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Comment Two things... (Score 1) 336

1)Cant you do this by using the apparent dimensions of the screen to determine the position of the camera? Given that the screen is rectangular and x*y in size you should be able to say "In the cammed version the screen appears trapezoidal. Now we can draw an imaginary line from the center of the screen out to the wall of the theater. The screen appears z large in the image (and maybe use the focus to figure zoom level) and that gives me distance from the screen.

2)SO WHAT if you do know which seat the pirate was in. When was the last time you bought a movie ticket that had an assigned seat associated with it? I've never purchased movie tickets by seat number. Never had the chance to. It's not gonna happen. movie studios have too much invested in "first weekend sales" statistics to risk people saying "Oh, I could only get seats in the far left of the right side aisle. I'll go when I can get better seats."

NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Though...I guess they could put nightvision cameras into the the theater, center position, just above the screen so they can go back and see who was in which seat during the movie. I kind of doubt it though. However, if anyone knows of this happening please make LOTS of noise about it. I like to know when I'm being covertly surveilled.

Comment Is this SO bad? (Score 4, Insightful) 803

A lot of you will hate me for this...

MS doing this is them trying to ensure that Firefox will work with their web apps (or, web apps built with their technology). Now, granted that they are taking liberties they should not. It would be better to just make the plugin easy to get and install. Consider however that they are doing this so their technology will work on a standards-compliant browser. That's not nothing. It IS dysfunctional in a passive-aggressive way (aggressive-passive?). On the other hand MS is trying to make the browsing experience BETTER for people who use .Net with Firefox. I'm not so sure this is a bad thing. maybe poorly executed...but...there's an argument for saying it's not.

Look, if you were running Ubuntu, installed Opera, and automatically got plugins from Synaptic for Opera that added new functionality would you complain?

Then again, the convoluted removal process should be reconsidered.

Comment Re:One word: Justice (Score 1) 437

Ah, justice.

Good point.

To quote Aristotle "What is just?"

What punishment is appropriate for these crimes?

Imprisonment in a minimum security prison? Exile? Execution?

I simply cannot imagine a just punishment. I think a just punishment would be one that serves the purpose of acting as a deterrent to future leaders and a reminder to future citizens of what to watch for. The justice must come in the eye of history comparing this administration to those of Nixon, Hoover, and LBJ.

My point is that in the short term seeing Bush on trial may feel good but it won't provide the justice that we need as a nation. This is a crime we shared. The punishment should be something that will change us all.

Comment Re:Oh hey, look, in the distance, that ship... (Score 2, Insightful) 437

Not asking for a prize. Just explaining my perspective. I was raised to be seriously offended by war crimes and genocide.

As for political persecution look at the Clinton impeachment. You guys did it first.

You are also correct in that there will never be enough support for criminal proceedings against Bush, and even if there were there would never be enough support for an appropriate punishment.

Congress gave him approval, but based on false information that he provided. That's a crime right there.

As for "Yeah he lied, they all lie, he had to lie" argument...it's weak. Even if it's true then he is responsible to lead us into war competently and should be held responsible for doing it badly.

You final paragraph is weak rhetoric. Congress was given lies and failed to call Bush on it. but guess what? It was a Republican controlled Congress and Bush was head of the party, so again, the responsibility lies at his feet.

Now. Go turn off Fox News and stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. Time to go get your own thoughts.

Comment Re:Oh hey, look, in the distance, that ship... (Score 2, Insightful) 437

And how does that relate to White House emails and the crimes of the Bush administration?

Alright, I'll address it anyhow.

1)Israel was being attacked by rouge elements of Hamas that the Palestinian government was unable or unwilling to control. How many Israeli citizens do you think should have died before they went in there and stopped the Palestinians from building and firing rockets?

2)I am Jewish by heritage and am acutely aware that some people would kill me for the shape of my nose and texture of my hair (see some of the other replies to the parent post if you question that.) I have no religion and question the wisdom of dying for "Holy Land". You may call me an atheist if you need to label me.

3)If the Israelis DO commit war crimes then yes, I do hope that the authorities are held responsible before the public eye.

Comment Re:Oh hey, look, in the distance, that ship... (Score 1) 437

Yeah, but showing dirty laundry NEVER stops the next guy from getting dirty. It didn't work after Nixon and we saw all sorts of his crap (Watergate and, more importantly the Pentagon Papers.)

This really seems like closing the barn door and yelling angrily at the horse as it runs away. Unless we are going to make a TRUE example out of the heads of state who betrayed us (and I definitely mean bloody, public executions...or handing them over to nations who deserve the put them on trial) this just becomes...historians mastubating over piles of documents.

Comment Off to the Supreme Court (if you can afford it) (Score 1) 849

So now people will be getting tossed in jail until someone can bring this before the Supreme Court nad get it reversed?

This is blatantly unconstitutional. The standards for profanity have been established by the court. IANAL but it's something to do with the prurient standards of the community. What is profane in South Carolina and Georgia is OK in California and New York.

What would be really nice is for someone to take this before the Supreme Court and get it overturned with a hefty cash fine against the state. A serious fraction of one billion dollars. Something that would make other states and towns think twice before wasting everyone's time and money on frivolous lawmaking.

Comment Oh hey, look, in the distance, that ship... (Score 5, Insightful) 437

...it's sailing away!

Really people this is over.

I'm a serious lefty. I hate war criminals because I am Jewish. I marched in Manhattan against the war in Iraq the February before it started. It happened. The crimes have been committed. We blindly followed zealots and morons into domestic and foreign policies that have ruined our nation morally and economically.

My question is, what new things do you expect to learn? Is there any reason to read these emails? We know what they did and who is responsible. Maybe we don't have every gory detail. I doubt we need them. We could already try the major players.

But what punishment would be appropriate? The point of investigating these actions would have been to stop them and we did not do enough, as the American Citizenry, to stop them. WE EVEN RE-ELECTED the criminals.

We won't hang the offenders as is appropriate (Nuremberg anyone?), we won't hand them over to the victim nations. We didn't stop the crimes and as members of a democracy that makes us complicit.

Imagine a parent who gives their kid a case of beer and the keys to the car. The kid gets drunk and drives the car through the neighbor's house. What would the neighbor think if all the parents did was ground the kid for a few weeks?

Comment You are an idiot (Score 3, Insightful) 897

This Fox News meme about "government programs causing the great depression" is ignorance in action. It only showed up recently as some Rovian talking point.

Fact is that it was a combination of poor free market regulation and then the Dust Bowl disaster that threw things into disarray.

Try getting facts from someplace other than the Morning Zoo Croo.

Comment Try fuel cells (Score 4, Interesting) 897

Are you serious? No, really, I wonder if you mean what you say.

Fuel cells are a few engineering problems away from being a viable solution for electric driving.

1)Any problem with the fuel cell unit itself can be solved with the application of money for engineering. It's all solvable, it just needs an investment of effort which translates into money.

2)To the whiners who say "We don't have a hydrogen infrastructure" I reply with this: Hydrogen can be produced ANYWHERE there is water and electricity. Every gas station in the civilized world has WATER and ELECTRICITY. All we need to do is drop an electrolysis station in their parking lot. This can be containerized and done with tractor trailers.

The whole problem right now can be solved with an investment that is far less than the banks needed. Less than the big 3 automakers requested. It would place our nation in the forefront of the energy industry and make us financially and strategically secure for the next century.

Or we can sit on our asses.

Comment Re:Right. (Score 4, Informative) 897

We have a national standard rail type. It has been in use since the mid 1800's. The size of the rails, the width between them, the specification for the ties between the rails, the grade of bend, this is all well known and established engineering. It worked so smoothly that before there were telegraphs steam locomotives could run from one company's tracks to another all the way across the country. Except in a few cases for things like trollies, subways, mines, and certain special gear tooth railways.

Moreover, some of the most important cultural stories in the USA are about planning railroads. Which towns would survive? Which would die? Which would thrive? Who's farm would be destroyed? All of this was once done and settled until Reagan killed the railroads.

Comment Re:Right. (Score 2, Interesting) 897

Mmm, I want to correct you by changing the word building to rebuilding. When I was in my late teens and early 20's there was a massive project in Orange County, NY (yep, Orange County Choppers) to rip up unused rail lines and make the old railroad beds inaccessible.

We used to have a massive rail infrastructure in the USA. The neo-con revolution killed it when Reagan made the point of gutting social infrastructure.

Comment Police brutality? (Score 1) 149

OK, so if some cop gets all power crazy and violent now the whole power structure is at fault. Think about it this way: if a cop supervisor can know about cop brutality going on and does not stop it then the whole department is at MORE fault, not less.

When this system exists in your locality be sure to FOIA every tape of every traffic stop and consider suing for EVERY SINGLE abuse of power. If they lose enough lawsuits then insurance companies will shut them down.

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