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Archives for August 2004

Sweden – the 51st state? Only in Hollywood.

By

(Mirrored here in case the original goes away. Apologies to the authors.)

Link: static.thepiratebay.org…

Edited slightly to remove the binary characters around ”DreamWorks” and ”Shrek 2”.

Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 18:21:43 -0100 (GMT)
From: anakata
To: KMWLAW@flash.net
Subject: Re: Unauthorized Use of DreamWorks SKG Properties

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 KMWLAW@flash.net wrote:

> Dennis L. Wilson, Esq.
> KEATS McFARLAND & WILSON, LLP
> 9720 Wilshire Blvd., Penthouse Suite
> Beverly Hills, CA 90212
> Tel: (310) 248-3830
> Fax: (310) 860-0363
>
>
> August 23, 2004
>
>
> VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL
> AND U.S. MAIL
>
> ThePirateBay.org
> Box 1206
> Stockholm 11479
> SWEDEN
>
> tracker-40-aa-5f-03-412675c8@prq.to
>
> Re: Unauthorized Use of DreamWorks SKG Properties
> http://www.thepiratebay.org
>
> To Whom It May Concern:
>
> This letter is being written to you on behalf of our
> client, DreamWorks SKG (hereinafter DreamWorks).
> DreamWorks is the exclusive owner of all copyright,
> trademark and other intellectual property rights in
> and to the Shrek 2 motion picture. No one is
> authorized to copy, reproduce, distribute, or
> otherwise use the Shrek 2 motion picture without
> the express written permission of DreamWorks.
(. . .)
> As you may be aware, Internet Service Providers can
> be held liable if they do not respond to claims of
> infringement pursuant to the requirements of the
> Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In
> accordance with the DMCA, we request your assistance
> in the removal of infringements of the Shrek 2
> motion picture from this web site and any other sites
> for which you act as an Internet Service Provider.
> We further declare under penalty of perjury that we
> are authorized to act on behalf of DreamWorks and
> that the information in this letter is accurate.
> Please contact me immediately to discuss this matter
> further.

As you may or may not be aware, Sweden is not a state in the United States
of America. Sweden is a country in northern Europe.
Unless you figured it out by now, US law does not apply here.
For your information, no Swedish law is being violated.

Please be assured that any further contact with us, regardless of medium,
will result in
a) a suit being filed for harassment
b) a formal complaint lodged with the bar of your legal counsel, for
sending frivolous legal threats.

It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are fucking morons, and
that you should please go sodomize yourself with retractable batons.

Please also note that your e-mail and letter will be published in full on
www.thepiratebay.org….

Go fuck yourself.

Polite as usual,
anakata

The First Digital Computer (Not ENIAC!)

By

Link: www.codesandciphers.org…
Link: www.codesandciphers.org…

Despite what the history books say, the ENIAC was not the first digital computer in the world; the COLOSSUS was, but since it was developed secretly during World War II, the British (those that knew about it) have had to suck it up whenever we Yanks touted our (false) superiority. Until the 1970s, when details of the machine’s existence were made public. Of course, none of the textbooks used to teach American students has been changed to reflect reality, at least when I was going to school.

Unfortunately, all the hard-copy schematics of the machine were destroyed in 1960, except for a few drawings, kept illegally by engineers, which were divulged during the rebuild project in the 1990s. The rebuild was started based on eight! photographs of the machine and a handful of grey-matter recollections. In 1995, the NSA in the US was forced by a Freedom of Information Act request to declassify 5,000 documents pertaining to the Colossus. Several of these documents were helpful in rebuilding the machine; one in particular, written by Albert Small, thoroughly described how Colossus worked and enabled a significant amount of progress in replicating many of the mechanisms of the machine. Colossus is estimated to be about 90% rebuilt now and there’s work begun to rebuild the Colossus Mk II and the Tunny machine.

If you’ve read Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon and enjoyed it, you have to read about this. I’m personally fascinated with the early days of cryptanalysis and how it helped to birth the digital computer age. It’s absolutely amazing what was engineered and built before the advent of the transistor (which is to say, before I was born). I’m sure some will be loathe to read it, but this is one example of something non-violent that Hitler caused to happen, by his clever use of large-scale machine-based encryption, which undoubtedly precipitated the computerized world we now live in — or maybe that’s just my naïveté showing.

World War II Codes and Ciphers info:
Link: www.codesandciphers.org…

Digital panoramas, but…

By

Link: digitalmedia.oreilly.com…

A good article on the subject, but…

I’ve tried doing panoramic shots; I’ve tried really hard. With a camera with an off-center tripod mount; with one that’s in-line with the lens; and without a tripod at all.

The problem is parallax, and I have yet to see any decent how-to for panoramic shots that even mentions the word, nevermind instructing one how to avoid or minimize it. Panoramas are great for landscapes and such but what if your subject has long horizontal lines (for example, stairs) in the foreground and you can’t physically move to compensate? Or, what if you have, instead of horizontal lines, regularly repeating vertical lines (for example, lightposts) — heaven forbid you have both at once. The lightposts themselves aren’t the problem, but they tend to move against the background as the position of the camera changes in each shot. I spent over an hour in the Memorial Church courtyard at Stanford on each of two mornings trying different techniques to capture the place but was foiled by one or both of these problems (depending on the technique).

Maybe it’s just the “perfect” sample photos you see with articles about these things and that they purport to make the process simple and easy. Fine, and they’re accurate to an extent. But next time, let’s have a little paragraph on how to avoid choosing a less-than-good subject, okay? Extra credit if you include a sentence using the word parallax to describe part of what you’re avoiding.