Just because something works as an affirmative defense in court does not mean that it is not a Right.
I have the Right to defend myself. And I have the Right to fair use of copyrighted works.
You should also note that lawyers in this day and age are allowed to plead in the alternative. This means that a lawyer could argue both that his client didn't commit the crime, and that his client should be acquitted because he was acting in self defense. Whether or not it is good strategy to do so is obviously questionable, but pleading self defense does not surrender *anything* to the prosecution.
By that logic, self defense is not a Right because it is only a defense against a battery charge.
Self defense is a Right, and so is fair use. I'm not sure where this fallacy originated, but it is ridiculous. Actually, I know where it originated. It originated with the RIAA.
It's not the clerks. Most of this fraud occurs electronically... no one ever stepped into a B&M bank. No clerk was involved.
The truth is that there is no security on checking accounts. If you have the routing number and the account number, you can clean out the account via electronic transfers. There is no authentication. And the owner of the account usually has to take the loss, at least until the bank is convinced that it was a fraudulent transfer.
The count is watched by scrutineers, who may challenge how a vote is being counted. They may also challenge the formality or informality of a vote -- whether the vote is allowed to be counted.
Scrutineer is the coolest job title ever.
Incidentally, the Australian Electoral Commission also makes itself available for contract work. They mostly run ballots for unions and the like. They'd probably be available to run the Presidential election in November for a very reasonable rate.
Haha, that would be awesome. The US actually chooses election systems at the state and local level. It would be really funny if some small community in the US hired the Australian Electoral Commission to run their polling centers.
Most states have ridiculous requirements for getting a PI license. You basically can't get one in many states unless you've been a police officer. There is no public interest reason to do this. Requiring the PI license for this is just a gift to all the people who already have PI licenses.
I haven't looked at computer forensics recently, but when I did (roughly five years ago), there were some problems with it. Basically, because of the way that courts certify experts to testify in court, it was impossible to hire a computer forensic expert to work for the defense. It went something like this:
1. To testify as an expert in court, you have to be a member of the leading professional body for your field. 2. The leading professional body of computer forensic experts forbade its members from working for the defense.
Obviously that's problematic. Hopefully it's changed by now.
The other thing I thought was really funny was the way that most computer crime labs staff up with "experts". Rather than hiring people with computer science degrees and training them on how to do police work, they tend to hire police officers and then train them on computer forensics. The good ole boy system at work.
No, they were asked to log IP addresses. They weren't asked to preserve every bit which is stored in RAM.
They argued that they shouldn't have to log information that normally resides only in RAM. The Judge said to log the IP addresses on the hard drive.
Although I'm not sure that discovery should be able to order new documents to be created (which is effectively what was ordered), the order wasn't so unreasonable as logging every bit stored in RAM in real time.
Unelected FCC commissioners making decisions that will have a huge impact on the future of communications in this country... I'm sure this is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution.
Yeah, you're definitely right. When I was a kid my Apple ][c had BASIC built in. MS DOS came with QBASIC. I grew up hacking those until I eventually downloaded DJGPP and got my feet really wet in C/C++. Windows versions since Windows 95 don't include anything suitable for kids who want to learn how to program.
Perhaps the XO is a return to the old days in some respects. You don't need a powerful machine to have something useful. Power users want powerful machines, but for most uses, a $200 laptop will do just fine.
EA had just gotten a new CEO, who had no experience in the video game industry. The first thing she did was shut down every project that wasn't a triple A title. This of course included Multiplayer Battletech 3025. The game was in open beta and it was substantially complete. The only thing that had to be done was flip the retail switch and start collecting subscription fees.
Steve Jobs was CEO of Pixar... Pixar was bought by Disney.
CEOs of other companies being on the board of directors is actually pretty common. Up until a few months ago I worked at JP Morgan Chase. The CEO of Comcast was on the board of directors (probably still is).
I'm not alone. There's the comic's author for one. Then there's the/. mods that modded my post up. Five is not a huge number, but it's a start.
I refuse to live in fear about what people may think about what I've done or said. I'd rather live with consequences than live in fear. Even if that means I'm first against the wall...
You say it's a long shot, but what if you're wrong? Or maybe it is a long shot, but it's still a possibility. If we're not listening, we won't ever hear anything. If there's anyone else out there, I want to hear them, even at the risk that there isn't anyone else and SETI is just a big waste of money.
Oh c'mon. You don't want to watch the Mars Bowl in low def, do you? With technological advances like these, soon we'll be able to watch all intergalactic sporting events in Hi Def!
It's difficult to prevent collusion when more than two people are supposed to be playing a game "free for all." How can you tell if a team up is prearranged or spur-of-the-moment for mutual advantage? You can't, in many cases. People who play games competitively are wary of free-for-all tournaments in *any* game.
One of the big exceptions to this is poker tournaments. Poker is very susceptible to collusion attacks, but many players are willing to overlook this to play in tournaments. There are many allegations of collusion in major tournaments, but most of them are backed up with little or no proof.
Years ago (I think it was about 2001/2002) I was carded when I bought Unreal Tournament. I don't buy many M rated games, so I can't remember specifically anytime I bought one and wasn't carded. Nowadays I probably wouldn't get carded anyway because I look too old.
world of warcraft has a ton of content suitable for casual play.
Tons of 5 man dungeons, once you get through them, you can then do them on heroic. No need for a larger group.
Battlegrounds. Hop into a battleground anytime, the battles are usually over in less than 30 minutes.
Arena. You do need a regular group for these, but the regular group can be as small as two people. Not difficult for casuals to access. The matching system will try to match you against similarly rated groups, so while you may get beat by the occasional hardcore group, you should mostly be matched against other casual groups who you have a chance against.
There's not much need to generate new content for lowbies. New players haven't played the already existing low level content (which in WoW is quite good), and old players for the most part don't mind playing through the content again if they want to level alts (not that they have to play through the exact same content. There are many options in WoW as to what zones you want to level in, and which zones to skip. It would be quite an undertaking to do every quest in the game.)
As far as the "keep adding onto the endgame" trap, WoW hasn't at all fallen into this trap. Why? With each expansion, they are not adding onto the previous endgame content. They are obsoleting the previous endgame content, and adding a completely new endgame. With a new level cap of 80, all that 1337 level 70 gear the hard core raiders worked so hard for will be obsolete. They will level their characters to 80 and start working on getting new 1337 level 80 gear. In Burning Crusade, few people enter the pre-BC endgame dungeons, and those that do just do them for fun. The same will be true of BC endgame dungeons once Wrath is out. The exception is that BC raid dungeons are very tough to get attuned for, so it will be hard to find enough people who are attuned to do them for fun. Most people won't want to bother when they can't get any current endgame relevant loot.
A common complaint I hear from WoW casuals is that the game is "over" for them when their character hits max level. While I say there is a ton of good casual content at the max level, these players obviously disagree. And for them, they now get ten new levels worth of content to play through. I expect 70 - 80 to take about the same amount of time as 60 - 70 did. There will be hardcore players there the first week. Casual players will be content to work through it over the course of a few months. Note that WoW has been out for almost three years. Most casual players, even those who started "late," have characters at or near the level cap.
WoW has a lot of issues. Lack of content for casual players is not one of them. The last expansion added new starting zones and new races. Casual players loved these. I don't expect Blizzard to forget casual players with this expansion either.
I let my subscription lapse in august. I'm constantly tempted to reactivate, but I'm in law school now, so that would be a bad idea. Besides, Hellgate: London is coming out, and that is going to rock =]
Mathematical calculations are an important part of poker, but they are not the only part.
Math: pot odds, implied odds, EV (expected value). Mathematical calculations are the easy part of the game, for both humans and computers. There are only 52 cards in the deck. All you have to do is count how many outs you have. Then you look at how much more it is to call, compared to how much is already in the pot. Very easy to learn.
There is also a very important strategy element. There is more than one way to play any poker hand, and knowing how to play a hand in any given situation is key. One of the biggest variations is your opponent. Whether your opponent is tight or loose, passive or aggressive will change how you play against them. The best players can play multiple styles and will change gears abruptly to deceive the opposition. Picking up on these changes is obviously important.
Common sense would dictate that we don't put massive tariffs on sugar. Yet we do.
Common sense would dictate that we don't give massive subsidies to corn farmers. Yet we do.
Both of these contribute to corn syrup being massively cheaper than real sugar in the United States. As a result, most manufactured food in the US uses corn syrup instead of sugar. Lots of studies are now showing that corn syrup is really bad for you. Much worse than sugar.
The logical reaction would be to remove sugar tariffs, and stop giving subsidies to corn farmers.
Unfortunately, we cannot expect a rational response from the US government.
Agreed. You can be a great software engineer without those things though. You just have to be aware that you can't do them, and make sure tasks involving them get assigned to the computer science guys that *can* do them.
In my mind, computer science is about math and algorithms. Software engineering is about architecture, design patterns, code maintainability, and of course, project management.
Slashdot Mirror
I am well aware of how affirmative defenses work.
Just because something works as an affirmative defense in court does not mean that it is not a Right.
I have the Right to defend myself.
And I have the Right to fair use of copyrighted works.
You should also note that lawyers in this day and age are allowed to plead in the alternative. This means that a lawyer could argue both that his client didn't commit the crime, and that his client should be acquitted because he was acting in self defense. Whether or not it is good strategy to do so is obviously questionable, but pleading self defense does not surrender *anything* to the prosecution.
IANAL, but I am a first year law student.
By that logic, self defense is not a Right because it is only a defense against a battery charge.
/.ers parroting RIAA talking points?
Self defense is a Right, and so is fair use. I'm not sure where this fallacy originated, but it is ridiculous. Actually, I know where it originated. It originated with the RIAA.
So why are
It's not the clerks. Most of this fraud occurs electronically... no one ever stepped into a B&M bank. No clerk was involved.
The truth is that there is no security on checking accounts. If you have the routing number and the account number, you can clean out the account via electronic transfers. There is no authentication. And the owner of the account usually has to take the loss, at least until the bank is convinced that it was a fraudulent transfer.
Driverless cars sound nice, but I really want a flying car.
The count is watched by scrutineers, who may challenge how a vote is being counted. They may also challenge the formality or informality of a vote -- whether the vote is allowed to be counted.
Scrutineer is the coolest job title ever.
Incidentally, the Australian Electoral Commission also makes itself available for contract work. They mostly run ballots for unions and the like. They'd probably be available to run the Presidential election in November for a very reasonable rate.
Haha, that would be awesome. The US actually chooses election systems at the state and local level. It would be really funny if some small community in the US hired the Australian Electoral Commission to run their polling centers.
This is just protectionism...
Most states have ridiculous requirements for getting a PI license. You basically can't get one in many states unless you've been a police officer. There is no public interest reason to do this. Requiring the PI license for this is just a gift to all the people who already have PI licenses.
I haven't looked at computer forensics recently, but when I did (roughly five years ago), there were some problems with it. Basically, because of the way that courts certify experts to testify in court, it was impossible to hire a computer forensic expert to work for the defense. It went something like this:
1. To testify as an expert in court, you have to be a member of the leading professional body for your field.
2. The leading professional body of computer forensic experts forbade its members from working for the defense.
Obviously that's problematic. Hopefully it's changed by now.
The other thing I thought was really funny was the way that most computer crime labs staff up with "experts". Rather than hiring people with computer science degrees and training them on how to do police work, they tend to hire police officers and then train them on computer forensics. The good ole boy system at work.
No, they were asked to log IP addresses. They weren't asked to preserve every bit which is stored in RAM.
They argued that they shouldn't have to log information that normally resides only in RAM. The Judge said to log the IP addresses on the hard drive.
Although I'm not sure that discovery should be able to order new documents to be created (which is effectively what was ordered), the order wasn't so unreasonable as logging every bit stored in RAM in real time.
Unelected FCC commissioners making decisions that will have a huge impact on the future of communications in this country... I'm sure this is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution.
The US House of Representatives is not in charge of Gundam.
Yeah, you're definitely right. When I was a kid my Apple ][c had BASIC built in. MS DOS came with QBASIC. I grew up hacking those until I eventually downloaded DJGPP and got my feet really wet in C/C++. Windows versions since Windows 95 don't include anything suitable for kids who want to learn how to program.
Perhaps the XO is a return to the old days in some respects. You don't need a powerful machine to have something useful. Power users want powerful machines, but for most uses, a $200 laptop will do just fine.
I don't think MS pulled the license from it...
EA had just gotten a new CEO, who had no experience in the video game industry. The first thing she did was shut down every project that wasn't a triple A title. This of course included Multiplayer Battletech 3025. The game was in open beta and it was substantially complete. The only thing that had to be done was flip the retail switch and start collecting subscription fees.
but the DMCA outlaws the removal of DRM.
I believe that removing DRM to exercise your fair rights *is* a Right.
The Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the issue.
Kinda funny how it happened.
Steve Jobs was CEO of Pixar... Pixar was bought by Disney.
CEOs of other companies being on the board of directors is actually pretty common. Up until a few months ago I worked at JP Morgan Chase. The CEO of Comcast was on the board of directors (probably still is).
I'm not alone. There's the comic's author for one. Then there's the /. mods that modded my post up. Five is not a huge number, but it's a start.
I refuse to live in fear about what people may think about what I've done or said. I'd rather live with consequences than live in fear. Even if that means I'm first against the wall...
http://xkcd.com/137/
You say it's a long shot, but what if you're wrong? Or maybe it is a long shot, but it's still a possibility. If we're not listening, we won't ever hear anything. If there's anyone else out there, I want to hear them, even at the risk that there isn't anyone else and SETI is just a big waste of money.
Oh c'mon. You don't want to watch the Mars Bowl in low def, do you? With technological advances like these, soon we'll be able to watch all intergalactic sporting events in Hi Def!
It's difficult to prevent collusion when more than two people are supposed to be playing a game "free for all." How can you tell if a team up is prearranged or spur-of-the-moment for mutual advantage? You can't, in many cases. People who play games competitively are wary of free-for-all tournaments in *any* game.
One of the big exceptions to this is poker tournaments. Poker is very susceptible to collusion attacks, but many players are willing to overlook this to play in tournaments. There are many allegations of collusion in major tournaments, but most of them are backed up with little or no proof.
Years ago (I think it was about 2001/2002) I was carded when I bought Unreal Tournament. I don't buy many M rated games, so I can't remember specifically anytime I bought one and wasn't carded. Nowadays I probably wouldn't get carded anyway because I look too old.
Amazing. A telecom with vision. That's completely unheard of over here in the states. The only thing our telecoms can envision is the almighty dollar.
world of warcraft has a ton of content suitable for casual play.
Tons of 5 man dungeons, once you get through them, you can then do them on heroic. No need for a larger group.
Battlegrounds. Hop into a battleground anytime, the battles are usually over in less than 30 minutes.
Arena. You do need a regular group for these, but the regular group can be as small as two people. Not difficult for casuals to access. The matching system will try to match you against similarly rated groups, so while you may get beat by the occasional hardcore group, you should mostly be matched against other casual groups who you have a chance against.
There's not much need to generate new content for lowbies. New players haven't played the already existing low level content (which in WoW is quite good), and old players for the most part don't mind playing through the content again if they want to level alts (not that they have to play through the exact same content. There are many options in WoW as to what zones you want to level in, and which zones to skip. It would be quite an undertaking to do every quest in the game.)
As far as the "keep adding onto the endgame" trap, WoW hasn't at all fallen into this trap. Why? With each expansion, they are not adding onto the previous endgame content. They are obsoleting the previous endgame content, and adding a completely new endgame. With a new level cap of 80, all that 1337 level 70 gear the hard core raiders worked so hard for will be obsolete. They will level their characters to 80 and start working on getting new 1337 level 80 gear. In Burning Crusade, few people enter the pre-BC endgame dungeons, and those that do just do them for fun. The same will be true of BC endgame dungeons once Wrath is out. The exception is that BC raid dungeons are very tough to get attuned for, so it will be hard to find enough people who are attuned to do them for fun. Most people won't want to bother when they can't get any current endgame relevant loot.
A common complaint I hear from WoW casuals is that the game is "over" for them when their character hits max level. While I say there is a ton of good casual content at the max level, these players obviously disagree. And for them, they now get ten new levels worth of content to play through. I expect 70 - 80 to take about the same amount of time as 60 - 70 did. There will be hardcore players there the first week. Casual players will be content to work through it over the course of a few months. Note that WoW has been out for almost three years. Most casual players, even those who started "late," have characters at or near the level cap.
WoW has a lot of issues. Lack of content for casual players is not one of them. The last expansion added new starting zones and new races. Casual players loved these. I don't expect Blizzard to forget casual players with this expansion either.
I let my subscription lapse in august. I'm constantly tempted to reactivate, but I'm in law school now, so that would be a bad idea. Besides, Hellgate: London is coming out, and that is going to rock =]
Mathematical calculations are an important part of poker, but they are not the only part.
Math: pot odds, implied odds, EV (expected value). Mathematical calculations are the easy part of the game, for both humans and computers. There are only 52 cards in the deck. All you have to do is count how many outs you have. Then you look at how much more it is to call, compared to how much is already in the pot. Very easy to learn.
There is also a very important strategy element. There is more than one way to play any poker hand, and knowing how to play a hand in any given situation is key. One of the biggest variations is your opponent. Whether your opponent is tight or loose, passive or aggressive will change how you play against them. The best players can play multiple styles and will change gears abruptly to deceive the opposition. Picking up on these changes is obviously important.
Common sense would dictate that we don't put massive tariffs on sugar. Yet we do.
Common sense would dictate that we don't give massive subsidies to corn farmers. Yet we do.
Both of these contribute to corn syrup being massively cheaper than real sugar in the United States. As a result, most manufactured food in the US uses corn syrup instead of sugar. Lots of studies are now showing that corn syrup is really bad for you. Much worse than sugar.
The logical reaction would be to remove sugar tariffs, and stop giving subsidies to corn farmers.
Unfortunately, we cannot expect a rational response from the US government.
Agreed. You can be a great software engineer without those things though. You just have to be aware that you can't do them, and make sure tasks involving them get assigned to the computer science guys that *can* do them.
In my mind, computer science is about math and algorithms. Software engineering is about architecture, design patterns, code maintainability, and of course, project management.
I think you're confusing software engineering with computer science.
Math isn't important to software engineering, but it is of great importance to computer science.