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Comment Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score 1) 309

Blocking sites with illegal content can be done without destroying freedom of speech.

No, it's impossible. Once a government starts to censor a certain type of illegal content, the censorship will soon expand to include every other type of illegal content as well (warez, hacking tools, bombing construction manuals, all porn sites without youth restrictions,) followed by content considered harmful (islamistic and nazi propaganda, governmental uncontrolled gambling, information about drugs) and sooner or later include every website the current government doesn't like for any reason whatsoever (discussing loopholes in law, sharing speed camera locations, oppositional opinions.) This will happen because "the government has to protect it's people by all means possible" and once new possibilities are clearly available, they have to be applied due to political pressure.

Of course, in Germany, censorship is actually unconstitutional. It's not a coincidence that it starts with childporn even though it probably only represents a very small fraction of all illegal websites. It's the one subject nobody can argue against without commiting political suicide. Nazi- and antisemite stuff will certainly follow next, opening the door for everything else.
...and that's still not the end. As the list grows bigger, the process will get automated and imperatively include every website providing comments that are not pre-moderated. The crawler will repeatedly find posts with links to goatse on Slashdot, stored at different imagehosts that will all be banned one after another until Slashdot will finally be banned directly. The endresult will be a whitelist. The question is not if but when. It took ten years to get this far; give it another ten and we will be there.

The fact that these kind of extensive cuts to people's right of 'freedom of speech' is currently happening all the world, for many unrelated different reasons no less, should be alarming.

Comment Re:It has never been alife in the first place (Score 1) 417

I used to buy a $2000 high end gaming PC about every two years and played the first year on the highest possible settings and already hated the machine, when I had to turn a few things off during the second year. Now, I just buy a $500-$800 PC every 3-4 years and I still play at the highest possible settings most of the time. Two things changed:
1. I just concentrate on a good graphics card and buy everything else for cheap; onboard sound, $30 case, etc. (yes, it doesn't really work for GTA IV. It seems to be the first game that needs a high end CPU and I hope it will also be the last.)
2. Back in the time, I didn't consider a game to be running fast, when it wouldn't run at >100 FPS. Today, 40 FPS is good enough for me. I don't know how this perception excatly changed but I guess I just got older and can't really tell the difference anymore.
Cellphones

HTC Dream (Android) Video Emerges 142

Barence writes "A video purporting to show the new Android-based handset from HTC has surfaced online. The video claims to show the HTC Dream, with its orientation sensor in action, automatically flipping the screen as the user changes from holding it horizontally to vertically. HTC announced earlier this month that it would be ready to release an Android handset before the end of the year, with speculation that this referred to the Dream handset."
Space

Submission + - Physicists Wonder if Time is Slowing Down

Time Slows Down writes: "Scientists have come up with the radical suggestion that the universe's end may come not with a bang but a standstill — that time could be literally running out and could, one day, stop altogether. A decade ago, astronomers noticed that distant supernovae — exploding stars on the very fringes of the universe — seemed to be moving faster than those nearer to the center, suggesting that they were accelerating as they shot through space. One team of scientists says the appearance of acceleration my be caused by time itself gradually slowing down, like a clock that needs winding. If time is indeed slowing down, so that according to this new suggestion our solitary time dimension is slowly turning into a new space dimension, then the far-distant, ancient stars seen by cosmologists would, from our perspective, look as though they were accelerating. While the theory is outlandish some cosmologists believe the idea has merit. "We believe that time emerged during the Big Bang, and if time can emerge, it can also disappear — that's just the reverse effect," says Professor Gary Gibbons."
Operating Systems

Submission + - More Videos of New Operating System (losethos.com)

losethos writes: "Radically different interface that's not a desk-top or command-line... exactly. Trust me you've never seen an interface like this. Best of all, it's free and open-source. It is not a Window's wannabe."
Music

Submission + - How do you find new non-RIAA music? 4

burgundysizzle writes: Hey this is /. (almost) everyone hates the RIAA and a lot of people say that they don't buy anything from the companies that are part of that trade group. What alternatives do you use or more importantly what methods do you use to discover alternative sources of music?

I use http://www.sellaband.com/ (some free legal music available) and http://www.amiestreet.com/ (new music is free and most music really cheap) to find new music, but I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting places to discover new music. Tell me about your experiences and any other interesting places you get new music from (that's inexpensive and legal).
Software

Submission + - Open Source Project, What Is Best License Option?

An anonymous reader writes: After reading this post I decided to open source a project I have been working on. My question is: What is the best license to use for it?

The project is a dynamic web framework which supports plugins to extend the functionality. Basically, it is a culmination of various things I kept redoing for various project rolled into one PHP based app.

The concerns I have with the license is that I want to make sure that my footer on the pages appear liken to phpBB and XOOPS requirements. I also want to allow for licensing for that to be able to be removed for a fee more to establish who is using the framework without the backlink to the project page.

So what would you say would work best? Currently I am looking at dual licensing with the GPL and then a commercial license to allow the modification, but does the GPL protect me on that?

And, yes, I know I should see a lawyer if I am that worried about it; but I am looking for any free pointers I can get.
The Internet

Submission + - Peer-to-peer is good for music sales (in Canada): (ic.gc.ca)

xplinuxmac writes: A study about the positive effects of p2p music downloads: Industry Canada undertook a music file sharing study during 2006-07 to measure the extent to which music downloads over peer-to-peer file sharing networks, for which the sound recording industry receives no remuneration, affect music purchasing activity in Canada. The data used for this analysis are from a Decima Research survey conducted between April and June, 2006, on behalf of Industry Canada. The report, prepared by University of London researchers, Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz, found that music downloads have a positive effect on music purchases among Canadian downloaders but that there is no effect taken over the entire population aged 15 and over. Complete Report
Data Storage

Submission + - 1.6 TB solid state drive unveiled (computerworld.com)

prostoalex writes: "BitMicro announced a 1.6TB solid state drive. The 3.5" flash drive supports 4 Gbps data transfer rate. ComputerWorld says: "SSDs access data in microseconds, instead of the millliseconds that traditional hard drives use to retrieve data. The BitMicro E-Disk Altima 4Gb FC delivers more than 55,000 I/O operations per second (IOPS) and has a sustained data transfer rate over 230MB/sec. By comparison, a fast hard drive for example will run at around 300 IOPS.""
Graphics

Submission + - AMD HD 3800 Series Ushers New Life for Radeon (pcper.com) 2

SizeWise writes: "Last month we learned of the NVIDIA G92 8800 GT graphics card that turned in $400 performance for $250. AMD wasn't going to miss the boat either and their new RV670 GPU is being released in both the Radeon HD 3850 and HD 3870 cards targeting similar performance levels but lower prices. PC Perspective has tested both cards in games like Call of Duty 4, Unreal Tournament 3, Bioshock and several others and found that the lower priced HD 3850 is the real winner, performing nearly twice as good as similarly priced NVIDIA parts. The HD 3870 doesn't do quite as well but still turns out to be a reasonable GPU for the money that uses much less power than the previous AMD R600 cards."
Robotics

Submission + - Meet the drivers behind NASA's Mars Rovers (idg.com.au)

StonyandCher writes: "Scott Maxwell must have one of the best IT jobs in the solar system, driving NASA's Mars Rovers. Behind every robot is a driver. He's one of 14 Rover Drivers that work in NASA's California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He tells you what it is like to control a robot on another planet. Maxwell discusses what makes up an average work day, the highlights of the project, how he got the job, and the tools he uses in his work. A great look at the team of dedicated IT workers behind the robots, plotting the every move of NASA's twin robot geologists, Spirit and Opportunity, since they first landed on Mars at the start of 2004,"
Privacy

Submission + - Hushmail handing over user emails to police 1

Stony Stevenson writes: A court document in a drug smuggling case has shown that the private email service Hushmail has been cooperating with police in handing over user emails. Hushmail claims to offer unreadable email as it uses PGP encryption technology and a company specific key management system that it says will ensure only the sender and recipient can read the emails. However it seems the Canadian company has been divulging keys to the American authorities.
Graphics

Submission + - ATI Unveils ATI Radeon HD3800 Series forUnder $200 (techluver.com)

Tech.Luver writes: "AMD today announced the introduction and immediate availability of the ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series of graphics processing units (GPU). As the world's first series of graphics processors to deliver Microsoft's DirectX 10.1 support, 55nm process technology and tri and quad multi-GPU support with ATI CrossFireX, the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series ushers in a new era of enthusiast gaming performance at mainstream price points. The ATI Radeon HD 3800 series will be introduced in two variants at launch, from US $179 MSRP, the ATI Radeon HD 3850 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and from US $219 MSRP, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 with 512MB GDDR4 memory. ( http://techluver.com/2007/11/15/amd-unveils-gaming-performance-for-the-masses-with-ati-radeon-hd-3800-series/ )"
Games

Submission + - Thrustmaster Releases The 1st Flight Stick For PS3 (xuecast.com)

XueCast writes: "Today, Thrustmaster ( A well known joysticks, gamepads, and steering wheels designer and developer for PCs and video gaming consoles ) has just announced that they are releasing the first flight joystick for Sony Playstation 3, the T. Flight Stick X. The flight stick which is in the USB standard, is also compatible with PC, and it has many new features that will enhance the stability and the smoothness of the flight stick's control."

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