I remember hearing somewhere that (as of Vietnam-era?) the target of at least small-arms fire is to wound, not kill; the reason being that a wounded soldier will take both himself plus one or two buddies out of combat (to get him back to a medic), whereas *killing* someone will only take that person out of combat.
I don't know how accurate this is, as I am not in the military, but the reduction in ammunition size (from.30 in WWII era to.22 recently, IIRC) seems to support this. (Yes, you can also carry more ammunition when it is smaller and lighter, so there may be other benefits as well...)
Forgive my ignorance, but I don't quite understand what you mean here. Do you mean that you have to actually register to a certain party in order to vote? What happens if you change your opinion later on - is that possible?
In Canada, very few people (to my knowledge, at least) are actually members of a given party. While I'm sure some will blindly vote the same way year after year, most of the people I know (granted, this is mostly a younger 20 - 30 year old demographic) will change their party vote depending on the issues at hand. For instance, I generally will vote Green, but in the upcoming election I am debating between them and the NDP.
Perhaps it is just a matter of semantics, but what exactly is entailed in registering for a certain party in the US?
And it would also seem that they go "only" at light speed
While that may be the 'official' back-story, unless the Star Wars galaxy is much smaller than ours, that would be completely impossible. Going at light speed, it would take us about 5 years to get to the nearest star (Alpha Centuri). To cross the galaxy would be about 100,000 years. Nowhere near the few hours to a few days travel times as seen in the movies.
A couple things about your post I'd like to point out... first, the Crookes Radiometer does not move due to photons bouncing off of them - see the all-knowing Wiki for more information. This is a minor detail, however, and would not affect your argument.
Second, and more to the point, there is no side of the moon which is light 24/7. One side of the moon is always facing Earth, yes - however that side experiences light and dark, with one full day equaling approximately 28 days.
Another poster has already pointed out the problems with relying on solar power of any kind, that being the need for batteries to store the power during lunar night, as well as the fact that during the day you would need more than twice the output to store enough power for night (since batteries are not 100% efficient, you must make enough power to cover both the usage and the loss).
An idea that I had a while back, but which I have never had the time to implement, is to use multiple layers of steganography and encryption over Fuse to make a plausbly-deniable encrypted volume.
The layers would be as follows:
Base layer would be a directory of photos (music / whatever file types allow steganography).
The bits of each file which are used to store data are concatenated (using some sort of RAID-style redundancy) to provide a 'contiguous' chunk of available bits. The level of redundancy could be adjusted to determine how many files could be deleted without actually losing data.
This contiguous chunk is then encrypted, and presented via Fuse as a file system.
This has advantages of being more deniable than a single large file of random data, unusable free space at the end of a volume, etc. Since the steganography layer would be storing essentially random bits, it would in theory be less succeptible to analysis which indicates that it *is* hiding information. (If you use high ISO photos, with a bunch of noise in the first place, this would probably be even better).
Can anyone think of problems (either implementation or theoretical) which I may have missed with this?
If anyone is interested in doing this with me, drop me a message... I am thinking of doing this in Python, as there seems to be a bit of encryption / steganography libraries already there... alternatively, if anyone knows of an OSS project which already does this, I would appreciate a link.
Likewise, in the 90'th century, some 50% of the women who gave birth with a doctor would die of septicemic shock
Wow, good thing I will likely be dead long before the 7000 years which get us to the 90'th century. I do feel sorry for my great great great.... grandkids, though!;-)
It was my understanding that pensions (in Canada, at least) would stop if you were out of the country for more than 6 months in a year. My mother in law is currently retired, and living on pensions, but can only be in Peru (her native home) for half the year for fear of losing all the pension.
If you are aware of other rules regarding this, I would be very interested.
The modem which my Shaw phone comes with has a battery backup. Not sure exactly how long it lasts, but at least it would prevent problems with short term blackouts and brownouts.
Of course, if you put it behind a UPS system, you can keep power as long as your UPS can provide it. (Shaw's relays may have gone down, though, so it is still not as reliable as POTS).
I hear you! I switched from my Telus landline to Shaw VOIP after Telus started charging an extra $5 / month because I *didn't* have a long distance plan.
Before I was paying almost $30 / month for Telus with no features (no caller ID, VM, etc); now I am paying $20 on Shaw with some basic features, *plus* getting $8 off my broadband, for almost $20 / month savings.
Add to that the fact that Shaw has always been excellent with their customer service, and this is a real no-brainer!
I should probably have been clearer - by DIY, I mean the 'true' DIY: one guy, hacking something out in the basement. If that guy then makes a website detailing his procedures, sells kits, or whatever else, that would be in violation of the patent (just as OSS can violate software patents). Now from what you are saying, in this 'true' DIY example, it would be more of a 'security through obscurity' than a real legal defense.
You have piqued my curiosity, and I have tried looking online for some sort of legal information one way or the other about DIY projects and patents, but cannot find anything. I may have been mistaken in my "patents don't apple to non-commercial projects" view; does anyone have any documentation one way or the other?
Patents only apply to commercial products as far as I know.
The real problem which will prevent this from becoming a DIY project is that the summary is lying: its not nail polish, a printer, and an oven which is required to make a complete solar cell; rather, a chemical *like* nail polish, a printer, and a lower-temperature-than-what-is-used-now oven is used for a specific part of the manufacturing process.
Still very cool, don't get me wrong, but this will not be happening in my basement any time soon 8-(
Retouching IS an evil which destroys the essence of photography. It's about capturing reality, not presenting an ideal.
I don't quite agree with this statement.... Photography by itself is an art, and you can get a wide variety of effects, and invoke a wade variety of emotions, even from the exact same scene, by changing different camera options (focal length, aperture, camera angle, etc).
Digital manipulation (or analog manipulation, for that matter), can serve the same purpose, and can in fact be used to complement the photography-specific options.
What it boils down to is that photography is an art, just as much as painting, drawing, music, etc. Just as some choose to paint according to the realism theories, you can choose to take photos which try to match reality as closely as possible; alternatively, you can choose to accent reality in certain ways to express a feeling or thought, just as Dali would use extra-long legs on an elephant or a man emerging from an egg to convey certain feelings.
Not that I disagree with most of your post - I think we are arguing much of the same point - but as a 'realist' photographer, I want to put forward my opinion that realism is not the *only* correct way to approach things.
Thank you (and the others who replied) for your encouragement. Here is my reply letter:
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Re: Bill C-61
Hello Mr. Harper,
I had written you last month to voice my concerns about bill C-61, and inform you that I was not in agreement with it as currently constituted. I have just received a standard form-letter reply to my initial letter, listing all of the 'benefits' which are to be included with this new proposed law, and how it is "made-in-Canada" with all sorts of benefits to Canadians.
You have obviously either missed my point, or chose to ignore it. I was not requesting propaganda on this bill - I was writing to inform you (as my representative) of my opinion. To re-state the major point in my previous letter, the most important of my concerns is included here.
The major loophole which you have managed to include in the bill, but which you continually ignore in all your official propaganda, is the DRM exception: if any copyright holder includes any digital rights management on the content, all your rights as a consumer, which this bill would give you, are void. To quote Michael Geist: "The Canadian DMCA allows every single exception to copyright to be eliminated by adding DRM: whatever the law allows you to do, a corporation can take away, just by using DRM to prevent you from doing it. Breaking DRM is illegal, unless you fit into a tiny, narrow, useless exception for security research."
Let me reiterate on this point: I am opposed to bill C-61, and I refuse to vote for any politician who supports it. If you and your party continue to bring forward and support bills of this nature, you will lose yet another voter from the "Conservative West".
I am copying this letter to my local, non-Conservative MPs, as well as the heads of the opposition parties, in the hope that they will encourage their parties fulfill their responsibilities, and oppose such blatant disregard of the wishes of their constituents.
I wrote a real letter to my MP (who happens to be Stephen Harper himself) expressing my disagreement with this bill. He replied with the standard form letter listing all the 'benefits' of the bill, and how my life will be so much better when it passes. I am seriously thinking of writing back saying that I was not asking for his opinion, I was telling him mine, and that if the bill passes, I will never vote Conservative again. (No need to mention that I have not voted conservative yet...).
This guy and his corrupt party just make me mad...
Speaking as a hunter, I still feel that the taking of a life is very real, and sacred (for lack of a better word). I am careful to give as much respect as possible to every animal that I kill, try to reduce suffering as much as possible, etc. It is very important to me to ensure that I only kill what I and my family will use for food - I am not the hunter which kills for trophies, sport, etc.
Not disrespecting you for your POV or anything; just pointing out the fact that not all hunters are the type which Disney portrays.
I have a big problem with a law which goes massively un-enforced, but which most people are guilty of breaking. The problem is that those in charge can use that law as an excuse to prosecute almost anyone, for whatever reason they want to. Say the government doesn't like how you look? Prosecute under this, unrelated law. Don't like your religion? Your skin color? Your favourite type of music? They will just go ahead and prosecute you.
When the entire population lives in fear of the government being able to (lawfully, remember - this law exists, and has been defined previously) arrest you, we as a people have a big problem on our hands.
If it was for use with powerbooks, chances are very good that it won't work on the MBP. The underlying temperature sensing system is completely different.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember hearing somewhere that (as of Vietnam-era?) the target of at least small-arms fire is to wound, not kill; the reason being that a wounded soldier will take both himself plus one or two buddies out of combat (to get him back to a medic), whereas *killing* someone will only take that person out of combat.
I don't know how accurate this is, as I am not in the military, but the reduction in ammunition size (from .30 in WWII era to .22 recently, IIRC) seems to support this. (Yes, you can also carry more ammunition when it is smaller and lighter, so there may be other benefits as well...)
Any other comments supporting / refuting this?
Cheers
You owe me a new screen!
Cool, thanks to all those who replied.
Cheers
Forgive my ignorance, but I don't quite understand what you mean here. Do you mean that you have to actually register to a certain party in order to vote? What happens if you change your opinion later on - is that possible?
In Canada, very few people (to my knowledge, at least) are actually members of a given party. While I'm sure some will blindly vote the same way year after year, most of the people I know (granted, this is mostly a younger 20 - 30 year old demographic) will change their party vote depending on the issues at hand. For instance, I generally will vote Green, but in the upcoming election I am debating between them and the NDP.
Perhaps it is just a matter of semantics, but what exactly is entailed in registering for a certain party in the US?
Cheers
And it would also seem that they go "only" at light speed
While that may be the 'official' back-story, unless the Star Wars galaxy is much smaller than ours, that would be completely impossible. Going at light speed, it would take us about 5 years to get to the nearest star (Alpha Centuri). To cross the galaxy would be about 100,000 years. Nowhere near the few hours to a few days travel times as seen in the movies.
Cheers
A couple things about your post I'd like to point out... first, the Crookes Radiometer does not move due to photons bouncing off of them - see the all-knowing Wiki for more information. This is a minor detail, however, and would not affect your argument.
Second, and more to the point, there is no side of the moon which is light 24/7. One side of the moon is always facing Earth, yes - however that side experiences light and dark, with one full day equaling approximately 28 days.
Another poster has already pointed out the problems with relying on solar power of any kind, that being the need for batteries to store the power during lunar night, as well as the fact that during the day you would need more than twice the output to store enough power for night (since batteries are not 100% efficient, you must make enough power to cover both the usage and the loss).
Cheers
An idea that I had a while back, but which I have never had the time to implement, is to use multiple layers of steganography and encryption over Fuse to make a plausbly-deniable encrypted volume.
The layers would be as follows:
This has advantages of being more deniable than a single large file of random data, unusable free space at the end of a volume, etc. Since the steganography layer would be storing essentially random bits, it would in theory be less succeptible to analysis which indicates that it *is* hiding information. (If you use high ISO photos, with a bunch of noise in the first place, this would probably be even better).
Can anyone think of problems (either implementation or theoretical) which I may have missed with this?
If anyone is interested in doing this with me, drop me a message... I am thinking of doing this in Python, as there seems to be a bit of encryption / steganography libraries already there... alternatively, if anyone knows of an OSS project which already does this, I would appreciate a link.
Cheers
Likewise, in the 90'th century, some 50% of the women who gave birth with a doctor would die of septicemic shock
Wow, good thing I will likely be dead long before the 7000 years which get us to the 90'th century. I do feel sorry for my great great great .... grandkids, though! ;-)
That's an awesome .sig - do you mind if I copy it?
It was my understanding that pensions (in Canada, at least) would stop if you were out of the country for more than 6 months in a year. My mother in law is currently retired, and living on pensions, but can only be in Peru (her native home) for half the year for fear of losing all the pension.
If you are aware of other rules regarding this, I would be very interested.
Cheers
The modem which my Shaw phone comes with has a battery backup. Not sure exactly how long it lasts, but at least it would prevent problems with short term blackouts and brownouts.
Of course, if you put it behind a UPS system, you can keep power as long as your UPS can provide it. (Shaw's relays may have gone down, though, so it is still not as reliable as POTS).
Cheers
I hear you! I switched from my Telus landline to Shaw VOIP after Telus started charging an extra $5 / month because I *didn't* have a long distance plan.
Before I was paying almost $30 / month for Telus with no features (no caller ID, VM, etc); now I am paying $20 on Shaw with some basic features, *plus* getting $8 off my broadband, for almost $20 / month savings.
Add to that the fact that Shaw has always been excellent with their customer service, and this is a real no-brainer!
Cheers
I should probably have been clearer - by DIY, I mean the 'true' DIY: one guy, hacking something out in the basement. If that guy then makes a website detailing his procedures, sells kits, or whatever else, that would be in violation of the patent (just as OSS can violate software patents). Now from what you are saying, in this 'true' DIY example, it would be more of a 'security through obscurity' than a real legal defense.
You have piqued my curiosity, and I have tried looking online for some sort of legal information one way or the other about DIY projects and patents, but cannot find anything. I may have been mistaken in my "patents don't apple to non-commercial projects" view; does anyone have any documentation one way or the other?
Cheers
Patents only apply to commercial products as far as I know.
The real problem which will prevent this from becoming a DIY project is that the summary is lying: its not nail polish, a printer, and an oven which is required to make a complete solar cell; rather, a chemical *like* nail polish, a printer, and a lower-temperature-than-what-is-used-now oven is used for a specific part of the manufacturing process.
Still very cool, don't get me wrong, but this will not be happening in my basement any time soon 8-(
Cheers
Hah! More like a concrete implementation of personal experience, obtained over the past 10 months ;-)
class Kid extends Pet {
public getMaintenanceTime(){
return super.getMaintenanceTime() * 10;
}
public getCost(){
return super.getCost() * 100;
}
}
Nah, kid < pet
I don't quite agree with this statement.... Photography by itself is an art, and you can get a wide variety of effects, and invoke a wade variety of emotions, even from the exact same scene, by changing different camera options (focal length, aperture, camera angle, etc).
Digital manipulation (or analog manipulation, for that matter), can serve the same purpose, and can in fact be used to complement the photography-specific options.
What it boils down to is that photography is an art, just as much as painting, drawing, music, etc. Just as some choose to paint according to the realism theories, you can choose to take photos which try to match reality as closely as possible; alternatively, you can choose to accent reality in certain ways to express a feeling or thought, just as Dali would use extra-long legs on an elephant or a man emerging from an egg to convey certain feelings.
Not that I disagree with most of your post - I think we are arguing much of the same point - but as a 'realist' photographer, I want to put forward my opinion that realism is not the *only* correct way to approach things.
Cheers
Thank you (and the others who replied) for your encouragement. Here is my reply letter:
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Re: Bill C-61
Hello Mr. Harper,
I had written you last month to voice my concerns about bill C-61, and inform you that I was not in agreement with it as currently constituted. I have just received a standard form-letter reply to my initial letter, listing all of the 'benefits' which are to be included with this new proposed law, and how it is "made-in-Canada" with all sorts of benefits to Canadians.
You have obviously either missed my point, or chose to ignore it. I was not requesting propaganda on this bill - I was writing to inform you (as my representative) of my opinion. To re-state the major point in my previous letter, the most important of my concerns is included here.
The major loophole which you have managed to include in the bill, but which you continually ignore in all your official propaganda, is the DRM exception: if any copyright holder includes any digital rights management on the content, all your rights as a consumer, which this bill would give you, are void. To quote Michael Geist: "The Canadian DMCA allows every single exception to copyright to be eliminated by adding DRM: whatever the law allows you to do, a corporation can take away, just by using DRM to prevent you from doing it. Breaking DRM is illegal, unless you fit into a tiny, narrow, useless exception for security research."
Let me reiterate on this point: I am opposed to bill C-61, and I refuse to vote for any politician who supports it. If you and your party continue to bring forward and support bills of this nature, you will lose yet another voter from the "Conservative West".
I am copying this letter to my local, non-Conservative MPs, as well as the heads of the opposition parties, in the hope that they will encourage their parties fulfill their responsibilities, and oppose such blatant disregard of the wishes of their constituents.
Respectfully Yours,
<signed>
I wrote a real letter to my MP (who happens to be Stephen Harper himself) expressing my disagreement with this bill. He replied with the standard form letter listing all the 'benefits' of the bill, and how my life will be so much better when it passes. I am seriously thinking of writing back saying that I was not asking for his opinion, I was telling him mine, and that if the bill passes, I will never vote Conservative again. (No need to mention that I have not voted conservative yet...).
This guy and his corrupt party just make me mad...
No, thank you.
Speaking as a hunter, I still feel that the taking of a life is very real, and sacred (for lack of a better word). I am careful to give as much respect as possible to every animal that I kill, try to reduce suffering as much as possible, etc. It is very important to me to ensure that I only kill what I and my family will use for food - I am not the hunter which kills for trophies, sport, etc.
Not disrespecting you for your POV or anything; just pointing out the fact that not all hunters are the type which Disney portrays.
Cheers
I have a big problem with a law which goes massively un-enforced, but which most people are guilty of breaking. The problem is that those in charge can use that law as an excuse to prosecute almost anyone, for whatever reason they want to. Say the government doesn't like how you look? Prosecute under this, unrelated law. Don't like your religion? Your skin color? Your favourite type of music? They will just go ahead and prosecute you.
When the entire population lives in fear of the government being able to (lawfully, remember - this law exists, and has been defined previously) arrest you, we as a people have a big problem on our hands.
If it was for use with powerbooks, chances are very good that it won't work on the MBP. The underlying temperature sensing system is completely different.
Cheers
While I can see your point, I don't think that bringing up a scenario of what you can or cannot do in an airport demonstrates a valid counter point.