Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Railing, Blocking, Scoffing
Please don't point that thing at me. BoomZilla writes "If you thought that the recent Gauss Gun article on Slashdot was spiffy, check out Jengel & Fatro's Rail Gun Page. Everything you need to know about the physics behind building your very own rail gun. Ever used the Quake rail gun and lusted after the real thing? Here's your opportunity."
Telepathic telegrams work as well as ever, though. markgo2k writes "After the web site experienced 'an unusually high number of visitors,' the White House modified the contact page and added a prominent link to president@whitehouse.gov. Here's the latest NYT story (once again, reprinted here in the non-subscription Seattle PI). Of course, the White House is still confused on the difference between the New York Times effect and the Slashdot effect. It's not mentioned in the story, but there is also now a feedback link to submit comments to the 'White House Web Development Team,' if you want to drop them a line..."
It's half-Greek to me. In response to the recent story on perpendicular data storage in next-generation hard drives, Anonymous Coward writes "Here is a better overview of Perpendicular HDD technology. Here is a real detailed scientific article that seems to be written in Greek."
They're off my Christmas card list, too. Techfocus ran an interview with Fred von Lohmann earlier this year. Now, an anonymous reader points to an update on their site: "Effective immediately, the RIAA and MPAA will need to find another way to get to Techfocus. In response to their legal targeting of individual file-swappers, access from their known networks to this site has now been blocked. While it may still be possible for them to access Techfocus via address ranges which we're not aware of, they'll otherwise have to use non-RIAA and non-MPAA networks to view the site."
Techfocus cites three reasons for the denial, the top one being that the RIAA took advantage of the interview with von Lohmann, "quoting him out of context in a manner which could lead readers of their materials to believe that we supported their efforts. This could not be further from the truth."
The secret is to predict enough things. An anonymous reader points out this article from early 2000 citing Gartner analyst Al Hilwa's prediction that Linux is "probably going to kill SCO UnixWare," writing "As you can read, SCO's end was predicted near perfectly." I think "hinted at" is more accurate, since SCO is still alive and at least making a good show of kicking, but it's interesting to revisit a story about SCO which mentions that "industry observers thought that the company would be Linux's first victim," back when Project Monterey was a going concern.
A victory for discourteous boors everywhere. aeaas writes "The beauty queen Katy Johnson dropped her suit against Tucker Max over the posting of stories from their relationship on his website. This story was first brought up in the context that he was forced to take down stories relating to her without holding a hearing or notifying Max prior to it. This is unusual in American law."
A quarter mil is a lot of suffering, even in Canadian money. Skippy321 writes "Justified or not, Ghyslain Raza--better known as the Star Wars Kid--is suing the four students who posted his homemade video of himself doing acrobatic "sword-fighting stunts" on the Internet for $250,000. He claims that he has suffered harassment and persecution. It's also interesting how the article states that he quit high school due to this video, at only 15 years of age. Although things aren't so bad for him -- here's a petition for him to get a role in Episode III."
it should be noted that even though embarrased, he actually wasnt/isnt angry at the people who posted it. simply; he has greedy parents...
shame, i think they are doing more damage to him by teaching him to be greedy versus 'taking' the joke.
I can feel for that Star Wars kid. Being an outsider in school is hard enough when you are only mocked by those that you see every day. But suddenly being laughed at by a global audience must be hell. I haven't seen the video, so I can't comment on how stupid he looks on it, but that is beside the point. He clearly did not intend it to be seen by anyone. High school bullying is good fun, until one of the victims decides to shoot some classmates. Then it is newsworthy. When they drop out, or even kill themselves then nobody cares. This case can send the right message if you ask me (which you really shouldn't)
Hank! White!
So, this site's admin has put in place a technical measure to prevent or limit certain persons from accessing his site. Wouldn't attempts by those persons to circumvent that access control technology constitute a violation of the DMCA?
Where's the FBI and a Federal Prosecutor when you need one?
Second note to self: This is the forge that will make Linux either extremeley hard and brittle or strong and flexible with the ability to stay sharp. As much as I hate hearing SCO stories, I am glad that the threat is a light-weight that spews out so many lies that their story is hardly credible. Hopefully everyone will analyze what they are doing and some preventive measures can be put in place for tougher future challengers when IBM isn't taking up the defense.
I really hate MCBride and SCO, but I think this is a good thing for us in the long run. Please remember that we all have to concentrate on making Linux just right for us. If other people/corporations appreciate Linux, then it will be on merit alone. Corporate backing is great and it makes other corporations look towards supporting hardware for Linux, but we're not selling to corporations, we're selling Linux to ourselves - and I think I'm my own worst customer.
-B
I suppose I shouldn't be shocked anymore about the kind of lawsuits that get filed, but there are two in this Slashback that did so.
First, I am happy that Tucker Max won his case. While he seems like an arrogrant asshole on his website, he does have the right to be one. I'm just afraid about what kind of precedent may have been set by the judge who ordered him to take down the story in the first place. IANAL, but if the lawsuit had been seen through to the end, wouldn't that have undone the precedent in a way? As it stands now, it seems like the moronic judge has put a bit of legal validation (however wrong it may be) on his actions.
Second, the kid in the Star Wars video needs to get over it. We all have videos floating around of stupid things we have done, although some of us are at least lucky enough to have the excuse of being drunk. Sure the kids who stole the tape should get in a bit of trouble, but suing for $250,000 apiece won't make things any different for Star Wars Kid. All it will do is financially crippled the parents of the other children.
He's not suing the people who bought him an Ipod, he's suing the people who held him up for global ridicule and ruined his life. If I beat the shit out of you, and someone else comes along and gives you a teddy bear to comfort you, does that mean you shouldn't take action against me?
people will hate him too
That brings me to the point I wanted to make. Until he sued, I didn't think badly of him. He got access to a camera and wanted to see if his moves were as smooth as he imagined. Frankly, they weren't completely clumsy.
The whole point of the story was that we've all done things that aren't "cool", and it's funny to see someone else acting silly. Now, the point is that he's a pussy who can't laugh at himself. Let the taunting begin.
I guess we all can guess how SCO adapted, eh?
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I agree completely. The kid, embarrassed as he may be, had a choice with this one: 1) be a total idiot, lose faith in himself, believe what other people say about him and drop out of high school(which, mind you, is about the DUMBEST thing a person could ever do, aside from making a guest appearance on Jack@ss...then the sky is the limit). Or, 2, he could have taken the opportunity to learn some grace, humility, and made a whole bunch of other friends by laughing at himself and gaining some self confidence. He may get a few bucks from some poor idiots in the school, but he will definately lose in the long run on this one.
The world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel.
Using and IP address that is permitted access to the site would be roughly equivalent to using a DVD player that is permitted access to DVDs.
Nothing is being circumvented, you are just using a device that has been permitted access.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I think now that the RIAA is suing grandparents and the girl next door, braindead consumers of mainstream media are finally able to form an opinion.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only slashdot reader who got picked on while going through the school system. And I'm sorry, as much as being picked on sucks, it doesn't suck $250,000 worth. That's like 20 years' worth of savings, depending on how one's employed.
There's just no way that one embarrassing incident and the subsequent mockery is worth more than half a lifetime of hard work. Besides which, he's not even suing the people who actually mocked him. He's suing people who did something that may have induced the actual guilty parties to mock him. What's the accusation, contributory mockery?
He shouldn't feel demeaned for it. Plus he's fifteen, for god's sake. At that age, that is a way of making an ass out of yourself in a socially aceptable way.
It's socially acceptible to 20-yr-olds, not to 15-yr-olds.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
And if I remember rightly, didn't he get enough donations to by like 5 iPods or something crazy? Pretty harsh to be trying to get more money now.
Libby Hoeler, you can get the full collection off kazaa/your favorite filesharing program. Ah, sweet, sweet libby, she kept me company many a night before i managed to snag a female...
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
Reposting with proper formatting -- why the hell "HTML Formatted" keeps popping up as default I'll never know. Doubly so why the hell "HTML Formatted" strips out basic end-of-line characters.
Anyhow:
Well no, there are two MAJOR differences between public and private schools.
#1, Private schools have the authority to kick out and/or punish the troublemakers. Being ahead of the curve is actually encouraged, and the teachers who are there have (and tend to exercise) the power to adequately stop any harassment. This includes kicking out the worst.
#2, The parents of the children in a private school, not always but with a much better tendency, have managed to impress on their kids the importance of education, and have taken something of an active hand in raising said children.
Compare these with the public institution; teachers have no enforcement power, if they so much as send a kid off for detention they risk getting sued; the guidance counselors are more interested in punishing the victims, telling them it's all their fault for "attracting attention"; the parents of the bullies and harassers likely don't give a shit or aren't around.
Yes, I was pushed ahead. I actually had a guidance counselor suggest that I deliberately get lower grades than I could on some tests, so that my name wasn't always at the top of the grading list and thus attracting attention.
Rather than punish or correct the bullying students, they were focused on "what can we do to stop them noticing him as a target." This is the effect of letting liberals run the schools. My middle school VP actually said "there is no such thing as a bully." So, when there was a fight, it didn't matter if one student was attacked by three others, and had a broken nose and black eyes while the three had not so much as a scratch; all four got detention. The bullies didn't care, their grades were crap anyways -- the one they attacked had to miss tests and class time. The worst part is that his opinion was commonplace. Everyone wants to "understand" the bullies, make them "respect" the other students, make them "see that the other students are worthwhile individuals too."
My parents had to threaten to sue the school district when they kept throwing one boy into study groups with my sister, despite the fact that he'd attacked her twice.
"But if you teach the kid some social skills they'll probably be alright."
BULLCRAP.
The type of bullies that exist there don't have social skills to start with. All they have is brute force. Why do you think they made us all read Lord of the Flies? It was an allegory for the kind of crap that went on at recess or in the halls. When the entirety of your social structure is based on who can beat up who, no amount of "teach social skills" is gonna protect the kid.
If you skipped a grade and were fine, you either were pushed ahead in the 60s when schools still had disciplinary control, OR you were in a rich neighborhood to begin with that had well-paid teachers and lots of money to throw in to the school system, not to mention a low ratio of bused-in inner city brats whose parents didn't care what they did.
The solution is a certain modicum of force. You can reason with a college age student. The brains of the vast majority of students at grade/middle school level, on the other hand, haven't and may not ever evolve past "might makes right."