Then those businesses will eventually die out. Sorry.
New businesses are being created all the time, especially in the small business category. Simple math will tell you that those with less expenses will eventually do better than those with more expenses (given the same category of competition).
I don't expect anyone to come out and make it more easy for MS to survive by doing what you suggest. Sure in the short term there's a gain in supporting VB6 but over the just slightly longer run not so much. Sure someone might do it for money or notoriety but since it hasn't happened yet I wouldn't expect much.
He is not our ally in ensuring we can get whatever media we want whenever we want for no cost.
I should hope not. I don't think anyone's truly your ally in getting whatever you want for no cost. Sorry about that. Maybe you should file a bug report?
For that to happen, Stevens would first have to stop fighting the conviction... until the case is settled, he can't be pardoned.
I looked this up recently and I believe you are wrong.
A president can pardon someone for crimes they have committed and been convicted of, that is true. A president may also pardon someone who has not been convicted or accused of any crimes. This is a preemptive method so that sometime later no one can investigate that person. It is even possible to pardon someone for unspecified acts, I believe.
So I do believe that the president can pardon someone in the middle of a case. It basically shuts it down and the charges go away.
After reading that, i believe that you are correct. The law states that schools must make "reasonable efforts" but provides no penalty for doing absolutely nothing and does not even define "reasonable".
At most, your efforts or lack thereof are put into a report. oooh scary!
I can't see any true justification for an independent school to comply; there is a penalty (in $$) for complying and none for just blowing them off. State schools may be another matter, though.
However:
Similar to many other industries that are regulated, this law is basically a suggestion with a report card type progress report. If non-compliance is an issue then you can expect further legislation involving actual penalties for non-compliance.
Those reports will be taken into account by the legislature. If they are in the mood to (and have received enough $$), they will then enact a penalty phase since this law failed to gain traction (you know that's what the RIAA will push, even if schools do try to comply).
The problem is it's not "best of luck" I'm pretty sure the law has some teeth should you not comply. It doesn't matter that there's no money for it; any discretionary budget will get soaked up - think upgrades (you really didn't need that new comp lab did you?)
Unless this law is struck down your uni will either do what the STATE wants or lose state support, perhaps accreditation, funding. This is a compliance issue now, not a "good luck" issue.
If you think you're in a budget crisis now, tell the RIAA "best of luck" after they serve your uni with 50+ of these notices...
Just as clearly, there are "more" even integers than there are odd integer multiples of seven.
Just as clearly there must be more integers on a whole number line than the number of real numbers between 0 and 1. After all, the number line goes out to infinity in both directions, and the other is just a bit of line segment...
Time is another one. Follow the paradoxes in that one and having time travel ends up proving that such a universe universe would be incapable of remembering your relative position and velocity at all.
Given our current understanding of the universe, and the understanding your statements would require I would say that you are wrong in presenting your assertion as truth. I would expect that there are quite some physicists who would disagree with you as well.
Next, logical paradox does not prevent physical occurrence. It merely means your logic is wrong. If you have found a set of logical statements to model the physical world that does not prevent the physical world from invalidating your models.
iceweasel was kind of a dick move from developers that didn't want to live up to the same expectations as everybody else.
I'm not certain why you think it's a "dick move" to do something that you're allowed to do. But I AM certain that they are living up EXACTLY to the same expectations as everyone else.
Trademark law in this case is supposed to protect people from installing something which differs from what they thought they were installing. IP isn't always the enemy, sometimes you need to know what something actually is in order to know what to do with it.
Yes, certainly. However, given the previous statement, you seem to propose that if GPL code has a trademark associated with it that only the trademark holder "should" be able to distribute the code. That is obviously a horrible position.
So, it's a "dick move" to remove the trademark as requested so you can distribute the software? Uh, I don't think so. The *opposite* would be far worse - if people who associate trademarks with GPL code have some standing to prevent distribution of the code (not the trademark).
Just because somebody sends you an invoice doesn't mean that you have to pay it.
This, in fact, is a common scam technique, where somebody will send to a small business some sort of random invoice (sometimes to larger businesses) demanding payment for some random "service" that has been provided.
However when the company sending you an invoice is the size of Toyota you have bigger problems than some scam artist sending an invoice.
You see, if Toyota wants to screw with you (and it certainly looks like they do in this case) the invoice will not just quietly disappear.
They (Toyota) should know full well that if they actually take legal action to collect on these invoices, that they would be thrown out of court.
Toyota have well established ties with collection agencies. They don't need to take any legal action to try and collect. If they believe that someone owes them money, they can merely send the "debt" to a collection agency. Your credit rating would suffer because Toyota has told the credit agencies you're in default on your payment. You start to get calls at home and work about the debt, etc...
It would be up to YOU to fight it in court. You would need to sue to prove that the invoice wasn't accurate. Depending exactly how much Toyota hates you, your lawyer fees *might* be paid... if you win judgment... in as little as 60 months...
So invoices from large companies are a real concern if they are incorrect - maliciously or not. More people trust them than trust you - even the government it seems. The default position is that the invoice is valid, as witnessed by the ability to turn it over to collection agencies, etc. unless YOU make a positive effort to counter the charge.
To your point about stereotyping - one of the difficulties with fighting the stereotyping of religions is that the 'major' faiths (christianity, judaism, islam - lower case intentional) are dogma-based
This is ironic, i think. Here you are agreeing that there is a problem stereotyping religions, and then go ahead and merrily do so. Oh wait, that was your entire point, that it's ok to stereotype religious people. I forgot.
Anyway, your blanket statement is provably false. Thanks for playing. IRL there are plenty of Christian sects that promote the only true connection to god is the personal. There are Christian sects that have no problem with homosexuals.
I share a neighborhood with a bunch of...
Your personal anecdotes have little to do with your statement. The only truth one might make from them is that there are certain sects of Christianity that are dogma-based, or intolerant.
The problem is, if you look past the stereotypes and the denial of reason - and I'd be willing to look past those to some degree, because as you point out, we don't have all the answers on the 'science' side of the house either - you end up with intolerance and vitriol.
I'm not quite sure I understand what you're saying here. What I can make out is that if you look beyond the stereotyping and denial of reason that all Christians have you end up with intolerance and vitriol.
Sorry if that is an incorrect but I must disagree with my understanding of what you said. This appears to be just a stereotype YOU are placing on them with no factual basis (actually since we have contrary examples, it's just an example of mental illness).
Stereotypes can be helpful too - I was raised catholic. By associating priests with pedophilia (truly a stereotype, as pedophile priests are a tiny minority of the priesthood) I desensitized myself to the catholic symbols and mechanisms of oppression. Now, instead of seeing a 'father' I see a 'creepy pervert'. Such stereotyping helped flush the 'papal poison' from my memetic scheme.
So instead of one false viewpoint of the world you traded it for another *different* false viewpoint of the world. Perhaps you call this progress but I would not. You may think you have reprogrammed yourself but by the contents of this post it seems you have merely traded one dogma for another. The shape and size of your container for these philosophies doesn't seem to have changed merely the slant of the contents. In other words, it appears you have done a drop in replacement of Catholicism that in effect merely changes the "sign" of your outputs, not the quality.
Now, why again should we stop stereotyping religions and embrace them? I'll consider it when they stop stereotyping and start embracing everyone who does not believe as they do. When they stop mudslinging and worse, trying to deny the full, legitimate humanity of others based on *their* dogma, I'll grant them some respect. Until that time, given the chance, I will sling mud and take every shot, cheap or fair, that I can - I am still playing more fairly than they do.
Perhaps because YOU are trying to stand on a logical and ethical platform as an atheist and you totally undermine your own ethics and morality by engaging in something you supposedly decry. And you have no out, no excuse. You simply do it (even though you think it's wrong) because "the other guy does it!" How's that?
if you leave a stack of $20s out, you are thoughtless. you have no intent. therefore, you have committed no crime. meanwhile, if you walk into an open door and take the stack of $20s, you have a clear intent to commit a transgressive act and relieve someone else of something valuable which is not yours. you, and you alone, are culpable for what you have done
the magic concept?
intent
intent underlies all readings of morality in all cultures, for clear and obvious reasons of logical and philosophical coherence on the question of right and wrong
Now try to apply that to this case, please.
The scammer intended to scam the victim. Ok. Criminal intent.
The woman intented to give money to the scammer. Ok. Stupid intent.
There is "blame" enough to go around for both parties. Yet we only jail the scammer. Why? Intent.
Both are responsible for their respective actions, only one set of actions is criminal.
intent underlies all readings of morality in all cultures, for clear and obvious reasons of logical and philosophical coherence on the question of right and wrong
Yeah, I wish you would get a little logical and philosophical coherence to your arguments. This is nice and all but your little diversion here has really nothing to do with your original assertion that the woman bears no responsibility. Nor does it actually respond to the parent post.
You cannot assert that "Intent" is the only thing that bears looking at when we talk about "Responsibility" or "Fault". This is simply incorrect and this whole post is nothing more than a slick attempt to assert just that fallacy.
yes, for most of us here on slashdot, this is incredibly brain dead, but in general, there is a problem with you if you blame the victim for a crime, no matter how foolish or stupid they acted
Yes, for some set of crimes you are absolutely correct - the victim has little to no responsibility for what happened. A blanket statement that this is true for all crimes needs a little more proof or logic behind it than a simple statement like this, though.
whether a rape victim for wearing revealing clothes, or a guy walking in a dangerous neighborhood at night, yes: you can attack the victim, but if you want to actually claim any moral highground (which many of you seem to assume with a withering condescending tone as you blame the victim), the person who bears 100% responsibility and accountability for a crime is the criminal themselves, and only the criminal, and no one else
This was none of those. The only crime you can compare this with is "Nigerian email scam". What is so hard talking about what actually happened? Perhaps because doing so blows your assertions away?
For a rape victim - where is the volition that is shown in rape? Hint - there is none! For the nigerian email scam - does the scammer through the email "rape" your bank account?
This was entirely volition and wrong choices. She bears the entire responsibility for sending her money to someone else. It was an action she took on her own volition. It doesn't matter that it was the wrong action or that she made the wrong choice. The fact is that she made a choice. The fact is that she acted.
This is quite a funny post coming from you. Personal responsibility is still personal responsibility no matter how you cut it.
using knowledge and care to avoid crime is of course an important aspect of any behavior, but just because someone fails to do this, for any reason, does not mean they share blame for being victimized: a transgression is a transgression is a transgression. no one ASKS to be victimized in such a horrible way
Of course no one asks to be entirely broke. I am not blaming her for being victimized. I am asserting that she had control over whether she was victimzed or not - in contrast to the rape example you brought up, in contrast to this example of yours:
if you walk by the front door of a house, and the house is wide open, and no one is home, and in plain site is a stack of 20 dollar bills, you are 100% responsible and culpable if you take that stack of $20s. the person who left them there like that is, yes, pretty stupid. but they deserve zero blame. the criminal, ALWAYS the criminal is responsible for the trangressions that the criminal freely chooses to commit
Yes, they deserve zero blame. That is why we don't put these people in jail. This case, however IS NOT LIKE your example. Again. Let me try and modify this example to fit the facts we know:
if you walk by a front door of a house, and the house is wide open, and a woman is sitting by a stack of 20 dollar bills inside, you are 100% responsible and culpable if you take that stack of $20. If the woman in the chair comes out of the house and gives them to you she is yes, pretty stupid. but she deserves zero blame for the crime. the criminal, ALWAYS the criminal is responsible for the transgressions that the criminal freely chooses to commit, and the woman is responsible for any action she *freely* chooses to commit
Perhaps this highlights the differences between the examples you gave and this case.
any other opinion on the issue is, frankly, not morally or philosophically coherent
Frankly, i'm not sure you thought this through. You have provided no moral or philosophical basis for your reasoning. Your examples are off base and do not fit the given situation. You are conflating crimes which are perpetrated against someon
A neurosis occurs when your reaction to something is not realistic, even though you know it isn't realistic (e.g. arachnophobia is a neurosis).
A psychosis occurs when your reaction to something is not realistic, but you think it is (e.g. believing the voices in your head is a psychosis).
Exercise for/. crowd: Was Spears's reaction a neurosis or a psychosis?
Your exercise just shows that not everything can be divided up into neat little groups.
It is my understanding that this probably started as a "psychosis"; but under your definition all scams are psychoses of the victims. (believing a scammer is not realistic but you initially think you're getting in on a good deal).
At some point - probably when everyone around her was telling her to stop - her "psychosis" slipped into "neurosis" by your def'n. She almost certainly knew that she wasn't going to see any profit from sending more money and yet kept doing so.
But I don't think it's quite proper to treat victims of scams ad mentally unbalanced. When you receive a set of false information which you process as TRUE, all subsequent decisions are based on that initial assessment. Scammers influence you to make bad decisions. Additional support of the initially wrong assessment is continually provided by an outside source.
In many ways, it's much like politics. This is the same type of stretch one could use to call half the country neurotic or psychotic. Hmm. Perhaps you're right, after all.
For instance there is as much or more evidence that alcoholism is an inherited trait the sexual orientation, but there is no one running around telling people who have the genetic tendency towards alcoholism that they should just embrace the way they were born.
That's probably because alcoholism is inherently destructive, while someone's sexual orientation is not - it's MORALLY prohibited by certain groups. See the difference?
As someone who has strong antidotal evidence that I have inherited the traits for alcoholism. I find the suggestion that someone cannot or should not rise above the inherited traits through self awareness, self control , and proper actions especially offensive.
The effects of a predisposition for addiction is probably a couple of orders magnitude less than predisposition for sexual partners. Especially since sex is heavily linked to our survival as a species on a biological level (and no, it doesn't seem to matter what orientation!, curious no?), while alcohol addiction is not.
Yes, people "can" repress their innate sexual desires. So you are right. Through self awareness, self control and proper actions you can modify your behaviours.
But the fact remains that alcohol addiction is not like sexual orientation in one major way - there is no innate reason not to embrace your sexual orientation, unlike alcoholism. Secondly, there appears to be quite a great harm in fighting with your innate sexual desires. Sure, you "can" but the more appropriate route seems to be what you're so against (though I don't quite know why); let people be who they are.
I hope you can see the difference between alcoholism and homosexuality now, and how your argument is specious at best.
As for the whole "Red Scare/McCarthyism/CIA/KGB" justification, that's paranoid thinking right there. Most of those abuses are 50 years in the past.
Yes, this means FOR SURE that they aren't doing anything like this today. Those kinds of abuses just don't happen in America... and never did. Oh wait.
It is certainly not paranoid thinking to believe that it is possible that programs like this are going on today. It's realist thinking. Or do you think that governments have no interest in these areas now?
It's simply not practical for the government to be tailing any significant number of people that closely, given that those people still have to fight wars, deliver the mail, distribute grants, etc. Unless these people have some realistic reason for why they would be followed, I'm inclined to blame paranoia.
Statistically you're right. Given 100K+ cases any individual case is likely to be a misinterpretation of sense data. That just means for an individual case it is not probable that there is a discernible Actor. Experiment time! Perhaps there are some that do have discernible Actors. I'm not comfortable taking the extreme position that they are ALL delusional given our history and today's science.
If you look at how people outside Scientology treat the cult's victims (Tom Cruise) like lepers instead of offering an outside world of love and compassion, maybe it does make sense for him to think that the world is out to get him.
It doesn't seem like love and compassion to me to be supportive of someone's choice to be involved with Scientology. Just the opposite, in fact. That kind of love and compassion is called "enabling".
What people in cults need is to feel welcomed into the world outside the cult; otherwise, they'll just get pushed farther into their fantasy world.
Um, when they weren't in a cult I assume that everyone treated them normally. So, what pushed them in that direction in the first place? What change are you proposing that would modify their behaviour such that treating them normally will reverse the process that treating them normally caused?
Oh, on an Ideal level you are right. If everyone treated everyone else with love and compassion, if the outside world offered everyone love and compassion I'm sure that we wouldn't have organizations like Scientology and the people in it wouldn't be in their fantasy world.
Come back to me when you can get people to treat others with love and compassion for stuff that is entirely out of anyone's control, like race, before you talk to me about the "lack" of love and compassion I show Scientologists, who made a choice (even if they got victimized by making it). Especially since many of those "victims" intend on victimizing others!
What I am suggesting is that your idea will not work in the real world you wish to welcome them to, because that world doesn't yet exist. Since it does not, your idea basically sanctions and enables cult behaviour.
The problem is that the Open Source community "sells" their product based on a zero price point. If this isn't true, then they should be making that explicit up front.
Well! I was hoping someone would trot this out, and it looks like you have done it in spades all over this thread.
Since you also replied to me I guess I'll take the small effort required to help you out.
There are multiple pluses to OSS, but not all of them are valid at the same time or in the same circumstances.
One of those advantages, for certain types of software and certain types of use of that software is the zero price point you mention.
Most of the businesses in the US are NOT development shops. Basically all the commodity software a normal business uses has equivalents in the OSS world. And if the business uses it in a standard way they can have at least most of their entire IT software infrastructure at a zero price point. No need for support contracts, no purchase price.
So, for most small businesses (say, a hair cut shop or a local bookstore) this argument is exactly true. The can get rid of most of their licensing and software upgrade costs by switching to free commodity alternatives.
Now, the situation changes when you start talking about non-commodity software. If your business relies on some piece of non-commodity software to continue to be viable you should be thinking long and hard about stuff other than "price point".
OSS has these advantages in this type business critical software (please note that FREE! isn't one of them):
* YOU have the code * YOU can make changes * NO ONE can stop you from using the software, EVER (given it's legal & you stay legal) * YOU can contract with the author for support * If the original author refuses to fix an issue YOU can fork * If the original author abandons the project, YOU can maintain it * YOU can pay someone else other than the original author for any of the above
I hope that this has helped your understanding of the advantages of OSS, and which benefits accrue where.
If there are people depending on your software, then you've made a commitment.
Well, to be fair, my commitment is past tense in this case. I made the project available.
But if that's the case, then OSS becomes worse than useless for businesses. If the software is a key component of my business it's got to continue to be available.
Then perhaps you should make your OWN commitment to the software? A support contract goes a long way towards having an actual commitment from the author about the software.
This attitude is fine if you believe that OSS should be relegated to hobbyists but the Slashdot community tends to trumpet OSS as a business solution.
And the attitude that something is free therefore you expect everything else to be free is ridiculous, especially for a business! YOU are the one in business. I may not be. If you want support, updates, or for the code to even still be available then it is up to YOU to ensure this. Perhaps that support contract I mentioned above? How is this not a business solution? I think you are whinging that you should receive support but expect to not pay anything for it.
If you come across a developer who isn't willing or able to provide support for $$ and no one else is either become a contributor (gasp!), fork the project yourself (if that's an impossibility) or look for another package.
The key is that even is OSS, the only thing free is what's already there. Everything else costs - in one way or another. To expect other people to absorb these costs on your demand so you can make money is nonsensical and greedy.
They did. There are laws on the books. Of course, the supreme court has decided that those Bush's Executive Order trumps those laws since he signed one that declared these exercises vital to national defense.
So basically Executive Order >> Law. It will be interesting if Obama misuses presidential power the same way.
It seems that all it takes is an Executive Order declaring something vital to national defense. Root to the Supreme Court?
Perhaps this will cause the price of our TVs to drop?
Perhaps instead they will factor this cost into their new products in attempt to recoup this lost $$.
So the scenario is: Purchaser is hurt due to collusion and price fixing. Companies are caught. Purchaser is hurt due to fines.
Fines are only a deterrent if they actually hurt the companies bottom lines. If they can make enough profit during the price fixing phase, and jack up enough prices during the penalty phase to more than offset the penalty there will continue to be massive collusion in such systems.
I'm not sure whether mine works or not.. how would you know? People are often saying that things like roses 'smell nice' when all I can smell is that slightly damp smell that all plants smell of...
Hmm. Maybe that should be your first clue?
I also can't smell body odour, but I'm not convinced half the people that say they can are able to.. they're conditioned to by advertising for deoderants etc. - they see someone that looks like they haven't washed for a few days and go 'they smell' without any other evidence.
Yeah, and the earth is flat.
Not to pick on you, but I am amazed at the self centered attitude some people exhibit. You almost seem to think it's a CONSPIRACY that "smell" exists.
Would you have the same opinion if you were red/green colourblind? "People are just conditioned to see these colours by advertising..." Um, no, not in most cases. In MOST cases, when people smell someone who has BO... they actually do smell bad.
You've already convinced me, at least, that you don't have a very sensitive nose (by your rose and BO comments) what would convince you that your experimentally collected data is valid?
How? How did they "refuse" to "let" you leave the building?
As little as placing a hand on your shoulder counts as assault, I believe. A security guard is NOT a police officer. They have NO authority to physically touch you, much less restrain you from leaving a store.
You can also defend yourself against anyone who assaults you, security guards included.
As you said though, laws are different in different places. Anyone know of somewhere where the law would be on the security guard's side?
I call bullshit. Even in Europe. Reality has a center/center-right bias. Even among people who claim to be liberals, most people oppose immigration and the change that comes along with it, support what they (regionally) consider to be traditional values, and have strong religious beliefs.
The "reality has a liberal bias" quip is cute. But it's bogus. You'd have to live in a hole (ivory tower?) to actually believe it.
Why are you so angry? It's not bogus, nor is it bullshit. You simply have to understand the context where it's valid.
The statement is used when Reality on the ground does not match the Reality in the rhetoric of the far Right (in America, that is). They have this skewed view of Reality and then when Reality does not match up to their views it's a Liberal plot, conveniently ignored or they sing as a rallying cry - "the Media has a Liberal Bias!" conveniently ignoring the reported facts.
Certainly, taken at face value the phrase is untrue. Reality does not have a bias at all. But when someone says "reality has a liberal bias" they are in fact pointing out that the idiots on the extreme wing actually have a bias that is not consonant with Reality. It points out the inflexible nature of this type of mindset; in effect I'm not wrong, Reality is! It's also turning around the phrase the far Right has been using and making it less effective.
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Then those businesses will eventually die out. Sorry.
New businesses are being created all the time, especially in the small business category. Simple math will tell you that those with less expenses will eventually do better than those with more expenses (given the same category of competition).
I don't expect anyone to come out and make it more easy for MS to survive by doing what you suggest. Sure in the short term there's a gain in supporting VB6 but over the just slightly longer run not so much. Sure someone might do it for money or notoriety but since it hasn't happened yet I wouldn't expect much.
Good troll!
He is not our ally in ensuring we can get whatever media we want whenever we want for no cost.
I should hope not. I don't think anyone's truly your ally in getting whatever you want for no cost. Sorry about that. Maybe you should file a bug report?
For that to happen, Stevens would first have to stop fighting the conviction... until the case is settled, he can't be pardoned.
I looked this up recently and I believe you are wrong.
A president can pardon someone for crimes they have committed and been convicted of, that is true. A president may also pardon someone who has not been convicted or accused of any crimes. This is a preemptive method so that sometime later no one can investigate that person. It is even possible to pardon someone for unspecified acts, I believe.
So I do believe that the president can pardon someone in the middle of a case. It basically shuts it down and the charges go away.
I just read the law itself - available at http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/info/Leg_Archives/105GA/bills/Chapters/PC0819.pdf
After reading that, i believe that you are correct. The law states that schools must make "reasonable efforts" but provides no penalty for doing absolutely nothing and does not even define "reasonable".
At most, your efforts or lack thereof are put into a report. oooh scary!
I can't see any true justification for an independent school to comply; there is a penalty (in $$) for complying and none for just blowing them off. State schools may be another matter, though.
However:
Similar to many other industries that are regulated, this law is basically a suggestion with a report card type progress report. If non-compliance is an issue then you can expect further legislation involving actual penalties for non-compliance.
Those reports will be taken into account by the legislature. If they are in the mood to (and have received enough $$), they will then enact a penalty phase since this law failed to gain traction (you know that's what the RIAA will push, even if schools do try to comply).
The problem is it's not "best of luck" I'm pretty sure the law has some teeth should you not comply. It doesn't matter that there's no money for it; any discretionary budget will get soaked up - think upgrades (you really didn't need that new comp lab did you?)
Unless this law is struck down your uni will either do what the STATE wants or lose state support, perhaps accreditation, funding. This is a compliance issue now, not a "good luck" issue.
If you think you're in a budget crisis now, tell the RIAA "best of luck" after they serve your uni with 50+ of these notices...
Just as clearly, there are "more" even integers than there are odd integer multiples of seven.
Just as clearly there must be more integers on a whole number line than the number of real numbers between 0 and 1. After all, the number line goes out to infinity in both directions, and the other is just a bit of line segment...
Time is another one. Follow the paradoxes in that one and having time travel ends up proving that such a universe universe would be incapable of remembering your relative position and velocity at all.
Given our current understanding of the universe, and the understanding your statements would require I would say that you are wrong in presenting your assertion as truth. I would expect that there are quite some physicists who would disagree with you as well.
Next, logical paradox does not prevent physical occurrence. It merely means your logic is wrong. If you have found a set of logical statements to model the physical world that does not prevent the physical world from invalidating your models.
Hello? Mods on crack!
iceweasel was kind of a dick move from developers that didn't want to live up to the same expectations as everybody else.
I'm not certain why you think it's a "dick move" to do something that you're allowed to do. But I AM certain that they are living up EXACTLY to the same expectations as everyone else.
Trademark law in this case is supposed to protect people from installing something which differs from what they thought they were installing. IP isn't always the enemy, sometimes you need to know what something actually is in order to know what to do with it.
Yes, certainly. However, given the previous statement, you seem to propose that if GPL code has a trademark associated with it that only the trademark holder "should" be able to distribute the code. That is obviously a horrible position.
So, it's a "dick move" to remove the trademark as requested so you can distribute the software? Uh, I don't think so. The *opposite* would be far worse - if people who associate trademarks with GPL code have some standing to prevent distribution of the code (not the trademark).
Just because somebody sends you an invoice doesn't mean that you have to pay it.
This, in fact, is a common scam technique, where somebody will send to a small business some sort of random invoice (sometimes to larger businesses) demanding payment for some random "service" that has been provided.
However when the company sending you an invoice is the size of Toyota you have bigger problems than some scam artist sending an invoice.
You see, if Toyota wants to screw with you (and it certainly looks like they do in this case) the invoice will not just quietly disappear.
They (Toyota) should know full well that if they actually take legal action to collect on these invoices, that they would be thrown out of court.
Toyota have well established ties with collection agencies. They don't need to take any legal action to try and collect. If they believe that someone owes them money, they can merely send the "debt" to a collection agency. Your credit rating would suffer because Toyota has told the credit agencies you're in default on your payment. You start to get calls at home and work about the debt, etc...
It would be up to YOU to fight it in court. You would need to sue to prove that the invoice wasn't accurate. Depending exactly how much Toyota hates you, your lawyer fees *might* be paid ... if you win judgment ... in as little as 60 months...
So invoices from large companies are a real concern if they are incorrect - maliciously or not. More people trust them than trust you - even the government it seems. The default position is that the invoice is valid, as witnessed by the ability to turn it over to collection agencies, etc. unless YOU make a positive effort to counter the charge.
What do you mean? The parrot's not dead!
To your point about stereotyping - one of the difficulties with fighting the stereotyping of religions is that the 'major' faiths (christianity, judaism, islam - lower case intentional) are dogma-based
This is ironic, i think. Here you are agreeing that there is a problem stereotyping religions, and then go ahead and merrily do so. Oh wait, that was your entire point, that it's ok to stereotype religious people. I forgot.
Anyway, your blanket statement is provably false. Thanks for playing. IRL there are plenty of Christian sects that promote the only true connection to god is the personal. There are Christian sects that have no problem with homosexuals.
I share a neighborhood with a bunch of ...
Your personal anecdotes have little to do with your statement. The only truth one might make from them is that there are certain sects of Christianity that are dogma-based, or intolerant.
The problem is, if you look past the stereotypes and the denial of reason - and I'd be willing to look past those to some degree, because as you point out, we don't have all the answers on the 'science' side of the house either - you end up with intolerance and vitriol.
I'm not quite sure I understand what you're saying here. What I can make out is that if you look beyond the stereotyping and denial of reason that all Christians have you end up with intolerance and vitriol.
Sorry if that is an incorrect but I must disagree with my understanding of what you said. This appears to be just a stereotype YOU are placing on them with no factual basis (actually since we have contrary examples, it's just an example of mental illness).
Stereotypes can be helpful too - I was raised catholic. By associating priests with pedophilia (truly a stereotype, as pedophile priests are a tiny minority of the priesthood) I desensitized myself to the catholic symbols and mechanisms of oppression. Now, instead of seeing a 'father' I see a 'creepy pervert'. Such stereotyping helped flush the 'papal poison' from my memetic scheme.
So instead of one false viewpoint of the world you traded it for another *different* false viewpoint of the world. Perhaps you call this progress but I would not. You may think you have reprogrammed yourself but by the contents of this post it seems you have merely traded one dogma for another. The shape and size of your container for these philosophies doesn't seem to have changed merely the slant of the contents. In other words, it appears you have done a drop in replacement of Catholicism that in effect merely changes the "sign" of your outputs, not the quality.
Now, why again should we stop stereotyping religions and embrace them? I'll consider it when they stop stereotyping and start embracing everyone who does not believe as they do. When they stop mudslinging and worse, trying to deny the full, legitimate humanity of others based on *their* dogma, I'll grant them some respect. Until that time, given the chance, I will sling mud and take every shot, cheap or fair, that I can - I am still playing more fairly than they do.
Perhaps because YOU are trying to stand on a logical and ethical platform as an atheist and you totally undermine your own ethics and morality by engaging in something you supposedly decry. And you have no out, no excuse. You simply do it (even though you think it's wrong) because "the other guy does it!" How's that?
One of the conditions I would make before journeying to the US in this type of case is a distribution license for the code I leaked.
This is not a criminal case, and if I can get a license from the copyright holders then there is no case at all.
True or not?
if you leave a stack of $20s out, you are thoughtless. you have no intent. therefore, you have committed no crime. meanwhile, if you walk into an open door and take the stack of $20s, you have a clear intent to commit a transgressive act and relieve someone else of something valuable which is not yours. you, and you alone, are culpable for what you have done
the magic concept?
intent
intent underlies all readings of morality in all cultures, for clear and obvious reasons of logical and philosophical coherence on the question of right and wrong
Now try to apply that to this case, please.
The scammer intended to scam the victim. Ok. Criminal intent.
The woman intented to give money to the scammer. Ok. Stupid intent.
There is "blame" enough to go around for both parties. Yet we only jail the scammer. Why? Intent.
Both are responsible for their respective actions, only one set of actions is criminal.
intent underlies all readings of morality in all cultures, for clear and obvious reasons of logical and philosophical coherence on the question of right and wrong
Yeah, I wish you would get a little logical and philosophical coherence to your arguments. This is nice and all but your little diversion here has really nothing to do with your original assertion that the woman bears no responsibility. Nor does it actually respond to the parent post.
You cannot assert that "Intent" is the only thing that bears looking at when we talk about "Responsibility" or "Fault". This is simply incorrect and this whole post is nothing more than a slick attempt to assert just that fallacy.
yes, for most of us here on slashdot, this is incredibly brain dead, but in general, there is a problem with you if you blame the victim for a crime, no matter how foolish or stupid they acted
Yes, for some set of crimes you are absolutely correct - the victim has little to no responsibility for what happened. A blanket statement that this is true for all crimes needs a little more proof or logic behind it than a simple statement like this, though.
whether a rape victim for wearing revealing clothes, or a guy walking in a dangerous neighborhood at night, yes: you can attack the victim, but if you want to actually claim any moral highground (which many of you seem to assume with a withering condescending tone as you blame the victim), the person who bears 100% responsibility and accountability for a crime is the criminal themselves, and only the criminal, and no one else
This was none of those. The only crime you can compare this with is "Nigerian email scam". What is so hard talking about what actually happened? Perhaps because doing so blows your assertions away?
For a rape victim - where is the volition that is shown in rape? Hint - there is none!
For the nigerian email scam - does the scammer through the email "rape" your bank account?
This was entirely volition and wrong choices. She bears the entire responsibility for sending her money to someone else. It was an action she took on her own volition. It doesn't matter that it was the wrong action or that she made the wrong choice. The fact is that she made a choice. The fact is that she acted.
This is quite a funny post coming from you. Personal responsibility is still personal responsibility no matter how you cut it.
using knowledge and care to avoid crime is of course an important aspect of any behavior, but just because someone fails to do this, for any reason, does not mean they share blame for being victimized: a transgression is a transgression is a transgression. no one ASKS to be victimized in such a horrible way
Of course no one asks to be entirely broke. I am not blaming her for being victimized. I am asserting that she had control over whether she was victimzed or not - in contrast to the rape example you brought up, in contrast to this example of yours:
if you walk by the front door of a house, and the house is wide open, and no one is home, and in plain site is a stack of 20 dollar bills, you are 100% responsible and culpable if you take that stack of $20s. the person who left them there like that is, yes, pretty stupid. but they deserve zero blame. the criminal, ALWAYS the criminal is responsible for the trangressions that the criminal freely chooses to commit
Yes, they deserve zero blame. That is why we don't put these people in jail. This case, however IS NOT LIKE your example. Again. Let me try and modify this example to fit the facts we know:
if you walk by a front door of a house, and the house is wide open, and a woman is sitting by a stack of 20 dollar bills inside, you are 100% responsible and culpable if you take that stack of $20. If the woman in the chair comes out of the house and gives them to you she is yes, pretty stupid. but she deserves zero blame for the crime. the criminal, ALWAYS the criminal is responsible for the transgressions that the criminal freely chooses to commit, and the woman is responsible for any action she *freely* chooses to commit
Perhaps this highlights the differences between the examples you gave and this case.
any other opinion on the issue is, frankly, not morally or philosophically coherent
Frankly, i'm not sure you thought this through. You have provided no moral or philosophical basis for your reasoning. Your examples are off base and do not fit the given situation. You are conflating crimes which are perpetrated against someon
A neurosis occurs when your reaction to something is not realistic, even though you know it isn't realistic (e.g. arachnophobia is a neurosis).
A psychosis occurs when your reaction to something is not realistic, but you think it is (e.g. believing the voices in your head is a psychosis).
Exercise for /. crowd: Was Spears's reaction a neurosis or a psychosis?
Your exercise just shows that not everything can be divided up into neat little groups.
It is my understanding that this probably started as a "psychosis"; but under your definition all scams are psychoses of the victims. (believing a scammer is not realistic but you initially think you're getting in on a good deal).
At some point - probably when everyone around her was telling her to stop - her "psychosis" slipped into "neurosis" by your def'n. She almost certainly knew that she wasn't going to see any profit from sending more money and yet kept doing so.
But I don't think it's quite proper to treat victims of scams ad mentally unbalanced. When you receive a set of false information which you process as TRUE, all subsequent decisions are based on that initial assessment. Scammers influence you to make bad decisions. Additional support of the initially wrong assessment is continually provided by an outside source.
In many ways, it's much like politics. This is the same type of stretch one could use to call half the country neurotic or psychotic. Hmm. Perhaps you're right, after all.
For instance there is as much or more evidence that alcoholism is an inherited trait the sexual orientation, but there is no one running around telling people who have the genetic tendency towards alcoholism that they should just embrace the way they were born.
That's probably because alcoholism is inherently destructive, while someone's sexual orientation is not - it's MORALLY prohibited by certain groups. See the difference?
As someone who has strong antidotal evidence that I have inherited the traits for alcoholism. I find the suggestion that someone cannot or should not rise above the inherited traits through self awareness, self control , and proper actions especially offensive.
The effects of a predisposition for addiction is probably a couple of orders magnitude less than predisposition for sexual partners. Especially since sex is heavily linked to our survival as a species on a biological level (and no, it doesn't seem to matter what orientation!, curious no?), while alcohol addiction is not.
Yes, people "can" repress their innate sexual desires. So you are right. Through self awareness, self control and proper actions you can modify your behaviours.
But the fact remains that alcohol addiction is not like sexual orientation in one major way - there is no innate reason not to embrace your sexual orientation, unlike alcoholism. Secondly, there appears to be quite a great harm in fighting with your innate sexual desires. Sure, you "can" but the more appropriate route seems to be what you're so against (though I don't quite know why); let people be who they are.
I hope you can see the difference between alcoholism and homosexuality now, and how your argument is specious at best.
As for the whole "Red Scare/McCarthyism/CIA/KGB" justification, that's paranoid thinking right there. Most of those abuses are 50 years in the past.
Yes, this means FOR SURE that they aren't doing anything like this today. Those kinds of abuses just don't happen in America ... and never did. Oh wait.
It is certainly not paranoid thinking to believe that it is possible that programs like this are going on today. It's realist thinking. Or do you think that governments have no interest in these areas now?
It's simply not practical for the government to be tailing any significant number of people that closely, given that those people still have to fight wars, deliver the mail, distribute grants, etc. Unless these people have some realistic reason for why they would be followed, I'm inclined to blame paranoia.
Statistically you're right. Given 100K+ cases any individual case is likely to be a misinterpretation of sense data. That just means for an individual case it is not probable that there is a discernible Actor. Experiment time! Perhaps there are some that do have discernible Actors. I'm not comfortable taking the extreme position that they are ALL delusional given our history and today's science.
If you look at how people outside Scientology treat the cult's victims (Tom Cruise) like lepers instead of offering an outside world of love and compassion, maybe it does make sense for him to think that the world is out to get him.
It doesn't seem like love and compassion to me to be supportive of someone's choice to be involved with Scientology. Just the opposite, in fact. That kind of love and compassion is called "enabling".
What people in cults need is to feel welcomed into the world outside the cult; otherwise, they'll just get pushed farther into their fantasy world.
Um, when they weren't in a cult I assume that everyone treated them normally. So, what pushed them in that direction in the first place? What change are you proposing that would modify their behaviour such that treating them normally will reverse the process that treating them normally caused?
Oh, on an Ideal level you are right. If everyone treated everyone else with love and compassion, if the outside world offered everyone love and compassion I'm sure that we wouldn't have organizations like Scientology and the people in it wouldn't be in their fantasy world.
Come back to me when you can get people to treat others with love and compassion for stuff that is entirely out of anyone's control, like race, before you talk to me about the "lack" of love and compassion I show Scientologists, who made a choice (even if they got victimized by making it). Especially since many of those "victims" intend on victimizing others!
What I am suggesting is that your idea will not work in the real world you wish to welcome them to, because that world doesn't yet exist. Since it does not, your idea basically sanctions and enables cult behaviour.
The problem is that the Open Source community "sells" their product based on a zero price point. If this isn't true, then they should be making that explicit up front.
Well! I was hoping someone would trot this out, and it looks like you have done it in spades all over this thread.
Since you also replied to me I guess I'll take the small effort required to help you out.
There are multiple pluses to OSS, but not all of them are valid at the same time or in the same circumstances.
One of those advantages, for certain types of software and certain types of use of that software is the zero price point you mention.
Most of the businesses in the US are NOT development shops. Basically all the commodity software a normal business uses has equivalents in the OSS world. And if the business uses it in a standard way they can have at least most of their entire IT software infrastructure at a zero price point. No need for support contracts, no purchase price.
So, for most small businesses (say, a hair cut shop or a local bookstore) this argument is exactly true. The can get rid of most of their licensing and software upgrade costs by switching to free commodity alternatives.
Now, the situation changes when you start talking about non-commodity software. If your business relies on some piece of non-commodity software to continue to be viable you should be thinking long and hard about stuff other than "price point".
OSS has these advantages in this type business critical software (please note that FREE! isn't one of them):
* YOU have the code
* YOU can make changes
* NO ONE can stop you from using the software, EVER (given it's legal & you stay legal)
* YOU can contract with the author for support
* If the original author refuses to fix an issue YOU can fork
* If the original author abandons the project, YOU can maintain it
* YOU can pay someone else other than the original author for any of the above
I hope that this has helped your understanding of the advantages of OSS, and which benefits accrue where.
If there are people depending on your software, then you've made a commitment.
Well, to be fair, my commitment is past tense in this case. I made the project available.
But if that's the case, then OSS becomes worse than useless for businesses. If the software is a key component of my business it's got to continue to be available.
Then perhaps you should make your OWN commitment to the software? A support contract goes a long way towards having an actual commitment from the author about the software.
This attitude is fine if you believe that OSS should be relegated to hobbyists but the Slashdot community tends to trumpet OSS as a business solution.
And the attitude that something is free therefore you expect everything else to be free is ridiculous, especially for a business! YOU are the one in business. I may not be. If you want support, updates, or for the code to even still be available then it is up to YOU to ensure this. Perhaps that support contract I mentioned above? How is this not a business solution? I think you are whinging that you should receive support but expect to not pay anything for it.
If you come across a developer who isn't willing or able to provide support for $$ and no one else is either become a contributor (gasp!), fork the project yourself (if that's an impossibility) or look for another package.
The key is that even is OSS, the only thing free is what's already there. Everything else costs - in one way or another. To expect other people to absorb these costs on your demand so you can make money is nonsensical and greedy.
HTH.
They did. There are laws on the books. Of course, the supreme court has decided that those Bush's Executive Order trumps those laws since he signed one that declared these exercises vital to national defense.
So basically Executive Order >> Law. It will be interesting if Obama misuses presidential power the same way.
It seems that all it takes is an Executive Order declaring something vital to national defense. Root to the Supreme Court?
Perhaps this will cause the price of our TVs to drop?
Perhaps instead they will factor this cost into their new products in attempt to recoup this lost $$.
So the scenario is: Purchaser is hurt due to collusion and price fixing. Companies are caught. Purchaser is hurt due to fines.
Fines are only a deterrent if they actually hurt the companies bottom lines. If they can make enough profit during the price fixing phase, and jack up enough prices during the penalty phase to more than offset the penalty there will continue to be massive collusion in such systems.
I'm not sure whether mine works or not.. how would you know? People are often saying that things like roses 'smell nice' when all I can smell is that slightly damp smell that all plants smell of...
Hmm. Maybe that should be your first clue?
I also can't smell body odour, but I'm not convinced half the people that say they can are able to.. they're conditioned to by advertising for deoderants etc. - they see someone that looks like they haven't washed for a few days and go 'they smell' without any other evidence.
Yeah, and the earth is flat.
Not to pick on you, but I am amazed at the self centered attitude some people exhibit. You almost seem to think it's a CONSPIRACY that "smell" exists.
Would you have the same opinion if you were red/green colourblind? "People are just conditioned to see these colours by advertising..." Um, no, not in most cases. In MOST cases, when people smell someone who has BO ... they actually do smell bad.
You've already convinced me, at least, that you don't have a very sensitive nose (by your rose and BO comments) what would convince you that your experimentally collected data is valid?
How? How did they "refuse" to "let" you leave the building?
As little as placing a hand on your shoulder counts as assault, I believe. A security guard is NOT a police officer. They have NO authority to physically touch you, much less restrain you from leaving a store.
You can also defend yourself against anyone who assaults you, security guards included.
As you said though, laws are different in different places. Anyone know of somewhere where the law would be on the security guard's side?
I call bullshit. Even in Europe. Reality has a center/center-right bias. Even among people who claim to be liberals, most people oppose immigration and the change that comes along with it, support what they (regionally) consider to be traditional values, and have strong religious beliefs.
The "reality has a liberal bias" quip is cute. But it's bogus. You'd have to live in a hole (ivory tower?) to actually believe it.
Why are you so angry? It's not bogus, nor is it bullshit. You simply have to understand the context where it's valid.
The statement is used when Reality on the ground does not match the Reality in the rhetoric of the far Right (in America, that is). They have this skewed view of Reality and then when Reality does not match up to their views it's a Liberal plot, conveniently ignored or they sing as a rallying cry - "the Media has a Liberal Bias!" conveniently ignoring the reported facts.
Certainly, taken at face value the phrase is untrue. Reality does not have a bias at all. But when someone says "reality has a liberal bias" they are in fact pointing out that the idiots on the extreme wing actually have a bias that is not consonant with Reality. It points out the inflexible nature of this type of mindset; in effect I'm not wrong, Reality is! It's also turning around the phrase the far Right has been using and making it less effective.