rob it, we'd have our work cut out for us. On the other hand, if it had been designed by an open forum, then the architecture and security practices within would be public knowledge, and it would be comparitively easier to launch a robbery attack on it. The only way it could be otherwise is if cost was ignored, and the open solution that was adopted was something along the lines of "construct the vault 200 feet underground, with a single entrance, guarded 24/7 by 8 multilingual guards, all of whom are former secret service, CIA, NSA, or Navy Seal operatives."
Sometimes, obscurity *is* feasible. How many people do you think would have liked to have seen McVeigh's execution? It was broadcast to two locations via closed-circuit TV, using some type of encryption and authentication that was, of course, not public knowledge. Now if it *had* been a public protocol, then you might be able to log onto Kazaa today and do a quick search for "McVeigh Lethal Injection" and come up with something, but since it was a closed, private implementation ("security through obscurity"), your logic suggests that the video would be rampant on the net, but the opposite is true. The video wasn't leaked. We'll never see that video, because security through obscurity worked.
It most definitely will not. In order for the world population to double in such a short period, it would have to be increasing at a rate of exactly 10% per year. Considering that many developed countries (eg., Canada) have negative birth rates (that is, would be shrinking if it weren't for immigration), and the countries that do have positive birth rates have very low life expectancies (third world countries), we are nowhere near 10% annual population growth on a global scale.
Check your facts.
1. Computers didn't stop 4 planes from crashing Sept. 11.
2. Engine failures in conventional aircraft are never "disasterous" unless all 2/3/4 engines fail during critical times (such as take off, as you mentioned). But in order for it to be "disasterous", all engines would have to fail; an extremely unlikely event. With a Harrier-style jet, however, even a single engine failure during takeoff would be disasterous.
You nailed one of the main points on the head - lifting such a heavy craft vertically would consume an enormous amount of fuel. And of course, fuel is also very heavy, so the amount of thrust needed to lift the craft, the people, and the large amount of fuel would be massive. Burning through so much fuel so fast would require bigger tanks, which would be even heavier ... you see where I'm going with this. The space shuttle has the same problem. The vast majority of the fuel is spent in the first minute of shuttle launch, lifting the rest of the fuel!
Also, safety concerns must be considered. VTOL flight training is very counter-intuitive for pilots. When the USAF started training with Harriers, they lost quite a few pilots and planes. Hovering in a Harrier has been described as "balancing on the blade of a knife." Quite often, even if pilots were able to get the thing up off the ground, they'd try to transition to horizontal flight too quickly, aiming the thrusters directly backward before they had enough forward speed to generate lift over the wings. Surely you've seen numerous videos on the History channel of these things nosing into the ground and exploding? Sometimes the pilot got out, sometimes he didn't. But what chance would passengers have?
I have a major problem with things like scrolling text java applets.
:)
:)
You mean like this one?
The problem is I see it too much.
What can I say - I wrote a popular applet.
Why would you ruin a work of art like that? Why would you rob yourself of such an experience?
If the long-lost finale to Beethoven's 9th (make believe) were discovered today, and was going to be premiered by the London Philharmonic, heard for the first time in centuries, would you tune in and listen to it on your AM radio?
Pay the 6 bucks, grant yourself the once-in-a-lifetime experience of seeing this movie for the first time in the way that can do it the most justice: on a massive screen, with an awesome sound system, and with a bucket of overpriced, greasy (and yet oh-so-delicious) movie popcorn in your lap.
First of all, exactly how many computers have you bought? Secondly, you never used the operating system that came with it? You always immediatly blanked it and installed some other operating system, every time? Thirdly, why did you have to buy Windows every time you bought a PC? Ever hear of "clones?" Only the big, appliance-PC vendors (Dell, Compaq, IBM) require you to purchase a Windows license - go to a small, local shop. They don't have the same contracts and will happily sell you a Windows-free PC. And finally, if you're so technologically-savvy that you never use Windows, why are you so incapable of building your own damn PC? Geez man, what's the problem? You buy a case, a motherboard, a CPU, a hard drive, some cables, connect it all together, and ta-da: you've got a cheap PC and didn't have to buy a Windows license.
I'm left to conclude that you are either an idiot, or a troll.
Fortunately though, the locks on my Ford work from Day 1.
You sure about that? "Door locks inoperative at freezing temperatures 1993-94" (Mustang and Probe).
First of all, you're talking about encryption, when the real topic here is anti-piracy keys. As far as I can tell, they are two completely different issues. I don't see how making the key-checking algorithm public is going to make the product more secure - indeed, the exact opposite appears obvious to me.
Secondly, you say "you don't and really can't have this same kind of security with a closed encryption standard.", referring to DES encryption, but this statement can easily be proven false by simply supposing that DES had been developed in private, rather than publicly. Your comment assumes that such an algorithm could only have been the result of an open, public, collaborative effort, which is not necessarily the case. There is no reason that it could not have been developed privately, by a single individual. In such a case, it would be even more secure than it already is, would it not?