Does anyone else think that country is worthy of ridicule, that will crash $1.5 billion of equipment to avoid even the remote chance that it might hurt some single-celled bacteria, and then legalize the destruction of millions of unborn babies? Do those mythical one-celled motes from outer space have more rights than human children?
First off, the $1.5G spacecraft is almost at the end of its life as it is. By crashing it into Jupiter, we can at least collect some last bits of data on the planet..which is what Galileo was intended to do anyways. And it's not like that money is going to waste, it's being circulated through the economy just like any other money.
Secondly, the abortion debate aside, if there is a living ecosystem on Europa (not likely but possible -- and by the way, if you can prove that there's no life on Europa, please do so), it would be incredibly stupid and reckless of us to disrupt it. Even in Christian theology, we are the stewards of creation; this implies that we have a responsibility to protect creation, given to us by God. That aside, there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from examining Europa directly. If life already exists there, then we have a chance to examine extraterrestrial life...based on an entirely different ecosystem...directly. Otherwise, we have the possibility, for the first time, to introduce terrestrial life to a whole new environment. Both experiments have terribly important implications in biology.
Ever since Amazon started being stupid (and maybe even before then), Slashdot has been using other vendors. Seriously, if you don't believe me,
look for yourself.
Uh, I followed your link and got:
The books here are brought to us in Partnership with Amazon.com. If you follow the links around here, and eventually buy a book, we get a percentage of the cost! Want books about any of these things? Perl, Linux, Unix, Gardening, CGI, Java? Still not finding what you're looking for? Visit Amazon.com from this link, and we still get some credit. Or you could even Search Amazon using this convenient form:
Guys, pretty please cut your ties with Amazon? Or just take your links to Amazon and put in place a message saying why you should boycott Amazon until Bezos drops this stupid lawsuit? It's the right thing to do...even if it's a pain in the ass to code. Thanks.
In the UK, tradition holds that a woman can only ask a man to marry her on leap days i.e whenever February 29th occurs.
a) Is this also true in the US of A ?
Definitely not true for the USA. Traditionally speaking, women are never supposed to propose. But traditions are pretty much out the window in this day and age. I'm rather glad that traditions about men and women are being questioned these days...they were really in dire need of change.
Did you read the article? It has nothing to do with controlling nerves. All they've done is introduced a correct electrical current that makes the cell open it's membrane.
I was under the impression that nerves released neurotransmitters by opening their membranes. Am I mistaken?
This technology looks like it may have another use: by implanting cell-chips into the brain and interfacing them with an exterior device, and with proper training of the implantee, you create a direct-input device. The real bitch is getting the training right.
If they can do this to nerve cells, you can get all kinds of interesting implants. A cell-chip implant into my aural nerves? Crank Slayer up to 10 and not damage my normal hearing? Woohoo! Or do the same with optic nerves (very carefully) allowing them to pick up...say, text? From wherever?
The only problem is, this is one-way technology. It doesn't allow the computer to read the condition of the cell, which means you don't have neural control. Yet.
Cute program. Not quite useless, has a legitimate reason for the name, totally legal, and a slap at the MPAA. But it doesn't help our case at all.
In fact, this could backfire on us.
"See!! Look!! These HACKERS are all alike!! They're trying to make it HARDER for us to seek out CRIMINALS trying to ROB US of your^H^H^H^Hour hard earned money made by selling DVD's of Porky's and Celine Dion!! KILL THEM ALL! Whoops. I mean, your honor, this demonstrates that these people don't have a leg to stand on. Please kindly sign this court order effectively stamping on the rights of Geeks even further? Thank you.
I am a CMU student, and the School of Computer Science has made an effort to admit more female CS students (beginning last year). The result is a lot of unqualified female CS students. My roommate's girlfriend is one. Many of them know nothing about computers--there is a new intro course that teaches the most basic of basics (things that no other respectable CS school would find necessary to teach). It's only open to CS students, and the class is filled almost entirely with female students.
I would agree with you...if there were stronger CS programs in high schools, to expose computer science to people who don't necessarily have a "natural interest" (quotes for a reason) in programming, Linux configuration, &c. For some people, especially women, their first exposure to computer programming comes in college. And, in Freshman computer science courses, they don't necesarily pick up such wonderful hints as:
When writing in declarative languages (C, Pascal, FORTRAN), put your commands in sequential order
How some basic logic functions (such as "or") work
Characters have numerical values, too, and can be compared against each other.
I picked these these things up when I was 8, because I actively sought them out when I was 8. I was never taught any of this in HS, nor was I expected to learn any of this in HS. None of them were taught in freshman CS either, at least where I went to school; instead, they were pretty much assumed.
With this in mind, I'm quite glad that CMU has a structure whereby persons with little prior exposure to computer science, but demonstrated relevant ability (i.e., mathematical), can get a jump-start.
Fun fact: Georgia Tech's manditory Freshman computer science course teaches how to think about programming, including writing pseudocode, but the students don't do any programming. Learning how to actually program comes later; but by that time, they can concentrate on the specifics of the language rather than on the basics. I'm not sure if this is a better approach, but it seems to work pretty well.
The music in the movie was quite first-rate, but Blame Canada wasn't their best song in my opinion...no...that honor belongs to the Terrance and Phillip classic Unclef***er. Who can but shed a tear at the touching lyrics of this triumph of musical composition:
F*** you up the a**, unclef***er, You're a dirty little f***, unclef***er...
I'll tell ya, that's an order of magnitude better than anything Celine Dion ever belted out!
Was it your idea to claim that algore2000.com web site is "Open Source"? Do you even understand what Open Source means, or did you just decide to put yet another buzz word on the site...
Now THIS question needs to be asked. Speaking as a Democrat, I'm very ansy that the likely candidate, the person who could end up defending abortion rights and the environment in a lasting and permanent way, doesn't have people on his team who knows the difference between "open source" and "volunteer written."
I don't usually pull this "moderator baiting" crap, but this comment deserves attention. Drix is right on the money, and in fact maybe a little more than s/he realizes. We're competing with NT when the real competition with Linux is Solaris and Windows 2000. If we want to produce a better OS than Microsoft, we need to produce a better OS than Windows 2000, not a better os than Windows NT or Windows 95.
This article raises a very good point: the MPAA and its allies are very good at manipulating public opinion. In fact, not only are they very good at it, but they have all the tools to do it. The companies represented by MPAA include Warner (CNN and Time), Fox (news and newspapers), Disney (ABC), Paramount (any number of news shows), &c. You'd be a fool to assume that any of these sources is going to be unbiased about this case. Unfortunately, most people still believe that these media outlets are motivated by the search for truth, rather than corporate policy (read as: greed.)
This is why protests are important right now. The only way we are going to get our side heard is to go out and tell people what's happening. Slashdot helps a lot, but it reaches a very specialized audience. The people whose minds we need to change aren't typical Slashdot readers; they're average joes and janes, who, for the most part, have other things to worry about and don't have time to investigate these things themselves. Either we tell them what's going on, or the MPAA does through its many voices. Which would you prefer?
How to get involved:
This bears repeating: join the EFF! I did and I am damn glad I did. These are the people who are fighting for your rights.
Get involved with protests being organized by 2600. Better yet, organize your own protest!
Join a boycott of MPAA products! Pain in the rear it may be, we need to stop seeing movies in theatres, stop renting movies, and stop buying new video tapes of major motion pictures. OUR money is going to help the MPAA trample on OUR rights. We need to cut off their supply! (This isn't easy and it won't necessarily catch on, but this is the right thing to do.)
I know you're not a shrink or a sociologist, but I'm still very interested in your opinion: What is it about these smurf attacks that the people find so facinating, or horrible? Do they really pose that serious a threat to network security? Why do the media find it fascinating?
BTW, the DDoS scanner is a nice hack. Thanks for releasing the source!
Russian authorities have tested a reusable space vehicle, at a fraction of the cost of a Shuttle, and the tests were highly successful. The only problem is, they can't find it.
"Gay rights" have been so heavily propagandized that now the gays can come right out and state their desire to rape children in public, and nobody pays it any mind. After all, it's a LIFESTYLE CHOICE, right?! Of course! AND THAT MAKES IT OKAY!
Free clue: the last poster was trolling you.
As a side note, I've known homosexuals (male and female) since I was ten. None of them ever came on to me when I was young. I was 19 before a gay man hit on me, and I politely turned him down. "Take it for the compliment it is," so to speak. I am unabashedly and openly heterosexual, I enjoy sex with adult women and not with adult men, and that's that. Sorry, I was never recruited, diddled, or anything like that.
I should note that the kind of censorware the FRC is promoting would have censored my testimony, since it contained "homosexual content." That is why a lot of us are fighting FRC on this issue.
We are fighting to keep the gays, feminazis, and other liberals from controlling and destroying our children's lives. We are trying to put a stop to the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. If that's "insane" and "irrational" in your view (and we've seen that it is), then you have no business walking around loose outside of a prison.
What's insane and irrational is that you go on for several paragraphs about how homosexuals, feminists and other liberals are out there trying to control and destroy the lives of children. If this is what you believe, fine, but don't expect me to believe so much a single word of it without proof. Furthermore, since you're talking about violating people's rights here, I'm demanding proof beyond a reasonable doubt. This is my right as an American and as a human being.
What is equally insane is that you would cast any opposition to your position as insane. This strikes me as exceptionally small-minded and even fascist.
ZDNet was hit this morning by the exact same type of attack. See the story here. After seeing all the anti-Linux FUD on ZDNet, maybe there is something to the "revolution" theory?
Oh yeah...for what it's worth, ABCNews did an analysis of these attacks; an analysis which I find refreshingly honest. To sum: people who whine about these outages have unhealthy, unrealistic expectations of their technology.
ABC News is reporting that two more web sites were hit in the last 24 hours, in attacks remarkably similar to the one that hit Yahoo. One website was Buy.com, which was hit just as their stock was going IPO with 800 megabytes of traffic per second in a coordinated DoS (smurf?) attack. The other website was eBay. The Yahoo attack used one gigabyte of traffic per second, according to ABCNews. Full story is here.
I disagree. I think blacklists can be done in a non-biased fashion. The problem is that we've left it up to commercial entities (who must keep the list secret as it's their whole business) who do it behind closed doors.
Firstly, I already pointed out that there's a way to create a blacklist in a non-biased fashion: peer reveiw. It takes a long time, but it would be worth it. Peer review is not done these days, because it is expensive; moreover, it is subject to bias, depending on who is doing the reviewing.
Secondly, commercial entities do not have to keep the list secret in order to keep working. The secret isn't supposed to be what is censored, but how it is censored.
Thirdly, the most efficient and effective way for me to advance the cause of freedom is to spread the word on what is wrong with these filters, rather than make my own. If I spend my time and energy making my own filter, it becomes just another product. One which, in my opinion, the FRC and other right-wing groups probably will not endorse, since it would block pornography but not necessarily other material that such groups find objectionable (such as gay rights websites.)
Look at it this way. Let us suppose that you have a twelve year old daughter. Generally speaking, a twelve year old is old enough to walk the block from my house to the library unsupervised -- especially with friends. My twelve year old goes to the library, and tries to access the home page for the whitehouse for a report that she is doing on President Clinton. She goes to some no-name search engine, and types in "white house" -- and promptly gets directed to www.whitehouse.com. A hardcore (whatever that means) porn site. Now, I would hope that a daughter of mine would say "oops" and go back and look for another site. But given the current resident, a twelve year old girl might suppose that this was the real page:) (Okay, I couldn't resist). She then clicks a couple of links, and is suddenly presented with pictures of people defecating on each other. With page-jacking the high art that it is, this scenario is quite possible. And please remember that the content to which she will likely be exposed would be illegal if done in a public place: have you tried to have sex in the middle of your public library lately?
Let me be frank here. I would hope that my twelve-year-old daughter would have enough sense to say, "GROSS!!!!!", and shut off the website.
Don't forget, I'm paying for what goes in that library too. I find most of this censorware highly offensive. I don't particularly give a damn that they're blocking pornographic images, if you're under 18 you shouldn't be seeing them anyway. What I care about is that some of these lists block legitimate sites, and in the most eggregious cases, even forbid the user from seeing words for legitimate and important concepts such as gay rights, breast cancer, Wicca, Atheism, Communism, or abortion. Whether you like these or not, your child should at the very least be able to discuss them and research them.
So how does one design software to block pornographic images? That's a hell of a problem. The definition of pornography is based on a visual image. Humans are very, very good at interpreting visual images. Computers are not. Getting a computer to accurately tell the differences between different faces can take several minutes from a limited set of faces using very low-res photographs (I've done this myself using neural nets). Getting a computer to accurately recognize porn is computationally expensive and a memory hog. A 400x400 image requires 160,000 artificial neurons, one for each pixel, plus maybe a hidden layer of 100, just to tell if an image contains an erect penis or not. If each node takes 256 bytes (a severe under-estimate) then you need 40 megs of available memory just to run the neural network. That doesn't even take into account overhead with the plugins &c. And the program would be SLOW, taking about (again, back of envelope calculation here) three minutes to identify each picture on a 500 MHz machine. Try running that on your 500 MHz box running Windows 2000 and you're going to be deeply frustrated.
So what else is there? Blacklists aren't reliable and are inherently biased. There's no peer review behind blacklists. Using word filters leads to all sorts of trouble, including banning sites with legitimate redeeming content. Plus, I can easily get pornographic images of the most graphic and grotesque nature past a word filter. (Just name it "Tickle Me Elmo" or something and don't have a single sexual reference on the site except for the pictures.) Ratings systems are easy to circumvent. These are the technologies that the current filters run on, and they don't work.
Of course your concerns are legitimate. My problem with it isn't that you want to restrict kids from seeing porn, but that the solution proposed to you by the Family Research Council is snake oil in some cases and more than you bargained for (censoring legitimate content that the FRC happens to not like) in others.
f it's moral for you to write a OSS DeCSS program, then it's moral for me to write a binary only DeCSS program.
The question is not one of morality. The question is one of legality. It is presently illegal to write an open source DeCSS, without explicit permission from DVD CAA -- permission which, frankly, I don't see them ever giving, because their technology relies on secrecy in order to "protect" anything.
It gets worse, by the way. You might not realize this, but this same ruling implies that Microsoft can go after anyone who tries to decode Word file formats. The file formats, after all, are not software -- they are a technology. Or at least that's how they could argue it. Once that's done, kiss KOffice and Gnome Office goodbye.
Returning to morality for a second -- if it is moral for me to write a closed-source version of a program, then is it legal for me to write an open-source version of that same program? Under the current system, the latter should be disallowed in many cases.
simple. change your country. whats the point in letting anyone restrict you ? theres always canada, europe and australia. plus you get a change of climate...ive already filed to move to canada which has saner laws.
Call me nuts, but I still believe in America. It's not in every place that you can get 100 languages spoken, sometimes in the same neighborhood. And I'm not willing to give up the fight yet. But let's suppose I did.
Europe has promise, but it's a hell of a move. I might consider Ireland. Cuba could be interesting, but I'm too much of a maverick. Australia...net censorship. India has problems with religious fundamentalists. Asia's a mess, except for Japan. My Japanese isn't too hot.
My best bet is probably Canada. Worst case scenario, it's just a six hour drive, assuming I have enough gas and ammo to make it.:)
Slashdot Mirror
First off, the $1.5G spacecraft is almost at the end of its life as it is. By crashing it into Jupiter, we can at least collect some last bits of data on the planet..which is what Galileo was intended to do anyways. And it's not like that money is going to waste, it's being circulated through the economy just like any other money.
Secondly, the abortion debate aside, if there is a living ecosystem on Europa (not likely but possible -- and by the way, if you can prove that there's no life on Europa, please do so), it would be incredibly stupid and reckless of us to disrupt it. Even in Christian theology, we are the stewards of creation; this implies that we have a responsibility to protect creation, given to us by God. That aside, there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from examining Europa directly. If life already exists there, then we have a chance to examine extraterrestrial life...based on an entirely different ecosystem...directly. Otherwise, we have the possibility, for the first time, to introduce terrestrial life to a whole new environment. Both experiments have terribly important implications in biology.
Uh, I followed your link and got:
Guys, pretty please cut your ties with Amazon? Or just take your links to Amazon and put in place a message saying why you should boycott Amazon until Bezos drops this stupid lawsuit? It's the right thing to do...even if it's a pain in the ass to code. Thanks.
Definitely not true for the USA. Traditionally speaking, women are never supposed to propose. But traditions are pretty much out the window in this day and age. I'm rather glad that traditions about men and women are being questioned these days...they were really in dire need of change.
I was under the impression that nerves released neurotransmitters by opening their membranes. Am I mistaken?
This technology looks like it may have another use: by implanting cell-chips into the brain and interfacing them with an exterior device, and with proper training of the implantee, you create a direct-input device. The real bitch is getting the training right.
If they can do this to nerve cells, you can get all kinds of interesting implants. A cell-chip implant into my aural nerves? Crank Slayer up to 10 and not damage my normal hearing? Woohoo! Or do the same with optic nerves (very carefully) allowing them to pick up...say, text? From wherever?
The only problem is, this is one-way technology. It doesn't allow the computer to read the condition of the cell, which means you don't have neural control. Yet.
Cute program. Not quite useless, has a legitimate reason for the name, totally legal, and a slap at the MPAA. But it doesn't help our case at all.
In fact, this could backfire on us.
"See!! Look!! These HACKERS are all alike!! They're trying to make it HARDER for us to seek out CRIMINALS trying to ROB US of your^H^H^H^Hour hard earned money made by selling DVD's of Porky's and Celine Dion!! KILL THEM ALL! Whoops. I mean, your honor, this demonstrates that these people don't have a leg to stand on. Please kindly sign this court order effectively stamping on the rights of Geeks even further? Thank you.
I would agree with you...if there were stronger CS programs in high schools, to expose computer science to people who don't necessarily have a "natural interest" (quotes for a reason) in programming, Linux configuration, &c. For some people, especially women, their first exposure to computer programming comes in college. And, in Freshman computer science courses, they don't necesarily pick up such wonderful hints as:
I picked these these things up when I was 8, because I actively sought them out when I was 8. I was never taught any of this in HS, nor was I expected to learn any of this in HS. None of them were taught in freshman CS either, at least where I went to school; instead, they were pretty much assumed.
With this in mind, I'm quite glad that CMU has a structure whereby persons with little prior exposure to computer science, but demonstrated relevant ability (i.e., mathematical), can get a jump-start.
Fun fact: Georgia Tech's manditory Freshman computer science course teaches how to think about programming, including writing pseudocode, but the students don't do any programming. Learning how to actually program comes later; but by that time, they can concentrate on the specifics of the language rather than on the basics. I'm not sure if this is a better approach, but it seems to work pretty well.
The music in the movie was quite first-rate, but Blame Canada wasn't their best song in my opinion...no...that honor belongs to the Terrance and Phillip classic Unclef***er. Who can but shed a tear at the touching lyrics of this triumph of musical composition:
F*** you up the a**, unclef***er,
You're a dirty little f***, unclef***er...
I'll tell ya, that's an order of magnitude better than anything Celine Dion ever belted out!
One other suggestion:
Overhead Transmission: When a statement is beyond your grasp ("over your head.") Also Omega Curve.
Was it your idea to claim that algore2000.com web site is "Open Source"? Do you even understand what Open Source means, or did you just decide to put yet another buzz word on the site...
Now THIS question needs to be asked. Speaking as a Democrat, I'm very ansy that the likely candidate, the person who could end up defending abortion rights and the environment in a lasting and permanent way, doesn't have people on his team who knows the difference between "open source" and "volunteer written."
I don't usually pull this "moderator baiting" crap, but this comment deserves attention. Drix is right on the money, and in fact maybe a little more than s/he realizes. We're competing with NT when the real competition with Linux is Solaris and Windows 2000. If we want to produce a better OS than Microsoft, we need to produce a better OS than Windows 2000, not a better os than Windows NT or Windows 95.
Well, at least we know the MPAA isn't losing any sleep...
This article raises a very good point: the MPAA and its allies are very good at manipulating public opinion. In fact, not only are they very good at it, but they have all the tools to do it. The companies represented by MPAA include Warner (CNN and Time), Fox (news and newspapers), Disney (ABC), Paramount (any number of news shows), &c. You'd be a fool to assume that any of these sources is going to be unbiased about this case. Unfortunately, most people still believe that these media outlets are motivated by the search for truth, rather than corporate policy (read as: greed.)
This is why protests are important right now. The only way we are going to get our side heard is to go out and tell people what's happening. Slashdot helps a lot, but it reaches a very specialized audience. The people whose minds we need to change aren't typical Slashdot readers; they're average joes and janes, who, for the most part, have other things to worry about and don't have time to investigate these things themselves. Either we tell them what's going on, or the MPAA does through its many voices. Which would you prefer?
How to get involved:
Post other suggestions here!
I know you're not a shrink or a sociologist, but I'm still very interested in your opinion: What is it about these smurf attacks that the people find so facinating, or horrible? Do they really pose that serious a threat to network security? Why do the media find it fascinating?
BTW, the DDoS scanner is a nice hack. Thanks for releasing the source!
Russian authorities have tested a reusable space vehicle, at a fraction of the cost of a Shuttle, and the tests were highly successful. The only problem is, they can't find it.
Read the story here.
0h n0!!! I fell for it! Well done!
Free clue: the last poster was trolling you.
As a side note, I've known homosexuals (male and female) since I was ten. None of them ever came on to me when I was young. I was 19 before a gay man hit on me, and I politely turned him down. "Take it for the compliment it is," so to speak. I am unabashedly and openly heterosexual, I enjoy sex with adult women and not with adult men, and that's that. Sorry, I was never recruited, diddled, or anything like that.
I should note that the kind of censorware the FRC is promoting would have censored my testimony, since it contained "homosexual content." That is why a lot of us are fighting FRC on this issue.
What's insane and irrational is that you go on for several paragraphs about how homosexuals, feminists and other liberals are out there trying to control and destroy the lives of children. If this is what you believe, fine, but don't expect me to believe so much a single word of it without proof. Furthermore, since you're talking about violating people's rights here, I'm demanding proof beyond a reasonable doubt. This is my right as an American and as a human being.
What is equally insane is that you would cast any opposition to your position as insane. This strikes me as exceptionally small-minded and even fascist.
ZDNet was hit this morning by the exact same type of attack. See the story here. After seeing all the anti-Linux FUD on ZDNet, maybe there is something to the "revolution" theory?
Oh yeah...for what it's worth, ABCNews did an analysis of these attacks; an analysis which I find refreshingly honest. To sum: people who whine about these outages have unhealthy, unrealistic expectations of their technology.
ABC News is reporting that two more web sites were hit in the last 24 hours, in attacks remarkably similar to the one that hit Yahoo. One website was Buy.com, which was hit just as their stock was going IPO with 800 megabytes of traffic per second in a coordinated DoS (smurf?) attack. The other website was eBay. The Yahoo attack used one gigabyte of traffic per second, according to ABCNews. Full story is here.
Firstly, I already pointed out that there's a way to create a blacklist in a non-biased fashion: peer reveiw. It takes a long time, but it would be worth it. Peer review is not done these days, because it is expensive; moreover, it is subject to bias, depending on who is doing the reviewing.
Secondly, commercial entities do not have to keep the list secret in order to keep working. The secret isn't supposed to be what is censored, but how it is censored.
Thirdly, the most efficient and effective way for me to advance the cause of freedom is to spread the word on what is wrong with these filters, rather than make my own. If I spend my time and energy making my own filter, it becomes just another product. One which, in my opinion, the FRC and other right-wing groups probably will not endorse, since it would block pornography but not necessarily other material that such groups find objectionable (such as gay rights websites.)
Have fun advancing the Kingdom of God.
Let me be frank here. I would hope that my twelve-year-old daughter would have enough sense to say, "GROSS!!!!!", and shut off the website.
Don't forget, I'm paying for what goes in that library too. I find most of this censorware highly offensive. I don't particularly give a damn that they're blocking pornographic images, if you're under 18 you shouldn't be seeing them anyway. What I care about is that some of these lists block legitimate sites, and in the most eggregious cases, even forbid the user from seeing words for legitimate and important concepts such as gay rights, breast cancer, Wicca, Atheism, Communism, or abortion. Whether you like these or not, your child should at the very least be able to discuss them and research them.
So how does one design software to block pornographic images? That's a hell of a problem. The definition of pornography is based on a visual image. Humans are very, very good at interpreting visual images. Computers are not. Getting a computer to accurately tell the differences between different faces can take several minutes from a limited set of faces using very low-res photographs (I've done this myself using neural nets). Getting a computer to accurately recognize porn is computationally expensive and a memory hog. A 400x400 image requires 160,000 artificial neurons, one for each pixel, plus maybe a hidden layer of 100, just to tell if an image contains an erect penis or not. If each node takes 256 bytes (a severe under-estimate) then you need 40 megs of available memory just to run the neural network. That doesn't even take into account overhead with the plugins &c. And the program would be SLOW , taking about (again, back of envelope calculation here) three minutes to identify each picture on a 500 MHz machine. Try running that on your 500 MHz box running Windows 2000 and you're going to be deeply frustrated.
So what else is there? Blacklists aren't reliable and are inherently biased. There's no peer review behind blacklists. Using word filters leads to all sorts of trouble, including banning sites with legitimate redeeming content. Plus, I can easily get pornographic images of the most graphic and grotesque nature past a word filter. (Just name it "Tickle Me Elmo" or something and don't have a single sexual reference on the site except for the pictures.) Ratings systems are easy to circumvent. These are the technologies that the current filters run on, and they don't work.
Of course your concerns are legitimate. My problem with it isn't that you want to restrict kids from seeing porn, but that the solution proposed to you by the Family Research Council is snake oil in some cases and more than you bargained for (censoring legitimate content that the FRC happens to not like) in others.
Wipes tears away...catches breath from laughing...
Maybe it's because I've been coding for twelve hours streight, but damnit, that was too funny. Thanks for the good laugh.
The question is not one of morality. The question is one of legality. It is presently illegal to write an open source DeCSS, without explicit permission from DVD CAA -- permission which, frankly, I don't see them ever giving, because their technology relies on secrecy in order to "protect" anything.
It gets worse, by the way. You might not realize this, but this same ruling implies that Microsoft can go after anyone who tries to decode Word file formats. The file formats, after all, are not software -- they are a technology. Or at least that's how they could argue it. Once that's done, kiss KOffice and Gnome Office goodbye.
Returning to morality for a second -- if it is moral for me to write a closed-source version of a program, then is it legal for me to write an open-source version of that same program? Under the current system, the latter should be disallowed in many cases.
Call me nuts, but I still believe in America. It's not in every place that you can get 100 languages spoken, sometimes in the same neighborhood. And I'm not willing to give up the fight yet. But let's suppose I did.
Europe has promise, but it's a hell of a move. I might consider Ireland. Cuba could be interesting, but I'm too much of a maverick. Australia...net censorship. India has problems with religious fundamentalists. Asia's a mess, except for Japan. My Japanese isn't too hot.
My best bet is probably Canada. Worst case scenario, it's just a six hour drive, assuming I have enough gas and ammo to make it. :)