Easy solution from Real's point of view: don't release products with major security flaws. If you do, don't expect people to put in lots of work to find them and then give them to you for free.
If I knew how to break into your house, then told you that I was able to but won't tell you how unless you paid up a fee?
I'm sure that you'd easily come up with a lot of reasons why it isn't cool.
Honestly, I couldn't. I am sure there are security experts out there who would be able to improve security of my house but I certainly wouldn't expect them to do it for free. This idea that if you find bugs in a software product, you have the responsibility to give that information to the company that makes it, and therefore help them improve their product, for free is completely bogus.
Sorry, but there's a distinct lack of responsibility and ethics going on here, no matter how much you think the primary target may deserve it.
I don't see any ethical problems here and its completely irrelevant who the party involved is. I would actually argue that there is more of an ethical problem with testing a company's product for free, as it devalues the work of their own QA personnel, and it encourages companies to release shoddy products too early, with expectation that paying customers will help them fix the bugs.
If this is valuable information (as in there are people willing to pay money for it) why should they give it for free? Companies pay good money to consultants to come over and fix problems with their business, why shouldn't they have to pay people who help them fix problems with their software products.
Somehow I don't see this catching on. If they implement the suggestions, they just open themselves to criticism. My first thought was, how come they didn't know about this practice earlier. Everybody who flies know about it (except for the cords, I never had to do that). How many other silly practices have been inconveniencing passengers for years for no good reason? On the other hand, if they don't implement the suggestions, then what's the point of having the blog.
Give me a break, this judge is an idiot. Freedom of speech is fine when you have something important to say, but in this case this guy's intent was clearly just to insult that poor woman. Why should posting that garbage be constitutionally protected!!! If people were locked up for such antisocial behavior early on, we would have a much more polite society and less crime as well.
The planes they are talking about have "wingspans smaller than a deck of playing cards". You won't fit too many people on that.
This is something people at universities mess about all the time. I've seen programs about something like this on the science channel or whatever years ago. They had little artificial insects or small birds with cameras on them flying around. Wasn't there news story about them being used by the police to film some demonstrations last year? For reasons known only to himself, Roland decided to pick this particular random news release and make it sound as if its some important new breakthrough when its nothing of the sort.
Now what we need is Do Not Mail Registry (anybody knows a good reason why this doesn't exist already?) and Do Not Email Registry (a bit harder to enforce:)
they're attacking the world under the sea with a pair of clippers and a web cam
Ok, I am trying to imagine a scenario of using clippers and a web cam to cut an undersea cable but I guess my imagination is not as good as yours. Sharks with laser beams attached to their heads, now that's a different story
Oh FFS, you can't be that stupid to think random bits from the old testament or some zealots' misuse of them as justification embodies Christian values or beliefs. Killing others is a Christian teaching? It's not even worth arguing.
So even though those things are explicit orders from god, as written in the Bible, it is ok to ignore them? That was precisely is my point. Those guys in Afghanistan don't think so. Unlike you, they take their "word of god" literally, and its a good thing that we don't. And by the way its not a few random bits from the old testament. I don't know if you read the bible, but I did and its paints a picture of god as a sadistic monster who wipes out entire cities on a whim (and at one point all life on earth), helps tribal leaders who are nice to him commit genocides against other tribes, orders parents to kill their children etc etc
Any belief system is easily twisted and exploited by cynical opportunists, whatever the original purpose was. It doesn't have to be a religion or Communism.
So what you are saying is that people who wrote those things into the Bible were cynical opportunists who twisted the actual word of god to suit their needs? How do you decide which verses from the bible are important and which ones are just silly and can be safely ignored?
Like it or not, values like forgiveness, compassion or the spurn for hypocrisy in Western culture are rooted in the influence of Christianity...
Well it wouldn't have caught on if it didn't have some positive things about it, but it also has its fair share of of problems. Of course this doesn't have any bearing on the truth of it, as in whether it has anything to do with god.
On a side note, this belief that Christianity brought moral values that weren't there before seems to be a common misunderstanding among the Christians. I guess it comes from the lack of knowledge of history. Humans were not savage cavemen before Jesus came and brought morality with him, you know. Aristotle, Plato etc lived and wrote about, among other things, ethics and morality (arguably superior to that found in the bible) four hundred years before Christ.
Ok, if you are going to be the first person to post "what do they need cellphones/computers/internet for, give them food instead" type of post in this thread, I have something to say to you. You are an idiot. Please try to understand that you are an idiot and shouldn't be posting your idiotic opinions on slashdot or anywhere else. Instead, try to improve yourself somehow, take some classes or whatever. It won't help, but at least it will keep you busy.
Your religion sucks too (assuming you are a Christian). Living under Islamic law is not so different from living under Christian law (see most of European history from 5th to about 15th century). In Bible "god" explicitly demands killing people for worshiping other gods and other silly things like adultery and working on Sabbath.
The only reason we don't have a similar situation to Afghanistan in the West today is that we (including those calling themselves "Christian") ignore most of what Bible says and choose not to live according to its rules. If we didn't, we would still have daily stoning sessions for blasphemy, adultery, homosexuality etc
Now its just your average Islamic theocracy, instead of a particularly nasty one. Saudi Arabias, Afganistans etc of today are not so different from France or Spain during the middle ages. I guess it just what happens when religious zealots, be it Islamic or Christian, have the power.
As the recent example in California shows, it never ever rains in an area where there are wild fires. Simply set the area around the stadium on fire and it will practically guarantee that there will be no rain. If a few clouds do gather, they can be easily dispersed by exploding a dozen or so nuclear weapons directly above the stadium
It doesn't make any difference whether we are talking about buying the individual pills or the patent. Patents get bought and sold as well and there is a market price for them (hell of a lot more than for the pills). Let's say the drug patent is put up for an auction. The price it would fetch would not be related in any way to the cost of developing the patent. Instead, it would reflect how much the company that buys it can make from it during the lifetime of the patent. If the government (i.e the taxpayers) is willing to pay that amount, then fine, I don't think the pharma company would have any problems with that. Anything less than that amount, the government would be robbing the pharma company shareholders of their wealth and passing it on to others.
Ok, we are obviously different. I read your quote as "Fortune 500 companies should try harder to make more money". You read it as "pharmaceutical companies should be forced to make less money".
The way drugs (or anything else) are priced has nothing to do with morality, and everything to do with market forces. If the pharma companies are corrupt, "don't research new drugs" or set the drug prices too high, then why not start a pharma company that isn't corrupt, does research new drugs and sells drugs at lower prices? That way you can put them all out of business.
Yes, I know you can't start a drug company but that's beside the point. Somebody would.
I don't see any contradiction there. If the government needs a road which is important for the society to build, it forcibly BUYS the house from the owner and pays the fair market price. If the government needs drugs that are important for the society, it can equally well forcibly BUY them from the drug companies at the market price.
Its a different problem if the government wants the drugs but doesn't like paying the market price. I guess then it can seize the drugs anyway, problem solved. Just remember that if you start a business some day and make a product that the government likes, it might decide to seize it from you as well.
Yep, the only problem is what happens when the philanthropic contributions don't meet the need even half way (or one tenth of the way). Do you grab the money by force anyway (taxes) or do you say well let those who can't afford the treatment suffer and die, property rights are more important
Slashdot Mirror
Easy solution from Real's point of view: don't release products with major security flaws. If you do, don't expect people to put in lots of work to find them and then give them to you for free.
If I knew how to break into your house, then told you that I was able to but won't tell you how unless you paid up a fee? I'm sure that you'd easily come up with a lot of reasons why it isn't cool.
Honestly, I couldn't. I am sure there are security experts out there who would be able to improve security of my house but I certainly wouldn't expect them to do it for free. This idea that if you find bugs in a software product, you have the responsibility to give that information to the company that makes it, and therefore help them improve their product, for free is completely bogus.
Sorry, but there's a distinct lack of responsibility and ethics going on here, no matter how much you think the primary target may deserve it.
I don't see any ethical problems here and its completely irrelevant who the party involved is. I would actually argue that there is more of an ethical problem with testing a company's product for free, as it devalues the work of their own QA personnel, and it encourages companies to release shoddy products too early, with expectation that paying customers will help them fix the bugs.
If this is valuable information (as in there are people willing to pay money for it) why should they give it for free? Companies pay good money to consultants to come over and fix problems with their business, why shouldn't they have to pay people who help them fix problems with their software products.
Somehow I don't see this catching on. If they implement the suggestions, they just open themselves to criticism. My first thought was, how come they didn't know about this practice earlier. Everybody who flies know about it (except for the cords, I never had to do that). How many other silly practices have been inconveniencing passengers for years for no good reason? On the other hand, if they don't implement the suggestions, then what's the point of having the blog.
Give me a break, this judge is an idiot. Freedom of speech is fine when you have something important to say, but in this case this guy's intent was clearly just to insult that poor woman. Why should posting that garbage be constitutionally protected!!! If people were locked up for such antisocial behavior early on, we would have a much more polite society and less crime as well.
with the pane bouncing up and down constantly
well don't fly on a window then
The planes they are talking about have "wingspans smaller than a deck of playing cards". You won't fit too many people on that.
This is something people at universities mess about all the time. I've seen programs about something like this on the science channel or whatever years ago. They had little artificial insects or small birds with cameras on them flying around. Wasn't there news story about them being used by the police to film some demonstrations last year? For reasons known only to himself, Roland decided to pick this particular random news release and make it sound as if its some important new breakthrough when its nothing of the sort.
You are only as "locked-in" as you want to be. Simple answer that applies to all his examples: buy a product or service that doesn't lock you in.
Now what we need is Do Not Mail Registry (anybody knows a good reason why this doesn't exist already?) and Do Not Email Registry (a bit harder to enforce :)
Its actually Autumn and its what that insignificant (since they are not American) huge majority of English speakers in the world call Fall.
Seriously, can anybody explain what's going on?
Ok, I'll explain. Somebody seems to be cutting undersea internet cables, but we are not yet sure who
they're attacking the world under the sea with a pair of clippers and a web cam
Ok, I am trying to imagine a scenario of using clippers and a web cam to cut an undersea cable but I guess my imagination is not as good as yours. Sharks with laser beams attached to their heads, now that's a different story
Oh FFS, you can't be that stupid to think random bits from the old testament or some zealots' misuse of them as justification embodies Christian values or beliefs. Killing others is a Christian teaching? It's not even worth arguing.
So even though those things are explicit orders from god, as written in the Bible, it is ok to ignore them? That was precisely is my point. Those guys in Afghanistan don't think so. Unlike you, they take their "word of god" literally, and its a good thing that we don't. And by the way its not a few random bits from the old testament. I don't know if you read the bible, but I did and its paints a picture of god as a sadistic monster who wipes out entire cities on a whim (and at one point all life on earth), helps tribal leaders who are nice to him commit genocides against other tribes, orders parents to kill their children etc etc
Any belief system is easily twisted and exploited by cynical opportunists, whatever the original purpose was. It doesn't have to be a religion or Communism.
So what you are saying is that people who wrote those things into the Bible were cynical opportunists who twisted the actual word of god to suit their needs? How do you decide which verses from the bible are important and which ones are just silly and can be safely ignored?
Like it or not, values like forgiveness, compassion or the spurn for hypocrisy in Western culture are rooted in the influence of Christianity...
Well it wouldn't have caught on if it didn't have some positive things about it, but it also has its fair share of of problems. Of course this doesn't have any bearing on the truth of it, as in whether it has anything to do with god. On a side note, this belief that Christianity brought moral values that weren't there before seems to be a common misunderstanding among the Christians. I guess it comes from the lack of knowledge of history. Humans were not savage cavemen before Jesus came and brought morality with him, you know. Aristotle, Plato etc lived and wrote about, among other things, ethics and morality (arguably superior to that found in the bible) four hundred years before Christ.
Ok, if you are going to be the first person to post "what do they need cellphones/computers/internet for, give them food instead" type of post in this thread, I have something to say to you. You are an idiot. Please try to understand that you are an idiot and shouldn't be posting your idiotic opinions on slashdot or anywhere else. Instead, try to improve yourself somehow, take some classes or whatever. It won't help, but at least it will keep you busy.
Your religion sucks too (assuming you are a Christian). Living under Islamic law is not so different from living under Christian law (see most of European history from 5th to about 15th century). In Bible "god" explicitly demands killing people for worshiping other gods and other silly things like adultery and working on Sabbath.
The only reason we don't have a similar situation to Afghanistan in the West today is that we (including those calling themselves "Christian") ignore most of what Bible says and choose not to live according to its rules. If we didn't, we would still have daily stoning sessions for blasphemy, adultery, homosexuality etc
Well, strange as it may seem, the things have improved: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Life_under_the_Taliban_regime/
Now its just your average Islamic theocracy, instead of a particularly nasty one. Saudi Arabias, Afganistans etc of today are not so different from France or Spain during the middle ages. I guess it just what happens when religious zealots, be it Islamic or Christian, have the power.
Actually they just voted in a landslide a party that is for closer ties with China and opposes independence:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/world/asia/13taiwan.html?ex=1357880400&en=a7592848340eaa91&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Its funny how there are practically no polls conducted in Taiwan specifically on the issue of independence, not that I could find anyway.
Oh, and we should take a stand and recognize democratic Taiwan as a completely independent sovereign nation too. Admit them to the UN, etc.
Shouldn't you ask them first? As far as I know, majority of people in Taiwan are against independence
As the recent example in California shows, it never ever rains in an area where there are wild fires. Simply set the area around the stadium on fire and it will practically guarantee that there will be no rain. If a few clouds do gather, they can be easily dispersed by exploding a dozen or so nuclear weapons directly above the stadium
That's it, now that you are boycotting the Olympics, they will surely cancel them.
Yet another example of the Chinese government caving in to the pressure from a random slashdotter
It doesn't make any difference whether we are talking about buying the individual pills or the patent. Patents get bought and sold as well and there is a market price for them (hell of a lot more than for the pills). Let's say the drug patent is put up for an auction. The price it would fetch would not be related in any way to the cost of developing the patent. Instead, it would reflect how much the company that buys it can make from it during the lifetime of the patent. If the government (i.e the taxpayers) is willing to pay that amount, then fine, I don't think the pharma company would have any problems with that. Anything less than that amount, the government would be robbing the pharma company shareholders of their wealth and passing it on to others.
Ok, we are obviously different. I read your quote as "Fortune 500 companies should try harder to make more money". You read it as "pharmaceutical companies should be forced to make less money".
The way drugs (or anything else) are priced has nothing to do with morality, and everything to do with market forces. If the pharma companies are corrupt, "don't research new drugs" or set the drug prices too high, then why not start a pharma company that isn't corrupt, does research new drugs and sells drugs at lower prices? That way you can put them all out of business.
Yes, I know you can't start a drug company but that's beside the point. Somebody would.
I don't see any contradiction there. If the government needs a road which is important for the society to build, it forcibly BUYS the house from the owner and pays the fair market price. If the government needs drugs that are important for the society, it can equally well forcibly BUY them from the drug companies at the market price.
Its a different problem if the government wants the drugs but doesn't like paying the market price. I guess then it can seize the drugs anyway, problem solved. Just remember that if you start a business some day and make a product that the government likes, it might decide to seize it from you as well.
Yep, the only problem is what happens when the philanthropic contributions don't meet the need even half way (or one tenth of the way). Do you grab the money by force anyway (taxes) or do you say well let those who can't afford the treatment suffer and die, property rights are more important