General Questions Thread

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

No. The neighbour bears a responsibility to watch over the kids (16,18,21 legal age limits applies), and in fact, can be charged under criminal law for theft on behalf of the dead/alive kids.

Tort law of negligence can go fly a kite because the man owns the tree, he has every right to do whatever he wants to it without even telling anyone. So long as his intention is not to poison the kids next door, nor can it be proven (which is actually VERY difficult because animals eat the fruits more often than the kids, and if it is the kids, the owner can actually sue his neighbour under the same portion of the law + tort of nuisance).

I'm not sure about this. I remember a case where some children drowned in a neighbor's pool - they were uninvited and trespassing, but the pool owner was held responsible. It's not the case that you're responsible for everyone who trespasses on your property, though. The ruling at the time (if I have this right) was that you're responsible if there's something on your property that would be alluring to children (not sure if it applies to adults) and that could cause them harm. A pool is considered alluring, and I'd imagine that a person would also be held responsible if they had a loaded, unsecured gun just sitting around. Is a fruit tree considered alluring? Lawyer up, I guess - one could argue that the mere presence of poisoned fruit is akin to polluting, and that the property owner was presenting a hazard to the public.

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Question : I am getting a new phone: Samsung Galaxy S2 or iPhone 4S? I am looking for easy customisation on both the hardware (stickers and such) and software, as well as availability of support from sphreak (Smartphone crackers, borrowing from the ancient term of "Phone Freak") enthusiasts.

I have chosen the iPhone route, and even did a bit of jailbreaking with an earlier model, but it sounds like the Galaxy S2 would be better for you. A standard iPhone isn't customizable to the extent that you want, and while jailbreaking can help to get you there, it's a huge pain. With a jail-broken phone, you need to be very careful about all Apple updates, including updates to iTunes. That may not be a huge issue if you're a PC user and/or don't heavily rely on iTunes. Holding back on updates meant being behind on security and performance updates. If your phone is a critical component of your daily functioning, it's also somewhat unsettling to consider that an update, whether accidental or what have you, could render your phone unusable for your purposes. Apple has upped the complexity for working outside of their systems, and I wouldn't be surprised if they push it even farther in the future. At that point, you're putting in a lot of time and effort simply to maintain your phone the way you like - not worth it.

That said, the iPhone provides a flawless user experience (my opinion). I no longer have the time to tweak and customize, so I'm fine with the "walled garden" approach and can highly recommend it to anyone else who's OK with the limited customizability.

[HasuMasu]

Originally Posted by Dextro

Windows Movie Maker?

Hey hey, that's like comparing an 80 to a 50 percent discount.

[dragon4dudes]

Depends on whether or not you feel like paying. Sony Vegas Pro seems to be pretty popular but costs quite a bit of money. I believe that you can still get a demo version of it. I'm not really sure about free ones though.

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by felix

You can even eat it at 3am in the morning if you like.

I remember I ate my lunch at 3 pm. I was too busy to eat. I ate it at home instead.

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by blaze0041

What do you mean? Are you talking about the Passcode lock feature? If so, I guess it's an unfortunate limitation of iOS, since you can only create passcodes using the English keyboard.

Spoiler for image:

Yes, that's what I meant. imo awful you can only use the rather limited Roman alphabet. Oh well, at least we can use accented characters.

[Kudryavka]

Why do movies look different than video on TV or I took myself? Sitcom footage looks smoother, faster, and more akin to the speed of life in real life. Movies look dreamy and soft. Why?

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I'm not sure about this. I remember a case where some children drowned in a neighbor's pool - they were uninvited and trespassing, but the pool owner was held responsible. It's not the case that you're responsible for everyone who trespasses on your property, though. The ruling at the time (if I have this right) was that you're responsible if there's something on your property that would be alluring to children (not sure if it applies to adults) and that could cause them harm. A pool is considered alluring, and I'd imagine that a person would also be held responsible if they had a loaded, unsecured gun just sitting around. Is a fruit tree considered alluring? Lawyer up, I guess - one could argue that the mere presence of poisoned fruit is akin to polluting, and that the property owner was presenting a hazard to the public.

If the fruit tree is for aesthetic purposes, then the court can't do anything about it. And the neighbour will have to claim from insurance.

As for the case where the pool owner was held responsible, it is either his lawyer or the judge is a blockhead, or things work differently in America where whoever has the money makes the law.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Kudryavka

Why do movies look different than video on TV or I took myself? Sitcom footage looks smoother, faster, and more akin to the speed of life in real life. Movies look dreamy and soft. Why?

Frame-rate, lenses, lightning, colour correction and other tweaks in post-production, etc. There's lots of factors that influence why movies and tv shows look different from what you film with your handycam.

[Kudryavka]

Does anyone know if an electronic whiteboard exists? One that allows me to draw pictures on it, save them, and access them later after erasing? I'd like a personal one for my room to draw on, but I don't want to use paper and I don't want to lose my pictures when I erase the board. Thanks~

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

As for the case where the pool owner was held responsible, it is either his lawyer or the judge is a blockhead, or things work differently in America where whoever has the money makes the law.

One thing than his example don't say is if the pool was too easy to acces; some place like where I live, may require than pool most have locked fence around or a remouvable ladder so a child couldn't go in by itself without help.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Kudryavka

Does anyone know if an electronic whiteboard exists? One that allows me to draw pictures on it, save them, and access them later after erasing? I'd like a personal one for my room to draw on, but I don't want to use paper and I don't want to lose my pictures when I erase the board. Thanks~

Do a Google search for "wacom tablets". You can connect one to the computer and use it with a drawing program. They work with Linux, too, if that matters.

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Do a Google search for "wacom tablets". You can connect one to the computer and use it with a drawing program. They work with Linux, too, if that matters.

I know about Wacom tablets, but do they have one that's a whiteboard with markers that I can stick up in my room? Thanks

[Izayoi]

Originally Posted by Kudryavka

I know about Wacom tablets, but do they have one that's a whiteboard with markers that I can stick up in my room? Thanks

Look up Interactive whiteboard? My local education system uses the brand Smartboard. If you are looking to "draw" something, an interactive whiteboard won't be sensitive enough to satisfy you. The purpose of an interactive whiteboard is to write, not to draw(referring to complex not stick figure drawing). But if you want something sensitive like a Wacom Intuos4, then it will cost way too much given how much a interactive whiteboard costs already. ~$1000-2000 per interactive whiteboard. A Wacom Cintiq ~$1000 - 2500. Cintiq is the size of a monitor.


My question

According to the rules for the gaming section of this forum, only games that resembles anime appearances or are related to anime is allowed. To me, this rule is just completely ignored because there is no way skyrim = anime related/look animish. Is this just locally(this forum wise) accepted? or am I reading the rules wrong?

[Skane]

Originally Posted by Izayoi

Look up Interactive whiteboard? My local education system uses the brand Smartboard. If you are looking to "draw" something, an interactive whiteboard won't be sensitive enough to satisfy you. The purpose of an interactive whiteboard is to write, not to draw(referring to complex not stick figure drawing). But if you want something sensitive like a Wacom Intuos4, then it will cost way too much given how much a interactive whiteboard costs already. ~$1000-2000 per interactive whiteboard. A Wacom Cintiq ~$1000 - 2500. Cintiq is the size of a monitor.


My question

According to the rules for the gaming section of this forum, only games that resembles anime appearances or are related to anime is allowed. To me, this rule is just completely ignored because there is no way skyrim = anime related/look animish. Is this just locally(this forum wise) accepted? or am I reading the rules wrong?

Refer to the second paragraph.

Cheers.

[Irenicus]

Any tips on how to obfuscate torrent traffic? I mean something that prevents DMCA bitches from tracing your IP and the data packets.

I know about BTGuard, and I know I can buy some VPN services that helps with all the traffic, but they all cost money (not that that's a bad thing). I know also about Tor, but I'd rather leave that for the Chinese dissidents or other people who really need it.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Any tips on how to obfuscate torrent traffic? I mean something that prevents DMCA bitches from tracing your IP and the data packets.

I know about BTGuard, and I know I can buy some VPN services that helps with all the traffic, but they all cost money (not that that's a bad thing). I know also about Tor, but I'd rather leave that for the Chinese dissidents or other people who really need it.

Hotspot shield.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Hotspot shield.

Google'd. Read up. Installed.

Is now testing with the check torrent IP site.

I'm wondering though, since the check torrent IP site warned that VPNs occasionally drop connection and expose me anyway, would an extra layer of defense with PeerBlock + configuring VPNetMon necessary, not quite necessary but might as well do it, or just a waste of time?

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Google'd. Read up. Installed.

Is now testing with the check torrent IP site.

I'm wondering though, since the check torrent IP site warned that VPNs occasionally drop connection and expose me anyway, would an extra layer of defense with PeerBlock + configuring VPNetMon necessary, not quite necessary but might as well do it, or just a waste of time?

When it comes to torrents, I think it's all a waste of time. A VPN is useless because it just means that the target that will get hit with a subpoena will be the VPN host instead of you. What do you think the VPN host will do with that? They likely have a record of whose "true" IP was receiving the traffic that brought the subpoena about, and I'd be very surprised if the company would not immediately redirect the lawyers to you. The true strength of VPN is in allowing you to secure your connection even when you're using sketchy access points: the router will only see you connecting with one server the entire time (the VPN server), and all traffic will be encrypted. That's both privacy and security from the router's owner and local traffic sniffers. Beyond that, it offers no protection.

How about peer block lists? Your IP is already being passed around once you enter a torrent. The only thing that a block list does is it prevents you from uploading to or downloading from any IP that's on that list. It doesn't prevent them from receiving your IP, which already gives you away as being on the torrent. I don't know exactly how the companies choose who to send legal notices to - there are theories that the companies need to catch you uploading data (to them) in order to send a notice. However, given that they've sent these notices to people who were deceased or didn't even own a computer, I'm a bit doubtful that they're so precise.

If you're after material that is so high-risk that you really need countermeasures, I'll tell you the best countermeasure of all: don't get it through a torrent. There are other things that you can do to protect yourself while still using torrents, but in all of those cases you're simply creating a headache for the owner of the resources you'd be using in the event of a lawsuit.

[Irenicus]

^I'm hardly playing around with CP or lulzsec or something that would make the FBI go after me. All I want is to keep the DMCA automated "you've got mail!" off my back. I imagine many VPNs deal with that shit by the thousands everyday, and many have the advantage of not being in the USA, where the MAFIAA is the rule of law. They can handle my load.

That, and it's pre-emptive defense in case the Let's Fuck The Internet Bill passes Congress after all.

And of course log and monitoring policy, as well as P2P policy, is important. However I'm not willing to pay for it, which means searching around gets harder as many "good" solutions require payment.

So what would be your solution? Usenet?

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

^I'm hardly playing around with CP or something that would make the FBI go after me. All I want is to keep the DMCA automated "you've got mail!" off my back. I imagine many VPNs deal with that shit by the thousands everyday, and many have the advantage of not being in the USA, where the MAFIAA is the rule of law. They can handle my load.

Personally, I do not trust any VPN provider to stick up for me if my activity brings lawsuits to them. It's not a risk that I'd be willing to take. Of course, it's your risk to take and your judgment to make.

Originally Posted by Irenicus

So what would be your solution? Usenet?

Bearing in mind that I have no idea what you're after, don't care to know what you're after, and have been out of the file-sharing circuit for quite some time, my top choice was always IRC. Usenet is a possibility, but it isn't so hot (but certainly worth a go if your ISP gives you free access). Then there are always foreign P2P networks...

But when in doubt, figure if the risk is worth the rewards. If you have to think twice about doing it, then you probably shouldn't be doing it, and all that.