I wonder how much of the cellular telephone networks "owned" by Verizon, et al were built using funds that were partly from pulic subsidies. Given that these companies like to cry poor, oh, every fifteen minutes, to get the bulk of their money, I find it hard to believe that they had the millions upon millions that would be needed to build a national network just lying around. Even if it could be proven that no subsidy money went to build the cell networks, would they have had the funds to build them if they received no subsidies? If not, then it doesn't matter what serial number is on the dollar bill--subsidy dollars enabled the construction of cell networks, and so the same network traffic rules that land-line networks have to abide by should apply to cell networks as well.
Don't think for a second that the telcos aren't salivating over the cellular 'net buisness model. It is exactly what they want, and they'll most likely get it. The general (or elected) public doesn't understand that the appearance of working fairly/right and actually working fairly/right are two different things.
While my Honda S2000 is no Ferrari (it's a convertible and an order of magnitude less expensive), Honda requires that you use at least 91 octane fuel. People who've put regular into it (in emergencies, like being in bumfuck nowhere and all that's available is regular no-lead) report that the car knocks like fuck and the loss of power is obvious.
That's because your S2000 roadster (a great car, in my opinion) has an insanely high-compression engine. That 2000 stands for the engine size of 2000 cubic centimeters, or 2 liters. Getting gobs of horsepower out of that engine requires both super-high compression and super-high RPM, which is exactly the kind of situation that high-octane is needed for. In a Ferrari, neither the compression nor the engine speed are quite as high, meaning that regular octane gas may work just fine. I can't definitively say so because I don't know the exact specs for a typical Ferrari engine. What I do know is that they are much larger and have many more cylinders, two factors that reduce compression and engine speed.
Displacement, Engine
Engine displacement is the measure of the total cylindrical volume through which the pistons of an engine move from one end of the stroke to the other. The formula to determine the displacement of an engine is:
* Displacement =.7854 x Bore x Bore x Stroke x Number of Cylinders
For example: The displacement of the 4.6L V-8 (281-cid) engine is: 280.3 (0.7854 x 3.55 x 3.55 x 3.54 x 8).
This is from the glossary of terms at http://www.fordvehicles.com/.
Since rotary engines have no pistons, the displacement is measured in something called "swept volume." Obviously, there's multiple ways to try to make rotary displacement and piston displacement equivalent. A decent rough estimate that's easy to understand is swept volume x 3. Since the combustion chambers are not discrete, each rotor face gets access to the whole volume of its combustion chamber. Each chamber is half the volume for a formula of ((volume/2) x 3) x 2. The multiplication and division by 2 cancel each other out, leaving volume x 3. There are others, but unfortunately, none are very accurate. Here's why:
The one crankshaft cycle in a piston engine (4-stroke) is half the combustion cycle, while in a rotary, it's 1/3 of the cycle. In a rotary engine, the rotors in spin at three times the shaft speed, while a piston engine, the pistons move at the same speed as the crankshaft. When all this is added up, the piston engine gets two crankshaft rotations per cylinder per combustion cycle while the rotary gets three combustion cycles per rotor face per shaft rotation.
If engine rotation == shaft rotation, then in a piston engine, cylinders/2 == combustions per rotation because at all times each cylinder is directly opposite the cycle from another cylinder (3- or 5-cylinder engines excluded). If engine rotation == piston rotation (point A in cycle to point A in next cycle), then cylinders == combustions per rotation.
In a 13B rotary engine, it's completely different. If engine rotation == rotor rotation (point A in cycle to point A in next cycle), then rotor faces == combustions per cycle. This is very similar to the piston engine. But if engine speed == shaft speed, things get interesting: three rotor faces x two chambers is six faces @ three combustions per face per shaft rotation gives us 18 combustions per shaft rotation. For any Wankel rotary engine and engine speed == shaft speed, it is chambers x 3 faces per chamber x 3 combustions per face per shaft rotation.
All this makes it very difficult to get an exact piston equivalent for rotary displacement. Even people in the automotive industry have troubles with this: Mazda rotaries are (or were at one point) banned from most professional racing because of this very problem.
The RX-8 Wankel rotary engine has a volumetric displacement of 1.3 liters. Given the workings of that engine, its power output and fuel economy is similar to a V-6 engine three times its size (two rotors in two compression chambers--each chamber occupying three of the four phases of a piston engine). To compare it to the engine in a Corolla, which some people do, is rather absurd. Your Camry and Corvette engines are much better examples for comparison.
The V-6 engine in a Camry has a displacement of 3.3 liters, which amounts to.55 liters per cylinder. The RX-8 rotary has the rough equivalent of.65 liters per cylinder. The Corvette V-8 is 6.0 liters, which is.75 liters per cylinder.
Now, I am not an automotive engineer, but two of the factors that affect fuel economy lie in the engine, namely its overall displacement, and the displacement per combustion chamber. Large engines use more fuel than small ones, and engines with larger combustion chambers use more fule than engines with smaller combustion chambers, so long as the number of cylinders is the same. While the Corvette engine is huge, at highway speeds, it runs almost at idle. This leads to great efficiency for size at highway speeds. The Camry engine runs faster at highway speeds than the Corvette engine does, but its smaller size makes for less fuel use. The Wankel engine runs faster than either of these two engines, and its combustion chamber equivalent size is larger than the Camry engine, therefore, more fuel is used. Finally, the RX-8 transmission is built to maximize the car's acceleration ability while the Camry transmission is built to maximize the car's fuel efficiency.
While it is true that there is no efficiency advangtage to the Wankel engine, its simplicity and scalability and power for size (real, not equivalent) are tremendous advantages over traditional piston engines. Micro internal combustion engines are almost universally Wankel design for these reasons. So is the flexibility on fuel usage. If the fuel is cheap and infinitely renewable, efficiency matters almost not at all. On the other hand, there will always be people that want the most efficient engine possible, no matter how it's constructed, and that will drive piston, Wankel, and all other forms of propulsion to be better capable with less fuel used than they are today. Whether you drive for pleasure or for necessity, that is good news.
Anyone who considers torture to be a viable method of obtaining correct and useful information need only look to the Chicago Police Department of the 1970's. Check out http://chicagoreader.com/policetorture and keep in mind that these are suspected to be, but often innocent, low-life criminal thugs. If torture doesn't work on them, why on earth would one think that it works on terrorists that are trained not to be broken?
I can't tell if Sir Buzz is being fecetious or actually believes what he wrote. Whichever it is, his statement needs to be countered, lest someone actually buy into that line of nonsense.
Since you mentioned Mazda and Ford, type "hydrogen RX-8" into Google's search engine. The RX-8 uses a Wankel rotary engine, an engine that has the unique property of being flex-fuel, in this case the alternative fuel is hydrogen, without any modifications. Since Ford owns roughly one third of Mazda, they could use that engine in Ford-branded cars and have a nearly instant alternate-fuel vehicle. I imagine it could even be turned into a Prius-like hybrid, since the Wankel engine looks not much different than a generator--and since all the parts rotate in the same direction, the generator could be built right into the engine components itself.
Yes, you are correct in saying that auto companies are married to the internal combustion engine. Right now, they have to be. Americans expect their cars to be capable of certain things, and those expectations influence what they buy. Right now, electric cars (and hydrogen vehicles like the hydrogen RX-8) do not have the combination of capability and price to be mass-market vehicles. Until they reach that sweet spot, they will be nothing more than niche products. The research and investment shouldn't be stopped because of this, though. The best niche products have ways of becoming mainstream, and even if the Tesla roadster never makes it big, the accomplishment and lessons learned will have an impact on automobile technology before too long.
On one hand, the Japanese have this fascination with American culture that prompts them to use random, nonsensical English in wildly inappropriate situations. And, of course, the fascination goes the other way as well. To say that country of origin doesn't matter isn't entirely correct. Many, many games do well in United States because they are initially Japanese games, the quality of which can be less if it's offset enough by their uniqueness
What the other game companies do right is have localized divisions so that content developed for one region, like Japan, can be adapted for another region, like the United States. Even if the appropriate translations could be done properly back home, having that separate division is a show of respect for the market the company is competing in. Conversely, not having it shows an arrogance that only serves to drive customers away. Microsoft has set up an image of not really caring about the Japanese gamer, and it will take much, much more than a few Japanese game designers to change that image.
It doesn't matter to me, except that I feel a bit insulted when Sony makes an even shinier console and expects me to buy it even though all it is is a shinier console. What, of what I'm looking for, will the PS3 be capable of that a PS2 isn't? Nothing. They assume me to be a fool and spend my money on their new toy, but they're the fools for making that assumption, and instead of getting my money, they get my jeers. I'm neither a Nintendo fanboy nor a Microsoft fanboy. None of the shiniest consoles appeals to me. If they all do poorly, I'll laugh at all of them.
This means that it'll be only a few months before I can walk through Wal-Mart/Circuit City/Best Buy and make the "Nyah!" guesture (the one where you put your thumb on your nose and wiggle your upright fingers) at all the dust-covered PS3 displays.
The whole of "dire consequences" is not limited to imprisonment. In fact, imprisonment could be the least severe consequence. After all, a jail sentence does come with the nice perks of free (taxpayer funded) room and board.
Corporations, on the other hand, don't have to respect freedom of speech. Saying the wrong thing can get you fired. Whether you speak out against your corporate boss or your governmental boss doesn't matter, and being fired for saying the wrong thing, or "insubordination," as they might call it, is just as damaging as being fired for incompetence. It's a different way of ruining someone's life than imprisonment, but it is just as effective.
Howard Dean, Barbara Streisand and Michael Moore all have more money than most of us know what to do with given ten lifetimes. They can afford to criticize because their money makes them immune to the consequences that would destroy someone making $30,000 a year.
In the preface of the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Technical Manual, the authors go out of their way to make the point that the USS Enterprise was first and foremost a vehicle of the imagination. The starship could go anywhere that one wanted it to go, so long as he put more than two braincells into the voyage.
The same applies to toys like Legos and HotWheels. I used Legos for all sorts of things that they weren't originally intended for--like souping up Domino Rally layouts. I took my HotWheels cars to places that never existed. Some of the Lego men were privileged enough to get to drive the larger die-cast cars. Sometimes, the stories I made up made absolutely no sense. Now that I'm old enough to drive, I don't need the little cars to go exploring, but I still have a few to remind me of when all I needed to escape from real life (through the eyes of an eight-year-old) was some cheezy engine noises.
Video games aren't all bad in small doses, but their major shortcoming is that someone else took care of the "exciting the imagination" part of play. What's left are the consequences of actions that the programmers don't approve of. It's a subtle form of indoctrination into the mentality of "follow the rules and don't think for yourself." Children need to stretch their minds, and too many hours playing "XYZ video game" serves only to box the mind into a cubbyhole where it could be exploited later.
It is possible to be a terrorist without being a traitor, as in the case of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (sp?).
It is possible to be a traitor without being a terrorist. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, so if someone could provide one, I'd appreciate it.
This bill has nothing to do with someone of Russian, Arabic, Chinese or anyother descent calling some relatives in a hostile country with schematics of a fighter jet. It's all about the government changing the rules so that, while still wrong, its spying would be legal.
If this passes (and I hope it doesn't), some downright frightening links could be made. Given that the accepted definition of terrorism refers to acts of violence committed against civilians with the purpose of spreading fear if XYZ doesn't happen, it's not a short jump to spreading what can fall under that umbrella. Hell, even routine traffic violations could be considered terrorist acts. Seeing someone run a red light six inches from your bumper has its way of making the heart race, and if the government can't be bothered to mind big details such as constitutionally guaranteed civil rights, why should it be concerned with the intent of an action? I know this reeks of tin-foil-hat-ism, but it's not inconceivable, at least to me.
Even if we wipe the slate clean, and a new American company comes out with a system in Japan, and it had some interesting games for that market, the mere fact that it's American causes some contempt among the Japanese.
Replace "American" with "Microsoft" and this sentence might be more in tune with reality. Heck, I'm not Japanese, and I feel the same way as they do about the X-Box360. Huge controller with tiny buttons aside, my problem wasn't with the technological side of the console. I just didn't like the games. When any platform does poorly in a localized region, that's usually at or near the top of the list of reasons why.
This is what Nintendo and Sony (PS3 nightmare excluded) do well: they know their audiences--both in terms of similarities and differences. The 360 suffers from the standard Microsoft arrogance of "What we think is best is what most people must want/like/need." The PS2 would be in the same situation in America if the execs only released what they thought Americans wanted. Instead, they both have well-established American divisions that, mostly, keep a good eye on what their market wants to see on the shelves. As far as I know, there is no Microsoft-Japan, and until Microsoft realizes its mistake and starts to listen to the average Japanese videogamer and actively encourage development of games that the Japanese market wants, the company might as well not even try to sell its console there.
Simply put, the deck was stacked against Microsoft from the very beginning.
This is the only true statement in the whole post. Unfortunately, Microsoft can't cry foul on this one, since they were the ones shuffling the cards.
I suppose this is news only because it isn't another obvious pushback of the target release date. Other than for purposes of laughing at/scorning Vista, who really cares when it comes out? My twelve copies of Win2K and I certainly don't.
Best Buy, Circuit City, et al borrow the difference between the retail and rebate prices and make extra money off it. Then, they hand off the processing of the rebate to a third party without saying so, and never disclose how to contact that third party. All the "mail within 48 hours and include UPC's and receipts and give us your firstborn child" are insisted on by that third party rebate company to prevent the customer from actually claiming the rebate, probably because it's better for their bottom line to have to shell out the money. Even when the rebate company screws up, it's never their fault, no matter how well the customer complies with their demands.
In any other context, this would be a scam. What's worst about it is that the rebate company requires original barcodes and whatnot, without which, the product is not returnable. (The only place I've ever seen that takes returns without proof of purchase is Jewel-Osco, a subsidary of Albertson's food stores. Too bad they don't sell video cards..........)
I have to agree. This is brilliant, and rather amusing as well. While definitely not a task for the masses, it does show that sometimes the best solution to a high-tech problem is a low-tech answer. Scripting "print screen--paste--save" for some ungodly number of frames certainly qualifies as low-tech, even primitive. And yet, the brilliance lies in the simplicity. As for the amusing part--how many millions of dollars and thousands of hours went into developing locks that can be picked with the repeated and automated push of five total buttons? I'll sleep well thinking about this one.
A death threat is a note written to the teacher saying "I'M GONNA KILL YOU" or a note written to someone else saying "I'M GONNA KILL $TEACHER." A death threat is NOT a picture that someone drew out of boredom to vent some frustration.
The icon refers to a specific teacher, and mentioning that one teacher by name raises the icon from of bad taste to a threat. Instead of writing "I'll kill," he created an animated image which clearly demonstrates a violent action. This is no different than releasing a photograph or video depicting someone's murder and subtitling it with "You'll be next,." Death threats are always an expression of frustration (real or imagined), but with the added element of expressing the goal of inflicting very real harm.
Any other day you people would be bitching about Jack Thompson talking trash about gamers. So you guys are saying violence in a game is OK, but violence in a simple, stupid little picture is wrong? Get your story straight.
Video games are an abstraction of life. Gunning down space aliens (as in DOOM) can in no way be construed a threat to anyone. Modifying that game to have various, stereotyped school administrators as the targets or desiging a level that resembles your school may start to border on bad taste, but again, is not a threat. Turning every lurking creature into what is recognizable as your math teacher, however, could be interpreted as a threat under the right circumstances. Doing so and then including anything to indicate that the video game is being used to convey an intent to bring the scenario to life will get you in trouble, guaranteed.
Remember, too, that this is a 15 year old male. Teenagers as a whole, and males in particular, are immature, impulsive, indestructable and immune from the consequences of their actions. This alone is reason enough take a threat against a specific teacher seriously. That he bragged about it adds reason to take it serioulsy.
Did the school over react? Most definitely. Will a six month suspension (more like an expulsion) ever resolve this kind of situation? Absolutely not. Should this kind of thing be ignored? No, not ever. The school has the right to ensure safety on its grounds for both students and teachers. An IM icon that advocates the murder of a specific teacher speaks to the possibility, however small, that the action will be carried out by the creator or one of his school mates.
In the eyes of many people worldwide, he's done very few, if any, things right (and they wouldn't get an argument from me). It's a shame that what is probably the BEST thing he's done while in office is also the easiest to undo.
I hope that none of the administrators at KSU dig far enough to read this, but there is a legitimate that, as far as I have read, has not been addressed: "What kind of a site is Facebook?"
If the University considers it to be a social site, then the administration does have the right to restrict access to the site, and whether or not it should becomes a new debate. The issue in this case would be the right to peacable assembly. If the University's concerns about the activites represented on Facebook are based on facts, then considering (underage) drinking parties where god-knows-what happens would be stretching the definition of peacable assembly.
On the other hand, if one considers Facebook to be a news or information portal, then this action would be a violation of free speech rights. The key here is that, as we all know, KSU is a government-funded university, and, therefore, an extention of the government.
The legality of the decision rests on how Facebook is defined as a website, and making things worse is that social versus news is not a question of mutual exclusivity. Facebook can be, and probably is, some combination of the two. Because of this, erring on the side of caution and not making rules such as this one would be the wisest choice of action.
The alternative to stupid rules would be actually expecting that the state laws be followed and enforcing existing general codes of conduct, which, unfortunately, seems to be too much work these days. Unless KSU gets smacked down for this, look for it to spread to other universities and levels of education. In some ways, it already has. Illinois school district 128 also has a policy similar to this one, but theirs extends to the student's personal computers at home!
Slashdot Mirror
Don't think for a second that the telcos aren't salivating over the cellular 'net buisness model. It is exactly what they want, and they'll most likely get it. The general (or elected) public doesn't understand that the appearance of working fairly/right and actually working fairly/right are two different things.
That's because your S2000 roadster (a great car, in my opinion) has an insanely high-compression engine. That 2000 stands for the engine size of 2000 cubic centimeters, or 2 liters. Getting gobs of horsepower out of that engine requires both super-high compression and super-high RPM, which is exactly the kind of situation that high-octane is needed for. In a Ferrari, neither the compression nor the engine speed are quite as high, meaning that regular octane gas may work just fine. I can't definitively say so because I don't know the exact specs for a typical Ferrari engine. What I do know is that they are much larger and have many more cylinders, two factors that reduce compression and engine speed.
The one crankshaft cycle in a piston engine (4-stroke) is half the combustion cycle, while in a rotary, it's 1/3 of the cycle. In a rotary engine, the rotors in spin at three times the shaft speed, while a piston engine, the pistons move at the same speed as the crankshaft. When all this is added up, the piston engine gets two crankshaft rotations per cylinder per combustion cycle while the rotary gets three combustion cycles per rotor face per shaft rotation.
If engine rotation == shaft rotation, then in a piston engine, cylinders/2 == combustions per rotation because at all times each cylinder is directly opposite the cycle from another cylinder (3- or 5-cylinder engines excluded). If engine rotation == piston rotation (point A in cycle to point A in next cycle), then cylinders == combustions per rotation.
In a 13B rotary engine, it's completely different. If engine rotation == rotor rotation (point A in cycle to point A in next cycle), then rotor faces == combustions per cycle. This is very similar to the piston engine. But if engine speed == shaft speed, things get interesting: three rotor faces x two chambers is six faces @ three combustions per face per shaft rotation gives us 18 combustions per shaft rotation. For any Wankel rotary engine and engine speed == shaft speed, it is chambers x 3 faces per chamber x 3 combustions per face per shaft rotation.
All this makes it very difficult to get an exact piston equivalent for rotary displacement. Even people in the automotive industry have troubles with this: Mazda rotaries are (or were at one point) banned from most professional racing because of this very problem.
The V-6 engine in a Camry has a displacement of 3.3 liters, which amounts to .55 liters per cylinder. The RX-8 rotary has the rough equivalent of .65 liters per cylinder. The Corvette V-8 is 6.0 liters, which is .75 liters per cylinder.
Now, I am not an automotive engineer, but two of the factors that affect fuel economy lie in the engine, namely its overall displacement, and the displacement per combustion chamber. Large engines use more fuel than small ones, and engines with larger combustion chambers use more fule than engines with smaller combustion chambers, so long as the number of cylinders is the same. While the Corvette engine is huge, at highway speeds, it runs almost at idle. This leads to great efficiency for size at highway speeds. The Camry engine runs faster at highway speeds than the Corvette engine does, but its smaller size makes for less fuel use. The Wankel engine runs faster than either of these two engines, and its combustion chamber equivalent size is larger than the Camry engine, therefore, more fuel is used. Finally, the RX-8 transmission is built to maximize the car's acceleration ability while the Camry transmission is built to maximize the car's fuel efficiency.
While it is true that there is no efficiency advangtage to the Wankel engine, its simplicity and scalability and power for size (real, not equivalent) are tremendous advantages over traditional piston engines. Micro internal combustion engines are almost universally Wankel design for these reasons. So is the flexibility on fuel usage. If the fuel is cheap and infinitely renewable, efficiency matters almost not at all. On the other hand, there will always be people that want the most efficient engine possible, no matter how it's constructed, and that will drive piston, Wankel, and all other forms of propulsion to be better capable with less fuel used than they are today. Whether you drive for pleasure or for necessity, that is good news.
I can't tell if Sir Buzz is being fecetious or actually believes what he wrote. Whichever it is, his statement needs to be countered, lest someone actually buy into that line of nonsense.
Sometimes, life is fair....
Now all I can think of is "At least TV respects me...." * click * "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Yes, you are correct in saying that auto companies are married to the internal combustion engine. Right now, they have to be. Americans expect their cars to be capable of certain things, and those expectations influence what they buy. Right now, electric cars (and hydrogen vehicles like the hydrogen RX-8) do not have the combination of capability and price to be mass-market vehicles. Until they reach that sweet spot, they will be nothing more than niche products. The research and investment shouldn't be stopped because of this, though. The best niche products have ways of becoming mainstream, and even if the Tesla roadster never makes it big, the accomplishment and lessons learned will have an impact on automobile technology before too long.
What the other game companies do right is have localized divisions so that content developed for one region, like Japan, can be adapted for another region, like the United States. Even if the appropriate translations could be done properly back home, having that separate division is a show of respect for the market the company is competing in. Conversely, not having it shows an arrogance that only serves to drive customers away. Microsoft has set up an image of not really caring about the Japanese gamer, and it will take much, much more than a few Japanese game designers to change that image.
It doesn't matter to me, except that I feel a bit insulted when Sony makes an even shinier console and expects me to buy it even though all it is is a shinier console. What, of what I'm looking for, will the PS3 be capable of that a PS2 isn't? Nothing. They assume me to be a fool and spend my money on their new toy, but they're the fools for making that assumption, and instead of getting my money, they get my jeers. I'm neither a Nintendo fanboy nor a Microsoft fanboy. None of the shiniest consoles appeals to me. If they all do poorly, I'll laugh at all of them.
This means that it'll be only a few months before I can walk through Wal-Mart/Circuit City/Best Buy and make the "Nyah!" guesture (the one where you put your thumb on your nose and wiggle your upright fingers) at all the dust-covered PS3 displays.
Corporations, on the other hand, don't have to respect freedom of speech. Saying the wrong thing can get you fired. Whether you speak out against your corporate boss or your governmental boss doesn't matter, and being fired for saying the wrong thing, or "insubordination," as they might call it, is just as damaging as being fired for incompetence. It's a different way of ruining someone's life than imprisonment, but it is just as effective.
Howard Dean, Barbara Streisand and Michael Moore all have more money than most of us know what to do with given ten lifetimes. They can afford to criticize because their money makes them immune to the consequences that would destroy someone making $30,000 a year.
The same applies to toys like Legos and HotWheels. I used Legos for all sorts of things that they weren't originally intended for--like souping up Domino Rally layouts. I took my HotWheels cars to places that never existed. Some of the Lego men were privileged enough to get to drive the larger die-cast cars. Sometimes, the stories I made up made absolutely no sense. Now that I'm old enough to drive, I don't need the little cars to go exploring, but I still have a few to remind me of when all I needed to escape from real life (through the eyes of an eight-year-old) was some cheezy engine noises.
Video games aren't all bad in small doses, but their major shortcoming is that someone else took care of the "exciting the imagination" part of play. What's left are the consequences of actions that the programmers don't approve of. It's a subtle form of indoctrination into the mentality of "follow the rules and don't think for yourself." Children need to stretch their minds, and too many hours playing "XYZ video game" serves only to box the mind into a cubbyhole where it could be exploited later.
It is possible to be a traitor without being a terrorist. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, so if someone could provide one, I'd appreciate it.
This bill has nothing to do with someone of Russian, Arabic, Chinese or anyother descent calling some relatives in a hostile country with schematics of a fighter jet. It's all about the government changing the rules so that, while still wrong, its spying would be legal.
If this passes (and I hope it doesn't), some downright frightening links could be made. Given that the accepted definition of terrorism refers to acts of violence committed against civilians with the purpose of spreading fear if XYZ doesn't happen, it's not a short jump to spreading what can fall under that umbrella. Hell, even routine traffic violations could be considered terrorist acts. Seeing someone run a red light six inches from your bumper has its way of making the heart race, and if the government can't be bothered to mind big details such as constitutionally guaranteed civil rights, why should it be concerned with the intent of an action? I know this reeks of tin-foil-hat-ism, but it's not inconceivable, at least to me.
Replace "American" with "Microsoft" and this sentence might be more in tune with reality. Heck, I'm not Japanese, and I feel the same way as they do about the X-Box360. Huge controller with tiny buttons aside, my problem wasn't with the technological side of the console. I just didn't like the games. When any platform does poorly in a localized region, that's usually at or near the top of the list of reasons why.
This is what Nintendo and Sony (PS3 nightmare excluded) do well: they know their audiences--both in terms of similarities and differences. The 360 suffers from the standard Microsoft arrogance of "What we think is best is what most people must want/like/need." The PS2 would be in the same situation in America if the execs only released what they thought Americans wanted. Instead, they both have well-established American divisions that, mostly, keep a good eye on what their market wants to see on the shelves. As far as I know, there is no Microsoft-Japan, and until Microsoft realizes its mistake and starts to listen to the average Japanese videogamer and actively encourage development of games that the Japanese market wants, the company might as well not even try to sell its console there.
This is the only true statement in the whole post. Unfortunately, Microsoft can't cry foul on this one, since they were the ones shuffling the cards.
I suppose this is news only because it isn't another obvious pushback of the target release date. Other than for purposes of laughing at/scorning Vista, who really cares when it comes out? My twelve copies of Win2K and I certainly don't.
In any other context, this would be a scam. What's worst about it is that the rebate company requires original barcodes and whatnot, without which, the product is not returnable. (The only place I've ever seen that takes returns without proof of purchase is Jewel-Osco, a subsidary of Albertson's food stores. Too bad they don't sell video cards..........)
I have to agree. This is brilliant, and rather amusing as well. While definitely not a task for the masses, it does show that sometimes the best solution to a high-tech problem is a low-tech answer. Scripting "print screen--paste--save" for some ungodly number of frames certainly qualifies as low-tech, even primitive. And yet, the brilliance lies in the simplicity. As for the amusing part--how many millions of dollars and thousands of hours went into developing locks that can be picked with the repeated and automated push of five total buttons? I'll sleep well thinking about this one.
The icon refers to a specific teacher, and mentioning that one teacher by name raises the icon from of bad taste to a threat. Instead of writing "I'll kill," he created an animated image which clearly demonstrates a violent action. This is no different than releasing a photograph or video depicting someone's murder and subtitling it with "You'll be next, ." Death threats are always an expression of frustration (real or imagined), but with the added element of expressing the goal of inflicting very real harm.
Video games are an abstraction of life. Gunning down space aliens (as in DOOM) can in no way be construed a threat to anyone. Modifying that game to have various, stereotyped school administrators as the targets or desiging a level that resembles your school may start to border on bad taste, but again, is not a threat. Turning every lurking creature into what is recognizable as your math teacher, however, could be interpreted as a threat under the right circumstances. Doing so and then including anything to indicate that the video game is being used to convey an intent to bring the scenario to life will get you in trouble, guaranteed.
Remember, too, that this is a 15 year old male. Teenagers as a whole, and males in particular, are immature, impulsive, indestructable and immune from the consequences of their actions. This alone is reason enough take a threat against a specific teacher seriously. That he bragged about it adds reason to take it serioulsy.
Did the school over react? Most definitely. Will a six month suspension (more like an expulsion) ever resolve this kind of situation? Absolutely not. Should this kind of thing be ignored? No, not ever. The school has the right to ensure safety on its grounds for both students and teachers. An IM icon that advocates the murder of a specific teacher speaks to the possibility, however small, that the action will be carried out by the creator or one of his school mates.
In the eyes of many people worldwide, he's done very few, if any, things right (and they wouldn't get an argument from me). It's a shame that what is probably the BEST thing he's done while in office is also the easiest to undo.
If the University considers it to be a social site, then the administration does have the right to restrict access to the site, and whether or not it should becomes a new debate. The issue in this case would be the right to peacable assembly. If the University's concerns about the activites represented on Facebook are based on facts, then considering (underage) drinking parties where god-knows-what happens would be stretching the definition of peacable assembly.
On the other hand, if one considers Facebook to be a news or information portal, then this action would be a violation of free speech rights. The key here is that, as we all know, KSU is a government-funded university, and, therefore, an extention of the government.
The legality of the decision rests on how Facebook is defined as a website, and making things worse is that social versus news is not a question of mutual exclusivity. Facebook can be, and probably is, some combination of the two. Because of this, erring on the side of caution and not making rules such as this one would be the wisest choice of action.
The alternative to stupid rules would be actually expecting that the state laws be followed and enforcing existing general codes of conduct, which, unfortunately, seems to be too much work these days. Unless KSU gets smacked down for this, look for it to spread to other universities and levels of education. In some ways, it already has. Illinois school district 128 also has a policy similar to this one, but theirs extends to the student's personal computers at home!