One of the things that really annoys me is that themed channels don't stick to the damn theme. All of this is irrelevant, even with a la carte you'll still be paying for stuff you don't want to watch.
I see non-history stuff on History (like CSI or the 135424th showing of Red October), anything but science fiction on Space (bloody Tarzan, wtf? Samantha Fox? wtf), religious mysticism and superstition on Discovery (haunted houses? ghosts? wtf), etc. That the only channels that seem to stick to a theme are sports, weather and news (although that last is probably debatable).
Many people with MS are effectively and legally blind as a result of their disease. The defense may argue that the defendant doesn't personally use the account as a result of her blindness.
Also, the OP probably mentioned her disease because there has been a pattern of the RIAA going after disadvantaged groups. Where the hell have you been, living under a rock or something?
Actually, if I were the NSA/FBI/CIA/DIA/etc. I'd be VERY interested in the Slashdot community - and this means you.
This community is very technical, they know how to do things like make bombs, viruses, trojans, pirate software, steal identities, etc. They know how to do research. And they tend to be anti-government, pro-privacy. The way things are going now you're probably a suspected terrorist or "person of interest' just by being here.
Canadians will be in a better position if they are less dependent upon exports to US markets, especially when the US economy tanks from all the bad debt. It's all about risk management. It's a good thing if Canadian exporters can start looking elsewhere for profit and dollar parity would certainly help ecourage this.
If anyone wants a laugh, check this out: Google Finance: SCOX. I laugh, point at SCOX, and slap my knee.
I note that both Reuters and Google finance have this summary of what SCO does. In light of their losing their case, when is SCO going to revise this summary?
The SCO Group, Inc. owns the UNIX operating system technology and is a provider of UNIX-based products and services. The Company's core business is to sell and service its UNIX software products to small to medium-sized businesses and franchisees or branch offices of Fortune 1000 businesses. The products that drive the majority of its UNIX revenue are OpenServer and UnixWare. During the fiscal year ended October 31, 2006 (fiscal 2006), the Company had two segments: UNIX and SCOsource. The UNIX business sells and distributes UNIX products and services, and the SCOsource business enforces and protects the Company's UNIX intellectual property. The products offered by the Company in its UNIX business include OpenServer, UnixWare and UNIX-related products, such as SCOoffice Server, a UNIX-based e-mail and collaboration system, and other UNIX system add-ons
What on earth is the big deal with porn? What exactly are people are afraid will happen if their children are exposed to it? There are much bigger threats in the more innocent seeming areas of the internet like children's chat rooms.
My aunt and uncle were in the sex industry, completely unapologetic about it, were nudists and had porn lying around the house like some people have Vogue, etc. I'm happy to report that my cousin, who was exposed to all this from birth, grew up to be quite a normal middle class woman - happily married, not promiscuous, not perverted, not demented, no weird fetishes, just plain open-minded. Sex is so natural to her as to be a non-issue. I'm happy for her kids too, who are also going to grow up thinking it's perfectly natural.
If this woman's teenage son needs an outlet for his natural inclinations why stop him? Hell, most men his father's age probably had a porno or two under their mattress.
Clearly if MS thinks they can do this then they also think your computer is their property or wholly owned by them. People only seem surprised because they still believe they are the legitimate owners of own their machines. This is a very good legal question, actually.
Also, I don't see anyone asking the obvious question - why did MS choose to do this by stealth rather than openly? Something is up, now my curiosity is piqued.
Of course, another good question is why they thought nobody would notice. Makes me wonder if they've successfully done this many times before without anyone noticing.
Since terrorism at its root is a matter of ideas, concepts, worldviews, etc., any move you make against terrorism is necessarily also a move against freedom of thought, expression, privacy and justice.
Just what in the sam hell is the justice department doing even commenting on something like this?
DOJ mission statement, from their website:
To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.
Since when did the DOJ get into political and commercial lobbying? Why are they interfering with the free market and trade? Why are they commenting on economics? What does this have to do with law enforcement or fighting crime? Why are they making statements that aren't a result of due process or litigation? Why aren't they sticking to the law?
How long before you need these background checks simply to work. After all, EVERY job out there has the potential to be used by "terrorists" for something or other.
Cleaning toilets? Toilet bomb! Poisoning the water system! Removing posters from telephone poles? Telephone pole bomb! Possibility of destroying communications infrastructure! Oh my god, the twin telephone poles! Mailman? Anthrax risk! Cleaning gum off public sidewalks? Sidewalk slime bomb! Call hazmat and close off a 5 mile radius! Oh no! What's that, a light-bright thingy on the sidewalk! Increase the radius to 10 miles and call in the national guard.
Personally, I give it maybe 10-20 years, then the control will be complete.
What utter nonsense. This program was tracking people's political affiliations, political viewpoints, the dates and times of meetings with their groups, who was present at the meetings, etc. These were legitimate groups too, such as Anti-war groups. You're full of shit, TALON wasn't for improving safety at protests, it was about keeping track of war dissenters, treating them as potential threats.
By throwing an evolution related question at the candidate you're giving them a chance to avoid harder and less popular issues. You're giving them an easy out.
The candidates know most Americans are religious. They'll lose no points by siding against evolution, they won't even lose points with the atheists what with religion being so pervasive in American society. If you're trying to ensure they win over the fundies and evangelicals, go ahead and give them an opportunity. Everyone else will be indifferent.
If you want to give them a challenge, and learn something about the candidates, then give them something political. Politics, being legislated morality and ethics, is the window to a person's soul. There's no better way to learn about someone.
For example, a great question would be "are 30,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian deaths justified given our goals and what we've achieved so far?" If they say yes, then you know they believe certain ends justify any means, good or bad, and from this one small insight you can predict how they'll behave on a number of issues. You'll know they will do evil in the name of good. You'll also know they have little regard for certain groups of what they must perceive to be lesser people (i.e. probably non-Americans). Either that or a general disregard for humanity.
I doubt any candidates would pass such a test. They would all willingly go to war for frivolous and unjustified reasons, they would all approve of extraordinary rendition and the disappearing of people, they would all jail enemies of state indefinitely without charge, they would all tap your telephones, there is nothing immoral, illegal or wrong they wouldn't do in the name of whatever fucked up ends they have.
While not news, per se, I thought it was an entertaining read.
This sort of thing is allowed on Slashdot. Don't take the "news for nerds" so literally.
A Verizon tech drilling a hole through an electrical circuit is like a sysadmin who sets a HDD on fire by improperly wiring the drive. It's amusing. One of those situations where we like to exchange amazed and knowing looks...
For those who think that we are detrimental to the universe, I suggest that the only logical thing to do is to kill yourself.
Have you considered that those who think humans are detrimental to the universe might also think humans could change in ways which render them less so? Goodness, I guess killing oneself is not the only logical thing to do in that case...
It's always the stupids, those with limited imagination, who advocate death and destruction. Exactly the sort of problem we're trying to solve as we try to be less detrimental...
I don't disagree with that. However, a good sign of the decline of a product is when the number of moderators and contributors willing to answer questions on public forums declines. Especially if you're locking up the knowledgebase, you're just making answers harder to find which leads to an increase in overall customer dissatisfaction and negative impressions.
Companies like Oracle, Microsoft and Google have staff who aggressively answer questions in their public forums precisely for this reason. I have no idea if they're paid to do so, but I'm sure they're encouraged to do so. If they do this voluntarily then, wow, that must say something about their attitude toward their customers.
So, tell me, what is it about MySQL AB culture which leads to people like you, who don't see it as part of their jobs to answer public user-to-user forums and expect that if people want a quality answer to a question about the product, no matter how simple, then they should pay for it.
That's the downward spiral I'm talking about...MySQL AB's inner culture and attitudes towards the end users has deteriorated and become rotten. They haven't properly struck a balance between making money off of costumers and providing good FREE support.
And I have noticed a trend in the MySQL forums to not answer what should be simple questions. In fact, it seems to me most questions are going unanswered. Then there's the major annoyance that they charge $500+ for access to their knowledgebase. They may have the right, but that doesn't make it right.
Plus there don't seem to be many books forthcoming about MySQL, and online documentation or tutorials from non-MySQL sources tend to be pretty dated, it's as if people are not writing about MySQL much anymore.
I don't like any of these signals. As of today I'm going to start looking into converting my servers to something else.
You can kick in the door, you can send a robot, or you could fucking knock and announce yourself with a search warrant. These tactics you're mentioning are completely inappropriate for civilian populations. They're wartime tactics, for when there are SOLDIERS behind those doors, not ordinary civilians.
However, I hope you're right about reducing casualties on account of soldiers being less frightened if they can go in with a robot first. Unless the people controlling the bot have high quality image resolution I seriously doubt it. On a monitor I'm sure everything looks suspicious.
The way the war has been waged so far when I see "terrorists with bomb-making equipment" I'm convinced 9 times out of 10 it's innocent families ("ragheads", "hajis", American soldiers call them) with pots of suspicious looking stew.
breach a door, then send in the bots to check things out while our soldiers say outside in relative safety.
There are whole families behind those doors, cowering in fear, especially given the American strategy of concentrated firepower and fire first, ask questions later.
(I do wonder about accurately reading the image on the screen during daylight in a desert though - maybe some goggles would be in order?)
Yet it seems like a good idea to you?
Also, looking at the little guy, I have to wonder how it takes a grenade hit
In Canada, Section Eight of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects all individuals from unreasonable search and seizure. For a search to be "reasonable" it must be authorized by law, the law itself must be reasonable, and the manner in which the search was carried out must be reasonable (R. v. S.A.B., 2003 SCC 60). This means that the officer must be acting within the power of a valid statute, and it must be performed on the basis of there being "reasonable and probable grounds" that a crime has been committed.
This is one of those cases where people have just jumped in and applied an American legal framework, which allows invasion of privacy, to that of another country, not realizing the laws are very different and there IS a legal expectation of privacy.
I think most people here are completely missing the point.
Someone in a position of authority, in the United States, insisted that a publicly available poster be taken down and destroyed, then came by with security forces to ensure compliance. Compliance, for whatever reason, was achieved.
I'm in Canada. I'd fucking laugh at someone who told me to take down and destroy an inoffensive poster. I'd laugh even harder if they came by with a security guard too. In fact, I'm sure the security guard would be laughing too. And then I'd tell my fucking co-workers the tale and we'd all be slapping our knees and shaking our heads. And the poster would still be hanging there, having become a major office conversation piece.
I work for a small non-profit organization (400+ people) and our tape backups are taken offsite, under lock and key, in a semi-armoured van by a company which specializes in offsite backup storage.
This is just fucked up. Heads should roll for this one.
It goes without saying that this will be used, not on illegal immigrants, but on people who are peacefully protesting, as per their democratic right to do so.
Police departments across the country have probably put in hundreds of orders already, with a view towards subduing ordinary citizens engaging in "subversive" activities which "disturb the peace".
The right to protest, and by extension to publicly voice disagreement, just became a lot more difficult.
If I hired mostly unqualified people I'd have a dent in my profits too. And I'd be complaining about the difficulty in finding qualified people. The original submitter mistakenly thinks this is either/or when there's nothing mutually exclusive about both claims.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the things that really annoys me is that themed channels don't stick to the damn theme. All of this is irrelevant, even with a la carte you'll still be paying for stuff you don't want to watch.
I see non-history stuff on History (like CSI or the 135424th showing of Red October), anything but science fiction on Space (bloody Tarzan, wtf? Samantha Fox? wtf), religious mysticism and superstition on Discovery (haunted houses? ghosts? wtf), etc. That the only channels that seem to stick to a theme are sports, weather and news (although that last is probably debatable).
Many people with MS are effectively and legally blind as a result of their disease. The defense may argue that the defendant doesn't personally use the account as a result of her blindness.
Also, the OP probably mentioned her disease because there has been a pattern of the RIAA going after disadvantaged groups. Where the hell have you been, living under a rock or something?
Actually, if I were the NSA/FBI/CIA/DIA/etc. I'd be VERY interested in the Slashdot community - and this means you.
This community is very technical, they know how to do things like make bombs, viruses, trojans, pirate software, steal identities, etc. They know how to do research. And they tend to be anti-government, pro-privacy. The way things are going now you're probably a suspected terrorist or "person of interest' just by being here.
Canadians will be in a better position if they are less dependent upon exports to US markets, especially when the US economy tanks from all the bad debt. It's all about risk management. It's a good thing if Canadian exporters can start looking elsewhere for profit and dollar parity would certainly help ecourage this.
If anyone wants a laugh, check this out: Google Finance: SCOX. I laugh, point at SCOX, and slap my knee.
I note that both Reuters and Google finance have this summary of what SCO does. In light of their losing their case, when is SCO going to revise this summary?
What on earth is the big deal with porn? What exactly are people are afraid will happen if their children are exposed to it? There are much bigger threats in the more innocent seeming areas of the internet like children's chat rooms.
My aunt and uncle were in the sex industry, completely unapologetic about it, were nudists and had porn lying around the house like some people have Vogue, etc. I'm happy to report that my cousin, who was exposed to all this from birth, grew up to be quite a normal middle class woman - happily married, not promiscuous, not perverted, not demented, no weird fetishes, just plain open-minded. Sex is so natural to her as to be a non-issue. I'm happy for her kids too, who are also going to grow up thinking it's perfectly natural.
If this woman's teenage son needs an outlet for his natural inclinations why stop him? Hell, most men his father's age probably had a porno or two under their mattress.
Clearly if MS thinks they can do this then they also think your computer is their property or wholly owned by them. People only seem surprised because they still believe they are the legitimate owners of own their machines. This is a very good legal question, actually.
Also, I don't see anyone asking the obvious question - why did MS choose to do this by stealth rather than openly? Something is up, now my curiosity is piqued.
Of course, another good question is why they thought nobody would notice. Makes me wonder if they've successfully done this many times before without anyone noticing.
Since terrorism at its root is a matter of ideas, concepts, worldviews, etc., any move you make against terrorism is necessarily also a move against freedom of thought, expression, privacy and justice.
Just what in the sam hell is the justice department doing even commenting on something like this?
DOJ mission statement, from their website:
To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.Since when did the DOJ get into political and commercial lobbying? Why are they interfering with the free market and trade? Why are they commenting on economics? What does this have to do with law enforcement or fighting crime? Why are they making statements that aren't a result of due process or litigation? Why aren't they sticking to the law?
Doesn't Comcast have firewalls that are easily disrupted by the same sort of forged RST packets?
Perhaps some creative cyber-activism is in order? Someone teach them not to fuck with content.
How long before you need these background checks simply to work. After all, EVERY job out there has the potential to be used by "terrorists" for something or other.
Cleaning toilets? Toilet bomb! Poisoning the water system! Removing posters from telephone poles? Telephone pole bomb! Possibility of destroying communications infrastructure! Oh my god, the twin telephone poles! Mailman? Anthrax risk! Cleaning gum off public sidewalks? Sidewalk slime bomb! Call hazmat and close off a 5 mile radius! Oh no! What's that, a light-bright thingy on the sidewalk! Increase the radius to 10 miles and call in the national guard.
Personally, I give it maybe 10-20 years, then the control will be complete.
Another reason to carry around an RFID jammer.
Quick, someone create Faraday pants, or should I line my pockets with tinfoil?
What utter nonsense. This program was tracking people's political affiliations, political viewpoints, the dates and times of meetings with their groups, who was present at the meetings, etc. These were legitimate groups too, such as Anti-war groups. You're full of shit, TALON wasn't for improving safety at protests, it was about keeping track of war dissenters, treating them as potential threats.
By throwing an evolution related question at the candidate you're giving them a chance to avoid harder and less popular issues. You're giving them an easy out.
The candidates know most Americans are religious. They'll lose no points by siding against evolution, they won't even lose points with the atheists what with religion being so pervasive in American society. If you're trying to ensure they win over the fundies and evangelicals, go ahead and give them an opportunity. Everyone else will be indifferent.
If you want to give them a challenge, and learn something about the candidates, then give them something political. Politics, being legislated morality and ethics, is the window to a person's soul. There's no better way to learn about someone.
For example, a great question would be "are 30,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian deaths justified given our goals and what we've achieved so far?" If they say yes, then you know they believe certain ends justify any means, good or bad, and from this one small insight you can predict how they'll behave on a number of issues. You'll know they will do evil in the name of good. You'll also know they have little regard for certain groups of what they must perceive to be lesser people (i.e. probably non-Americans). Either that or a general disregard for humanity.
I doubt any candidates would pass such a test. They would all willingly go to war for frivolous and unjustified reasons, they would all approve of extraordinary rendition and the disappearing of people, they would all jail enemies of state indefinitely without charge, they would all tap your telephones, there is nothing immoral, illegal or wrong they wouldn't do in the name of whatever fucked up ends they have.
While not news, per se, I thought it was an entertaining read.
This sort of thing is allowed on Slashdot. Don't take the "news for nerds" so literally.
A Verizon tech drilling a hole through an electrical circuit is like a sysadmin who sets a HDD on fire by improperly wiring the drive. It's amusing. One of those situations where we like to exchange amazed and knowing looks...
Have you considered that those who think humans are detrimental to the universe might also think humans could change in ways which render them less so? Goodness, I guess killing oneself is not the only logical thing to do in that case...
It's always the stupids, those with limited imagination, who advocate death and destruction. Exactly the sort of problem we're trying to solve as we try to be less detrimental...
I don't disagree with that. However, a good sign of the decline of a product is when the number of moderators and contributors willing to answer questions on public forums declines. Especially if you're locking up the knowledgebase, you're just making answers harder to find which leads to an increase in overall customer dissatisfaction and negative impressions.
Companies like Oracle, Microsoft and Google have staff who aggressively answer questions in their public forums precisely for this reason. I have no idea if they're paid to do so, but I'm sure they're encouraged to do so. If they do this voluntarily then, wow, that must say something about their attitude toward their customers.
So, tell me, what is it about MySQL AB culture which leads to people like you, who don't see it as part of their jobs to answer public user-to-user forums and expect that if people want a quality answer to a question about the product, no matter how simple, then they should pay for it.
That's the downward spiral I'm talking about...MySQL AB's inner culture and attitudes towards the end users has deteriorated and become rotten. They haven't properly struck a balance between making money off of costumers and providing good FREE support.
And I have noticed a trend in the MySQL forums to not answer what should be simple questions. In fact, it seems to me most questions are going unanswered. Then there's the major annoyance that they charge $500+ for access to their knowledgebase. They may have the right, but that doesn't make it right.
Plus there don't seem to be many books forthcoming about MySQL, and online documentation or tutorials from non-MySQL sources tend to be pretty dated, it's as if people are not writing about MySQL much anymore.
I don't like any of these signals. As of today I'm going to start looking into converting my servers to something else.
You can kick in the door, you can send a robot, or you could fucking knock and announce yourself with a search warrant. These tactics you're mentioning are completely inappropriate for civilian populations. They're wartime tactics, for when there are SOLDIERS behind those doors, not ordinary civilians.
However, I hope you're right about reducing casualties on account of soldiers being less frightened if they can go in with a robot first. Unless the people controlling the bot have high quality image resolution I seriously doubt it. On a monitor I'm sure everything looks suspicious.
Take a look at this and tell me if you see farmers or terrorists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--KZaP_HjTE
The way the war has been waged so far when I see "terrorists with bomb-making equipment" I'm convinced 9 times out of 10 it's innocent families ("ragheads", "hajis", American soldiers call them) with pots of suspicious looking stew.
There are whole families behind those doors, cowering in fear, especially given the American strategy of concentrated firepower and fire first, ask questions later.
Yet it seems like a good idea to you?
Little guy. A term of endearment already.
As unreasonable search and seizure becomes grudgingly accepted by the public, it will gradually become more unreasonable, more random, and prevalent.
This sort of thing must be stopped now.
Also, I strongly suspect this theatre group didn't do their legal homework.
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_and_seizure):
This is one of those cases where people have just jumped in and applied an American legal framework, which allows invasion of privacy, to that of another country, not realizing the laws are very different and there IS a legal expectation of privacy.
I think most people here are completely missing the point.
Someone in a position of authority, in the United States, insisted that a publicly available poster be taken down and destroyed, then came by with security forces to ensure compliance. Compliance, for whatever reason, was achieved.
I'm in Canada. I'd fucking laugh at someone who told me to take down and destroy an inoffensive poster. I'd laugh even harder if they came by with a security guard too. In fact, I'm sure the security guard would be laughing too. And then I'd tell my fucking co-workers the tale and we'd all be slapping our knees and shaking our heads. And the poster would still be hanging there, having become a major office conversation piece.
I wonder what Stanley Milgram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment) would say about this...
I work for a small non-profit organization (400+ people) and our tape backups are taken offsite, under lock and key, in a semi-armoured van by a company which specializes in offsite backup storage.
This is just fucked up. Heads should roll for this one.
It goes without saying that this will be used, not on illegal immigrants, but on people who are peacefully protesting, as per their democratic right to do so.
Police departments across the country have probably put in hundreds of orders already, with a view towards subduing ordinary citizens engaging in "subversive" activities which "disturb the peace".
The right to protest, and by extension to publicly voice disagreement, just became a lot more difficult.
If I hired mostly unqualified people I'd have a dent in my profits too. And I'd be complaining about the difficulty in finding qualified people. The original submitter mistakenly thinks this is either/or when there's nothing mutually exclusive about both claims.