someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they already have some power similar to this? where they could obtain a court order retroactively?
Somewhat. But this is a vast expansion.
does this just extend their time limit on it?
No. It does, as a minor provision, extend the time limit (there have been characterizations that it extends the current 72-hour limit for foreign intelligence surveillance while seeking a warrant to 90 days—this is false. It extends that limit only to 120 hours (from 3 days to 5 days.) The 90-day limit is something completely different, see below.)
But it does a lot more, including (and this is not an exhaustive list):
It expands the definition of an "agent of a foreign power" to include not only actual agents of foreign powers, but also any person "reasonably expected to transmit or receive foreign intelligence information".
It also narrows the scope of the limitations on government power in FISA: currently, it is unlawful to conduct surveillance except under its rules against any US person who is within the United States. EMSA would make it only illegal if those conducting the surveillance reasonably believe the subject is within the United States. So if they don't believe you are in the United States when they target you, or if that belief is unreasonable, their action is not prohibited by the law any more.
EMSA would also further narrow the scope of the limitations on government surveillance power in FISA by defining "surveillance" that it restricts to only include the acquisition of the content of communications; under current law that is included, but so is the installation or use of an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device for "monitoring to acquire information" of any kind. As a concrete example of the effect, a camera planted inside a residence or other private area to see what went on and who was present at various times would probably not capture the "content of communication", and would be entirely unregulated under the changes proposed in EMSA, but is restricted under the current law.
It also entirely eliminates (not merely extends the timeline) the rule that, without a court order having been obtained, communications deliberately or incidentally captured of a US person cannot be retained, disseminated, etc., beyond a 72-hour period.
It expands the scope of surveillance that requires no warrant (retroactive or otherwise) to include not only surveillance of communications exclusively between foreign powers (including their agents), but to communication of a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, and strikes the limitation that such warrantless surveillance may only be used when "there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party", (and, remember from above, it expands the definition of "agent of a foreign power" to include people who are expected to send or receive foreign intelligence information, whether or not they are in fact agents of foreign powers; as one example of the impact of the effect of these two provisions together, since reporters covering foreign affairs beats can be "reasonably expected" to sometimes receive or send "foreign intelligence information", that means that, under EMSA, any communication of any such reporter with any other person for any purpose can be monitored without any restriction of any kind.)
It expands the ability of the government to order private parties to assist it in performing surveillance: this is curerntly restricted only to communications common carriers, and would be expanded to "any person with authorized access to electronic communications or equipment used to transmit or store electronic communications".
It deletes the requirement that warrant applications for surveillance include "a d
Very true, but I think you are missing an important step here. With the innovative controller, it is much easier to achieve innovative gameplay.
I don't think that's really true.
I think its a lot easier to achieve gameplay which has a brief sheen of novelty, which isn't the same thing.
All Sony and MS have done to innovate gameplay is to add more buttons to the controller.
Again, I don't think reconfiguring controllers is at all the same thing as innovating gameplay, nor do I think that either the PS1->PS2 or PS2->PS3 controller changes are fairly characterized as just adding buttons: the first added two analog sticks which also functioned as buttons, as well as adding analog functionality to everything else on the controller, the second, AFAIK, keeps the same number of "external" controls, and adds motion sensing (yes, probably in reaction to the Wii.)
It means no spam blocking (since it's based on their destination or source) and no DDOS blocking (again, based on destination or source).
Spam blocking usually is not blocking packets travelling through a providers network to a remote source based on the destination or source, and so would not be affected at all by net neutrality. Some DDOS blocking techniques might be prohibited by the most naive possible law that would fit the definition of a 'net neutrality' law, but its certainly not an essential feature of such a law: a law that allowed blocking based on some specified legal standard of belief that there was a substantial risk the blocked source was being used in an attack would not fail to be a net neutrality law.
Network neutrality is a bad idea, period. The Internet has existed just fine without government interference.
False. Net neutrality only became an issue when it stopped being the status quo when common carrier regulations stopped being applied to internet services late last year.
In many cases, local government is very good at doing things, because local government officials are more likely to have to deal with their actual constituents without layers of flappers insulating them from the people who pay their salary.
I love how people who would normally hate government regulation of the Internet are stepping and screaming for it over net neutrality.
Very few people, whatever they ocassionally pretend, are for or against "government regulation" without reference to the content of the regulation.
Anyone over about 15 who is still surprised about this needs to grow up.
Essentially, the concept behind network neutrality is to forbid ISPs from doing anything that involves watching the traffic over the network.
False.
Doesn't sound that bad, right?
If by "bad" you mean "inaccurate", yes, it does.
Do you enjoy spam? With network neutrality, it becomes illegal for ISPs to block spam.
False. No version of network neutrality ever proposed would prohibit ISPs from blocking spam on your email account with the ISP. A net neutrality law might, depending on implementation details, stop your ISP from blocking spam on email connections made from your computer to an external server outside their network that never touched your ISPs mail server, but it wouldn't stop the person running the mail server from doing that.
Do you like viruses and worms? With network neutrality, it becomes illegal to block attacks coming from these machines.
No, it doesn't.
Do you like DDOS attacks? Again, with network neutrality, it becomes illegal to block DDOS attacks upstream.
No, it doesn't.
Network neutrality would forbid QOS (Quality of Service) from being implemented,
It might limit the business protocols through which QoS arrangements could be made, but would not prevent QoS from being implemented.
which is required for implementing fast and effective streaming video and VOIP.
No, adequate available bandwidth is required for that. QoS systems are simply a prioritization scheme which throttles other competing demands on bandwidth to make the bandwidth available. Improving overall capacity is another way to do that.
Essentially network neutrality is a buzz word put out by companies like Yahoo and Google that are afraid that they may be expected to pay to use massive amounts of someone else's network instead of being throttled back to allow more time-sensitive information through.
Yahoo and Google, and their users, already pay, between them, twice for every bit they transmit over anyone's network.
Network neutrality is simple common carrier treatment in the internet arena, which was the law until last year.
If that is the case, it seems there ought to be a corrollary that all programs ought to, for the sake of continued viability, start out as mail readers, and then have other functions added. Then you don't have to worry about it.
If race and ethnicity are just arbitrary, why are there diseases that only affect members of a certain ethnic group?
There are diseases that are far more prevalent in particular races or ethnicities becaue while most racial and ethnic categories map poorly to underlying biology, they do have some loose and very approximate connection to ancestry groups.
However, race and ethnicity are not the same thing.
Race and ethnicity are both arbitrary socially constructed us/them divisions that map poorly, at best, to any underlying biology. They are pretty much exactly the same.
The other consoles still won't be photorealistic - even movies aren't there yet - and they will offer more trite gameplay because they don't have the controller scheme of the Wii.
Trite gameplay isn't a product of controller design, its a product of where you put your effort in developing the game. An innovative controller is neither necessary nor sufficient for innovative gameplay.
California has something like 30 million people, and two major and many minor political parties. Many conflicting ideas are discussed in California. That is hardly surprising.
Technically... Grand Theft Auto (and any copycats) would be considered RPGs.
I think (perhaps because I'm a long time tabletop RPGer) of "RPG" as a content rather than interface description. I agree that GTA is an RPG, and come to think of it, most current CRPGs use a similar interface, so perhaps that is the best label for what I'm thinking of.
WTF is the point of this?
on
USB Batteries
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Okay, unless I'm recharging these from my laptop battery (which is, I'd say, pretty dumb in most cases, but might have very limited utility somewhere), my charger is going to be close to my plugged-in computer, which is going to be close to a power strip with several outlets.
Where I could just plug in a more conventional charger, instead of plugging it into my USB port of my computer. Its no harder to remember where that charger is than the one plugged into my USB port. Where is the benefit?
600dpi seems fairly common with laser printers now; if you want a paper-replacement handheld system with comparable quality, that means 1080p-equivalent resolution (1920x1080) would be adequate for about a 3.2"x1.8" display.
The primary problems is that games for consoles usually are only made for that console for about 3~4 years. So the price drop on 1080p displays has to drop in that time frame to give me a bit of time to enjoy it.
So, since PS2 games started being released in 2000, they stopped making PS2 games in 2003 or 2004?
And PS games stopped being produced in 1997 or 1998?
Games for a given console will continue being made as long as there are a market for them; further, you can use a game when it is no longer being made, if you have it, so if you get a game for a console before you get a 1080p display, you can still enjoy the 1080p features if they stop making the game before you get the 1080p display.
And if it is, why aren't we just buying a special USB controller from these companies and running everything on our computers?
Uh, you can. If you think that's what you should be doing, there are plenty of gamepad-style controllers and games for computers. Personally, I'd rather play Civ IV, The Sims, or Rome: Total War on a computer, and I'd rather play most racing, sports, or GTA-style (what to call that? "Third-person shooter?") games on a console. So that's what I do, mostly. No one is holding a gun to your head and making you play games on a console if that's not what you want to do.
What could this mean for Sony now that MS has 1080p as well?
"Microsoft announced plans to release a 1080p upgrade" is not the same as "Microsoft has 1080p"; how many times has Microsoft announced plans in response to a feature a competitors actual or announced product has that Microsoft's competing product didn't? How many times has that announced plan not materialized, or materialized only very late or very incomplete or both?
Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p?
Since I don't currently have anything but my PC that puts out 1080p or equivalent resolution (well, I think my digital cable box theoretically could if there was any 1080p content coming into it), why would I pay the premium for a 1080p display device for anything but my PC?
OTOH, if I had a 1080p-capable game console and/or player for packaged video content, I'd have a reason to buy a 1080p display device for my living room, too.
I'm really curious about that. I'm not too familiar with the Napster service, but I've wondered about iTunes, for example-- what happens if, hypothetically, Apple goes out of business or decides to quit running the store? Sure, I can keep running iTunes on my current computer, but what about when I get a new computer? What if Apple is no longer running servers capable of authorizing computers to play your songs?
Last I looked, iTunes songs can be burned to plain old audio CDs.
Plus, you won't be able to take a laptop powered this way into the “secure” area of an airport... (Of course, once there is a rumor of someone trying blow up a plane with a Sony-made laptop battery, you won't be able to do that with any other laptop, either.)
I think you've got that backwards; ECMASCript is a standardization of JavaScript (and its MS-spawned bastard child, JScript), JavaScript doesn't "come from" ECMAScript.
Of course you could write it via recursion, but does that lead to simpler or better readable code?
Better readable to whom? To someone whose spent 20 years mostly working with imperative languages? Clearly not. To someone whose spent the same time working with functional languages? Probably. To someone whose never touched a computer? Probably depends on the particular problem being addressed.
If you are calculating the Nth Fibonacci number, a recursive process (at least to me) seems more natural than an iterative one; if you are stepping through a list and transforming each member in a common way, an iterative description seems more clear (particularly a for-each kind of approach.) At any rate, with a functional language its usually fairly easy to define both C-like for loops and for-each loops, though they often aren't core language function (though where they aren't, they are usually core library features.)
And, ultimately, I think that's the beauty of functional languages: control structures that imperative languages either have or don't have as language features become library features that you can define, add, and often extend as you need. If I want a more robust control structure in a functional language, I can build it like I would any other function. If I want a more robust control structure in C, my options are more limited.
There is a reason why popular languages like Java and C# are incorporating functional features: its hard to beat them for expressiveness and adaptability, which are important in practical applications. Scheme and other similarly "pure" languages (heavily focussed on one paradigm, more than is usually necessary or even desirable in many uses) are important, I think, both for their use in narrow domains, and for the concepts which migrate from them into more generally-used languages, not as general replacements for the more widely-used languages.
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Somewhat. But this is a vast expansion.
No. It does, as a minor provision, extend the time limit (there have been characterizations that it extends the current 72-hour limit for foreign intelligence surveillance while seeking a warrant to 90 days—this is false. It extends that limit only to 120 hours (from 3 days to 5 days.) The 90-day limit is something completely different, see below.)
But it does a lot more, including (and this is not an exhaustive list):
It expands the definition of an "agent of a foreign power" to include not only actual agents of foreign powers, but also any person "reasonably expected to transmit or receive foreign intelligence information".
It also narrows the scope of the limitations on government power in FISA: currently, it is unlawful to conduct surveillance except under its rules against any US person who is within the United States. EMSA would make it only illegal if those conducting the surveillance reasonably believe the subject is within the United States. So if they don't believe you are in the United States when they target you, or if that belief is unreasonable, their action is not prohibited by the law any more.
EMSA would also further narrow the scope of the limitations on government surveillance power in FISA by defining "surveillance" that it restricts to only include the acquisition of the content of communications; under current law that is included, but so is the installation or use of an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device for "monitoring to acquire information" of any kind. As a concrete example of the effect, a camera planted inside a residence or other private area to see what went on and who was present at various times would probably not capture the "content of communication", and would be entirely unregulated under the changes proposed in EMSA, but is restricted under the current law.
It also entirely eliminates (not merely extends the timeline) the rule that, without a court order having been obtained, communications deliberately or incidentally captured of a US person cannot be retained, disseminated, etc., beyond a 72-hour period.
It expands the scope of surveillance that requires no warrant (retroactive or otherwise) to include not only surveillance of communications exclusively between foreign powers (including their agents), but to communication of a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, and strikes the limitation that such warrantless surveillance may only be used when "there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party", (and, remember from above, it expands the definition of "agent of a foreign power" to include people who are expected to send or receive foreign intelligence information, whether or not they are in fact agents of foreign powers; as one example of the impact of the effect of these two provisions together, since reporters covering foreign affairs beats can be "reasonably expected" to sometimes receive or send "foreign intelligence information", that means that, under EMSA, any communication of any such reporter with any other person for any purpose can be monitored without any restriction of any kind.)
It expands the ability of the government to order private parties to assist it in performing surveillance: this is curerntly restricted only to communications common carriers, and would be expanded to "any person with authorized access to electronic communications or equipment used to transmit or store electronic communications".
It deletes the requirement that warrant applications for surveillance include "a d
In many cases, local government is very good at doing things, because local government officials are more likely to have to deal with their actual constituents without layers of flappers insulating them from the people who pay their salary.
False.
If by "bad" you mean "inaccurate", yes, it does.
False. No version of network neutrality ever proposed would prohibit ISPs from blocking spam on your email account with the ISP. A net neutrality law might, depending on implementation details, stop your ISP from blocking spam on email connections made from your computer to an external server outside their network that never touched your ISPs mail server, but it wouldn't stop the person running the mail server from doing that.
No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't.
It might limit the business protocols through which QoS arrangements could be made, but would not prevent QoS from being implemented.
No, adequate available bandwidth is required for that. QoS systems are simply a prioritization scheme which throttles other competing demands on bandwidth to make the bandwidth available. Improving overall capacity is another way to do that.
Yahoo and Google, and their users, already pay, between them, twice for every bit they transmit over anyone's network.
Network neutrality is simple common carrier treatment in the internet arena, which was the law until last year.
Your post is complete FUD.
If that is the case, it seems there ought to be a corrollary that all programs ought to, for the sake of continued viability, start out as mail readers, and then have other functions added. Then you don't have to worry about it.
No, I think they meant specifically using an existing client platform like the Eclipse RCP or Netbeans platform or XUL.
This is different from running on top of the the Eclipse IDE or Netbeans IDE, though.
California has something like 30 million people, and two major and many minor political parties. Many conflicting ideas are discussed in California. That is hardly surprising.
I think (perhaps because I'm a long time tabletop RPGer) of "RPG" as a content rather than interface description. I agree that GTA is an RPG, and come to think of it, most current CRPGs use a similar interface, so perhaps that is the best label for what I'm thinking of.
Okay, unless I'm recharging these from my laptop battery (which is, I'd say, pretty dumb in most cases, but might have very limited utility somewhere), my charger is going to be close to my plugged-in computer, which is going to be close to a power strip with several outlets.
Where I could just plug in a more conventional charger, instead of plugging it into my USB port of my computer. Its no harder to remember where that charger is than the one plugged into my USB port. Where is the benefit?
Okay, yeah, even in that case the typical functional articulation is probably more clear.
600dpi seems fairly common with laser printers now; if you want a paper-replacement handheld system with comparable quality, that means 1080p-equivalent resolution (1920x1080) would be adequate for about a 3.2"x1.8" display.
So, "1080p" PDAs? I'd say yes.
1080p watches? Maybe not. But maybe.
So, since PS2 games started being released in 2000, they stopped making PS2 games in 2003 or 2004?
And PS games stopped being produced in 1997 or 1998?
Games for a given console will continue being made as long as there are a market for them; further, you can use a game when it is no longer being made, if you have it, so if you get a game for a console before you get a 1080p display, you can still enjoy the 1080p features if they stop making the game before you get the 1080p display.
Uh, you can. If you think that's what you should be doing, there are plenty of gamepad-style controllers and games for computers. Personally, I'd rather play Civ IV, The Sims, or Rome: Total War on a computer, and I'd rather play most racing, sports, or GTA-style (what to call that? "Third-person shooter?") games on a console. So that's what I do, mostly. No one is holding a gun to your head and making you play games on a console if that's not what you want to do.
...just like people have been saying every generation since Socrates (and probably before.)
Whatever.
..."we respect civil liberties, but..." you know the next part is going to be bad.
Its almost like "I'm not a racist, but..."
Plus, you won't be able to take a laptop powered this way into the “secure” area of an airport... (Of course, once there is a rumor of someone trying blow up a plane with a Sony-made laptop battery, you won't be able to do that with any other laptop, either.)
So, no improvement ever happens without XP? Somehow, I doubt that.
I think this goes beyond "extreme" to "hyperbolic".
I think you've got that backwards; ECMASCript is a standardization of JavaScript (and its MS-spawned bastard child, JScript), JavaScript doesn't "come from" ECMAScript.
Better readable to whom? To someone whose spent 20 years mostly working with imperative languages? Clearly not. To someone whose spent the same time working with functional languages? Probably. To someone whose never touched a computer? Probably depends on the particular problem being addressed.
If you are calculating the Nth Fibonacci number, a recursive process (at least to me) seems more natural than an iterative one; if you are stepping through a list and transforming each member in a common way, an iterative description seems more clear (particularly a for-each kind of approach.) At any rate, with a functional language its usually fairly easy to define both C-like for loops and for-each loops, though they often aren't core language function (though where they aren't, they are usually core library features.)
And, ultimately, I think that's the beauty of functional languages: control structures that imperative languages either have or don't have as language features become library features that you can define, add, and often extend as you need. If I want a more robust control structure in a functional language, I can build it like I would any other function. If I want a more robust control structure in C, my options are more limited.
There is a reason why popular languages like Java and C# are incorporating functional features: its hard to beat them for expressiveness and adaptability, which are important in practical applications. Scheme and other similarly "pure" languages (heavily focussed on one paradigm, more than is usually necessary or even desirable in many uses) are important, I think, both for their use in narrow domains, and for the concepts which migrate from them into more generally-used languages, not as general replacements for the more widely-used languages.