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Slashback: Princeton, Terror, Farscape 233

Posted by timothy from the don't-get-a-flu dept.
Slashback tonight with more on whether Princeton really hates open source (hint: No.), the outcome of Australia's mp3s4free.net case, the Farscape-to-return saga, and other updates to recent and semi-recent Slashdot stories. Read on for the details.

"Frankly, sometimes the guy just ... says things." An anonymous reader writes "In a recent Slashdot article, it was reported that Howard Strauss, manager of technology and outreach at Princeton University, wrote a paper bashing the open source community. Princeton has now publicly denounced this article and stated its official policy towards open source."

(I don't know that it's fair to call Princeton's response a denunciation, but the school makes clear that a) Strauss was speaking on his own, not on behalf of the university and b) that Princeton uses, likes, supports, and develops plenty of open source software.)

Oh, they're only votes! tklancer writes "Remember the voting machine failures earlier this month? Well, now Fairfax County is going to investigate the failures in (hopefully) a bit more depth. Now if they'd only start talking about adding a paper trail ..."

Lik-Sang and Microsoft, back on merely uneasy terms. D4rkUnderlord writes "For those who forgot, Lik-Sang was taken down last year by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo for selling "Modification devices" (see CNN.com December 16, 2002). Lee sent us this article coming from a HK newspaper: [QUOTE] Have Found this tuesday in the South China Morning Post. Microsoft always get what it want Lee [/QUOTE] Read it here (scan of newspaper article). Note that lik-sang.com has been sold and put under new management last year, so nothing of these trials can or will affect lik-sang.com"

I wish people'd been this worked up about Northern Exposure. calethix writes "There's a news post over at Save Farscape regarding the return of Farscape as a 4 hour mini-series. There aren't a lot of details yet but it's supposed to air next year and has been confirmed by a solid source."

Much as I loathe and mock online petitions ... Hey, if it worked for Farscape, a television show with Alf at the wheel ... Dagrush writes "As you know, there was a slashdot story about how Saruman wa being cut from LotR:RotK. Now there is a petition to put the 7 minutes of Saruman back in the film. You can go here to add your name to the petition, as well as you comments. There are over 17000 signatures right now."

Follow the money, just don't say "terror." Best ID Ever! writes "CNN is reporting that the Policy Analysis Market is set to return, albeit without futures on 'violent events,' and without DARPA or other government involvement. As you may remember, the former DARPA project, under retired admiral John Poindexter's office, was shut down after being roundly condemned by politicians on both sides, leading to Poindexter's resignation. There seems to be a lot of interest in such 'information markets' lately, from the recently announced MIT Market to the long running Iowa Electronic Markets."

Next time they get tied to dingos. An anonymous reader writes "Australian University students Peter Tran, Charles Kok Hau Ng, and Tommy Le avoided jail when they were sentenced today. Charged with Internet piracy for running a file trade site the three copped a plea to reduced charges. Tran gets an 18-month suspended sentence and a $5,000 (Australian) fine. Ng got an 18-month suspended sentence and 200 hours community service. Le was only given community service. Needless to say the Australian record industry is complaining the three should do time, which could have meant five years behind bars. The judge ruled prison was not called for."
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Slashback: Princeton, Terror, Farscape More

Slashback: Princeton, Terror, Farscape

Comments Filter:

  • Petition? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:01PM (#7524484)
    Much as I loathe and mock online petitions ... Hey, if it worked for Farscape, a television show with Alf at the wheel ... Dagrush writes "As you know, there was a slashdot story about how Saruman wa being cut from LotR:RotK. Now there is a petition to put the 7 minutes of Saruman back in the film. You can go here to add your name to the petition, as well as you comments. There are over 17000 signatures right now."

    Yeah... too bad it's way too late in the production process now to make such a change.

    • Re:Petition? (Score:5, Informative)

      by wo1verin3 ( 473094 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:05PM (#7524515) Homepage
      No it isn't.

      a) The footage is already complete and edited, as they were likely going to use it for the DVD

      b) I worked in a movie theatre about 5-6 years back as a kid, movies would be updates in several cases AFTER it has already opened. We would recieve a new reel with additional/removed footage to replace the original reel with.
    • What about the extended edition? They'll probably put it in there.

    • Re:Petition? (Score:5, Informative)

      by JayBlalock ( 635935 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:24PM (#7524648)
      Once again, if the people reading that petition would just read Jackson's letter to AICN talking about it, it would be a non-issue. He sounds regretful as anyone that it has to be taken out, but as he described it, the scene just did not work within the context of the theatrical cut of the film. If that's his decision as an experienced filmmaker, the "opinions" of tens of thousands who have never seen the scene at all, much less in context of an edited copy of the film, aren't going to sway him.

      And besides that, he has stated it is most definately going in the Expanded Edition.

      So this is really a whole hell of a lot of adieu about nothing.

    • Bah... It's never too late... I think I'll start a petition to get them to put Tom in LoTR:FoTR. He's cooler than that sissy Saruman anyhow.

    • Re:Petition? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by zerocool^ ( 112121 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @01:44AM (#7526296) Homepage Journal
      Online petitions did *NOT* work for farscape. Certainly there were online petitions, but, dude, give scapers some credit.

      SaveFarscape.com raised almost $100,000 in funds directed at convincing Sci-Fi and whoever else that they *would* spend money for farscape. That's not counting any labor, and all of the money spent on postage, paper, and envelopes of the THOUSANDS of letters sent to network exec's.

      SaveFarscape has even gone so far as to do things like get a complete set of Farscape DVD's (about $450) into at least one library in every major metropolitan area in the U.S. - Over 80% of the U.S. has access to Farscape DVD's for free. Not to mention wacky things like BraScape, where female scapers mailed network exec's their netherwear to show that the demographic did, indeed, include female viewers. Or, how about working out a deal with the U.S. military to have DVD's at home bases for soldiers to watch at leisure?

      Online petitions may have some relevance, but they certainly aren't what brought farscape back. Scapers put their money where their mouths were, and made a difference. In person, on paper, on the phone, and on the internet, they worked relentlessly.

      ~Will
    • They'll just use this to screw people out of even more money...

      First it'll be "Return of the King" then it'll be "Return of the King: Special Edition" with the scenes back in, then in a few more months it's be "Return of the King: Extended Edition" and a few more months after that "Return of the King SE: Extended Edition"

      I'm kinda surprise I'm not hearing more negitive comments about what they're doing with these movies.

  • Er, can we have that judge back, please ? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:02PM (#7524488) Journal
    "The judge ruled prison was not called for."

    We could do with more of them over here in the UK....

    Simon.

  • lol (Score:2)

    by setzman ( 541053 )
    "CNN is reporting that the Policy Analysis Market is set to return, albeit without futures on 'violent events,' and without DARPA or other government involvement.

    Yeah, right. I'm absolutely certain that DARPA and other government agencies will stay out of this project, just because they say so.

    • Re:lol (Score:3, Interesting)

      by JayBlalock ( 635935 )
      And from the reports I've read, the only change is in some wording. Things like "Ariel Sharon will be assassinated" are gone in favor of "Ariel Sharon will lose power." Which doesn't preclude violence being one method to that end.

      Of course, go too far to the side of vagarity, and it suddenly becomes useless - or a matter of simple wagering rather than the complex interplay that the system's proponents claim.

    • Unless they can make sure that it's not possible to profit by betting that an event will occur and then causing that event to occur, it could lead to damage. With the stock market, we have the SEC to prosecute folks for insider trading. With the futures market as Poindexter originally proposed it, a bin Laden type could buy futures on some type of terrorist attack, commit the attack, and then use the profits to fund more terror.

      • Re:lol (Score:2)

        by laird ( 2705 )
        "Unless they can make sure that it's not possible to profit by betting that an event will occur and then causing that event to occur, it could lead to damage."

        The fact that people can manipulate the market based on special knowledge is one of the reasons that the whole scheme works. For example, if Assassin X knows that "President Y is going to die" because he's going to shoot him, then buys lots of futures on him dying, shoots him, and makes money on the market. In return for Assasin X making money, he's

        • Your scenario is plausible, but it is only one possible way that things might play out. If that was the only track things could take then the futures market would be feasible. Unfortunately, it's just as plausible that someone would buy futures contracts on some event (say, a "loss of a leader's power" *wink*wink*) with no intention of causing that event but with an expectation that the event would happen. Then, when the event didn't come to fruition and it looked like he was going to loose his shirt in the

          • Re:lol (Score:2)

            by laird ( 2705 )
            Well, the way other markets work (e.g. the stock market) you don't know WHY people buy up a stock, just that they did. So you can't tell whether "President X will die" went up because someone plans to do it himself or simply suspects that someone else will do so, but since people's money is on the line, in aggregate they make good predictions. In practice, these sorts of markets have been working well to predict all sorts of events for many years. It's hard to say why, exactly, markets generate better than

  • Strauss (Score:4, Funny)

    by YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT ( 651184 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:05PM (#7524516) Homepage Journal
    In a recent Slashdot article, it was reported that Howard Strauss, manager of technology and outreach at Princeton University, wrote a paper bashing the open source community.

    Fink doesn't reply to his email either. ;-)

    I pity whoever was managing his mailspool after that got published...

    YLFI
  • The Sarumon petition is up to nearly 34000 signatures right now (7:07PM EST). Quite a leap, I'd say...
    • Does anyone here realize that putting your name on the petition is a complete waste of time? They're already making the copies to send to the theatres, there is NO WAY they could possibly re-edit the movie in time for release. I bet you anything though, that it WILL be on the EE edition... so just be patient guys... sheesh
  • Tran gets an 18-month suspended sentence and a $5,000 (Australian) fine. Ng got an 18-month suspended sentence and 200 hours community service. Le was only given community service. Needless to say the Australian record industry is complaining the three should do time, which could have meant five years behind bars.

    They might have been extradited to Syria [kuro5hin.org] for torture.

  • Online petitions? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:10PM (#7524547)
    Do they actually do anything? I'm sure there's lots of instances where there was an online petition and changes were made but I doubt those changes were because of the petitions. Do decision makers even pay any attention to these petions or do they figgure that because an online petition is much easier to put a name to than any other type of feedback the names are fairly worthless and they just ignore the petition. It could even do damage if people who feel they want to do something just put their name to an online petition feeling they've made a difference and don't take any furthur action that could of actually had an effect.
    • In the vast majority of cases, online petitions don't do a dickie-bird. But there are some cases where, if there are enough people who are signing the petition and taking other action as well, sometimes you can get through to the powers that be.

      Case in point: Disney's original plan to release Princess Mononoke with no Japanese audio track only lasted about as long as it took for the fans to mobilize and produce a flood of petitions, emails, letters, and so on to David Jessen, the VP overseeing the projec
    • "Do decision makers even pay any attention to these petions or do they figgure that because an online petition is much easier to put a name to than any other type of feedback the names are fairly worthless..."

      Yeah, but we're Slashdotters! We hardly take the time to read the article, much less sign up for a petition! :)

  • Irony (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Carnildo ( 712617 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:11PM (#7524556) Homepage Journal
    I like this bit from one of the piracy articles:

    "Ironically, the sentencing came on the same day as a survey revealing many music industry professionals are active music pirates and believe current copyright laws are unfair and should be changed.

    Of 200 artists, managers and record company staff who anonymously responded to an Australian survey, over three-quarters owned CD burners and almost half used them to illegally burn copies of CDs they had purchased. Of the 45 per cent who download music, 50 per cent never pay for it."

  • Princeton's Winner in IT (Score:5, Informative)

    by back_pages ( 600753 ) <<back_pages> <at> <cox.net>> on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:12PM (#7524561) Journal
    "Frankly, sometimes the guy just ... says things."

    Does anybody know if that's a real quote related to this situation? (I didn't find it in Princeton's statement about OSS, is there another link?

    I, for one, wrote the author of the syllabus article an email stating that while I'm sure he doesn't represent Princeton and he's not a professor, it must be embarrasing for students at Princeton to be associated with a guy who publicly states that "modifying source code is extremely dangerous and very few people do it anyway." I didn't make a single argument about the merits of open source software - only that the guy should be ashamed of himself for being such a douche while leaning on his position at Princeton for credentials.

    I would think that the fall freshman CS class would be better qualified to write an article than Howard Strauss based on the completely erroneous comments he gave in his editorial. I'm glad that Princeton is reacting to this guy running his mouth but I hope it's not too distracting to the CS students there.

    And before you reply and blast me - yeah, I know he's not a professor, I know he's not speaking for the school. If the department manager from your medical school got on CNN.com and told the world that it's extremely dangerous to use vaccines and nobody does it anyway, you'd be embarassed nonetheless.

    I'm sure that students at Princeton wish their school were on Slashdot for something more newsworthy, such as the 3rd fastest supercomputer.

    • I would think that the fall freshman CS class would be better qualified to write an article than Howard Strauss based on the completely erroneous comments he gave in his editorial.

      Yeah, but he'd probably argue that they don't count, because they are a tiny minority, and they're all the sort of weirdos that modify source code.

      But then, I probably shouldn't be allowed to comment, either. After all, I get paid to modify source code. I do this nearly every day. Sometimes I even write source code from scratc

    • A joking quote, that's all :) (Score:5, Informative)

      by timothy ( 36799 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:59PM (#7524849) Journal
      No one linked to the Strauss story said this; I wrote that headline in the mode of a baffled friend of coworker of his explaining this seemingly random vitriol, seeming ignorance of the Princeton computer community, etc. Sorta like "... it's always the quiet ones, isn't it?"

      Sorry for any confusion.

      timothy
    • Professor Edward Felten is on the faculty at Princeton, and he's featured on Slashdot on a regular basis on DMCA issues (on the side of the angels).

      Not to mention that there are three (IIRC) Turing Award winners at Princeton, amongst other leading lights of theoretical computer science. That, and when Princeton is sitting on a multi-billion dollar endowment, they don't really have to care all that much about what /. says about them :)

      • That's good to know (and it is news to me.) I'm not suggesting that people at Princeton is crying over the coverage here at Slashdot, but rather that I'm sure the students would rather have their school's merits in the press (at Slashdot and elsewhere) rather than this Howard Strauss character.

        It's not as though Princeton's reputation as a fine university is being seriously tarnished, but it is probably more tactful to keep the loose cannons in your own garage, if that makes sense.

  • The Lik-Sang link leads to a noleech image.
    Dragging the link to the address bar or copying and pasting the url should work for most people.

    Damn I hate the 20 second wait on the "Post Comment" form. If you submit too soon, you have to go back and the countdown starts over.

    • Re:Link problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by Nucleon500 ( 628631 ) <tcfelker@example.com> on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:59PM (#7524848) Homepage
      The owner of that webspace is stupid - in the time it took him to set up a redirect and copy a 1x1 gif, he could have just typed the article.

      Today Nils Ahlswede and Alexander
      Peter Kampl of Lik Sang International
      Limited (Lik Sang) announced that
      they have resolved their dispute with
      Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft)
      regarding Lik Sang's distribution and
      pre-modified Xbox game consoles,
      which had been made available through
      the website www.lik-sang.com.

      The resolution included, in addition to
      the payment of an undisclosed sum, an
      acknowledgement by Messrs.
      Ahlswede and Kampl as well as Lik
      Sang that these devices infringe
      Microsoft's intellectual property rights
      and circumvent the copy protection
      system incorporated by Microsoft in its
      Xbox video game system to prevent the
      playing of counterfeit games.

      Hong Kong, November 17, 2003

      This press statement is made on behalf
      of Alex Kampl.
    • I've never noticed that the countdown starts over. When I submit too fast, and get the notice, I just hit back and then submit again and it goes through. Is this a new change?

  • Not the mp3s4free.net case! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Chuck Chunder ( 21021 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:19PM (#7524601) Journal
    It's a completely different case. The three people who got charged were apparently involved in blatent copyright violation, ie offering and hosting other peoples copyrighted music for download.

    The mp3s4free.net case [efa.org.au] involves linking, not hosting and targets a completely different set of people.

  • Petitions Are Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mukaikubo ( 724906 ) <gtg430b@NosPaM.prism.gatech.edu> on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:20PM (#7524608) Journal
    Guys, you're missing the point. Farscape wasn't saved because of an empty list of signatures, although we had one that broke 100k.

    Farscape was saved because thousands of fans went out and DID THINGS. Things which required time, effort, and yes, money. Seeing so many invest so much in so many ways finally convinced *someone* out there that bringing back the show was a financially worthy decision.
  • Needless to say the Australian record industry is complaining the three should do time, which could have meant five years behind bars. The judge ruled prison was not called for.
    Isn't listening to most of the crap put out by RIAA companies punishment enough???

  • I used those electronic voting machines... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Ayanami Rei ( 621112 ) * <rayanami AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:25PM (#7524650) Journal
    and they worked fine.

    The election lady got all patronizing with me, like I didn't understand how to use a touch screen. I was done voting before I could tell her to shut the hell up.

    I was kind of annoyed by the lack of curtains though.

    (well, it's no so bad since the LCDs are difficult to read from the side, and the ballots are randomly generated so you can't tell who others are voting for by "finger location")

    And even if the "x" disappeared, the user gets a chance to review the votes that will be cast near the end of the session, and the front and back arrows allow you to revisit and modify your choices for each race.
    Just fix it! What's the chance it'll disappear again? (Sounds like a UI bug... only happens periodically according to election officials).

    I hope by next year they update the firmware or something. Erratic behavior during something as constrained as a poll is unacceptable. JUST USE A FUCKING WEB BROWSER AND CSS IF YOU CAN'T DESIGN A GUI.

  • Sillness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pavon ( 30274 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:28PM (#7524666)
    Yay, lets all go sign a petition saying that we think a movie would be better when edited a certain way, when we have not seen either of the options, and have no idea which one really is better! Just like my public education taught me, "An uninformed opinion is better than no opinion at all" ;)

    Seriously, where is the poll for letting Peter Jackson who is a much better director and producer than I will ever be, make the decision based on his expert opinion.
    • I'm not sure if you watched both versions of FOTR, but based on that alone I'm willing to sign a petition. Watching the theatrical release with the stupid stair-jumping in Moria annoyed me to no end. When I watched the extended version there were so many other scenes which added to story so much more than the stupid stair-jumping scenes. At that point, I viewed Peter Jackson's judgement as lame.

  • Voting machines with paper trail? Here how! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by B.D.Mills ( 18626 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:32PM (#7524696)
    Why don't they do the voting machines like this?

    When a vote is cast, the machine punches holes in a paper card. The paper card is then transferred to a card reader and the vote on the card is read. If the vote read from the paper card matches the vote that was cast, the paper card is transferred to a secure box and the electronic vote is recorded. If the card cannot be read, it is destroyed, and the machine shuts down until someone can service it.

    This simple technique creates a paper audit trail, and provides a backup method of tallying votes. Recounts actually become possible.

    • Re:Voting machines with paper trail? Here how! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Talinom ( 243100 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:45PM (#7524776) Homepage Journal
      A friend of mine who lives in Florida made life difficult for people down there. Perhaps you know him. His name is Chad.
    • If the card cannot be read, it is destroyed, and the machine shuts down until someone can service it.

      There's a good way to bring an election to a screeching halt.

      Just stick unreadable cards into voting machines all over a precinct containing lots of voters whom you disagree with.

    • Bzzzt, wrong, thank you for playing... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by IBitOBear ( 410965 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @11:28PM (#7525532) Homepage Journal
      In that scenerio (machine punches card, varifies punch, stores card) there are two flaws:

      1) [trivial but obvious] proving that the physical card path works and "never" experiences an error. "Oh looky, I got it wrong, but the same internal corruption made the 'wrong' card not get diverted to the shreader so it went into the "good vote" box. I'll print another card, still wrong, repeat misroute. RESULT: 20 voters and 3000 ballots in recount box.

      1a) [Same thing] but valid votes are lost because little paper routing thing gets stuck sending everything to shreader. RESULT: 20 voters but no ballots in recount box.

      Lesson 1: printers *JAM* all the time, paper path handling is one of the *MOST* falable tasks in all of computer science.

      2) [Earthshatteringly serious] If the error/exploit is in the code *BEFORE* the card punch activity, then the gaming of the election cant be caught because both the recount and the electronic version were tampered with uniformly. The recount box is just a double-thick lie.

      Lesson 2: unless the person can see and check the recount tidbit via low-tech means (e.g. by reading it in daily human language), there is no *real* paper trail.

      ===

      The answer that works:

      0) All components must be open source so the equipment, and the recount equipment can be verified.

      1) Full (touch screen/whatever) automated voting interface.

      2) Said interface prints a card-stock ballot that has the name/issue voted for written/spelled out in english (spanish, whatever) in no uncertian terms and presents that card to the voter IN THE BOOTH.

      2a) The card stock ballot also contains a bar-code/dot-region/magnetic ink/whatever machine-readable and key-signed representation of the entire ballot *with* a serial/uniquely generated number, and the voter station software version and checksum in the signature.

      2a) THE BALLOT SIGNATURE WILL CONTAIN THE CHECKSUM FOR THE BALLOT INPUT FILE. (we don't want to see "well of course Bush won, in one third of the machines in half of florida, the ballot source datafile didn't mention Gore so they couldn't vote for him on those machines.")

      3) The interface asks "is your ballot correct?"

      3a) if you say no, the ballot is recorded with its number in the "disparaged ballot at this station" database and the IN BOOTH SHREDER (or at least disposal slot) is used (preferably with scanner to validate that the ballot was, in fact, discarded.)

      3b) If you say yes, the machine directs you to take the ballot to the ballot box and stores the ballot information in the "valid ballot from this station" database.

      4) Over at the ballot box, the valid ballot is scanned into the "valid ballot at this box" database and then deposited into the locked box.

      5) A voter may return to any voting station prior to actually casting their vote into the ballot box, with that ballot printed but not cast and scan-and-shred it, which will make the necessary disparaged ballot record and allow the voter to make their new ballot.

      WE THUS BENEFIT FROM THE FOLLOWING CHECKS AND BALANCES:

      A) Total number of ballots printed should match total number of ballots disparaged plus total number of ballots cast.

      B) Valid Vote tallies from the individual stations should match Valid Vote tallies from the ballot boxes.

      C) Each paper ballot is key-signed so its contents can be veried as valid at the machine readable level.

      D) Simple recounts would consiste of rescanning, a full audit recount would consist of scanning the ballots in a machine which is programmed to recreate on the display what the ballot should have printed on it. (So a human can read both the screen and the paper to verify that what was printed in words matches what was printed in machine readable format.)

      E) While there will end up being some irregularities because of things like a person voting at the station but then not depositing their ballot, and some slack will be added to the system, anyth

  • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Agreed. They had a certain amount of oomph to them, but they need to go back to how they were before they did the first matrix and rewrite the sequels.

      The graphics in the sequels were brilliant, the amount of work that they put in I can't take away from them. I still liked the sequels, but they just weren't enough of a mind fsck like the first one was, and that I would have liked to have seen more, even if it meant having to wait years for it.

      Berny

  • Northern Exposure? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:47PM (#7524786) Homepage Journal
    Ummm... Did you actually watch the last season of Northern Exposure? That series definately went on at least one season too long. I present this [jumptheshark.com] as evidence in support.

    Compare with this [jumptheshark.com].

    Not every submission needs a pithy comment or lame headline.
  • I'm reading John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider at the moment, and the DARPA Policy Analysis Market seems eerily similar to Brunner's idea of Delphi boards. Interestingly, in the novel the government manipulates the odds slightly in order to undermine dissent. People checking the Market for (rigged) odds of an event happening might conclude that a vote against the government or a protest against a controversial policy would be pointless.

    Linkfest: look here [akuaku.org] here [livejournal.com] and here [tbray.org].
  • Wow, that was pretty fast.

    Does the US operate that quickly? Or is it much slower?

    In Japan, it would take about 3 years, if they even bothered to file suit.

  • A case of mass yellow journalism (Score:4, Interesting)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @09:06PM (#7524885) Journal
    As you may remember, the former DARPA project, under retired admiral John Poindexter's office, was shut down after being roundly condemned by politicians on both sides, leading to Poindexter's resignation.

    Possibly one of the single most misreported stories in the history of journalism. A potentially valuable and brilliant analysis tool was scrapped becase mankind is composed of mainly ignorant, spewing pustules masquerading as evolved bipeds. Most people I talked to thought it was an actual market for betting on terrorism. When I told them I knew one of the guys who did some early work on the idea, and that it was just a tool to try and predict the ever elusive human threats, they simply would not listen. Everyone just followed their ideological bias, and the truth be damned, as usual.

    We have the most unrestrained press in civilization's history, and we're lucky if we can find an actual scrap of truth with a magnifying glass.

    • Re:A case of mass yellow journalism (Score:5, Informative)

      by Loki_1929 ( 550940 ) * on Thursday November 20, 2003 @09:52PM (#7525103) Journal
      "Most people I talked to thought it was an actual market for betting on terrorism."

      Let's see, people are staking on the uncertain outcome of future events, (betting) such as assassinations, coups, and bombings (terrorism). You know... that sounds a bit like betting on terrorism.

      "a tool to try and predict the ever elusive human threats"

      Ahh, yes, like a crystal ball for the masses! Listen, would you be at all offended if me and a couple guys 'set up a futures market' (bet) for "elusive human threats" to your family? You know, things like your kids being kidnapped, your wife getting murdered, your mother having a heart attack? Or more to the point, would you be offended if I collected my ten grand because some mugger killed your wife for $20 and jewelry?

      When you bet (and that's exactly what it is) on things like bombings, you're betting on peoples' wives, sons, daughters, mothers, and friends dying horrible, senseless deaths. When you bet on a coup happening in, say, Jordan, you're betting on whether the freedom of millions of Jordanians disappears forever. There's a reason the program was dropped - the essence of what makes a human being a human being could'nt allow such repugnancy at the hands of elected and publicly-funded government. It's absolutely disgusting in the most horrifying sense of the word.

      • They weren't going to bet, they were going to speculate and/or hedge. ...

        *cough*
      • When people bet on a non-terrorist event, isn't there still a chance of something tragic happening?
        If I sell company X short in the stock market, isn't there a good chance that, if I make money, it correlates with a bunch of company X's employees being out of a job?
        If I invest in an insurance company, aren't I 'betting' that the actuarial tables will be right often enough for me to make money? Hey, that sounds like I'm making my money from human misery. If your wife dies, and she's insured with com
      • Listen, would you be at all offended if me and a couple guys 'set up a futures market' (bet) for "elusive human threats" to your family? You know, things like your kids being kidnapped, your wife getting murdered, your mother having a heart attack? Or more to the point, would you be offended if I collected my ten grand because some mugger killed your wife for $20 and jewelry?

        Actually, no, I wouldn't be upset about you collecting your $10K -- presuming, of course, that you hadn't actually had a hand in the
      • Umm, there already exists a futures market for personal theats to life and limb, it's called insurance. Although kidnap and murder insurance is somewhat rare, health and life insurance is extremely common. Typically the payoff is different, the insurance companies collect when people don't get ill or die, but they're still betting on it.
      • Buying shares in an oil company moving into virgin territory, a drugs company pushing poorly researched drugs on 'test markets' or Monsanto-clones it just as much a bet on human suffering.

        Buy shares in a Isreali tech company? South African diamond mine? michael jackson CD? alll potentially a similar thing. It just depends how wide you draw your circle of influence.

        There are no black and white 'cross this line into evil' boundaries. I bought a pair of jeans from Gap this year - I feel bad about it. Some pe
      • I bet on something tragic happening to human beings closest to me. I place this bet knowing that the house has an edge against me.

        The house calls my betting "purchasing life insurance".
    • It was shut down because John Poindexter was running the project. Eveyone assumed they had run that ass clown out of town long ago. They were absolutely shocked that he had weaseled his way back into government and that he was once again associated with something that sounded untoward. No one was going to sit down and analyze the merits of the system itself. Johnnyboy has the permanent stench of scandal and everyone knew it. The administration quickly dumped him and the project as a result.
      • The administration quickly dumped him and the project as a result.

        The administration dumped the propject because too many of thier own people were describing this as a "Terrorism Futures Market".

        They dumped Poindexter because it turned out that some of the public actually remembered who that assfuck really is.

        Now if the general public would realize that the only people who would hire people like Poindexter (convicted of fraud and conspiracy against the federal government in an act of supporting terroris
      • I'll grant you that. Poindexter was the last person I would have chosen, management skills or not. I'd have found some unknown project manager with a decent record and ample experience.
    • and we're lucky if we can find an actual scrap of truth with a magnifying glass.

      And so you come to Slashdot? That reminds me of an old saying. I think our esteemed President said it best: "There's an old saying in Tennessee--I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee--that says, fool me once, shame on--shame on you. Fool me--you can't get fooled again."


    • When I told them I knew one of the guys who did some early work on the idea, and that it was just a tool to try and predict the ever elusive human threats, they simply would not listen. Everyone just followed their ideological bias, and the truth be damned, as usual.

      As I understand it, the plan here was to use the fact that the stock market has a phenomenally good record at predicting sudden acts, even sudden individual acts. We've all heard of the blip on the stock markets on Sept. 10th, etc., etc.

      The

  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Does anyone have a photo of a voting machien displaying the Blue Screan of Death?

  • Please God don't do this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anthony Boyd ( 242971 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @10:16PM (#7525198) Homepage
    Now there is a petition to put the 7 minutes of Saruman back in the film.

    I'm afraid this will likely offend some of the hardcore LOTR fans, and they probably have mod points. But I have to put this as clearly and bluntly as possible: Peter Jackson is a better fucking director than you are. You'll get your 7 minutes on the DVD. The theatrical release will already be long. PJ has seen the footage, and you have not. For all of these reasons, leave him alone.

    • "Peter Jackson is a better fucking director than you are."

      true, but he is still making the movies in a way that is a complete disservice to the books, and shows and utter lack of understanding of any of the intricasies and overall themes that take place.
      He has turned important points into irrelevencies, turned a herioc character into a joke because he happens to be short, etc...

      so, yeah, he is a etter director then me, but that doesn't make him a good one.
  • Funny now that I look back on my TV viewing habits since Farscape got cancelled. I haven't watched anything with regularity on SciFi since. If I am looking for something on I don't even normally surf to the SciFi channel. Ever since they did that whole realignment away from space/scifi oriented shows I have ditched it. If Farscape came back to a venue like showtime I would actually subscribe just to watch it. I do however plan to watch the Battlestar Gallactica series they'll be running. That should b
  • I have read his article a few times now and still can't see what point he is trying to express. His basic argument seems to be:

    Oh heaven forbid you can actually get good software for free!

    So what of it? He makes no useful statements about the quality, support, or costs of any of the software in question. My thinking is that he is probably a moron (look at what he does for a living) who gets his kicks writing vapid screeds for non-publications.

  • Very weak clarification by Princeton (Score:3, Insightful)

    by InodoroPereyra ( 514794 ) on Friday November 21, 2003 @12:08AM (#7525707)
    It is really striking how it took them so long to emit such a weak statement. They would have been better off saying that Howard Jones did only speak by himself, and that Princeton uses and develops open source software.

    First of all: they present a dichotomy between commercial and open source software. Commercial as opposed to open source. This is plain wrong. JBoss is commercial and open source. RedHat too. SuSE, Mandrake, God, should I keep listing ? They meant to say proprietary vs. open source. The problem is, thy are implying that open source cannot be commercial, and this is a dangerous misunderstanding.

    Second error: they imply that proprietary software usually offers better support (though some times it is the other way around). They definetly don't understand the open software model, but they should get informed before writting an official letter. In the open software model, support, customization and services is pretty much all you can sell. And that's where you put your effort.

    Finally, an academic institution should prefer, if at all possible, an open source / free software solution rather than a proprietary solution. Why ? Because it is built with an open, peer reviewed method, which is really what the academia is all about. They choose, instead, the classical use the best tool for the job motto, that seems to more appropriate for a commercial company than for a University.

    As I said, pretty weak clarification IMHO ...

    • Small things to pick with you at.

      In the course of actually running the University, as in stuff that might be used entirely by staff and administration (e.g. people who have no interest in open source and just want their desktops to work), then the "best tool for the job" is a perfectly fine line of reasoning. I agree with you though, that open source just jives better with academic philosophies though, and probably should be used as much as is reasonably possible (e.g. if you need something to work *now*
    • SuSE, Mandrake, God, should I keep listing ?

      It's not spelled "God", it's spelled "Debian".
  • There are over 17000 signatures right now.

    Given that the movie will be released Dec 17, I don't think so!
  • How could the home of the 8-tab root password hate "open" anything?
  • [QUOTE] Have Found this tuesday in the South China Morning Post. Microsoft always get what it want Lee [/QUOTE]

    BBCode doesn't work here.. sorry.
  • This information markets are the most stupid thing I've ever heard. To get rich on the stock market you don't try to predict what the future is going to look like, you predict what others think that the future is going to look like.

    I don't think anyone here doubts that SCO's going to be in the gutter in a year or two the latest but to get rich we should have bought their stock nevertheless.

    If information markets will be as reliable at foretelling the future as the stock market is today why don't we simply

  • Let me get this straight: copyright violation is a criminal, not a civil, offense in Australia? Did I miss something from the article?

    Max
  • Let's see, if memory serves Saruman has a substantial role to play at the very end of Return of the King, but there's also some unfinished business with him at the end of The Two Towers which would have been pushed into the third movie, which is more central to the plot I guess since it helps focus Sauron's attention on the wrong hobbit.

    So:
    1. Before edits: 7 minutes of Saruman.
    2. After edits: No Saruman at all.

    I'm guessing that either way we're not going to get the Scouring of the Shire, which is one of m
    • I'm guessing that either way we're not going to get the Scouring of the Shire

      NO. NO WE'RE NOT.

      DOES THIS HAVE TO BE REITERATED EVERY TIME SOMETHING COMES UP ABOUT ROTK?

      I mean, seriously, people. We've been told that the Scouring isn't going to be in the movie for...oh, three years now. Three years is a long time. Long enough for people to find out that the Scouring isn't in the movie, at least.

      Or you'd think they'd figure it out by now.

  • ROTK (Score:2)

    by forkboy ( 8644 )
    Just wait for the extended edition DVD to come out. You know they'll have the material on it.

    FYI, some limited locations on the day of the release of RotK, are playing the extended edition of all three movies back to back. You might get to see your 7 minutes there.

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