Nelson.c - in the US, a bored bloke who has to handle 20 or 30 alarms at once. You're one of them. Think you'll get caught?

Outpaces in futility, perhaps.

zuzu - It was a network snafu. Not really even an accidental set of the broadcast flag, but corruption in the signal that confused some (but not all) DVRs that pay attention to DRM People were getting that on analog recordings as well, which means it was definitely not DRM. I've seen weak analog signals trigger the AACS stuff.

FWIW, my local stations find ways to mess up recordings without resorting to DRM. Dropping the signal seems to work just fine.

It's like a kind of automatic alarm, isn't it? If you rely on something like this to guide the human operators, two things will happen:

Bad: Stuff will be missed. Signatures and heuristics aren't perfect. I don't expect great results.

Good: Direct abuse of the system by the operators may actually decrease. If the operators don't directly control the cameras, they can't aim them into bedroom windows or follow someone just because they don't like the way they look. And I seriously doubt anyone would program a system to find something like "woman in shower" or "dark skin in white neighborhood" because if it's actually programmed into the system, it can be reviewed and there's accountability.

DRM-free analog is going to DRM-free digital. In fact, it already has. The analog switch off won't change a thing if you are currently receiving a station's DTV broadcast now. When the switch off happens, some DTV stations might move to free up the part of the RF spectrum being released, but nothing about the DTV signal will change. Your digital TV's auto-scan will find them when they move. Even my grandmother figured it out :)

Cable is up in the air. Cable companies can choose to switch off analog in 2009, but some won't, and some will do it sooner. There are already all-digital cable markets, and whether they DRM a digital channel is up to them.

Comcast has been slowly whittling down the number of analog channels I get, but that is mostly because they can fit 8 SD/4 HD digitals in the same RF space as one crappy analog channel. When an analog channel goes to the digital tier, it almost always goes scrambled. At the same time, they have always had the OTA HD locals in clear QAM. They don't actually have to do that (FCC regs only require SD locals to be in the clear) but they do.

FYI, Hauppauge is releasing an HD capture box. It can encode 720p/1080i component video to h.264, and controls your cable box. Unlike HDMI, HD component doesn't have any kind of DRM. Should work with MythTV and other PVR software.

pipenta - first, I was using the term "ball-breaking man-hating etc..." as verbatim from historyman68's post. I was replying to him using his terminology. I don't think I've ever used those terms myself.

I was trying to say that extremists often try to place themselves under the same umbrella term used by the more moderate majority, and critics are invariably able to leverage it by coloring a progressive movement as extremist.

second, your "Yassah Mr. WCC" remark is referring to what... a "Yes Sir" in the "negro dialect"? Now that is offensive. Are you implying I appreciate racism and sexism? Why?

You sound pissed that I didn't appreciate you bringing up topics... but that was your first comment on this post. And the status quo, my advantages over you... you're making a lot of assumptions about me.

Including the "Mr."

subtext is just an anagram of buttsex. Now that there's some subtext for ya!

Honestly, I think the ad is kind of a parody of its ilk and 70's machismo culture. The idea of your 'shag pad' being piled thick with 'sexual trophies' The idea that "you can't be a real man and bag a girl like this if you don't smoke the same cig.. err.. wear the same pants as me", to once again paraphrashe the Rolling Stones.

As misogynist as the implications are, it was meant to get laughs. Not all comedy is highbrow and inoffensive. And I'll correct my earlier comments... an awful ad CAN have limited success solely by making you laugh, because it makes you look at it.

But it's Mexican night at my place, and I've already had a couple of margaritas, so what do I know?

"There's nothing really concrete that convinces me that the universe is this amazing majestic thing.."

I don't think the concrete things are what is supposed to impart that feeling.

conservatives oversimplify. They are trying to conserve cognitive energy :)

noen - television, magazines, and mainstream websites all have a lot in common: catering to short attention spans, bias, sensationalism, glossing over the details... and far too many advertisements.

This is where technology can make things better for you. It's easier to get rid of ads when watching TV or surfing the web: My computer cleans up both for me.

historyman68 - do you think the fact that many radical man-hating ball-breakers still call themselves "feminists" helps?

FYI, i'm not being critical of feminism. Equal rights are a good thing. There is a splinter of every rights group that just wants revenge, and they never help the public image.

antiglobalism - I'm having problems reconciling your handle with what you just said :)

It boggles my mind that ad could ever sell anything.

If the pants are well made, a photo of a man wearing them should be enough to sell them.

If not, no amount of women's heads on fur rugs will help.

Bardfinn - With regards to ID, I've always thought it was kind of vain to believe sentient beings exists only in the shape and scale of a carbon-based, animalian (and some would argue primate and/or humanoid) brain.

Any sufficiently complex system appears to develop intelligence. A brain is just lots and lots of simple nodes, all with the same simple functions, connected together. The web of connections is what gives them the ability to process information in a way we see as intelligent. Self-awareness is something brains develop when they get "big" enough. Scaling up, every individual in human society is like a neuron in a big brain, hence the idea of the superego or collective.

So, when you take things like quantum entanglement and string theory into account, what about the whole universe? Does it somehow think, and did it design itself? It seems more likely than not.

techbuzz - depends.

How easily can you guess the owner's .mac password?

There are lots of more complicated things you could try, but why bother?

oh, and one more thing:

BELGIUM!

dispatches from an alternate reality that occasionally intersects ours in only one dimension... but that's enough to let some freaky bits escape.

Though in the first part of that, I thought he was describing a rat flail.

Noen - does that hold for all kinds of ranks?

Tell those young idealists to have respect for old conservatives, because one day...

Yep.. I did a double take when that headline scrolled past on my RSS gadget as just

Great tits...
(Boing Boing)

yes, they tend to do that.

Teresa - yes, I was annoyed when I wrote that. Lack of sleep and getting caught up in things here. I went back and read that after I wrote it, before your reply, and thought it was whiny. I apologize.

I don't think you've ever just told someone (either literally, or in the tone of your response) to shut up. I don't see where you've implied that someone's opinion, as opposed to their behavior, was unacceptable. I do feel like Antinous has, to me and others, and has been impolite about it.

I understand the need for assistants. However, I can look at their history and see lots of loaded or biased comments: how can I trust they'll be fair? I suppose I'll just have to trust your judgement in selecting them.

Do the assistant moderators have the disemvowel and delete buttons? Will a "look at this" on their moderation (or unrelated comments) be considered?

reveng - if you were playing DDO online, they probably censored "master" so players couldn't claim to be Dungeon Masters.

Blue - DisneyCo isn't the government. yet.

I'm wondering, if they really want to limit word choices: Instead of completely arbitrary or completely fixed responses, you pick from a list of how you want to respond, and the game generates chat that fits the context of the conversation. Kind of like mad-libs in reverse.

Regarding the hygiene issue, sucking on a 100 year old skill would be about the same as getting a mouthful of dirt. Everything soft has decayed into compost.

Other things to do in Denver when you're dead (aside from the obvious burial or cremation):

- Donate your body to science. They might dissect you, clean your bones, or even turn you into one of those Body Worlds plasticized people. I saw BW2, and that's a pretty awesome fate.

- Taxidermy! Give your loved ones something they can always remember you by (mostly because your eyes will appear to follow them around the room)

- Life-sized Operation game. I hear you can even get pre-wired for it while you're alive!

- And, of course, you can come back as a zombie.

Greatsage - Mah Jong addiction IS a serious problem, and proof that Microsoft is evil beyond anything previously imagined: Windows Vista comes with a great Mah Jong game. And I thought minesweeper was a time waster!

antinous, that's not so bad. Just kids sneaking off to enjoy a cold one.

bruce - Bose Wave on steroids?

you mean, you put a cheap speaker at one end and something unspeakably awful (instead of just plain bad) comes out the other?

I must admit,that is a very good looking cube :)

maybe that 500-1000 reflects the creative spellings?

But seriously... 2/3 of your staff being moderators is an... admirable effort, I guess.

Teresa - Who are the assistant moderators? I ask because, well, I don't think I just speak for myself when I say this:

If someone disagees with me, and makes a good point, I'm inclined to listen.

However, if someone just tells me to "shut up" and doesn't give a reason, I'm going to ignore it. Unless I know it's a moderator. In which case I'll know my opinion is uancceptable and go elsewhere.

Nelson.c - I don't think my iPhone is cooking my brain, but if I get it near my bedroom stereo, or leave it on the dock (which happens to face the bedroom)...

BRRRRRRAP...PAPPAPPAPPAPPAP...POP!

Now that will keep you from falling asleep. I I have to lay it down on the dresser to prevent RF interference.

JD - I'm also convinced turning off your phone before going bed will help, but mostly because it will prevent people from calling you.

antinous - i really hate it when it seems like it's me and one other person arguing on a thread read by what... thousands? millions?

I just see a big flaw in the following argument, and moderation is welcome to agree or disagree. In fact, I'd like to know BB's opinion on this:

And who says that playing Devil's Advocate is acceptable behavior. Wouldn't pushing an opinion that you don't believe be prima facie trolling?

If a discussion is completely monochromatic, there's nothing to see. There's a need for a D.A. in that kind of situation. Now, if someone is automatically a troll for playing D.A., and trolling is moderated (policy here is that trolls can't just be ignored) then essentially, one (or more) sides of the argument are not considered. Seeing things from a different point of view other than the majority is important, is it not?

The real difference between D.A. and trolling is that you make a case instead of just saying everyone else is wrong.

antinous - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_advocate

Have you ever watched a competitive debate?

When you know the the debate is going to be very one-sided, it's good to have someone (usually someone highly skilled) volunteer to take the unpopular side of an argument for the sake of a good discussion.

Bundercup was clear about that, which makes the ad hominem attacks even more inappropriate (and pointless. It's not necessarily the person's real opinion!)

Trolling is using inflammatory remarks to try and elicit equally charged responses. Attention-seeking behavior. Agreement or disagreement, doesn't matter, trolls just go for the maximum number of reactions. Trolls don't openly play devil's advocate because people usually get more irritated when they think someone actually holds a "wrong" opinion.

Ad Hominem attacks? On the internet? No Way!

But, you gotta admit, when you come into a comment thread and see lots of ad hominem attacks against gibberish, it looks very surreal. I never thought long strings of consonants could be so inflammatory.

Debunking is much more fun.

CCTV isn't terrorizing anyone that doesn't already have a persecution complex. I fail to see how CCTV on public streets is going to lead to CCTV in my bathroom. There is a clear line between public and private at the threshold (including all information gateways) of the private dwelling. The conditions in which authorities can cross that line is a genuine issue, but not one involving CCTV.

CCTV has been in public and private places of business for decades... why the sudden paranoia about street surveillance? It's still public property. If you're in a place where a cop has the right to stand there and watch you, why can't a cop watch you in the same place via CCTV?

However, unlike an officer standing on the street observing the public, CCTV really doesn't provide the same quality of surveillance or presence of authority. Even if the government wanted to use CCTV in some scheme to track everyone, all the time, consider this: If CCTV has 3% crime prevention rate, why does it stand to reason that it will perform much better at anything else?

The idea that there could be an Orwellian dystopia under constant surveillance, via CCTV or other means, has two fatal flaws:

The government simply can't watch everyone and everything all the time. CCTV can't do it. No system of wiretaps and packet sniffers can do it. No limited number of humans and machines is capable of doing that effectively. For widespread surveillance to work you need close to a 1:1 ratio of observer to observed, and no bureaucracy outnumbers the populace...

however:

The people DO have that ability. Who doesn't at least have a camera phone these days? The capability for pervasive surveillance that can be targeted to anything of interest is in fact a reality, and that power is in the hands of the population.

"If you see something, say something" works both ways.

And really, calling the current government "a bunch of murderous morons", and saying the old was better.

But that's how you get people to like you at BB!

Snowrunner -

There is a nasty strain of Feminism that isn't about gender equality (all for it) but rather about payback.

I think it's more like... there's a nasty strain of ANY rights movement that isn't about equality but rather about payback.

It's unfortunate aspect of human nature to want to just punish those who wrong you instead of actually educating them.

"It is no question that GTA is merely reflective of the bigger misogyny embedded in capitalist patriarchy

Yeah, reflective like a funhouse mirror.

but the question is why is a game that depicts such violence towards women so popular?"

Ummm... because it's a lot of fun for reasons totally unrelated to misogyny? And because most people recognize it's supposed to be over the top?

Forest, trees, sheesh..

For those of you who were given a choice of jail or the military, or if you just like to cause other beings pain and suffering, I have no respect for you.

no respect for bullies, i concur, but why no respect for those who chose the military over jail? At least the military has a chance of teaching you right from wrong, and giving you some skills.

more of then than not, the people given that choice are the people who don't really deserve some inflated mandatory sentence or perhaps any time at all for what they did. Truly reprehensible felons don't get the choice to serve, because the military doesn't want them.

JEFF - right. It's a private school and not a prison camp for training future prison guards. Of course you have the choice to go there or not. And if it's going to meet state requirements for secondary education, there's going to have to be academic subjects. I still stand by my opinion that especially when it comes to positions of authority or public safety, you need to teach them in an academic environment.

Consider the police academy: Sure you get some bad cops coming out of it, but imagine what the police force would be like if they hired off the street and trained like McDonalds.

Ugh.

As to the whole "try saying this to a soldier" argument? I never made that argument. I said "serve their country", which can mean a variety of things, and this school would teach a lot of those careers. However, it very much irritates me when people assume the military is nothing more that a death squad.

Has anyone else realized that this school is NOT a military school? It has academy in it's name and has ex-military leadership on board. That does not make it a military school any more than any other private school. The whole "SWAT Tactics" thing was undoubtedly media exaggeration... my reasonable guess would be you'd learn as much about SWAT tactics as you'd learn surgery in pre-med.

Much like you, I can define something as vague as "atrocity" to be anything I want it to be. But let's be a bit more specific: Let's go with torture. Well, ok, how many members of the armed forces have committed acts of torture out of all soldiers. I think you'll find the number very very low.

Now, let's consider a soldier shooting back in self-defense: I guess you can call shooting someone for any reason an atrocity. Now suddenly everyone who's seen combat has comitted an atrocity.

Using that logic, how about we just assume every person of your choice of race or ethnicity is a criminal because a few are. They're all the same right?

See my point? If you're going to make off-topic comments like how you have no atrocities on your record, and imply that everyone who has been in the military is an unstable brute looking for a fight, you better be able to back it up.

I am done with this discussion. It was supposed to be about a school.

Antinous - actually, I was thinking you'd get more of a verbal ass-kicking than a physical one.

Because, you know, that's how rational people act.

Irrational people just resort to violence or ASSUME people will resort to violence.

I'm just glad to see better arguments than OMG HITLER YOUTH!!!11!!... Frankly, I don't think I would have taken the time to even comment if I hadn't been greeted by such 'wisdom'. Things like that (in the comments or the posts) make BB look... well.. amateur.

tenn - who's jumping to conclusions here? How is giving a head start to young adults who want a career in public safety or law enforcement a bad thing? I think you'll get better results out of a school like this than if you take your pick of public HS grads/GED holders who have suffered at least 4 years of poorly funded, unmotivated education. You want to talk about indoctrination? That kind of mind-numbing wasteland is what turns some people into bullies and sheep. At least at a school like this, you can pick a career and they'll help you get there.

This school is trying to give inner city kids an option, and all you want to do is take that elitist point of view that unless you were "smart" enough to go straight to a higher education, you're too dumb to be anything but a pawn or a tool. I've seen that sentiment in a lot of comments on public-servant related issues, all the remarks about high-school dropouts as TSA screeners, etc, etc..

I am friends with and work with people who were lucky if they graduated from public school. Some of them either dropped out and went to a tech school or went there in the first place because they knew a generic HS wasn't right for them. They got training, found jobs, made a living, then went back to school and got their college degrees. Do you think you are better than them?

Look at the vast difference between crappy on-the-job training and a real classroom environment. Have you ever considered that maybe what law enforcement/public safety/homeland security needs is capable graduates from an academy that gives them the training and thinking skills they need to do their job effectively?

mrfitz - really, how would THIS be different from the military?

Going to the school would be a choice, like any other votech or magnet school. Same as US military service. (Actually, not really the same at all, because this school apparently focuses on civilian careers... non-police and non-military)

"obedient to the core, soulless, physically fit, trained in warfare."

Well, aside from the inflammatory 'soulless' bit, that's your ideal soldier. Are you accusing everyone who has served honorably of being a government goon? I know a lot of people who serve or have served in the military who can still think for themselves and are in fact VERY critical of the US Government. It's their right, and believe it or not, they can think for themselves.

Not to mention all the civilians actually working as prison guards, and also fire, 911, rescue, public safety... you know, the civilian careers this school is going to focus on.

Go tell someone who is proud to be serve their country how they have been trained to be good little Nazis and see what kind of response you get.

Most of the comments I've seen so far have been very ignorant. Who bothered to RTFA and see that this really has very little to do with DHS or any government agency? The somewhat inaccurate summary and overall tone didn't help too much...

FYI, Homeland Security should not be capitalized unless you're referring to the department, and this has nothing to do with them. In fact, this has about as much to do with Homeland Security as the spam I get for "a career in Homeland Security" ... which is of course, some bogus private investigator school.

Avar1ce - the "issue" is quite obvious:

There's a voc-tech school that specializes in law enforcement/emergency services careers, so naturally the whole thing must be evil and corrupt. Just like all of law enforcement and emergency services.

At least, that's what the tone of the post and the majority of comments are assuming. But don't think twice, just Think of the Children(tm)!

But i digest...

Just because the article has "homeland security" in the title doesn't mean DHS has anything to do with this school. In fact, by not capitalizing it, the article is very careful not to imply any sort of sponsorship. The reputation that the "Department of" has arguably earned notwithstanding, the concept of "homeland security" is to integrate efforts of law enforcement, emergency services, search and rescue, antiterrorism, disaster response, public safety. After all, these things are very much related, why not have a vocational school that specializes in those careers?

Lduvall - I agree, but don't assume all the comments are American :)

garys - don't count on it. Modern HDDs have very powerful rare earth magnets in them already. To get the kind of bit density they have, the platters require the heads to be almost touching the surface to affect it. Also, the field from the head in that one tiny spot is even more powerful than the rare earth magnet inside the drive.

Takuan - I know you're trol..err..joking, like always, but if you were to load a laptop with obscene pictures, rude noises, etc... (I'm thinking an offline copy of the Last Measure would be more than enough!) and take it thru customs, chances are you would get turned away for causing a disturbance. Maybe even detained and charged if you did something really nasty to scare bystanders.

Writing to your representatives about this kind of thing is great... causing a scene in the airport when everyone is just trying to travel is called being an asshat.

Regarding biased opinions and remarks about things like "getting sent to Gitmo" in BB posts... People are starting to see BB as a serious news source.... and yes, the "personal" writings of people with enough recognition are fair game for criticism.

On that note, when is someone a "journalist" (and subject to some standards) and when are they not? I thought youtube, blogs, the Internet in general was supposed to blur that line...

So waterboarding is torture and must be stopped, along with all other forms of torture. Good. So we stop doing it... wait a minute, who is "we?" The US government? Hardly all BB readers are in the US. The US is hardly the only country to interrogate using torture. You can petition your country's government. You can point fingers at everyone else's. Results may vary.

Violence in general is a flawed but valid option when one human being needs to interrogate or coerce another. Like most other illogical acts, it's something people do when they panic and don't have the time or patience to think of something better. There isn't one government in the world that wouldn't do it (if they haven't already) if they felt pressured enough. Governments are ultimately made of people, and it comes down to somebody, somewhere, decided something like this was the only way to get information or compliance.

How about this: If you don't approve of torture, don't torture anyone, order anyone to be tortured, or obey any order to torture someone.

Technogeek - of course not. OS X is licensed to be used on genuine Apple hardware ONLY.

That being said, Apple could do worse than to make OS X free. Maybe not open-source, just no-cost. There are some components they might have to sell seperately (Front Row, DVD Player, QT Pro) because of licensing fees or custom hardware, but the OS should be free and modular.

The catch: No technical support, free or otherwise. That would be something you get when you buy a Mac. That way, they wouldn't have to care about OS X running on who-knows-what.

jitrobug - most people don't have a need to make heavy use of it. They have Comcast for the "always on" more than the bandwidth.

Winer makes some interesting points, even if he didn't intend to :)

- Comcast disconnected him after being unable to contact him at the number they had, which had been disconnected for months. Ever hear of keeping your contact info valid?

- The so called "making you agree you're at fault" was exaggerated, and the menu is actually to direct you based on the most common reasons people get disconnected. "using too much bandwidth" was one of them, and that's not admitting to anything illegal like piracy.

- There's no set bandwidth cap because bandwidth abuse IS based on people sharing your HFC node complaining. Cable bandwidth is a shared resource and is oversold. The first thing to go when it gets saturated is that so called PowerBoost. After that, if your neighborhood is slow, and you're the reason why, they'll take action. If you use so much water the mains lose pressure, expect a visit from your DPW.

- He mentions he pays $180 a month to Comcast as the backup for his AT&T DSL. $180 a month to Comcast isn't a lot, considering most of that is probably premium TV. If you want buiness bandwidth, you'll pay a lot more than that. On that note, I wonder if his DSL is business class, considering thy guy is a hardcore RSS geek? That would explain why he didn't hit a BW cap on it.

On that hardcore geek note: This was what I like to call pulling a Gutmann. Much like how Peter Gutmann went off on MS and Vista without bothering to fact check what the DRM components really did or didn't affect, this seems like the classic geek malady: assuming something works the way you expect it to work, and never considering your assumptions are what is flawed.

It sure looks like a Johnson! Can you play "Prelude in G for Whoopee Cushion and Squashed Rabbits" on it?

Moon - both.

Agent 86 - I think it has a lot to do with the context. Cory posts about dumping Virgin here, it reads a lot like an entry on a personal blog. By the time it gets reposted on another site, the opinion is that it's some guy ranting about something, which isn't really newsworthy.

Digg and Slashdot don't really relate to people (just like many diggers and slashdotters!) It doesn't matter how famous someone is, you'll get a lot of comments along the lines of "Who really cares what Bob/Linus/Cory/etc.. had for breakfast"

Wow, that was kind of garbled. Got interrupted while composing it. You get the point tho.

Agent 86 - You don't get many people disagreeing with Cory on BB because BB is kind of Cory's home, ya know? If you talk shit about someone in their own house unless you are looking for trouble.

BB is a private blog, which means comments along the lines of "this is stupid" is just noise. On a community site like digg or /. it's valid commentary on the quality or subject of the content.

Wow. It really does sound like a 419 thing. If he had written back it would have lead to "Send me your money to help me get to the USA and I'm yours."
The commenter that reveals he was contacted by an "Amy Adams" after his letter w/ address was published is too much of a coincidence.

Stupid reamrks from a CEO who will be no doubt get spanked by Branson soon enough.

Regarding the whole Charlie Stross dropped packets thing: His cable modem is probably complete shite. It has nothing to do with his router or ISP. There are a lot of modems that do not like routers but it's not intentional. Just bad software, which you can do nothing about if you lease your modem.

Mine, for example, occasionally refuses to give my router a DHCP lease until something else (with a different MAC address) is plugged into it. I can then plug my router back in and it works.

Last night's rerun of Family Guy was edited to put "Stewie's reaction to 2G1C" back in.

Disgusting, yes, but I can't see how shocking it is if you can make jokes about it on broadcast TV.

frist psot evar on BB, eh? the griefers pop right out of the woodwork.

The drugs and guns found at the house belonged to the boyfriend of one of the daughters. 72 grams of crack is a LOT and the guns didn't help their image any.

I have a hard time believing anyone in this situation is 100% right or wrong. The cops had a legit drug bust but were determined to bribe informants to make it look even bigger. In the end, they blew their case after causing much heartache for everyone. The family sheltered a crack dealer under their roof. If they had turned him in they would have saved themselves a lot of trouble. Everyone seems racist, everyone seems dirty, and Reason seems biased.

As for the war on drugs... it's out of control, but if people are getting coked up and crashing into random cars, something still has to be done.

One billion random ones and zeros! Now with twos!

http://images.wikia.com/uncyclopedia/images/1/15/CaptainobviousChooseOption.jpg

ashur - that is very cool.

Leave the Scientologists out of it.

And please, stop calling it Fatherland Security. Equating America to Nazi Germany is getting old.

Takuan - The same logic can be used regarding bomb threats. You take them seriously because the consequences can be deadly if you don't, which is why the penalties for making them are severe.

Protesting corporate exploitation of water is one thing, destroying or threatening to destroy a natural resource as a form of protest is another. Where do we draw the line?

"videro"

By golly, Mark invented a new word... it rolls off the tongue... Now to figure out what it signifies vs. just plain video.

viderotic? Videroll? if you get tricked into watching a fake video no youtube, were you viderolled? (A Rickroll is just one example of viderolling.)

Takuan, are you advocating _poisoning_ the water in a state park? You'll cause a much bigger problem than any drought.

If you read the article (and the comments, which correct some apparent inaccuracies) it seems the permit is for Nestle to pump water from the land their plant is on. Essentially, it's the same permit you would have to get to utilize a well on your property.

Unfunny - the constitution applies to the U.S. Government. It does not apply to Boing Boing or any other privately run media. Sorry.

If the USG was moderating posts on BB or shutting it down because it didn't like what the BB bloggers had to say, that would be a different story.

If the blogers or moderators here want to tell you to STFU, they can. Editing, deleting and banning your posts are all within their rights. That is free expression, which is what "free speech" is really about.

Nothing on the internet exists in a vacuum, and BB is very popular. If the content and moderation policies on BB were truly egregious, there would already be a lot of bad press.

Electricinca - wow, you assume the price difference between 'consumer' and 'pro' is only $50? You can turn a GeForce or Radeon gaming card into a Quadro/FireGL workstation card... check out the price differences involved there!

This story hit the tech sites the other week, and since then, Creative realized Daniel_K was doing a better job than they were, apologized, and restored the links to his work:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/04/creative_restores_home_brew_vista_driver_links/

They are still morons, simply for their continuing policy of not supporting newer features on perfectly capable hardware because they released a slightly different model. They are far from the only company to do this, it seems to be a big thing among peripheral makers. MS and Logitech do the same with the features of their keyboards and mice. They all use the same drivers, but you might not be able to map the buttons on one model of mouse to do something you can make a different model do. Thankfully there's UberOptions. (and Logitech is smart enough not to take action against the project)

Joel - if you want a good case for your iPhone that adds next to no bulk, try the Agent 18 EcoShield. It's made from recycled plastic, is thin and tough, adds some much needed grip to the iPhone, and does a lot to protect the camera lens.

Best of all, it also comes with an insert for the Universal Dock, so if you have one you can dock in the case. I use the dual dock for the headset, so I can't. However, the case is just two pieces that slide on from the top and bottom and lock with tabs, so sliding the bottom off for docking is easier the trying to pop the whole phone out of a case.

Craigers: sometimes OS 9 could be remarkably stable. I did work for this one place that had an ancient PowerMac that almost never needed a reboot... which was good, because if you did reboot it, the creaky old SCSI disk spun down and got stuck. You'd have to give it a really good kick to get the happy mac again.

Windows has it too. I've seen Dr. Watson crash.

you know, I'd like to see someone hose down a flight with a bottle of Diet Coke (purchased post-checkpoint) and a roll of Mentos (purchased post-checkpoint) simply to prove that you can make a big mess of the plane regardless of whether you allow liquids through security or not. And that's about all you can do.

But srsly, Tang? That stuff is toxic by itself.

Air travel is getting surreal. My mate's flight home yesterday was delayed by 3 hours because there was a really bad "fishy" smell on the plane. The pilot took a good whiff and rejected the plane, so they had to get another one.

I just imagine a suitcase with a big fish skeleton in it going unnoticed across the X-ray screen :)

JH made a very cowardly decision, but I don't see any evidence their funding had been threatened. I'm well aware of, and disagree with, the administration's views on abortion, but nowhere do we have evidence that JH was TOLD to censor their search engine.

BobDobbs points out the NLM's PubMed hasn't been government-censored or self-censored, so I don't think this act reflects US policy at all.

If you go about blaming the government for something they didn't even do, you won't put the pressure where it belongs: on the organization that is don't something you don't like.

For that matter, crying Orwell about this is showing the same degree of paranoia as JH. There's a comment on Wired that sums it right up:

"What fucking assholes John Hopkins are. Government doesn't need to censor when people are willing to censor themselves."

"drink when you're thirsty" is not that simple:

Your brain doesn't always pay attention to your body. For example, "eat when you're hungry" is why some people are overweight: they feel hungry even when they really aren't, so they eat more than they need. A lot of things can cause that: stress, boredom, depression, sleep deprivation, malnutrition, etc..

The opposite tends to happen with thirst: I personally find that I don't always feel thirsty even though I should be. I've often gone from a hour the gym straight through to other activities, never once feeling like I was thirsty.

The dehydration nausea and headache hits me about a hour after my workout, which is when I SHOULD have been rehydrating. I'll go all day at work without sufficient hydration and end up not feeling so good by the time I get home. Caffeine is bad for suppressing thirst as well as appetite.

I find keeping bottles of water visible will remind my brain to pay attention to thirst signals from my body.

Nick D - I didn't argue there was a problem with recent legislation. I was referring solely to the EFF's conclusions and argument that this administraton is possibly conducting surveillance on "millions of Americans". I don't agree with that kind of paranoid assumption any more than I agree with giving up civil liberties because "if you don't, the terrorists will kill millions"

Oh, and if the question is "Why is it that Roosevelt could combat Tojo and Hitler under these laws?" Look up Executive Order 9066, and consider that was enacted after a clear military target was attacked by a clear military combatant. 9/11 saw a civilian target get attacked, which is a situation far more unexpected and uncertain. Considering we didn't round up every person of middle eastern ethnicity on the East Coast, I'd say we have improved a bit. I don't place blame or credit on any administration for the difference in reactions, I just think we've evolved as a nation.

Whenever there is a significant shock to a nation, the administration is going to get paranoid, imagine the threat to be greater than it really is, and compensate by trying to grab more power. This is not a good thing, but it is inevitable. Also, you are going to have organizations that recognize this, but they also overestimate the situation and make exaggerated claims.

Both of these resolve when cooler heads prevail. We're seeing that start to happen.

The EFF is jumping to some pretty far-out conclusions here.

When you are talking about "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States" you are talking about the imposition of martial law, which would suspend the fourth amendment among others. If there was a severe terrorist attack that put the population of a city in to mass panic, I could see where military force could be required. I really don't think this applies to domestic surveillance.

I don't put much stock in one organizations's opinion or propaganda, which is all this EFF article is. Does anyone else here see how crying "surveillance on the everyday communications of millions of americans" vs. "terrorists are constantly trying to kill millions of americans" show just about the same level of fermongering?

CoS trying to discredit Anonymous by attacking an unrelated epilepsy forum?

That seems like a pretty vague way to go about targeting a group. Didn't they go right for the throat by posting the personal info of suspected Anonymous members on Youtube? If you want to screw with someone, all you have to do is post their info in a visible place. The bottom feeders of the Internet don't need an excuse to attack someone. They'll happily do all kinds of dirty stuff for the hell of it when they get a phone number, email, or postal address.

Which makes me think this was just a bunch of said bottom feeders riding on the coattails of Anonymous's fame.

I like BB's crop of the article photo. All those dials over there are the "special features" on that model.

BB is having issues today. MY comment is right over ---> there on recent comments, but not on the entry.

Check out the 'acceptable' use of racial slang in the 30s.

Digilante - um, no. Assumptions like that are why a lot of efforts to challenge this kind of stuff aren't taken seriously.

Medical equipment is expensive because of the engineering that goes into it. For example, a neurosurgery drill has a bunch of features a power dill doesn't. Precise depth stops, controlled speed, much higher reliability, seals to prevent contamination, and parts that can be autoclaved are just a few... but yeah, a power drill accomplishes the same thing, even if there is more risk to the patient.

I wouldn't be so quick to blame government bureaucracy: It's the lawyers that will be quick to file a civil suit (against the doctor, hospital, manufacturer and janitor) if that power drill goes .5mm too deep.

MoreHuman - Examining file sharing traffic is more like perusing vendors at a market to spot bootleg CDs. There's nothing invasive about that. By the very definition of the protocol, you're putting it out there for anyone to grab.

The postal analogy works with encrypted traffic. You have to make an effort to open and reseal that envelope. Good crypto means you can't. People have to realize that using the Internet is like sending a postcard or like putting postage on an unwrapped item. (Which is exactly what TCP/IP does when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it.) Anyone who sees it en-route can read it, and this includes the carriers.

If you want to package your item or put your letter in an envelope, that's an extra step, and it greatly decreases the chance that someone will be able to look at it.

have you been crazy enough to see if the cork case floats with the iPhone in it? That could make all the difference if you accidentally dropped it in the loo!

well, it makes sense. If you inhale enough brain matter, your body is going to develop antibodies to it. Those antibodies start attacking your own brain cells, and you're screwed.

This is camo for when you don't want the users to find you.

WolfWitch - that's exactly right. The crappy internet sharing app restricts the outside sharing of most media. Which is stupid, because the only way another user of the service can see your files is if you add them to the access list. It's not public sharing.

What I find especially hilarious is that it doesn't appear to restrict any truly risky file types. So yeah, if you want to share your media with others, you can't. If you misconfigure it, they are free to browse thru personal documents, saved passwords, cookies...

but yeah, did anyone RTFA before ranting about it?

Quite the flattering likeness!

The NES was the US version of the Japanese famicom. The game cartridges used the same ROMs and other chips, but US games had a DRM of sorts. There was a custom chip that unlocked a matching chip in the console. This was the main reason for the different cartridge connector. The ROM itself was unchanged and unprotected.

I wonder why anyone would bother with that kind of crazy hardware. Just about every vintage console game has been ROM dumped. The homebrew scene for the Nintendo DS is great. There are at least half a dozen cheap microSD adapters that will let you run all kinds of emulators, copy all your DS games to a flash card, play media, etc..

As already suggested, if Nintendo was smart, they'd release their own flash card to let you take your Wii's virtual console games with you on the DS.