I don't really agree with everything you said, but the Troll modifier was completely unwarranted.
I know. Jesus H. Christ. WTF. The idiots mod'ding on here are getting rather out of hand. My post was so NOT troll.
Anyway. Back to business and on to your your reply.
Personally, I will accept ZERO losses of freedom for even real gains in security. Not perceived gains mind you, REAL tangible gains.
It's too late. In 2008, you can be stopped, required to show your 'papers' (driver's license), questioned and interrogated, threatened with guns, shot, arrested, and taken into custody without committing any crime. How? By police. There are so many laws on the books that at any given moment in time you are guilty of something, even if it's a matter of interpretation and you eventually get off, it can still happen causing you grief, humiliation, financial loss, and wasted time. The depressing part is it's worsening by the month.
I am PERFECTLY willing to go and KILL absolutely every one and everything affecting my freedom. Just point the direction. If a politician says to me that I have to lose freedom, privacy, and anonymity due to some enemy out there, I will respond with this question, "Can we just go kill them instead?".
My stance would not be so aggressive. I would draw the line at our borders. Inside our borders, yes, but outside no. I don't feel invading other countries to root out 'tarrists' and thus create new 'tarrists' is a wise plan of action, nor is losing our moral ground.
Whatever happened to fighting for your freedom? I thought that was the American Way right?
We all have different definitions of fighting though.
It's an irrational reaction to a problem. Deal with the cause not the effect.
What do you do when 50 years of diplomacy doesn't work or when adversary won't be satisfied unless you're dead?
Solving terrorism is not as easy as just dealing with it. Somewhere in that someone has to fill the gaps between desiring to solve it, finding the cause, and eliminating the cause. The best minds and entire nations have been working on it for decades, yet it still persists. At some point, desperation kicks in and all the remaining options, although Orwellian, will be tried.
I don't think terrorism will ever be solved. It's an unrealistic goal so what needs to be decided is what level of freedom do we need and what cost of life is going to be acceptable to maintain our freedom.
Because every hour I could spend in front of my computer writing code HAS A VALUE.
People who do OSS *donate* the cost of their time. (especially the hot-shot ones who earn a lot of money) but that doesn't mean it's free.
You're right in that time has value (it's not free) but is it collectable or actionable? What I mean by that is could that time have been converted to dollars? If it can't, then it doesn't have the same monetary value as time spent coding on a paying job so drawing an equivalence is not valid.
If someone spent their free time writing a desktop app, what would it sell for? $30 a copy maybe? How many copies would be sold? Would it be the next killer app? Very unlikely, so the value of that time is measured in something probably closer to pennies per hour, rather than the full rate one gets at a job. Giving away those pennies on the hour is no where near close as giving away $28, $30, or $75 per hour (whichever, take your pic).
Now, if someone took on a second job and did earn a full rate is that feasible? Could anyone really consistently work 80 hours a week and give 100% to both jobs? Maybe for several months, or a year, but how long can that be sustained? Would you be miserable and hate your life? Would your spouse leave you and children grow up never knowing you? Probably, so doing it isn't reasonable. It's not the common case so it wouldn't be valid to use that as a rare case to represent the majority of cases.
So in summary, your time does indeed have value, but at what cost? What's missing from this thread is the cost incurred from using your spare time to earn more money. It's difficult to measure the costs (reduced performance at your day job, lost spouse, kids who hate you) so it's also difficult to measure the net profit (revenue minus cost) if that time had been used to earn money. It's quite likely that you'd come out deep in the negative even though you sold 1000, 10000, or 100000 copies of your killer desktop app in your spare time.
but because everyone was checking their bags and the only things brought on as carry-on were purses and briefcases. Now we are back to a family of fours luggage for a week long vacation in the overhead taking up all the space.
And, it's only going to get worse if airlines are going to begin charging for the 1st checked bag. Everyone will try to evade the charge and cram everything into overhead compartments using up the little space there is.
I know I can't stand dealing with the rush to grab seats. Getting a seat first means you get your bags close to you and that means getting off the plane faster.
Now I just point out how stupid it is to trade a scarce good, like money or food, for a non-scarce one, like a digital reproduction.
Making a electronic copy does not require much in resources, true, but distributing that copy in volume requires resources which is scarce. It also requires expensive advertising to get their name out there. Advertising is also scarce. When you pay for an electronic copy, you're paying to author to recoup their distribution and advertising costs, not the cost of copying.
If an author wanted to be an idealist, he could house his wares on a free site, offer free downloads, or offer the work as a torrent, and not have to pay a thing (outside of basic ISP service); however, he's not earning anything so that transaction is a wash--an exchange of 0 distribution cost with 0 profit. In that scenario, the cost of writing or developing the product is never recouped so the artist loses on that venture. Negative profit. Thus an incentive not to create a work. I don't think we're better off with artists and developers not creating.
It's also a question of liability. Who do you sue when things go wrong? It's much easier to hold a company liable when you paid for their product.
Business by definition is a venture riddled with risk. Managers try to minimize risk, but it's always there. I find it strange that those managers frequently bet the company on core products developed in-house, which aren't even proven business models, yet refuse to be willing to bet on FOSS.
since we know there are genes that predispose to tobacco addiction.
It's an addictive behavior, not a disease, but rather a psychological problem treated with mental health therapy. And so is alcoholism as well.
The US government agrees (at least with alcoholism, but it's related to smoking so I mention it.) Supreme court case Traynor v. Turnage 1988, 485 US 535.
BTW, I've spent most my life not smoking, however I have fallen back to smoking in the last 6 months so I'm not coming from a biased non-smoking POV.
We found that several of us were two "knows someone" links from one or more of them.
Not a problem when you consider frequency. Joe the tarrist knows Bob the media liaison and Ted the funds broker. Bob and Ted both know each other as well as the media distributor Bill. Both Bob and Ted know a 2nd tarrist Jim who knows George who knows a 3rd terrorist Jack. Multiple relationships forming a graph with multiple links between a small subset of nodes increases suspicion.
If you believe the "six degrees of separation" thesis (and not getting into holy Wars over whether it's 6 or 7 degrees, or what I believe the meaning of "believe" is when you read it), then your scenario would be encompassing either 3.5*10^9 people or 84000 people (depending on whether you look for a geometric growth, or a linear growth ; in either case, lots of people.
I didn't say 6 or 7 degrees.
So, the US "intelligence" services are going to have to investigate 10s of thousands of people on the basis of each download/ view of a YouTube-hosted political video.
No. They investigate the originating upload. If you think they don't already do this, you're being naive.
]. Of course this case will be handled differently, because Google is a well known organization commonly in the public eye, but I suspect the US would be much more aggressive about this "request" if it were a lesser known company.
You really believe that? Ask Microsoft's opinion. I'm sure it'll be very different.
Just two points. There isn't a corporation in the US that's a match against the power of the federal government. And secondly, allowing the posts to continue generates electronic evidence leading to people who may know "tarrists". The posters may not be tarrists, but there is a connection in that they know someone who knows someone who knows someone who is the tarrist who filmed the video. Investigating them is a matter of unpeeling the onion skin.
I've had this conversation a lot before. It's rather annoying having to repeat it so often. Anyone who's played an FPS game for longer than 60 seconds can obviously see the difference between 30 and 60 FPS.
And, you do need as much FPS as you can get due to slow down which happens in firefights where there's a sudden jump in projectiles, which is exactly the time you don't want the FPS to dip, but it does.
particularly on obtuse commands like "scan for anomalies".
How do you know the verbal instructions are free form? Maybe there's a syntax that's a limited sub-set of English. Maybe "scan for anomalies" translates into a SQL select statement that iterates rows in a database, analyzes the columns based on data type, and then selects records falling outside of standard deviation.
I don't recall Star Trek ever addressing how the voice interpretation works. On STNG, they often repeat the same commands "Computer, Earl Grey, hot". How do you know Picard didn't program that in on his first day?
I see the battery going as the day your laptop becomes a mini-desktop. No longer portable, but still usable. Maybe best placed on the writing table next to the window in the living room perhaps. A place where a normal tower desktop won't fit. Or maybe in the magazine rack, next to the lazy boy.
Every doomsayer's predictions of over population and food shortages comes to nothing. We always shift how things are done and accommodate it.
There is one thing that's always been accurate regarding increasing population density. Property prices sky rocket when there are more people than there is land. There will be a point at which no one other than millionaires and billionaires can afford owning property. Everyone else will be destined to renting apartments, which get smaller and smaller as property values increase.
And yes, we're not going to go hungry as long as governments remain stable. Hunger is always the result of political upheaval, war, and corruption. If we had to, we could grow food in space and use elevators to transport it down.
Slashdot Mirror
I feel like crying. A whole weekend without it.
I have no social life. It's true.
Anyway. Back to business and on to your your reply.
It's too late. In 2008, you can be stopped, required to show your 'papers' (driver's license), questioned and interrogated, threatened with guns, shot, arrested, and taken into custody without committing any crime. How? By police. There are so many laws on the books that at any given moment in time you are guilty of something, even if it's a matter of interpretation and you eventually get off, it can still happen causing you grief, humiliation, financial loss, and wasted time. The depressing part is it's worsening by the month.
My stance would not be so aggressive. I would draw the line at our borders. Inside our borders, yes, but outside no. I don't feel invading other countries to root out 'tarrists' and thus create new 'tarrists' is a wise plan of action, nor is losing our moral ground.
We all have different definitions of fighting though.
Solving terrorism is not as easy as just dealing with it. Somewhere in that someone has to fill the gaps between desiring to solve it, finding the cause, and eliminating the cause. The best minds and entire nations have been working on it for decades, yet it still persists. At some point, desperation kicks in and all the remaining options, although Orwellian, will be tried.
I don't think terrorism will ever be solved. It's an unrealistic goal so what needs to be decided is what level of freedom do we need and what cost of life is going to be acceptable to maintain our freedom.
If someone spent their free time writing a desktop app, what would it sell for? $30 a copy maybe? How many copies would be sold? Would it be the next killer app? Very unlikely, so the value of that time is measured in something probably closer to pennies per hour, rather than the full rate one gets at a job. Giving away those pennies on the hour is no where near close as giving away $28, $30, or $75 per hour (whichever, take your pic).
Now, if someone took on a second job and did earn a full rate is that feasible? Could anyone really consistently work 80 hours a week and give 100% to both jobs? Maybe for several months, or a year, but how long can that be sustained? Would you be miserable and hate your life? Would your spouse leave you and children grow up never knowing you? Probably, so doing it isn't reasonable. It's not the common case so it wouldn't be valid to use that as a rare case to represent the majority of cases.
So in summary, your time does indeed have value, but at what cost? What's missing from this thread is the cost incurred from using your spare time to earn more money. It's difficult to measure the costs (reduced performance at your day job, lost spouse, kids who hate you) so it's also difficult to measure the net profit (revenue minus cost) if that time had been used to earn money. It's quite likely that you'd come out deep in the negative even though you sold 1000, 10000, or 100000 copies of your killer desktop app in your spare time.
I know I can't stand dealing with the rush to grab seats. Getting a seat first means you get your bags close to you and that means getting off the plane faster.
http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/news/2008/05/portfolio_0527
If an author wanted to be an idealist, he could house his wares on a free site, offer free downloads, or offer the work as a torrent, and not have to pay a thing (outside of basic ISP service); however, he's not earning anything so that transaction is a wash--an exchange of 0 distribution cost with 0 profit. In that scenario, the cost of writing or developing the product is never recouped so the artist loses on that venture. Negative profit. Thus an incentive not to create a work. I don't think we're better off with artists and developers not creating.
The US government agrees (at least with alcoholism, but it's related to smoking so I mention it.) Supreme court case Traynor v. Turnage 1988, 485 US 535.
BTW, I've spent most my life not smoking, however I have fallen back to smoking in the last 6 months so I'm not coming from a biased non-smoking POV.
That's a human problem solved with technology.
They're both bound by law (sort of) but who has more money?
The federal government.
Just two points. There isn't a corporation in the US that's a match against the power of the federal government. And secondly, allowing the posts to continue generates electronic evidence leading to people who may know "tarrists". The posters may not be tarrists, but there is a connection in that they know someone who knows someone who knows someone who is the tarrist who filmed the video. Investigating them is a matter of unpeeling the onion skin.
I've had this conversation a lot before. It's rather annoying having to repeat it so often. Anyone who's played an FPS game for longer than 60 seconds can obviously see the difference between 30 and 60 FPS.
And, you do need as much FPS as you can get due to slow down which happens in firefights where there's a sudden jump in projectiles, which is exactly the time you don't want the FPS to dip, but it does.
I don't recall Star Trek ever addressing how the voice interpretation works. On STNG, they often repeat the same commands "Computer, Earl Grey, hot". How do you know Picard didn't program that in on his first day?
I see the battery going as the day your laptop becomes a mini-desktop. No longer portable, but still usable. Maybe best placed on the writing table next to the window in the living room perhaps. A place where a normal tower desktop won't fit. Or maybe in the magazine rack, next to the lazy boy.
And yes, we're not going to go hungry as long as governments remain stable. Hunger is always the result of political upheaval, war, and corruption. If we had to, we could grow food in space and use elevators to transport it down.
I find it funny that no one realized it was a joke. Heh. Think of the birds -> think of the children? Duh.
HAHA
Those poor birds.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. WHACK!