I can 2nd that. Any server purchase, or being part of any premium account gets you access to fairly good techs within the USA. One of them speaks with an Indian accent still, but actually knows what he is talking about.
P.S - I am not insulting India, just saying what we already know. Basic tech support from India is basic tech support from people that might not actually own a computer.
not hanging them for YOUR irrational gut feeling of what they might do in the future.
Uh huhhh.
Let me seee.....
Clipper Chip. Echelon. Carnivore. Proposals for Key Escrow....
You're right. I'm being paranoid and unfair. Government has made no moves whatsoever to control encryption, which is to control and monitor communications.
None. Thank You. I am taking down the Tin Foil defenses and going to see the sun again today.
the number of kids who get permanently injured or killed by electrical outlets does not justify this crazy overengineering...........if anything, we shouldn't be rewarding stupidity by shielding it from darwin
Okay. So your response to my "What about the children!?" is essentially that very few of them actually die and the ones that do are really just in accordance with "Darwin"?
Well I guess I just met the opposite end of the spectrum:) How you doin?
I think we are talking about two different things. One is authentication which is stupid, the other is smart power usage and safety, which is prudent.
Kids can take plastic covers off. Why not have a smart outlet that does not provide lethal amounts of power until until a device is connected requesting it?
There is also a reason why you *always* unplug anything with a heating element like toaster ovens, coffee makers, hair dryers, etc. They can burn your house down. It happens. I had a toaster oven, out of the blue, go to meltdown status within about 20 minutes. Thankfully, I was home watching TV, but I can tell you it got so hot that the plastic on the front started to warp, the granite counter top was hot to the touch (which is impressive for granite) and the cabinets damn near reached flash point.
If that toaster oven had a controller in it requesting power it very well could have mitigated other failures in the electronics.
I have looked through your posts to other people. Insulting people is all you are capable of. If you had any capability for rational and civil discourse that would be one thing, but it seems to be beyond your grasp.
You are a simple troll with no value.
Fuck You.
You can post nasty comments to me in as many articles as you want, and I will not feed you anymore. The kitchen is closed bitch.
I agree that we need to fight now. Darknets would be a step towards that.
TOR does reliably hide people. I have seen white papers on trying to analyze TOR networks, but I am not convinced that it would work on a large scale. Too many nodes to monitor. TOR is by no means the most advanced technology out there. You have Freenet and other Darknets being developed as we speak.
The real war will be stepping up with rampant civil disobedience on enforced TPM. Refuse to purchase the devices, go to underground markets to get your equipment, etc.
That is the end game, the final battlefield. Encryption. All roads lead to it. It will either be controlled, which means freedom died, or it will remain uncontrolled, and enable freedom to survive.
I was speaking mainly to the authentication as complicating what should be rather uncomplicated. You plug it in, you get power. That simple.
The added cost would most likely come from the authentication and middlemen involved in getting paid for such a ludicrous transaction. The components to add smart usage of power could probably be manufactured cheap.
I would like a power socket that I could stick a fork into and not feel anything. Safer around kids and curious animals. Once a low voltage communication between the socket and device exchanged the power requirements, then power would be flowing.
Charging for it though is immensely retarded, in poor taste, and represents a trend towards maximum inhospitable attitudes and environments. I just find it offensive. Airports do it right now for electricity, water, food. With the amount of money I paid, trying to further gouge me on what probably represents a nickel worth of power (at most) is just greedy and rude.
However, what it is plugged into is ultimately getting power from an AC outlet. Complicating that with authentication seems rather pointless to me. Why not authenticate glassware to lips, or some suitably ludicrous idea like that?
It's up there with charging a dime to get into the bathroom. Not just in poor taste, but lacking common sense and hospitality.
It's a completely retarded idea in the first place. Why add a ton of complexity to what is a simple power circuit? How much more expensive and complicated do they need to make the chargers?
They would need to allow a 5 minute free zone anyways. The charger itself needs to communicate with the device to pass account information to the outlet. Kind of hard to do without power. You would need some power just to start up to get charged.
Of course you know... just maybe... you could be really simple and smart about it and just add the price of the power usage in your coffee shop to the commodity prices. You still make a profit and require no costly infrastructure.
So the coffee costs another 10c per cup. I'm sure that customers though will appreciate an environment where you are not nickel'd and dime'd for every single little thing. Plus most places that a customer would be at long enough to charge are already figuring out how to cater to people who come in with laptops for long periods of time and still make a profit.
Anesthesia is not the only a problem Just like you said. What about people that have severe (*severe*) cases of chronic sleep apnia? They might not die, but they sure as hell won't feel very good when they get there. More like a hang over.
as Wagner (presumably this tube station isn't playing Ride Of The Valkyries in an attempt to calm teenagers down...).
LOL.
Yes. That was my first response to the GP as well:) His idea and premise sounds good until you start remembering some classical music.
Wagner was a favorite of mine as a child. I remember looking for where my mother hid the cookies (yes I am serious) and having the Hall of the Mountain King playing in my head. She hid them everywhere, but I could climb better than any monkey.
I can't remember the name of the song, but there was an artist in the 70's that mixed a disco song with classical music. Very interesting and cool to me. I think it was used in one of the Austin Power movies.
I find it stimulating and it gives me a chance to really consider what other people have said, what I think about something, and then write something that expresses those thoughts logically and rationally. At least I try to do so most of the time. Part of the time I am just an irreverent smart ass. I can only infer from the moderation that other people here find my posts worthwhile and productive. I enjoy writing them and apparently other people have enjoyed reading them. Not to mention there are some very smart and insightful people here. Coming across a really well written post is something I enjoy.
There are many times in which my cynicism shows through, but I am not completely without hope.
That guy I am responding to has just been a complete jerk every single time. Not really trying to make a point or a counter argument, but just outright character assassinations and vitriol. Just got really tired of it.
I appreciate civil discourse and the value of good debate. Which is why I don't like people that have a consistent pattern of just being plain jerks in everything they do.
Go fuck yourself. You're the one who has been abusive in your response to me every time, in every Slashdot article. I'm just tired of it and I have ran out of civility and patience for a complete asshole such as yourself.
You're not right. You're just a fucking asshole. In every post.
Assuming I have been to China? You're being an asshole again right there for calling me a liar instead of addressing the points I made. Easier to just discredit me than to make logical civil arguments.
I'm not being defensive. Merely offended by your constant attitude in your posts to me that are not deserving based on anything I have said.
You're just a truly offensive person with nothing positive to say about anything. You remind of some old bitter grumpy senior citizen that can't say anything without being angry and yelling at the top of his lungs.
Putting tariffs really high will force the manufacturing to come back the US and then the Chinese people can figure out what to do on their own terms. Perhaps implement OSHA type regulations to give workers better conditions.
As for China, you asshole, I saw people that were caked head to toe in grime, dirt, and residue from manufacturing processes. Their eyes completely red because they lacked protection. You ever hear of black lung disease?
So yeah, fuck you, I have seen some shit in a several dozen different places in China. Not just the factories, but the towns surrounding the factories. Places that most Western visitors never go, but I did.
You happy you got it out of me? Did it make a difference at all in what I said in my original post? That's why I left it out.
You are such a holier than though butthead you know? Every post you are so abusive and abrasive and contribute nothing to the proceedings except nastiness.
Maybe I don't want to talk about what I saw? You think of that? Maybe I don't have anything to do with that business at this point precisely because of what I saw. Foxconn workers have it good compared to what I saw. I would be surprised if the people I saw were still healthy and alive today.
What would a first hand account tell you anymore than what you already know? Every one knows conditions are hell in most factories in China.
Do what better?
I try to purchase products that have as little to do with China as possible, which is all you can do. Anytime I propose some real changes in trade and foreign policy I get accused of being an isolationist, a protectionist, "just not getting it" because I don't understand Capitalism and economics.
But the games with stories driven by cutscenes to create narrative are generally boring. Some of these are like an animated movie with some gameplay elements thrown in to drag out the story.
You know I have to strongly disagree. I think there is room for both types of games. I *loved* Twisted Metal. Played the hell out of it, and it did have some cutscenes:)
I don't think a lot of the Final Fantasy games were boring at all. They did tell a story and the whole point was to grind (which could get boring, but that is not limited to FF) till you could reach a point in the game where you got a new piece of the story.
However, if you are going to do a narrative type game that tells a story.... make it a *good* one. Without a good plot and talented artists it just falls flat, especially when game play is lacking.
As for the GP's point about Japan being cutscene driven, I am not really that surprised. It is a cultural thing. Being a big Anime fan, and a fan in general of Japanese games, they do seem to be a lot more oriented on the story. Hell, narrative type games in Japan where you constantly make decisions to affect the outcome of the game are a dime a dozen.
In the end, I don't think a well made cutscene driven game is boring and is a worthy genre on its own merits.
The whole thing does not make sense to me and makes me think either the article is bullshit, the law is being misquoted, or both.
When I hear "the right to be forgotten" I am thinking that means you can request that a website remove all information regarding your account. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. As a developer I know that every single piece of content a user uploads into my system can be tagged with an owner. When that owner requests complete "deletion" (not just hiding it) then I can just search for everything with that tag and remove it. It's actually very simple to do if you think about it from the beginning. Having developer large scale databases and back end systems this type of design is not new or ground breaking.
Needing a law to force corporations to actually remove all the data you ever provided them does not surprise me.
I don't think it should be somebody's right to demand removal of content that has nothing to do with their account specifically. If they want it removed without actual ownership, then I say let them go through the courts on each and every website and prove copyright.
If that is really what the "right to be forgotten" law is all about, then I am in complete agreement that a compromise is required because otherwise the author of the article is right. It leads the EU down a road they really don't want to go.
Maybe you have not been to a Chinese factory (I have), bu if you have you would know that this is just lip service. Apple is not opening the company doors either. All they did was hire a 3rd party to investigate. Foxconn agreed. That's it.
Do you really think with all the media attention that Foxconn would say no? Of course not. They can't.
However, they are Chinese. Trust me. The word is going around right now that they better look like some cheerful happy mother fuckers in front of the western investigators or there will be some real consequences. Not the standard ones, but some serious ones.
Way too much on the line. Way too much. How many officials must be involved in greasing up that company's operations who knows.
Corporate responsibilities? *snicker*
You are just *too* cute. I wish I could go back in time where all this experience I have did not result in the cynicism I have developed.
There are no responsible corporations. Just corporations doing the minimum to not get caught, and corporations that have not been caught yet.
Every single device out there, regardless of which fanboi club it caters to, is made by manufacturing that is related to an awful lot of human misery. Unless you can say with 100% certainty that it is made in a developed Western country like the US, or some place in the EU, you can rest assured there was poor pay and poor working conditions. That's just life.
It's not limited to devices either. Just about every product made in China is in factories with poor working conditions compared to the US and the EU. It would have to be. Otherwise it would be too expensive and it would just be made in some hell hole in another country.
Sorry to ruin the illusion for you, but it's all pain and misery, all the way down.
I suspect the move by artists to sell direct is gaining traction
Not just traction, but viability. There have been numerous "experiments" and so far the vast majority of them have realized substantial profits. At least when start to consider profits not meaning 1 billion returned for 10 million invested.
Humble Bundle is a good example for software. The average price per person is low, but only compared to the ridiculous $50-$60 that some big outfits demand. Humble Bundle developers got a decent return on their investment and having experienced their labors I can say the quality was not lacking. Sure, it is not Call of Duty, but the titles were inventive, very artistic, and enjoyable.
Louis CK released his last comedy special all by himself, and according to his website had made 50% ROI and still climbing. That was at a $5 price point with no DRM at all. Funny guy, I would have paid $10-$20 if I had the ability to choose.
Netflix just released their first in-house movie. I will be watching it tomorrow night. There have always been the rumors that YouTube is going to start doing the same thing. Independent movies are featured quite often on Netflix, and I suspect that is due to Big Content not being in the way with ridiculous expectations of profits. $6.99 for a 2nd viewing of a recent movie is ridiculous. Those business models are doomed.
Big Content is damned right to be scared. The person screwing the artists has always been Big Content to a much greater degree, and quite provably too. While you cannot equate every act of piracy with a sale, Big Content has been screwing artists with Hollywood Accounting and just plain stiffing them years on actual revenue they realized, but never quite got around to actually splitting it up with the artists.
It's kind of like saying that there *could* be a pie out there to be split with the artist and draconian laws are needed to protect that, while the entire time *actual* pies exist that are not being split with the artists anyways. Which is worse?
When people figure out that new business models can work, that Big Content is not actually required anymore, and that all of those laws will do more harm than good..... game over.
Any wonder these negotiations have to be held in secret?
The real problem is the battle between our biology and our society. It is not abnormal, for a male of any age, to be sexually attracted to a young girl who has already gone through puberty. If she has a decent rack, decent ass, etc. our dicks tell us to hit that shit hard. We can try and deny it all we want, but that is just bullshit, and we all know it.
Where it gets abnormal is being sexually attracted to children, aka preteens. The vast majority of men don't fall into this category.
Not every 14 year old girl looks like a child, and not every 20 year old woman looks like a woman either. I've seen some young girls with "developed" bodies to say the least and some porn stars (obviously filling a market) that look like children. It's not black and white.
I find it strange and counter productive to be labeling what is normal attraction as some sort of psychological disorder. Far from it.
None of this is an endorsement of sexual activity with young girls. There are damn good reasons why our society is out of step with our biology. You can go back to a point in time where average life span was much lower, standards of living were lower, education was less available, etc. Societies at that time were set up to allow much younger people to marry, or otherwise engage in some kind of relationship. It was not even abnormal for an older man (20-35) to take a younger wife (14 years old). We don't say that those men were sick perverts do we? Not to my knowledge. We evaluate that as part of our history and understand why society was set up that way to begin with.
At this point in time a young girl lacks the maturity, sophistication, resources to deal with the consequences of being sexually active. For shits sake, they have TV shows about really young and stupid people that drive that point home fairly well.
That pragmatism we all seem to be talking about boils down to the arguments we all have with our dicks about wanting to pile drive into some high school girl for an afternoon. The only thing our dicks understand is biology. The average man though has to consider a lot more about the consequences of those actions will be, which is largely driven by society and a mature understanding that it won't be beneficial for the young girl or himself either.
Yes, I can get horny looking at bunch of high school cheerleaders giggling and moving around. That's normal. What's also normal is that I have ability to control those impulses.
It does not help us to deny biology and try lumping in just about every man alive with somebody that is genuinely disturbed and attracted to a child.
Reddit is full of shit because there is no public interest served by allowing pictures of preteen girls to be shared on their site in a clearly sexual context. It's not censorship because they are not obligated to do anything. In fact, there is a valid public interest in not allowing that content to be shared.
Censorship is not black and white. There are some things we can come to an agreement on, and I am pretty sure this is one of them. Saying it is censorship and oppression is equating it to blasphemy under Islam like that poor dude that will most likely be put to death for his tweet about losing faith in the prophet. Hardly equal at all.
The last W2 job I ever worked tried to force something like this on me as well. My response was a lengthy legal agreement in which it spelled out all IP that I currently owned, was involved in creating, limited the scope of the IP they wanted to control to their specific business domains, etc.
They never signed mine, and I never signed theirs. Received a couple of threats from HR, stood my ground, and it just quietly went away. Worked at that company for 3 more years without the signed contract.
Slashdot Mirror
I can 2nd that. Any server purchase, or being part of any premium account gets you access to fairly good techs within the USA. One of them speaks with an Indian accent still, but actually knows what he is talking about.
P.S - I am not insulting India, just saying what we already know. Basic tech support from India is basic tech support from people that might not actually own a computer.
not hanging them for YOUR irrational gut feeling of what they might do in the future.
Uh huhhh.
Let me seee.....
Clipper Chip. Echelon. Carnivore. Proposals for Key Escrow....
You're right. I'm being paranoid and unfair. Government has made no moves whatsoever to control encryption, which is to control and monitor communications.
None. Thank You. I am taking down the Tin Foil defenses and going to see the sun again today.
LOL
the number of kids who get permanently injured or killed by electrical outlets does not justify this crazy overengineering...........if anything, we shouldn't be rewarding stupidity by shielding it from darwin
Okay. So your response to my "What about the children!?" is essentially that very few of them actually die and the ones that do are really just in accordance with "Darwin"?
Well I guess I just met the opposite end of the spectrum :) How you doin?
You got a point. Why don't we just say fuck it to the massively corrupt system pretending to be just, and go straight to Thunder Dome .
It would make you think twice about frivolous lawsuits.
I think we are talking about two different things. One is authentication which is stupid, the other is smart power usage and safety, which is prudent.
Kids can take plastic covers off. Why not have a smart outlet that does not provide lethal amounts of power until until a device is connected requesting it?
There is also a reason why you *always* unplug anything with a heating element like toaster ovens, coffee makers, hair dryers, etc. They can burn your house down. It happens. I had a toaster oven, out of the blue, go to meltdown status within about 20 minutes. Thankfully, I was home watching TV, but I can tell you it got so hot that the plastic on the front started to warp, the granite counter top was hot to the touch (which is impressive for granite) and the cabinets damn near reached flash point.
If that toaster oven had a controller in it requesting power it very well could have mitigated other failures in the electronics.
Since most Slashdotters probably don't have that problem I was thinking about having the memories of Windows ME and Vista removed from my brain.
Ohhhh, and ummmm, 2G1C.
I have looked through your posts to other people. Insulting people is all you are capable of. If you had any capability for rational and civil discourse that would be one thing, but it seems to be beyond your grasp.
You are a simple troll with no value.
Fuck You.
You can post nasty comments to me in as many articles as you want, and I will not feed you anymore. The kitchen is closed bitch.
Good bye.
I agree that we need to fight now. Darknets would be a step towards that.
TOR does reliably hide people. I have seen white papers on trying to analyze TOR networks, but I am not convinced that it would work on a large scale. Too many nodes to monitor. TOR is by no means the most advanced technology out there. You have Freenet and other Darknets being developed as we speak.
The real war will be stepping up with rampant civil disobedience on enforced TPM. Refuse to purchase the devices, go to underground markets to get your equipment, etc.
That is the end game, the final battlefield. Encryption. All roads lead to it. It will either be controlled, which means freedom died, or it will remain uncontrolled, and enable freedom to survive.
You have a very valid point.
I was speaking mainly to the authentication as complicating what should be rather uncomplicated. You plug it in, you get power. That simple.
The added cost would most likely come from the authentication and middlemen involved in getting paid for such a ludicrous transaction. The components to add smart usage of power could probably be manufactured cheap.
I would like a power socket that I could stick a fork into and not feel anything. Safer around kids and curious animals. Once a low voltage communication between the socket and device exchanged the power requirements, then power would be flowing.
Charging for it though is immensely retarded, in poor taste, and represents a trend towards maximum inhospitable attitudes and environments. I just find it offensive. Airports do it right now for electricity, water, food. With the amount of money I paid, trying to further gouge me on what probably represents a nickel worth of power (at most) is just greedy and rude.
True.
However, what it is plugged into is ultimately getting power from an AC outlet. Complicating that with authentication seems rather pointless to me. Why not authenticate glassware to lips, or some suitably ludicrous idea like that?
It's up there with charging a dime to get into the bathroom. Not just in poor taste, but lacking common sense and hospitality.
It's a completely retarded idea in the first place. Why add a ton of complexity to what is a simple power circuit? How much more expensive and complicated do they need to make the chargers?
They would need to allow a 5 minute free zone anyways. The charger itself needs to communicate with the device to pass account information to the outlet. Kind of hard to do without power. You would need some power just to start up to get charged.
Of course you know... just maybe... you could be really simple and smart about it and just add the price of the power usage in your coffee shop to the commodity prices. You still make a profit and require no costly infrastructure.
So the coffee costs another 10c per cup. I'm sure that customers though will appreciate an environment where you are not nickel'd and dime'd for every single little thing. Plus most places that a customer would be at long enough to charge are already figuring out how to cater to people who come in with laptops for long periods of time and still make a profit.
Anesthesia is not the only a problem Just like you said. What about people that have severe (*severe*) cases of chronic sleep apnia? They might not die, but they sure as hell won't feel very good when they get there. More like a hang over.
Sincerely - A CPAP user. 100% of the time.
as Wagner (presumably this tube station isn't playing Ride Of The Valkyries in an attempt to calm teenagers down...).
LOL.
Yes. That was my first response to the GP as well :) His idea and premise sounds good until you start remembering some classical music.
Wagner was a favorite of mine as a child. I remember looking for where my mother hid the cookies (yes I am serious) and having the Hall of the Mountain King playing in my head. She hid them everywhere, but I could climb better than any monkey.
I can't remember the name of the song, but there was an artist in the 70's that mixed a disco song with classical music. Very interesting and cool to me. I think it was used in one of the Austin Power movies.
Classical music can be primal too...
You're still the asshole. You have basically admitted to being a troll that gets their kicks off insulting people for no good reason.
So, fuck you again.
You can call me a moron all you want, but in the end you are incapable of civil discourse. Yes, you insult people for any reason apparently.
Actually, I really like Slashdot.
I find it stimulating and it gives me a chance to really consider what other people have said, what I think about something, and then write something that expresses those thoughts logically and rationally. At least I try to do so most of the time. Part of the time I am just an irreverent smart ass. I can only infer from the moderation that other people here find my posts worthwhile and productive. I enjoy writing them and apparently other people have enjoyed reading them. Not to mention there are some very smart and insightful people here. Coming across a really well written post is something I enjoy.
There are many times in which my cynicism shows through, but I am not completely without hope.
That guy I am responding to has just been a complete jerk every single time. Not really trying to make a point or a counter argument, but just outright character assassinations and vitriol. Just got really tired of it.
I appreciate civil discourse and the value of good debate. Which is why I don't like people that have a consistent pattern of just being plain jerks in everything they do.
Go fuck yourself. You're the one who has been abusive in your response to me every time, in every Slashdot article. I'm just tired of it and I have ran out of civility and patience for a complete asshole such as yourself.
You're not right. You're just a fucking asshole. In every post.
Assuming I have been to China? You're being an asshole again right there for calling me a liar instead of addressing the points I made. Easier to just discredit me than to make logical civil arguments.
I'm not being defensive. Merely offended by your constant attitude in your posts to me that are not deserving based on anything I have said.
You're just a truly offensive person with nothing positive to say about anything. You remind of some old bitter grumpy senior citizen that can't say anything without being angry and yelling at the top of his lungs.
Putting tariffs really high will force the manufacturing to come back the US and then the Chinese people can figure out what to do on their own terms. Perhaps implement OSHA type regulations to give workers better conditions.
As for China, you asshole, I saw people that were caked head to toe in grime, dirt, and residue from manufacturing processes. Their eyes completely red because they lacked protection. You ever hear of black lung disease?
So yeah, fuck you, I have seen some shit in a several dozen different places in China. Not just the factories, but the towns surrounding the factories. Places that most Western visitors never go, but I did.
You happy you got it out of me? Did it make a difference at all in what I said in my original post? That's why I left it out.
Geez. Fuck you.
You are such a holier than though butthead you know? Every post you are so abusive and abrasive and contribute nothing to the proceedings except nastiness.
Maybe I don't want to talk about what I saw? You think of that? Maybe I don't have anything to do with that business at this point precisely because of what I saw. Foxconn workers have it good compared to what I saw. I would be surprised if the people I saw were still healthy and alive today.
What would a first hand account tell you anymore than what you already know? Every one knows conditions are hell in most factories in China.
Do what better?
I try to purchase products that have as little to do with China as possible, which is all you can do. Anytime I propose some real changes in trade and foreign policy I get accused of being an isolationist, a protectionist, "just not getting it" because I don't understand Capitalism and economics.
I'm already doing what I can.
Take your acerbic bullshit elsewhere please.
But the games with stories driven by cutscenes to create narrative are generally boring. Some of these are like an animated movie with some gameplay elements thrown in to drag out the story.
You know I have to strongly disagree. I think there is room for both types of games. I *loved* Twisted Metal. Played the hell out of it, and it did have some cutscenes :)
I don't think a lot of the Final Fantasy games were boring at all. They did tell a story and the whole point was to grind (which could get boring, but that is not limited to FF) till you could reach a point in the game where you got a new piece of the story.
However, if you are going to do a narrative type game that tells a story.... make it a *good* one. Without a good plot and talented artists it just falls flat, especially when game play is lacking.
As for the GP's point about Japan being cutscene driven, I am not really that surprised. It is a cultural thing. Being a big Anime fan, and a fan in general of Japanese games, they do seem to be a lot more oriented on the story. Hell, narrative type games in Japan where you constantly make decisions to affect the outcome of the game are a dime a dozen.
In the end, I don't think a well made cutscene driven game is boring and is a worthy genre on its own merits.
The whole thing does not make sense to me and makes me think either the article is bullshit, the law is being misquoted, or both.
When I hear "the right to be forgotten" I am thinking that means you can request that a website remove all information regarding your account. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. As a developer I know that every single piece of content a user uploads into my system can be tagged with an owner. When that owner requests complete "deletion" (not just hiding it) then I can just search for everything with that tag and remove it. It's actually very simple to do if you think about it from the beginning. Having developer large scale databases and back end systems this type of design is not new or ground breaking.
Needing a law to force corporations to actually remove all the data you ever provided them does not surprise me.
I don't think it should be somebody's right to demand removal of content that has nothing to do with their account specifically. If they want it removed without actual ownership, then I say let them go through the courts on each and every website and prove copyright.
If that is really what the "right to be forgotten" law is all about, then I am in complete agreement that a compromise is required because otherwise the author of the article is right. It leads the EU down a road they really don't want to go.
You're not *that* naive are you?
Maybe you have not been to a Chinese factory (I have), bu if you have you would know that this is just lip service. Apple is not opening the company doors either. All they did was hire a 3rd party to investigate. Foxconn agreed. That's it.
Do you really think with all the media attention that Foxconn would say no? Of course not. They can't.
However, they are Chinese. Trust me. The word is going around right now that they better look like some cheerful happy mother fuckers in front of the western investigators or there will be some real consequences. Not the standard ones, but some serious ones.
Way too much on the line. Way too much. How many officials must be involved in greasing up that company's operations who knows.
Corporate responsibilities? *snicker*
You are just *too* cute. I wish I could go back in time where all this experience I have did not result in the cynicism I have developed.
There are no responsible corporations. Just corporations doing the minimum to not get caught, and corporations that have not been caught yet.
Every single device out there, regardless of which fanboi club it caters to, is made by manufacturing that is related to an awful lot of human misery. Unless you can say with 100% certainty that it is made in a developed Western country like the US, or some place in the EU, you can rest assured there was poor pay and poor working conditions. That's just life.
It's not limited to devices either. Just about every product made in China is in factories with poor working conditions compared to the US and the EU. It would have to be. Otherwise it would be too expensive and it would just be made in some hell hole in another country.
Sorry to ruin the illusion for you, but it's all pain and misery, all the way down.
I suspect the move by artists to sell direct is gaining traction
Not just traction, but viability. There have been numerous "experiments" and so far the vast majority of them have realized substantial profits. At least when start to consider profits not meaning 1 billion returned for 10 million invested.
Humble Bundle is a good example for software. The average price per person is low, but only compared to the ridiculous $50-$60 that some big outfits demand. Humble Bundle developers got a decent return on their investment and having experienced their labors I can say the quality was not lacking. Sure, it is not Call of Duty, but the titles were inventive, very artistic, and enjoyable.
Louis CK released his last comedy special all by himself, and according to his website had made 50% ROI and still climbing. That was at a $5 price point with no DRM at all. Funny guy, I would have paid $10-$20 if I had the ability to choose.
Netflix just released their first in-house movie. I will be watching it tomorrow night. There have always been the rumors that YouTube is going to start doing the same thing. Independent movies are featured quite often on Netflix, and I suspect that is due to Big Content not being in the way with ridiculous expectations of profits. $6.99 for a 2nd viewing of a recent movie is ridiculous. Those business models are doomed.
Big Content is damned right to be scared. The person screwing the artists has always been Big Content to a much greater degree, and quite provably too. While you cannot equate every act of piracy with a sale, Big Content has been screwing artists with Hollywood Accounting and just plain stiffing them years on actual revenue they realized, but never quite got around to actually splitting it up with the artists.
It's kind of like saying that there *could* be a pie out there to be split with the artist and draconian laws are needed to protect that, while the entire time *actual* pies exist that are not being split with the artists anyways. Which is worse?
When people figure out that new business models can work, that Big Content is not actually required anymore, and that all of those laws will do more harm than good..... game over.
Any wonder these negotiations have to be held in secret?
The real problem is the battle between our biology and our society. It is not abnormal, for a male of any age, to be sexually attracted to a young girl who has already gone through puberty. If she has a decent rack, decent ass, etc. our dicks tell us to hit that shit hard. We can try and deny it all we want, but that is just bullshit, and we all know it.
Where it gets abnormal is being sexually attracted to children, aka preteens. The vast majority of men don't fall into this category.
Not every 14 year old girl looks like a child, and not every 20 year old woman looks like a woman either. I've seen some young girls with "developed" bodies to say the least and some porn stars (obviously filling a market) that look like children. It's not black and white.
I find it strange and counter productive to be labeling what is normal attraction as some sort of psychological disorder. Far from it.
None of this is an endorsement of sexual activity with young girls. There are damn good reasons why our society is out of step with our biology. You can go back to a point in time where average life span was much lower, standards of living were lower, education was less available, etc. Societies at that time were set up to allow much younger people to marry, or otherwise engage in some kind of relationship. It was not even abnormal for an older man (20-35) to take a younger wife (14 years old). We don't say that those men were sick perverts do we? Not to my knowledge. We evaluate that as part of our history and understand why society was set up that way to begin with.
At this point in time a young girl lacks the maturity, sophistication, resources to deal with the consequences of being sexually active. For shits sake, they have TV shows about really young and stupid people that drive that point home fairly well.
That pragmatism we all seem to be talking about boils down to the arguments we all have with our dicks about wanting to pile drive into some high school girl for an afternoon. The only thing our dicks understand is biology. The average man though has to consider a lot more about the consequences of those actions will be, which is largely driven by society and a mature understanding that it won't be beneficial for the young girl or himself either.
Yes, I can get horny looking at bunch of high school cheerleaders giggling and moving around. That's normal. What's also normal is that I have ability to control those impulses.
It does not help us to deny biology and try lumping in just about every man alive with somebody that is genuinely disturbed and attracted to a child.
Reddit is full of shit because there is no public interest served by allowing pictures of preteen girls to be shared on their site in a clearly sexual context. It's not censorship because they are not obligated to do anything. In fact, there is a valid public interest in not allowing that content to be shared.
Censorship is not black and white. There are some things we can come to an agreement on, and I am pretty sure this is one of them. Saying it is censorship and oppression is equating it to blasphemy under Islam like that poor dude that will most likely be put to death for his tweet about losing faith in the prophet. Hardly equal at all.
I was *just* thinking I could try to fund a Spam burger with large fries.
Ooooh.. and a big bag of Chips Ahoy for desert.
Anyone want to lend me $10?
Next time don't even sign it.
The last W2 job I ever worked tried to force something like this on me as well. My response was a lengthy legal agreement in which it spelled out all IP that I currently owned, was involved in creating, limited the scope of the IP they wanted to control to their specific business domains, etc.
They never signed mine, and I never signed theirs. Received a couple of threats from HR, stood my ground, and it just quietly went away. Worked at that company for 3 more years without the signed contract.