Or Abine DoNotTrackMe, which I marginally prefer over Ghostery because the latter is run by the ad networks (of course, I'd prefer an OpenSource alternative...)
Its not so much that cooking negates the nutritional value. Rather, it leeches some of the vitamins and minerals out of the vegetables and into the cooking medium. If you cook the vegetables and don't drain away the water, you'll retain most of the vitamins. And even if you do, you'll still retain the bulk of the nutrients in the plant.
Myself, I prefer to eat my veges pre-processed by a cow. No, not cud. Steak!
This law is enacted nominally to protect the kids from foul language? What about us poor adults? 99% of the time I read or hear somebody egregiously misusing foul language, the author or speaker is underage. Ever go on XBox Live? Yeah. Tweets? Blogs? It's the same. That's not to say their elders don't drop a few cuss words here and there but by and far, in my experience, it's the younger set that are abusing those words. And I'm fairly certain they didn't learn those words from the Internet.
So Russia, please stop wasting your time on pointless legislature. Better to spend your time working on an Internet-enabled "smack to the head" button; trust me, it will be far more effective at civilizing discourse on the world wide web.
Mind you, this doesn't seem to be limited to Apple. In my experience (from the few retail jobs I had in my younger days), the managers were always crooks. One of them stole enough merchandise to start up his own store.
BluRay 1x speeds are 36mbps; however, most drives run at 2x or faster to provide the necessary 54Mbps data transfer rate for BDRom movies. The upper limit of the drive (which has been pretty standard for all optical drives, including CD-ROM and DVD, so I don't expect that to change) - is around 10,000 RPM - which comes out to approximately 12x the "base" transfer rate of BluRay, or just over 400Mbps.
So... assuming these new drives run at max speed all the time and it can magically maintain that rate for the entire copy, that gives us a perfect transfer rate of 54MBps (432Mbps). That means it would take a little over 1.5 hours to read all the data off one of these new 300GB discs. More likely, the drives will release (assuming it ever makes to market) with a far lower rate (2x-4x BluRay speeds is my guess) to prevent excessive noise, heat and wear, and transfer speeds are never perfect so a full-disk copy will require about 10 hours. And that doesn't even get into the time needed for/write-speeds/. And that's just for/one/ disc; you would need 7 discs to match the capacity of an average 2TB hard-drive.
So, yeah, the bandwidth problem is a bit of a concern for me too. I'm sure there may be some specialized needs for equipment like this, but - given the competition from TODAY's hard-drives it's hard to see these making any sort of headway on the general market. And by the time these discs were available (assuming they ever are) hard-drives will probably have ten times more capacity and tripled their speed, making this technology look even more ineffective.
I couldn't say. The problem was acknowledged by nvidia (albeit as something intentionally designed rather than a bug) but perhaps it's a workaround for something in Windows. Supposedly ATI cards suffer a similar - if not as serious - flaw (IIRC only the memory speed clocks up). Its also possible that the problem only appears on certain GPU chipsets (definitely the 4xx and 5xx lines, and apparently the 6xx GPUs as well), so if you have an older or new card it may not effect you. There also seemed to be some argument if it always happened or if it required "different monitors" (e.g., some reported that using identical monitors did not trigger the problem).
In any event, the posted solution is also Windows-only./That/ fact occurred to me roughly 2.7ns after I hit the submit button;-)
Nonetheless, if you/do/ have one of those cards be aware that plugging in more than one monitor may cause it to ramp up to full speed, wasting electricity and generating excess heat for no good use. Unfortunately, it's not immediately obvious so I felt obligated to bring it to people's attention. If it doesn't happen to you, then count yourself fortunate (especially when your electric bill comes due). But checking is relatively easy (Windows users can use GPU-Z to see their GPU's current clock speed) and it may save you some money in the long run.
Nvidia cards bump their performance up full speed (max clock and memory speed) when more than one monitor is attached. Supposedly this is design. . Fortunately, a third-party hack is available so you can have multiple monitors without blowing your energy budget. Sadly, it currently only works with n5xx or lower cards (more recent cards apparently use different power states).
It's "slippery slope", Great Britain, not "slippery precipice". You're supposed to ease people into surrendering their rights; first you take away the pornography (for the children!), then perhaps "terrorist material" (for the nation!) and then work downwards from there. You get much less objection from the proles that way.
Well, maybe they just assume everybody is to bedazzled by the new royal infant (baby!) to notice. Or perhaps they've just given up any pretense of listening to their own citizenry. Which may not be the greatest idea if you take away their porn...
"Eddies," said Ford, "in the space-time continuum."
"Ah," nodded Arthur, "is he? Is he?" He pushed his hands into the pocket of his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.
"What?" said Ford.
"Er, who," said Arthur, "is Eddy, then, exactly?"
Ford looked angrily at him. "Will you listen?" he snapped.
"I have been listening," said Arthur, "but I'm not sure it's helped."
Ford grasped him by the lapels of his dressing gown and spoke to him as slowly and distinctly and patiently as if he were somebody from a telephone company accounts department. "There seem..." he said, "to be some pools..." he said, "of instability..." he said, "in the fabric..." he said...
Arthur looked foolishly at the cloth of his dressing gown where Ford was holding it. Ford swept on before Arthur could turn the foolish look into a foolish remark.
"... in the fabric of space-time," he said.
"Ah, that," said Arthur.
"Yes, that," confirmed Ford.
They stood there alone on a hill on prehistoric Earth and stared each other resolutely in the face.
"And it's done what?" said Arthur.
"It," said Ford, "has developed pools of instability."
"Has it?" said Arthur, his eyes not wavering for a moment.
"It has," said Ford with a similar degree of ocular immobility.
"Good," said Arthur.
"See?" said Ford.
"No," said Arthur.
There was a quiet pause.
"The difficulty with this conversation," said Arthur after a sort of pondering look had crawled slowly across his face like a mountaineer negotiating a tricky outcrop, "is that it's very different from most of the ones I've had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees. They weren't like this. Except perhaps some of the ones I've had with elms which sometimes get a bit bogged down."
"Arthur," said Ford.
"Hello? Yes?" said Arthur.
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
"Ah, well I'm not sure I believe that."
They sat down and composed their thoughts.
Ford got out his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic. It was making vague humming noises and a tiny light on it was flickering faintly.
"Flat battery?" said Arthur.
"No," said Ford, "there is a moving disturbance in the fabric of space+ time, an eddy, a pool of instability, and it's somewhere in our vicinity."
"Where?"
Ford moved the device in a slow lightly bobbing semi-circle. Suddenly the light flashed.
"There!" said Ford, shooting out his arm. "There, behind that sofa!"
Arthur looked. Much to his surprise, there was a velvet paisley covered Chesterfield sofa in the field in front of them. He boggled intelligently at it. Shrewd questions sprang into his mind.
"Why," he said, "is there a sofa in that field?"
"I told you!" shouted Ford, leaping to his feet. "Eddies in the space-time continuum!"
"And this is his sofa, is it?" asked Arthur, struggling to his feet and, he hoped, though not very optimistically, to his senses.
(from/Life, The Universe and Everything/ by Douglas Adams...as if you didn't know)
Now little Timmy won't be bothered by all those nasty websites he has no interest in.
Well, at least not until he comes across some of those sites that slip by the filters - as they inevitably do - or he learns how to turn the filter off (as children eventually will).
And it's not as if he will be missing anything important. Oh sure, filters have been shown to be over-zealous in their protection, often blocking non-porn sites as well but why would he be interested in reading Wikipedia or the National Geographic or any of these other disgusting websites anyway? Do they have any redeeming value at all? And even if they do, is it worth the risk that young Timmy might see a nipple?
Besides, sex is unnatural, and so is the human body. Nobody should see it naked. It's been that way since the beginning of time; children never witnessed nudity or sex until they were eighteen and in no way should we question this belief. Its not as if this sort of repression causes any problems. Anyway, the youth of today must be inculcated from the start with the idea that it is okay for the government to tell us what to read and what to do, for the good of the nation. A strong government should lead its people in thought and action!
I for one am glad the government of Great Britain is moving in this direction and can only hope the governments of the other nations of the world follow suit. Its just one step towards bringing our world back to a more civilized level of discourse, where things like sex, violence and alternate religions are removed from view. It's for the good of our children after all.
(By the way, just out of scientific curiousity, have instructions on how to disable this feature been issued yet? I only ask to make sure I don't accidentally turn it of, of course).
The first thing that came to mind when I read this story was the following quote from "2010: The Year We Make Contact" by Arthur C. Clarke:
So it went on, case after case. Very few of the contactees were actually lying or insane; most of them sincerely believed their own stories, and retained that belief even under hypnosis. And some were just victims of practical jokes or improbable accidents - like the unlucky amateur archaeologists who found the props that a celebrated science-fiction moviemaker had abandoned in the Tunisian desert almost four decades earlier.
So what happens if this thing blows its load right into the face of some tot and shoves some dust into precious' eyes? The little snowflake might be blinded! I see lawsuit written large in the future of this thing.
It doesn't matter how cool or useful something is; the over-zealous litigatory nature of American society will probably keep this from getting into common usage.
But what do I know; I'm just a grumpy old man who misses his lawn darts;-)
More likely, the addition of the program came without knowledge that it included an illegal decryption program. Once it comes to the attention of the lawyers (which, thanks to this story, is more likely now than ever) it will probably be removed.
The "best practices" PDF isn't recommending it/because/ it plays DVDs or uses DeCSS, after all. The article suggests best practices for setting up a Congressional website and one of those practices is "Any page that links to a multimedia file (or an audio file) should include access to software that allows the file to be accessed." VLC is just one of four media players listed (and it's mentioned after Quicktime and RealPlayer!). Whoever updated this PDF probably threw in VLC without being aware of its potential illegality and nobody up the line caught the mistake. I mean, it's a one-time mention on page 153 of a 250 page document!
Hell,/I/ didn't even know VLC used DeCSS code to read DVDs. Then again, I don't think I've ever/used/ VLC to play a DVD; I barely use disc-based media anymore...
So, yeah, most likely a mistake by the poor intern tasked with writing "revision 36" of this document. Expect mention of VLC to be gone by revision 37.
Profiling gives criminals a way to game the system; if you don't look like the profile then you don't get tagged as a potential criminal (it also allows some unfortunate biases to come into play by the profiler). The solution, Schneier suggests, is a system that by its simple randomness, does not allow profiling or gaming.
Whether you agree with his logic or not, I strongly doubt that any such system would be allowed into common usage in US airports without an override. This negates the very advantages Schneier advocates. Whether this addition strengthens the overall system is up to debate (Schneier would argue that it does not), but the addition of a human override weakens those aspects that Schneier looks upon favorably.
Myself, I think all such methods are extreme overkill and that its far more likely that criminals interested in damaging the US with such attacks will strike at our practically undefended infrastructure, be it the huge AV fuel tanks at the airport, or any of the bridges or tunnels in a major city, or some toxic chemical depot in an urban area. Most of these are protected by little more than rusty chain-link fencing and an underpaid security guard and could cause far more harm than a simple plane crash. It's these weaknesses that terrify me far more than the presumed risk of some schmuck with a razor blade hijacking a plane. I'd rather they stop wasting money frisking passengers for penknives and spend it shoring up those vulnerabilities instead.
Or alternately, we could stop pissing off three-quarters of the world so they all don't want to blow us up. It's just whacky enough an idea to work!
More importantly, I guarantee that were such a system to be used in the US, it would include an override that watching agent could trigger a red light if he saw something suspicious... if only to ensure the continued employment of said agents. And such an override would result in profiling, negating one of the major advantages of the system.
I accept the correction. We must not forget how Amazon graced us all with their prudent patent on one-click purchasing, lest this vital technology fall into the hands of the unwashed masses. I for one am grateful that they have screwed over the internet community in this way. Aren't we all glad that the invisible hand of Adam Smith has created such a competitive market for corporations to piss all over their customers? I myself can hardly decide which company I want to get reamed by next!!!
Microsoft is still up to the same kind of dirt tricks that earned them that kind of hatred in the first place. It's just that now people are beginning to see that they have alternatives.
Right! It used to be we were stuck with Microsoft and its anti-competitive, anti-consumer behavior.
But nowadays we can get the same sort of behavior from Google, Facebook, or Apple!
No longer does Microsoft have a monopoly on screwing over its customers! Its facing some real competition these days by other companies who can match - and even beat - Microsoft with their own anti-competitive behavior!
And I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords!
I disagree. Most companies aren't serving directly to their customers. They aren't Amazon.com; their data is primarily for their in-house use. They aren't concerned if their customers can access the Internet because that's not how most business interact with their customers. They are very concerned whether or not their employees have access to the data, because if they do not they cannot do the job for which they are being paid. And even Internet-facing businesses need to be very concerned about their own uplinks to the Internet, because while it's great to have an Internet storefront, that is worthless if you can't update it at will.
Anyway, the linked story is not about "hey, if you are internet-facing, you should have a more robust connection to your customers", it's "hey, the Cloud(tm) can protect you from random disasters like drunk drivers!" And while it perhaps is useful in such a role, I'd argue it is neither cost-effective nor without severe disadvantages in that role.
But it's even simpler than that; if you are considering moving lock-stock-and-barrel to the cloud, ask yourself the following question first:
Which is more likely to happen:
a) A drunk driver smashes into your data-center (or there's a flood or a fire, or some other disaster) or
b) your Internet goes down
I don't know about you, but in my experience the second option is by far the more frequent occurrence. There are ways to mitigate the problem (but beware the backhoe!) but these add to the expense of the cloud and still do not absolutely solve the problem. And even if you are cloud-based, you/still/ should have some sort of disaster-recovery procedure in place in case there's a problem with the service itself.
Nor does the the original story really show how advantageous cloud storage is. The driver smashed into a beauty store next to his office and "our servers were down for eight hours, and various services were intermittent for at least 12 hours." Which probably means theydidn't have electricity or Internet. Cloud won't help you there...
So, yeah, the cloud can be a wonderful supplement to your business but if you are depending on it as a core solution then in the long run you are in a world of hurt. Its just added cost and complexity with minimal advantage.
The CIA is turning into Cobra, "a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world"*...
Today the Weather Dominator... tomorrow the MASS Device... and then the world**!!!!
Where's a Real American Hero*** when we need one?
* even their names share similarities. Add two "o" (one connected to the "I" of CIA) and the letter "r" and what do you have? ** although arguably they are working in reverse... they already have "the world" in their clutches, they have the basic tech for the MASS Device - quantum teleportation - already, so now they just need control of the weather! *** Action Force for our foreign friends
So, I'll start by admitting I'm not at all into any of these online streaming services and how they work so I apologize if any of my assumptions below are incorrect and am open to correction...... But aren't these streaming services funded by advertising? That is, listeners don't have to directly pay to hear the songs; they just see an advert. Given this, comparing the number of plays on streaming services to number of albums or songs sold seems disingenuous. There's less income-per-play to begin with, so obviously there will be less to share with the artists. It's not as if the label revenue is all that high either. Those giant ovals on the graphic paint a nasty picture for the streaming services, but are they accurate?
Which isn't to say that the division of revenue is fair, but the portrayal of this information is definitely done in a way that is biased against the streaming services.
So, plugging in some numbers we see the following:
Retail album CD: artist gets 17% of what the label takes ($0.30 versus $1.70) Rhapsody: artist gets 25% of what the label takes ($0.0022 versus $0.0091) LastFM: artist gets 18% of what the label takes (0.00075 verus $0.004) iTunes Track download: artist gets 16% of what the label takes ($0.09 versus $0.53) Spotify: artist gets 18% of what the label takes ($0.00029 versus $0.0016)
So Spotify seems to be right in the middle there. Of course, how much Spotify rakes in is an unknown but I would wager it isn't particularly high to begin with.
(Did some research: Rhapsody seems to be able to offer better deals because they require a paid subscription. Looking at it's website, Spotify offers a premium subs too but the advantages seem minor and I bet most users just use the free version). Last.Fm is also free.)
So, yeah, the graphic makes it look as if the streaming services are ripping off the artists but it isn't entirely accurate. More honest would be for the graphic to show how many plays every CD and downloaded track get and calculate cost-per-play f, because then at least you would be comparing oranges-to-oranges...
I wonder how Spotify's revenue-per-song to the artists compares to radio?
Harry Harrison's "To The Stars" trilogy ("Homeworld", "Wheelworld" and "Starworld") also predicted a society under constant surveillance, although it's not a major part of the story. It's sort of like the future of 1984, except one where the society seems to have been founded less on "for the evilz" (which seems to be the primary motivator of the party in Orwell's "1984") and more based on greed and power-hunger.
While the story itself is not particularly engrossing, some of the predictions on the society and surveillance methods are frighteningly close. Of course, Harrison missed the date by approximately 500 years but that date seems to be more an artifice to explain how mankind has reached other planets rather than a necessity for the technology to evolve; if anything, the world seems somewhat backwards technologically and societally given it is set 5 centuries hence. Of course, it was written back in 1981...
As an American, I am not opposed to our country relinquishing control of the Internet to another party. As has been pointed out, we haven't done a very good job proctoring it recently.
However, I'm not really convinced that the United Nations is the best alternative. I'd like them to be; the idea that the citizens of the world - rather than the citizens of a single state - have dominion over the Internet suits my egalitarian fancies. Unfortunately, the track record of the UN doesn't seem much better than that of the United States...
On the gripping hand, the United States - were it to live up to its ideals (or even if it were just to stop actively pursuing goals in direct opposition of those ideals, as is its current course) would be an adequate monitor of the Internet. Hopefully, one day we citizens can get our government back on path. Until then, I'm open to alternatives.
Slashdot Mirror
Or Abine DoNotTrackMe, which I marginally prefer over Ghostery because the latter is run by the ad networks (of course, I'd prefer an OpenSource alternative...)
NoScript, Perspectives, Flashblock, BetterPrivacy and HTTPS Everywhere round out the package.
And occassionally PrefBar so I can change my browser UserAgent on the fly, just to mess with 'em...
Its not so much that cooking negates the nutritional value. Rather, it leeches some of the vitamins and minerals out of the vegetables and into the cooking medium. If you cook the vegetables and don't drain away the water, you'll retain most of the vitamins. And even if you do, you'll still retain the bulk of the nutrients in the plant.
Myself, I prefer to eat my veges pre-processed by a cow. No, not cud. Steak!
This law is enacted nominally to protect the kids from foul language? What about us poor adults? 99% of the time I read or hear somebody egregiously misusing foul language, the author or speaker is underage. Ever go on XBox Live? Yeah. Tweets? Blogs? It's the same. That's not to say their elders don't drop a few cuss words here and there but by and far, in my experience, it's the younger set that are abusing those words. And I'm fairly certain they didn't learn those words from the Internet.
So Russia, please stop wasting your time on pointless legislature. Better to spend your time working on an Internet-enabled "smack to the head" button; trust me, it will be far more effective at civilizing discourse on the world wide web.
No one, apparently.
Mind you, this doesn't seem to be limited to Apple. In my experience (from the few retail jobs I had in my younger days), the managers were always crooks. One of them stole enough merchandise to start up his own store.
BluRay 1x speeds are 36mbps; however, most drives run at 2x or faster to provide the necessary 54Mbps data transfer rate for BDRom movies. The upper limit of the drive (which has been pretty standard for all optical drives, including CD-ROM and DVD, so I don't expect that to change) - is around 10,000 RPM - which comes out to approximately 12x the "base" transfer rate of BluRay, or just over 400Mbps.
So... assuming these new drives run at max speed all the time and it can magically maintain that rate for the entire copy, that gives us a perfect transfer rate of 54MBps (432Mbps). That means it would take a little over 1.5 hours to read all the data off one of these new 300GB discs. More likely, the drives will release (assuming it ever makes to market) with a far lower rate (2x-4x BluRay speeds is my guess) to prevent excessive noise, heat and wear, and transfer speeds are never perfect so a full-disk copy will require about 10 hours. And that doesn't even get into the time needed for /write-speeds/. And that's just for /one/ disc; you would need 7 discs to match the capacity of an average 2TB hard-drive.
So, yeah, the bandwidth problem is a bit of a concern for me too. I'm sure there may be some specialized needs for equipment like this, but - given the competition from TODAY's hard-drives it's hard to see these making any sort of headway on the general market. And by the time these discs were available (assuming they ever are) hard-drives will probably have ten times more capacity and tripled their speed, making this technology look even more ineffective.
I couldn't say. The problem was acknowledged by nvidia (albeit as something intentionally designed rather than a bug) but perhaps it's a workaround for something in Windows. Supposedly ATI cards suffer a similar - if not as serious - flaw (IIRC only the memory speed clocks up). Its also possible that the problem only appears on certain GPU chipsets (definitely the 4xx and 5xx lines, and apparently the 6xx GPUs as well), so if you have an older or new card it may not effect you. There also seemed to be some argument if it always happened or if it required "different monitors" (e.g., some reported that using identical monitors did not trigger the problem).
In any event, the posted solution is also Windows-only. /That/ fact occurred to me roughly 2.7ns after I hit the submit button ;-)
Nonetheless, if you /do/ have one of those cards be aware that plugging in more than one monitor may cause it to ramp up to full speed, wasting electricity and generating excess heat for no good use. Unfortunately, it's not immediately obvious so I felt obligated to bring it to people's attention. If it doesn't happen to you, then count yourself fortunate (especially when your electric bill comes due). But checking is relatively easy (Windows users can use GPU-Z to see their GPU's current clock speed) and it may save you some money in the long run.
Nvidia cards bump their performance up full speed (max clock and memory speed) when more than one monitor is attached. Supposedly this is design. . Fortunately, a third-party hack is available so you can have multiple monitors without blowing your energy budget. Sadly, it currently only works with n5xx or lower cards (more recent cards apparently use different power states).
It's "slippery slope", Great Britain, not "slippery precipice". You're supposed to ease people into surrendering their rights; first you take away the pornography (for the children!), then perhaps "terrorist material" (for the nation!) and then work downwards from there. You get much less objection from the proles that way.
Well, maybe they just assume everybody is to bedazzled by the new royal infant (baby!) to notice. Or perhaps they've just given up any pretense of listening to their own citizenry. Which may not be the greatest idea if you take away their porn...
"Eddies," said Ford, "in the space-time continuum."
"Ah," nodded Arthur, "is he? Is he?" He pushed his hands into the pocket of his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.
"What?" said Ford.
"Er, who," said Arthur, "is Eddy, then, exactly?"
Ford looked angrily at him. "Will you listen?" he snapped.
"I have been listening," said Arthur, "but I'm not sure it's helped."
Ford grasped him by the lapels of his dressing gown and spoke to him as slowly and distinctly and patiently as if he were somebody from a telephone company accounts department. "There seem ..." he said, "to be some pools ..." he said, "of instability ..." he said, "in the fabric ..." he said ...
Arthur looked foolishly at the cloth of his dressing gown where Ford was holding it. Ford swept on before Arthur could turn the foolish look into a foolish remark.
"... in the fabric of space-time," he said.
"Ah, that," said Arthur.
"Yes, that," confirmed Ford.
They stood there alone on a hill on prehistoric Earth and stared each other resolutely in the face.
"And it's done what?" said Arthur.
"It," said Ford, "has developed pools of instability."
"Has it?" said Arthur, his eyes not wavering for a moment.
"It has," said Ford with a similar degree of ocular immobility.
"Good," said Arthur.
"See?" said Ford.
"No," said Arthur.
There was a quiet pause.
"The difficulty with this conversation," said Arthur after a sort of pondering look had crawled slowly across his face like a mountaineer negotiating a tricky outcrop, "is that it's very different from most of the ones I've had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees. They weren't like this. Except perhaps some of the ones I've had with elms which sometimes get a bit bogged down."
"Arthur," said Ford.
"Hello? Yes?" said Arthur.
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
"Ah, well I'm not sure I believe that."
They sat down and composed their thoughts.
Ford got out his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic. It was making vague humming noises and a tiny light on it was flickering faintly.
"Flat battery?" said Arthur.
"No," said Ford, "there is a moving disturbance in the fabric of space+ time, an eddy, a pool of instability, and it's somewhere in our vicinity."
"Where?"
Ford moved the device in a slow lightly bobbing semi-circle. Suddenly the light flashed.
"There!" said Ford, shooting out his arm. "There, behind that sofa!"
Arthur looked. Much to his surprise, there was a velvet paisley covered Chesterfield sofa in the field in front of them. He boggled intelligently at it. Shrewd questions sprang into his mind.
"Why," he said, "is there a sofa in that field?"
"I told you!" shouted Ford, leaping to his feet. "Eddies in the space-time continuum!"
"And this is his sofa, is it?" asked Arthur, struggling to his feet and, he hoped, though not very optimistically, to his senses.
/Life, The Universe and Everything/ by Douglas Adams...as if you didn't know)
(from
How am I celebrating National SysAdmin Day?
By re-reading stories from the Bastard Operator From Hell, of course.
Whether I do this so I may follow in his footsteps or to protect myself from his antics, I'll leave unsaid.
Now little Timmy won't be bothered by all those nasty websites he has no interest in.
Well, at least not until he comes across some of those sites that slip by the filters - as they inevitably do - or he learns how to turn the filter off (as children eventually will).
And it's not as if he will be missing anything important. Oh sure, filters have been shown to be over-zealous in their protection, often blocking non-porn sites as well but why would he be interested in reading Wikipedia or the National Geographic or any of these other disgusting websites anyway? Do they have any redeeming value at all? And even if they do, is it worth the risk that young Timmy might see a nipple?
Besides, sex is unnatural, and so is the human body. Nobody should see it naked. It's been that way since the beginning of time; children never witnessed nudity or sex until they were eighteen and in no way should we question this belief. Its not as if this sort of repression causes any problems. Anyway, the youth of today must be inculcated from the start with the idea that it is okay for the government to tell us what to read and what to do, for the good of the nation. A strong government should lead its people in thought and action!
I for one am glad the government of Great Britain is moving in this direction and can only hope the governments of the other nations of the world follow suit. Its just one step towards bringing our world back to a more civilized level of discourse, where things like sex, violence and alternate religions are removed from view. It's for the good of our children after all.
(By the way, just out of scientific curiousity, have instructions on how to disable this feature been issued yet? I only ask to make sure I don't accidentally turn it of, of course).
The first thing that came to mind when I read this story was the following quote from "2010: The Year We Make Contact" by Arthur C. Clarke:
So it went on, case after case. Very few of the contactees were actually lying or insane; most of them sincerely believed their own stories, and retained that belief even under hypnosis. And some were just victims of practical jokes or improbable accidents - like the unlucky amateur archaeologists who found the props that a celebrated science-fiction moviemaker had abandoned in the Tunisian desert almost four decades earlier.
So what happens if this thing blows its load right into the face of some tot and shoves some dust into precious' eyes? The little snowflake might be blinded! I see lawsuit written large in the future of this thing.
It doesn't matter how cool or useful something is; the over-zealous litigatory nature of American society will probably keep this from getting into common usage.
But what do I know; I'm just a grumpy old man who misses his lawn darts ;-)
More likely, the addition of the program came without knowledge that it included an illegal decryption program. Once it comes to the attention of the lawyers (which, thanks to this story, is more likely now than ever) it will probably be removed.
The "best practices" PDF isn't recommending it /because/ it plays DVDs or uses DeCSS, after all. The article suggests best practices for setting up a Congressional website and one of those practices is "Any page that links to a multimedia file (or an audio file) should include access to software that allows the file to be accessed." VLC is just one of four media players listed (and it's mentioned after Quicktime and RealPlayer!). Whoever updated this PDF probably threw in VLC without being aware of its potential illegality and nobody up the line caught the mistake. I mean, it's a one-time mention on page 153 of a 250 page document!
Hell, /I/ didn't even know VLC used DeCSS code to read DVDs. Then again, I don't think I've ever /used/ VLC to play a DVD; I barely use disc-based media anymore...
So, yeah, most likely a mistake by the poor intern tasked with writing "revision 36" of this document. Expect mention of VLC to be gone by revision 37.
Profiling gives criminals a way to game the system; if you don't look like the profile then you don't get tagged as a potential criminal (it also allows some unfortunate biases to come into play by the profiler). The solution, Schneier suggests, is a system that by its simple randomness, does not allow profiling or gaming.
Whether you agree with his logic or not, I strongly doubt that any such system would be allowed into common usage in US airports without an override. This negates the very advantages Schneier advocates. Whether this addition strengthens the overall system is up to debate (Schneier would argue that it does not), but the addition of a human override weakens those aspects that Schneier looks upon favorably.
Myself, I think all such methods are extreme overkill and that its far more likely that criminals interested in damaging the US with such attacks will strike at our practically undefended infrastructure, be it the huge AV fuel tanks at the airport, or any of the bridges or tunnels in a major city, or some toxic chemical depot in an urban area. Most of these are protected by little more than rusty chain-link fencing and an underpaid security guard and could cause far more harm than a simple plane crash. It's these weaknesses that terrify me far more than the presumed risk of some schmuck with a razor blade hijacking a plane. I'd rather they stop wasting money frisking passengers for penknives and spend it shoring up those vulnerabilities instead.
Or alternately, we could stop pissing off three-quarters of the world so they all don't want to blow us up. It's just whacky enough an idea to work!
More importantly, I guarantee that were such a system to be used in the US, it would include an override that watching agent could trigger a red light if he saw something suspicious... if only to ensure the continued employment of said agents. And such an override would result in profiling, negating one of the major advantages of the system.
Except most of those customers will probably connect to their routers wirelessly using 802.11g adapters, for a whopping 54mbits to the Internet...
"I don't understand what all the fuss is about, the Internet doesn't seem any faster to me!"
I LOL.
I accept the correction. We must not forget how Amazon graced us all with their prudent patent on one-click purchasing, lest this vital technology fall into the hands of the unwashed masses. I for one am grateful that they have screwed over the internet community in this way. Aren't we all glad that the invisible hand of Adam Smith has created such a competitive market for corporations to piss all over their customers? I myself can hardly decide which company I want to get reamed by next!!!
Microsoft is still up to the same kind of dirt tricks that earned them that kind of hatred in the first place.
It's just that now people are beginning to see that they have alternatives.
Right! It used to be we were stuck with Microsoft and its anti-competitive, anti-consumer behavior.
But nowadays we can get the same sort of behavior from Google, Facebook, or Apple!
No longer does Microsoft have a monopoly on screwing over its customers! Its facing some real competition these days by other companies who can match - and even beat - Microsoft with their own anti-competitive behavior!
And I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords!
I disagree. Most companies aren't serving directly to their customers. They aren't Amazon.com; their data is primarily for their in-house use. They aren't concerned if their customers can access the Internet because that's not how most business interact with their customers. They are very concerned whether or not their employees have access to the data, because if they do not they cannot do the job for which they are being paid. And even Internet-facing businesses need to be very concerned about their own uplinks to the Internet, because while it's great to have an Internet storefront, that is worthless if you can't update it at will.
Anyway, the linked story is not about "hey, if you are internet-facing, you should have a more robust connection to your customers", it's "hey, the Cloud(tm) can protect you from random disasters like drunk drivers!" And while it perhaps is useful in such a role, I'd argue it is neither cost-effective nor without severe disadvantages in that role.
Agreed.
But it's even simpler than that; if you are considering moving lock-stock-and-barrel to the cloud, ask yourself the following question first:
Which is more likely to happen:
a) A drunk driver smashes into your data-center (or there's a flood or a fire, or some other disaster)
or
b) your Internet goes down
I don't know about you, but in my experience the second option is by far the more frequent occurrence. There are ways to mitigate the problem (but beware the backhoe!) but these add to the expense of the cloud and still do not absolutely solve the problem. And even if you are cloud-based, you /still/ should have some sort of disaster-recovery procedure in place in case there's a problem with the service itself.
Nor does the the original story really show how advantageous cloud storage is. The driver smashed into a beauty store next to his office and "our servers were down for eight hours, and various services were intermittent for at least 12 hours." Which probably means theydidn't have electricity or Internet. Cloud won't help you there...
So, yeah, the cloud can be a wonderful supplement to your business but if you are depending on it as a core solution then in the long run you are in a world of hurt. Its just added cost and complexity with minimal advantage.
The CIA is turning into Cobra, "a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world"*...
Today the Weather Dominator... tomorrow the MASS Device... and then the world**!!!!
Where's a Real American Hero*** when we need one?
* even their names share similarities. Add two "o" (one connected to the "I" of CIA) and the letter "r" and what do you have?
** although arguably they are working in reverse... they already have "the world" in their clutches, they have the basic tech for the MASS Device - quantum teleportation - already, so now they just need control of the weather!
*** Action Force for our foreign friends
So, I'll start by admitting I'm not at all into any of these online streaming services and how they work so I apologize if any of my assumptions below are incorrect and am open to correction... ... But aren't these streaming services funded by advertising? That is, listeners don't have to directly pay to hear the songs; they just see an advert. Given this, comparing the number of plays on streaming services to number of albums or songs sold seems disingenuous. There's less income-per-play to begin with, so obviously there will be less to share with the artists. It's not as if the label revenue is all that high either. Those giant ovals on the graphic paint a nasty picture for the streaming services, but are they accurate?
Which isn't to say that the division of revenue is fair, but the portrayal of this information is definitely done in a way that is biased against the streaming services.
So, plugging in some numbers we see the following:
Retail album CD: artist gets 17% of what the label takes ($0.30 versus $1.70)
Rhapsody: artist gets 25% of what the label takes ($0.0022 versus $0.0091)
LastFM: artist gets 18% of what the label takes (0.00075 verus $0.004)
iTunes Track download: artist gets 16% of what the label takes ($0.09 versus $0.53)
Spotify: artist gets 18% of what the label takes ($0.00029 versus $0.0016)
So Spotify seems to be right in the middle there. Of course, how much Spotify rakes in is an unknown but I would wager it isn't particularly high to begin with.
(Did some research: Rhapsody seems to be able to offer better deals because they require a paid subscription. Looking at it's website, Spotify offers a premium subs too but the advantages seem minor and I bet most users just use the free version). Last.Fm is also free.)
So, yeah, the graphic makes it look as if the streaming services are ripping off the artists but it isn't entirely accurate. More honest would be for the graphic to show how many plays every CD and downloaded track get and calculate cost-per-play f, because then at least you would be comparing oranges-to-oranges...
I wonder how Spotify's revenue-per-song to the artists compares to radio?
Harry Harrison's "To The Stars" trilogy ("Homeworld", "Wheelworld" and "Starworld") also predicted a society under constant surveillance, although it's not a major part of the story. It's sort of like the future of 1984, except one where the society seems to have been founded less on "for the evilz" (which seems to be the primary motivator of the party in Orwell's "1984") and more based on greed and power-hunger.
While the story itself is not particularly engrossing, some of the predictions on the society and surveillance methods are frighteningly close. Of course, Harrison missed the date by approximately 500 years but that date seems to be more an artifice to explain how mankind has reached other planets rather than a necessity for the technology to evolve; if anything, the world seems somewhat backwards technologically and societally given it is set 5 centuries hence. Of course, it was written back in 1981...
As an American, I am not opposed to our country relinquishing control of the Internet to another party. As has been pointed out, we haven't done a very good job proctoring it recently.
However, I'm not really convinced that the United Nations is the best alternative. I'd like them to be; the idea that the citizens of the world - rather than the citizens of a single state - have dominion over the Internet suits my egalitarian fancies. Unfortunately, the track record of the UN doesn't seem much better than that of the United States...
On the gripping hand, the United States - were it to live up to its ideals (or even if it were just to stop actively pursuing goals in direct opposition of those ideals, as is its current course) would be an adequate monitor of the Internet. Hopefully, one day we citizens can get our government back on path. Until then, I'm open to alternatives.
Perhaps Iceland wants a shot at it?