Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment Dear Senator Klobuchar (Score 1) 239

by EntropyXP (#36454826) Attached to: Senate Bill Could Make It Illegal To Upload Lip-Synced Videos
Dear Senator Klobuchar, Please feel free to explain to me how Senate Bill 978, protects the American middle class. Oh wait. It doesn't. It protects 1 tenth of 1 percent of the richest people in America. Thank you. I'm sure that they need that protection. I'm sure that little kids posting videos of themselves lip-syncing their favorite songs need to worry about infringing copyright. I'm sure that kids practicing songs with their band in their garage need to count the number of friends that they have listening to make sure that not more than TEN people are listening. "BUT OH, it's not meant to go after people like that," I'm sure is your likely response. WELL RIGHT THE BILL THAT WAY! Let the American people know that you are not the lackey of big business. Copy right law is outdated and draconian as it is and here you are proposing a Bill that makes it Orwellian! Why not label copy right infringers "enemy combatants" and throw them in Gitmo? Your website has all of these little feel good snippets about Americans, veterans, seniors, reducing the size of government, cutting through red tape. But yet, here you are introducing MORE RED TAPE!! More government and harsher penalties on laws that are meant to protect the RICH. Again, please feel free to explain to me, to us, to America WHO exactly this Bill is designed to help.
Science

Submission + - Secrets of a Mind-Gamer

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "We've all heard of people who claim to have "photographic memories." Now Joshua Foer writes in the NY Times magazine (reg. may be required) that a "skilled memory" can be acquired and proves it by explaining how he trained his brain to became a world-class memory athlete winning first place in the speed cards competition last year at the USA Memory Championship by memorizing a deck of cards in one minute forty seconds. According to Foer, memory training is a lost art that dates from antiquity. "Today we have books, photographs, computers and an entire superstructure of external devices to help us store our memories outside our brains, but it wasn’t so long ago that culture depended on individual memories," writes Foer. "It was considered a form of character-building, a way of developing the cardinal virtue of prudence and, by extension, ethics." Foer says that the secret to supermemory is a system of training and discipline that works by creating "memory palaces" on the fly filled with lavish images, painting a scene in the mind so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten. “Photographic memory is a detestable myth. Doesn’t exist. In fact, my memory is quite average," concludes Ed Cooke who recently invented a code that allows him to convert every number from 0 to 999,999,999 into a unique image that he can then deposit in a memory palace. "What you have to understand is that even average memories are remarkably powerful if used properly.""

Comment Time to thwart policies like this.... (Score 1) 354

by EntropyXP (#32535358) Attached to: Australian Gov't Seeks To Record Citizens' Web Histories
What if we all downloaded proxy programs that allowed others to use our internet connection like with P2P software? I would have 20 or so people browsing on my internet connection but my internet connection could be spread out over another 20 people's networks and so on. It would really screw up the goverment's ability to see who's browsing what. Granted, some type of illegal sites would have to be blocked so you don't get blamed for your neightbor's bad habits and you could turn off the program when you needed the full pipe like when gaming.

Comment It could have been worse.... (Score 5, Insightful) 431

by EntropyXP (#22604386) Attached to: Teen Phone Phreak Targeted by the FBI
If this kid had called in a fake crime at someone's house and then the SWAT comes in guns blazing and killed someone, who'd be responsible?

Years ago a friend's stepdad was killed in Kansas City. The cops followed his stepdaughter (my friend) home from a party where drugs were present. An hour after she went home the cops busted into her house with flashlights and guns. Their uniforms were black. Well, the step-dad hears the ruckus and comes out with his handgun that he kept near to his bed. Without warning the police shot and killed him. AND, there were no drugs in the house and my friend had LEFT the party because drugs had been present. The cops busted into their house for NO legitimate reason. The family won a large lawsuit against the city and the police department for a wrongful death.

What if something similar to this happened after the blind kid called the SWAT in on somebody? I'd sue the crap out of this kid's family, their cousins, their cousin's cousins and anyone else whose name I had. I'd sue the folks that make the technology that allow 'spoofing' of the calls origin. I've read about phreaking and it could be stopped instantly if telecos went all digital.

This kid should have the privilege of prison cell for a few years.

Slashdot Top Deals

It's been a business doing pleasure with you.

Close