... or perhaps not defeated, but blithely thrown away.
When you are feeding everybody the same random number sequence (as this service appears to do), it doesn't matter even the slightest little bit how random the numbers are; with a little ingenuity they can still be 100% predictable in many practical situations.
It depends on little more than how fast you get the numbers, and whether you can process them before the next guy does.
Judge Kozinski has missed the biggest part of this equation: the concept that WE get to choose when we want to be private.
Certainly there are circumstances in which one does not get to choose, like walking around in public. But for the most part, the value of privacy is intimately attached to the fact that WE choose when we want to exercise it, and when not.
Noise pollution is one of the biggest banes of living in urban areas, and to say that automobiles contribute significantly to noise pollution is a major understatement.
Sure, keep them quiet, and a few more people will die every year. Mostly stupid people.
I say it's worth it, for reducing the noise and proven stress levels they cause, which everybody else has to deal with.
Yes, at first I did not understand what you were getting at. I went back and read it more carefully. It does make some sense.
On the other hand, it probably doubles your cost: you not only have to supply benefits to the Kickstarter contributors, you then ALSO have to pay interest to the bank. I'm not sure that's feasible.
Correction: I had forgotten that I had indeed stated that they were representing themselves as "happily satisfied users". But that is not as big as mistake as it might seem: it would in fact apply to your Sugar Smacks example because you WERE a user at some point, and you were happily satisfied (you claim to like them).
But at no point did I make any claims about being a regular or current user of a product. That is an (incorrect) inferral that YOU made.
"Doing something ethical more than once doesn't, by definition, make it unethical."
Obviously. But since they would be doing different things on the different sites, this argument has no relevance.
"... the person is being asked to go to their "social websites", not every social website on the planet... "
Straw-man argument. Just as I stated: sites, not site. Nothing was mentioned about it being many sites, much less "every social website on the planet". If you are going to argue, you can at least confine yourself to things that were actually stated rather than making shit up.
"How can my NOT being a "happy satisfied user" prove in any way that when I say I like Sugar Smacks that I'm saying I'm a "happy satisfied user"? I'm not. I am not a user, and it is NOT unethical to say I like them. Just as the Trojan example showed. You are inferring something that isn't implied."
Absolute bullshit. Even more than the last one. First, YOU were the one who brought up the "happy satisfied user" issue, which is just another straw-man argument. Prior to that, nobody had mentioned anything about being any kind of regular or "happy" user. Because the point you are missing is this: by saying you like Sugar Smacks, you are acknowledging that you have used the product (not necessarily that you are a "user" on some kind of regular basis), and that you like it. If you did indeed use the product at some point, and did like it, then there is nothing dishonest or misleading about that statement, and I have not tried to say there was. On the contrary: *I* am the one who pointed out that your Sugar Smacks example was NOT unethical. So I am not the one who is apparently misunderstanding here.
I inferred nothing; I simply read your plain English words. Your Sugar Smacks example was an example of something different, because you were referring to a product you had actually tried. So it's a straw-man argument, plain and simple.
"I'll give you another example. I can say I like "Lunelle" based on reading about it."
Here you go again. Sure, you could say that, but the point all along has been: would it be ethical to do so? See, in order for it to be a valid example, you can basically only say that you like it or remain silent (ala "like" button). You don't have the opportunity to say, "I like the concept but never used it myself," (which is obviously not the kind of endorsement the company was looking for anyway). If you "like" it, people will assume that you have used it, since they have no way of knowing otherwise. So this is another shitty example. I would say that yes, if you "liked" Lunelle (in the sense of "liking" it on Facebook), without ever having used it yourself, that would be unethical because you would be giving people a false impression.
"If I go to a blog where someone is asking about those kinds of products, and I say "I think Lunelle looks like a good product"..."
Which is what I was leading up to in the last paragraph. This is just yet another example of straw-man argument. That is pretty obviously not the kind of endorsement the company was looking for, so it has no relevance to the issue we were discussing.
"But it is a concession to the realities of a market that's more comfortable with the familiar desktop metaphor."
It isn't the "metaphor" at all. It's the "reality" of people "being comfortable" with what works, and not comfortable with what doesn't.
Google and others have pushed "the cloud" prematurely. It just doesn't work well enough yet. There are far too many issues:
(1) Unpredictable downtime for even the most robust of services (in 2011 those included Google and Amazon).
(2) Security issues, including (a) who has authorized access, (b) who normally has actual access including physical access, and (c) vulnerability to external exploits.
(3) Performance.
(4) Government intrusion or seizure (ala Megaupload).
Let's face it. "The cloud" is not mature yet. Reasons (1) and (2) together are enough to keep me from putting my business information in the cloud. Reason (4) is another reason that, by itself, might also stop me from doing so.
If the developer could easily borrow money from the bank, the developer probably would not be putting the project on Kickstarter, since the "rewards" that are promised on Kickstarter are very often a good deal more than just bank interest would be.
Again, it misses the point. For the most part Kickstarter is there to FUND development of the product.
"If you're anything but the lowest code monkey or a contractor (that's not quite redundant), then you're 'Exempt', and not eligible for overtime."
Who said anything about overtime? Besides, OP did not say he/she was a coder. Could be in sales, or a secretary, or anything at all.
"Also, your employer almost certainly stated in their offer to you that you may have to occasionally work longer hours."
Irrelevant. You are assuming I meant something that I did not mean at all. I didn't say I would mind doing the work, overtime or not. I simply stated that I wanted to be paid for it: if an employer wants to have any say over my actions when I am not at work, such as social networking, then they can make it "work", and pay me for it. Otherwise, the answer is no. It is that simple.
"Oh, and if you say, "Consultant, not contractor," you're also deceiving yourself."
Not at all. Consultants are generally contractors, but most contractors are not consultants. And I am not a consultant. Although I was, at one time.
"They are being asked to "like" the product on a social website. This implies nothing about being a user."
Sites, not site. And I disagree. Liking does imply endorsement.
"One is fake, one is not. One says you are a happy user, one does not."
Not so. If they are not users of the product, "liking" it is misleading at best. It might only be a mild implied endorsement, but nevertheless it implies endorsement.
"I haven't had any Sugar smacks for twenty years. I would not say I am a "happy user", but I have no problem at all saying I "like" them."
And here you prove my point for me. You might not BE a "happy user", but you did at least use the product, and you do at least like it.
Other ethical concerns aside (and there are a few), I do social networking on my own time, not company time. If they wanted me to "like" or blog about something, away from work, they can damned well pay me for it. Otherwise (even without other ethical concerns) the answer would be "no". Not maybe: no.
"He's not being asked to astroturf. He's being asked to like the product."
Astroturfing is astroturfing, no matter the form. Employees are being asked to falsely represent themselves as happily satisfied users of the product. That is astroturfing at its very essence. Whether you are doing it via blog posts or Facebook likes, you are still committing exactly the same ethical breach. There is no difference.
""That's what escrow accounts are for... That's what kickstarter should be doing."
Sorry, doesn't work. Kickstarter is all about getting development money to develop a project. In other words, money that has to be spent in research, development, expenses, or whatever. It's not about buying a product, it's about developing a product.
As such, escrow simply would not work. The money would not be available until after the product is completed, which defeats the entire purpose of Kickstarter.
You seem to be assuming that I am blaming the IRS. Not so. Not only do I not claim that it's their fault, I will say openly that I simply don't give a damn what the reason behind it is. If it can't do the job it was created to do -- whether that is its own fault or someone else's -- then we should not be forced to suffer its existence. Period.
I'm not pointing fingers and declaring that anybody in particular is responsible. I'm simply stating a practical fact. It has proven year after year that it simply can't do the job.
"In all fairness, they aren't the IRS' rules. They are Congress', and the IRS has the thankless task every year of trying to figure them out."
The latter of the two sentences is true, but I don't see anything "fair" about it.
Regardless of who created the rules, the IRS is the agency in charge of implementing and enforcing those rules. If it cannot do so, then it should not even exist. And it has proven itself, year after year, incapable of doing so. Therefore...
Your comment was not about Juan Williams. If it had been, I might not have replied. Your comment was instead generalized to "someone". You were making a general statement about ANYBODY who says such things... and it was false.
Year after year, the IRS has proven in independent tests to be incompetent at understanding their own rules. Only a fool would allow the IRS to "help" them with their return.
Besides, if you use some third-party product, you have some liability protection. If you use the IRS, you don't.
Nonsense. This merely shows that you are not a very discerning person.
Don't misunderstand: I agree with you completely that very often, when someone says "I'm not a bigot, but..." or "I don't want to offend, but..." or "It's not about the money..." they really mean the opposite. It happens frequently.
BUT... you err fatally in claiming that anyone who says such a thing is a hypocrite. Some are, many are not.
There exist the legitimate people who want to tell you that "I'm not a bigot, but that particular minority member you have been listening to is..."
There exist the people who genuinely say (discreetly) "I don't want to offend, but maybe you should use some mouthwash before going into that meeting." These are actually your friends. And some of them who lack tact still actually mean well.
And there are many people who say "It isn't about the money" and really mean it. Often, however, you will find that most of those who are sincere are not rich people. But not always. In any event, they do exist and they are sincere.
Your remark was cynicism, and that's all. Yes, some people do act as you say. But if you think ALL people who say such things are hypocrites, I feel sorry for you. You are missing so very much.
Slashdot Mirror
In other words: this looks like a clever idea, but the implementation is totally useless for many real-world applications.
... or perhaps not defeated, but blithely thrown away.
When you are feeding everybody the same random number sequence (as this service appears to do), it doesn't matter even the slightest little bit how random the numbers are; with a little ingenuity they can still be 100% predictable in many practical situations.
It depends on little more than how fast you get the numbers, and whether you can process them before the next guy does.
"Rights do not cease to be rights merely because the majority of people do not exercise them..."
Absolutely. And for a circuit judge to argue otherwise should be astonishing -- and frightening -- to the American public.
In my opinion, Kozinski has just publicly demonstrated that he is not qualified to be a judge at all, much less a circuit judge.
Judge Kozinski has missed the biggest part of this equation: the concept that WE get to choose when we want to be private.
Certainly there are circumstances in which one does not get to choose, like walking around in public. But for the most part, the value of privacy is intimately attached to the fact that WE choose when we want to exercise it, and when not.
Noise pollution is one of the biggest banes of living in urban areas, and to say that automobiles contribute significantly to noise pollution is a major understatement.
Sure, keep them quiet, and a few more people will die every year. Mostly stupid people.
I say it's worth it, for reducing the noise and proven stress levels they cause, which everybody else has to deal with.
Yes, at first I did not understand what you were getting at. I went back and read it more carefully. It does make some sense.
On the other hand, it probably doubles your cost: you not only have to supply benefits to the Kickstarter contributors, you then ALSO have to pay interest to the bank. I'm not sure that's feasible.
Correction: I had forgotten that I had indeed stated that they were representing themselves as "happily satisfied users". But that is not as big as mistake as it might seem: it would in fact apply to your Sugar Smacks example because you WERE a user at some point, and you were happily satisfied (you claim to like them).
But at no point did I make any claims about being a regular or current user of a product. That is an (incorrect) inferral that YOU made.
You put it well and more succinctly than I managed. :o)
"Doing something ethical more than once doesn't, by definition, make it unethical."
Obviously. But since they would be doing different things on the different sites, this argument has no relevance.
"... the person is being asked to go to their "social websites", not every social website on the planet... "
Straw-man argument. Just as I stated: sites, not site. Nothing was mentioned about it being many sites, much less "every social website on the planet". If you are going to argue, you can at least confine yourself to things that were actually stated rather than making shit up.
"How can my NOT being a "happy satisfied user" prove in any way that when I say I like Sugar Smacks that I'm saying I'm a "happy satisfied user"? I'm not. I am not a user, and it is NOT unethical to say I like them. Just as the Trojan example showed. You are inferring something that isn't implied."
Absolute bullshit. Even more than the last one. First, YOU were the one who brought up the "happy satisfied user" issue, which is just another straw-man argument. Prior to that, nobody had mentioned anything about being any kind of regular or "happy" user. Because the point you are missing is this: by saying you like Sugar Smacks, you are acknowledging that you have used the product (not necessarily that you are a "user" on some kind of regular basis), and that you like it. If you did indeed use the product at some point, and did like it, then there is nothing dishonest or misleading about that statement, and I have not tried to say there was. On the contrary: * I * am the one who pointed out that your Sugar Smacks example was NOT unethical. So I am not the one who is apparently misunderstanding here.
I inferred nothing; I simply read your plain English words. Your Sugar Smacks example was an example of something different, because you were referring to a product you had actually tried. So it's a straw-man argument, plain and simple.
"I'll give you another example. I can say I like "Lunelle" based on reading about it."
Here you go again. Sure, you could say that, but the point all along has been: would it be ethical to do so? See, in order for it to be a valid example, you can basically only say that you like it or remain silent (ala "like" button). You don't have the opportunity to say, "I like the concept but never used it myself," (which is obviously not the kind of endorsement the company was looking for anyway). If you "like" it, people will assume that you have used it, since they have no way of knowing otherwise. So this is another shitty example. I would say that yes, if you "liked" Lunelle (in the sense of "liking" it on Facebook), without ever having used it yourself, that would be unethical because you would be giving people a false impression.
"If I go to a blog where someone is asking about those kinds of products, and I say "I think Lunelle looks like a good product"..."
Which is what I was leading up to in the last paragraph. This is just yet another example of straw-man argument. That is pretty obviously not the kind of endorsement the company was looking for, so it has no relevance to the issue we were discussing.
"But it is a concession to the realities of a market that's more comfortable with the familiar desktop metaphor."
It isn't the "metaphor" at all. It's the "reality" of people "being comfortable" with what works, and not comfortable with what doesn't.
Google and others have pushed "the cloud" prematurely. It just doesn't work well enough yet. There are far too many issues:
(1) Unpredictable downtime for even the most robust of services (in 2011 those included Google and Amazon).
(2) Security issues, including (a) who has authorized access, (b) who normally has actual access including physical access, and (c) vulnerability to external exploits.
(3) Performance.
(4) Government intrusion or seizure (ala Megaupload).
Let's face it. "The cloud" is not mature yet. Reasons (1) and (2) together are enough to keep me from putting my business information in the cloud. Reason (4) is another reason that, by itself, might also stop me from doing so.
Maybe some day.
If the developer could easily borrow money from the bank, the developer probably would not be putting the project on Kickstarter, since the "rewards" that are promised on Kickstarter are very often a good deal more than just bank interest would be.
Again, it misses the point. For the most part Kickstarter is there to FUND development of the product.
"If you're anything but the lowest code monkey or a contractor (that's not quite redundant), then you're 'Exempt', and not eligible for overtime."
Who said anything about overtime? Besides, OP did not say he/she was a coder. Could be in sales, or a secretary, or anything at all.
"Also, your employer almost certainly stated in their offer to you that you may have to occasionally work longer hours."
Irrelevant. You are assuming I meant something that I did not mean at all. I didn't say I would mind doing the work, overtime or not. I simply stated that I wanted to be paid for it: if an employer wants to have any say over my actions when I am not at work, such as social networking, then they can make it "work", and pay me for it. Otherwise, the answer is no. It is that simple.
"Oh, and if you say, "Consultant, not contractor," you're also deceiving yourself."
Not at all. Consultants are generally contractors, but most contractors are not consultants. And I am not a consultant. Although I was, at one time.
"They are being asked to "like" the product on a social website. This implies nothing about being a user."
Sites, not site. And I disagree. Liking does imply endorsement.
"One is fake, one is not. One says you are a happy user, one does not."
Not so. If they are not users of the product, "liking" it is misleading at best. It might only be a mild implied endorsement, but nevertheless it implies endorsement.
"I haven't had any Sugar smacks for twenty years. I would not say I am a "happy user", but I have no problem at all saying I "like" them."
And here you prove my point for me. You might not BE a "happy user", but you did at least use the product, and you do at least like it.
Other ethical concerns aside (and there are a few), I do social networking on my own time, not company time. If they wanted me to "like" or blog about something, away from work, they can damned well pay me for it. Otherwise (even without other ethical concerns) the answer would be "no". Not maybe: no.
"He's not being asked to astroturf. He's being asked to like the product."
Astroturfing is astroturfing, no matter the form. Employees are being asked to falsely represent themselves as happily satisfied users of the product. That is astroturfing at its very essence. Whether you are doing it via blog posts or Facebook likes, you are still committing exactly the same ethical breach. There is no difference.
"I have nothing against it as long as you like what you are doing."
By its very nature, astroturfing is dishonest and unethical.
""That's what escrow accounts are for ... That's what kickstarter should be doing."
Sorry, doesn't work. Kickstarter is all about getting development money to develop a project. In other words, money that has to be spent in research, development, expenses, or whatever. It's not about buying a product, it's about developing a product.
As such, escrow simply would not work. The money would not be available until after the product is completed, which defeats the entire purpose of Kickstarter.
"Honestly, put yourself in their shoes."
You seem to be assuming that I am blaming the IRS. Not so. Not only do I not claim that it's their fault, I will say openly that I simply don't give a damn what the reason behind it is. If it can't do the job it was created to do -- whether that is its own fault or someone else's -- then we should not be forced to suffer its existence. Period.
I'm not pointing fingers and declaring that anybody in particular is responsible. I'm simply stating a practical fact. It has proven year after year that it simply can't do the job.
Therefore, it doesn't need to exist.
My point was not about their possession of the ability, it was about the opinions being expressed here about it.
"In all fairness, they aren't the IRS' rules. They are Congress', and the IRS has the thankless task every year of trying to figure them out."
The latter of the two sentences is true, but I don't see anything "fair" about it.
Regardless of who created the rules, the IRS is the agency in charge of implementing and enforcing those rules. If it cannot do so, then it should not even exist. And it has proven itself, year after year, incapable of doing so. Therefore...
"But in Juan Williams' full sentence..."
Your comment was not about Juan Williams. If it had been, I might not have replied. Your comment was instead generalized to "someone". You were making a general statement about ANYBODY who says such things... and it was false.
"I don't need your insults."
And maybe I don't need your BS generalizations.
"Really, the fact that his argument involved the standard deduction instead of an optional one isn't all that relevant."
Yes, of course. That is what made it a "straw-man" argument.
People on Slashdot are actually saying that the ability of a carrier to brick a telephone remotely is a GOOD thing?
My, how times have changed.
Year after year, the IRS has proven in independent tests to be incompetent at understanding their own rules. Only a fool would allow the IRS to "help" them with their return.
Besides, if you use some third-party product, you have some liability protection. If you use the IRS, you don't.
Nonsense. This merely shows that you are not a very discerning person.
Don't misunderstand: I agree with you completely that very often, when someone says "I'm not a bigot, but..." or "I don't want to offend, but..." or "It's not about the money..." they really mean the opposite. It happens frequently.
BUT... you err fatally in claiming that anyone who says such a thing is a hypocrite. Some are, many are not.
There exist the legitimate people who want to tell you that "I'm not a bigot, but that particular minority member you have been listening to is..."
There exist the people who genuinely say (discreetly) "I don't want to offend, but maybe you should use some mouthwash before going into that meeting." These are actually your friends. And some of them who lack tact still actually mean well.
And there are many people who say "It isn't about the money" and really mean it. Often, however, you will find that most of those who are sincere are not rich people. But not always. In any event, they do exist and they are sincere.
Your remark was cynicism, and that's all. Yes, some people do act as you say. But if you think ALL people who say such things are hypocrites, I feel sorry for you. You are missing so very much.