Actual quid pro quos: all of them. Stop trying to give her a pass just because she didn't get caught red-handed like on an hour-long non-serialized police drama.
If you can't catch someone red-handed, maybe the involvement you suspect didn't actually exist.
Defeat ISIS? Last time the US troops came into action in Syria they helped ISIS
If you follow the standard Syrian/Russian rhetoric that Assad has to remain in power because only he can defeat ISIS.. or something, then yes, that statement is correct.
Hillary is supposed to be running against the anti-Christ but she seems to be barely scraping by
They're both anti-Christ-like. That her problem. She's a candidate who would have fallen easily to Romney, McCain, or GWB. Trump is a candidate who would have been easily beaten by Gore, Kerry, or Biden (if he'd run).
What the heck are you talking about? Voter ID laws exist for one reason only: to ensure that the people casting the votes match the people registered to vote.
The new voter ID laws exist because it's more difficult for low-income people to acquire a photo-ID. If they can't afford a car and/or driver's license, they won't have that. Obtaining other election-allowed photo IDs often takes time they don't have and money they don't have.
It's not a wholesale disenfranchisement. It's just that if you require something that a poor person often won't have, but everyone with more means DOES have, then all you are doing is putting down a roadblock. It's a roadblock that is hurtleable with some effort, but the result of roadblocks is that a proportion won't bother. And that's the goal: to reduce voter turnout in a demographic that wasn't going to vote for you.
We don't have a voter fraud problem, after all. That's a myth pushed by the voter ID proponents to make themselves feel better about what they're doing.
Quit trying to cover up the fact that Al Qaeda in Iraq rebounded from the surge because Obama cut-and-ran from Iraq
The US was required to leave Iraq via the agreement negotiated by President Bush. If the US had stayed, it would have broken the agreement and been a wholesale conquering of Iraq and reduction of it to US territory status, something that both Democratic and Republican administrations had vehemently denied was the goal.
And tell me, big shot. Just how long should the US have stayed in Iraq? Another 5 years? Another 10 years? Another 20 years? However long it took to attain an unattainable goal, the defeat of terrorism? Were you going to enlist into the military to go there? Yourself? Why not, if securing Iraq was really that important to you?
If a country has land long enough enough, it becomes THEIRS. Full-stop. I don't give a shit if your grandfather got kicked out of Israel, and you shouldn't either. You have less of a claim to it than the current Israelis do.
The Third Reich always had ambitions far beyond its capabilities. They didn't have the people or resources to pacify all of Europe and Russia and...
Their hope was the same as the Japanese -- they wanted to strike quickly and hope that appeasement sentiments from their opposition would allow them to legally retain the new borders they had just created.
Take the example of a mining company that pollutes a nearby river or the groundwater in the region. In the Libertarian world, there is absolutely nothing to stop this happening. Libertarian ideals mean that, even if the company were prosecuted, the mining company would simply fold up and another company (owned by the same people) would start up in its place
Hold on, that's still an illegal action, and even in the Libertarian Fantasy, the people authorizing those actions would still be criminally liable. That is the difference between Libertarians and pure Anarchists -- there aren't many cases where Libertarians believe in a strong government, but strong enforcement of the law is one of them.
I think his complaint is valid, so much that the headline is just stupid. It's clearly trying to imitate the exceptionally tabloid and low-brow ads which try to "hook" someone in by making a stupid assertion. It's fishing for clicks the same way tabloids shout "Prince Harry's indiscretion!!!" about something that turns out to be bullshit. Not surprisingly, Slashdot has also partnered with ad networks that do the same thing, making Slashdot look like a shitty low quality site like Looper or TMZ. Not that that Slashdot ever had great-quality ads, but the the ads they have now make the site look cheaper and crappier than ever. Current Slashdot ad titles: "What Producers of Knight Rider Hid From Fans," "Epic Bungee Jump Takes Unfortunate Turn," "The Amish Kept These Details Hidden For a Good Reason." Those are the Sponsored Links.
Which headline is more informative and carefully written? "Most US cable subscribers pay 40% more for TV than they did five years ago," or "You're Paying 40% More For TV Than You Were 5 Years Ago?" Journalists who take themselves seriously don't use the second person in headlines. Puff pieces with no substance that look for ways to haul people in like carnies at an amusement park do.
So I can "steal" the GNP of the entire planit, and double our productivity? The theory of "lost revenue" implies that the revenue was there to be lost.
Yet you gained value from it, value that was only offered in exchange for money.
That presupposes that I would or even could pay the amount they are demanding. If those aren't true, they benefit in no way at all from me not enjoying that content.
Or another case. Let's say I plan to watch something on cable that I subscribe to, but 30 minutes in, the idiot up the street manages to cut a tree down and take the cable with it. In that case, I already paid the cableco which already paid the broadcaster who already paid the content producer, etc etc. So who would I be stealing from if I download the torrent posted by the guy upstream of the idiot with a chainsaw?
That's where I draw the line, too. I have no problems 'pirating' content I've already paid for. I didn't have a problem either when I torrented Game of Thrones episodes after my GOT Blu-Rays developed some strange bit-rot making a few episodes unreadable.
Why don't just provide a link to the video and let *me* use the video player of my choice?
1) Flash was everywhere. It was reliably installed, and every flash doohickey in a web site would include a link to install flash if your computer didn't already have it. Video would never caught on if it had to be up to the end user. Half the web users don't want to go to some random video player site to install it, especially if they're just on a library computer, or they want to send a video link to grandma, etc. 2) Sorry, as much as you want your own presentation, none of the web sites that serve content want you to leave their website to view that content. It's shooting themselves in the foot, and it's their content and their decision. 3) Your media player is under your control. If ads are necessary to pay for the content and bandwidth, then sites are going to want to make sure you're using a player that can't skip ads. #2 applies here too.
+1 to the "why can't I stop videos from autoplaying" problem. Those extensions force frequent browser upgrades too, as apparently the latest "Disable HTML5 Autoplay" extension usually requires the very latest Chrome. It's an immature field that is still under rapid development. And dammit, I'm sometimes working on a slow link, or have limited data. I don't want that link clogged trying to download a video I have no intention of playing. I don't want a "no autoplay" half-measure -- I don't want my browser to download the video file. It's MY browser, why can't that be my decision? This was the one and only saving grace of flash: it was so easy to block.
What next? HTML5 tracking cookies to get around user privacy settings the same way flash cookies were?
And HTML5 is the primary reason why I finally installed NoScript.
How about providing just an HD switch and let browsers buffer as much as they please instead of trying to be smart by switching to garbage resolutions?
Because you may not have the bandwidth to stream HD, and most users prefer lower resolutions they can play in real time instead of an HD stream which will buffer for a long time, then pause the video when it runs out of buffer.
Of course I'm guessing your post is just another one of those "government is bad, mmmkay" type posts where everyone is always doing everything wrong despite never including any actual examples. It's always easier to bring generic discontent than specific talking points.
It's a combination of that as well as "these guys made a ruling that disagrees with my political leaning and my interpretation of the Constitution, so they're definitely corrupt and lacking in morals."
As an ISP you're already required to report address allocation information to the regional registry who makes the associations publicly available. The police know whether they're looking for ISP staff or a customer when they show up at the door because as an ISP you published enough information for them to make that determination.
What does any of that have to do with police abuse against people doing nothing illegal?
They aren't going to jail. But if you run something that makes it difficult to tell whether you or just someone that you're proxying is the source of illegal content, you'll just have to accept that you're going to be an initial suspect in police investigations. That's kindof a part of the "route all information, even illegal traffic, through my network" decision that is running a Tor exit node.
I have a paid copy of Star Wars 2, tied to a Battle.NET account,
Huh? You sure you're not thinking of Steam?
which is tied to an e-mail address at a previous ISP that I don't have access to.
You can change your email address in the battlenet account management page. If you don't remember your password, then you weren't logging into battle.net to play a game in the first place.
Wow multiplayer rewards are great. However, the Diablo and Diablo 2 multiplayer experiences were SO bad, and so abused, that I stayed away from WoW for some time just because I didn't like the idea of it being a game where you're interacting with other people. Every single public D2 game I was ever in had the exact same thing happen: a boss dies, all the loot drops to the ground, and EVERYONE rush in and clicks as fast as they possibly can to claim every set and unique item themselves, whether they needed it or not. If you need some awesome item that dropped, good luck! No one in the group will let you have it, they're too busy looking up what black market item selling price they can get. Everyone screwed over everyone else, so everyone was comfortable doing so.
Also, pretty quickly every public game would have 3 regular people and 5 item selling/spamming bots, and for Diablo2, that's a problem they never addressed. At least in WoW they worked semi-hard to add ignore tools, spam-reporting tools, made it so level 1 characters can't send whispers or use public channels, and closed down accounts.
But public D2 multiplayer.. ugh. Not a good experience.
Letting the media companies tell you what you want to watch is not appealing.
They already tell you what to watch, since they decide what to make. Many an idea dies because a studio won't pick it up because they think it's not marketable.
Slashdot Mirror
Actual quid pro quos: all of them. Stop trying to give her a pass just because she didn't get caught red-handed like on an hour-long non-serialized police drama.
If you can't catch someone red-handed, maybe the involvement you suspect didn't actually exist.
Defeat ISIS? Last time the US troops came into action in Syria they helped ISIS
If you follow the standard Syrian/Russian rhetoric that Assad has to remain in power because only he can defeat ISIS.. or something, then yes, that statement is correct.
Hillary is supposed to be running against the anti-Christ but she seems to be barely scraping by
They're both anti-Christ-like. That her problem. She's a candidate who would have fallen easily to Romney, McCain, or GWB.
Trump is a candidate who would have been easily beaten by Gore, Kerry, or Biden (if he'd run).
But bad versus bad: everyone loses.
What the heck are you talking about? Voter ID laws exist for one reason only: to ensure that the people casting the votes match the people registered to vote.
The new voter ID laws exist because it's more difficult for low-income people to acquire a photo-ID.
If they can't afford a car and/or driver's license, they won't have that. Obtaining other election-allowed photo IDs often takes time they don't have and money they don't have.
It's not a wholesale disenfranchisement. It's just that if you require something that a poor person often won't have, but everyone with more means DOES have, then all you are doing is putting down a roadblock. It's a roadblock that is hurtleable with some effort, but the result of roadblocks is that a proportion won't bother. And that's the goal: to reduce voter turnout in a demographic that wasn't going to vote for you.
We don't have a voter fraud problem, after all. That's a myth pushed by the voter ID proponents to make themselves feel better about what they're doing.
The only "everyone" that keeps saying Russia works with Trump is the mainstream media, because they're all about getting Hillary elected.
Wrong: you don't need to be a Hillary supporter to have nothing but disgust for Donald Trump.
Quit trying to cover up the fact that Al Qaeda in Iraq rebounded from the surge because Obama cut-and-ran from Iraq
The US was required to leave Iraq via the agreement negotiated by President Bush. If the US had stayed, it would have broken the agreement and been a wholesale conquering of Iraq and reduction of it to US territory status, something that both Democratic and Republican administrations had vehemently denied was the goal.
And tell me, big shot. Just how long should the US have stayed in Iraq? Another 5 years? Another 10 years? Another 20 years? However long it took to attain an unattainable goal, the defeat of terrorism? Were you going to enlist into the military to go there? Yourself? Why not, if securing Iraq was really that important to you?
This thread is going places.
Wish I hadn't already commented, this was a trolling well-constructed enough that it justifies +1, Funny.
Yeah, but they "totally deserved it."
If a country has land long enough enough, it becomes THEIRS. Full-stop. I don't give a shit if your grandfather got kicked out of Israel, and you shouldn't either. You have less of a claim to it than the current Israelis do.
The Third Reich always had ambitions far beyond its capabilities. They didn't have the people or resources to pacify all of Europe and Russia and...
Their hope was the same as the Japanese -- they wanted to strike quickly and hope that appeasement sentiments from their opposition would allow them to legally retain the new borders they had just created.
Take the example of a mining company that pollutes a nearby river or the groundwater in the region. In the Libertarian world, there is absolutely nothing to stop this happening. Libertarian ideals mean that, even if the company were prosecuted, the mining company would simply fold up and another company (owned by the same people) would start up in its place
Hold on, that's still an illegal action, and even in the Libertarian Fantasy, the people authorizing those actions would still be criminally liable. That is the difference between Libertarians and pure Anarchists -- there aren't many cases where Libertarians believe in a strong government, but strong enforcement of the law is one of them.
I think his complaint is valid, so much that the headline is just stupid. It's clearly trying to imitate the exceptionally tabloid and low-brow ads which try to "hook" someone in by making a stupid assertion. It's fishing for clicks the same way tabloids shout "Prince Harry's indiscretion!!!" about something that turns out to be bullshit. Not surprisingly, Slashdot has also partnered with ad networks that do the same thing, making Slashdot look like a shitty low quality site like Looper or TMZ. Not that that Slashdot ever had great-quality ads, but the the ads they have now make the site look cheaper and crappier than ever. Current Slashdot ad titles: "What Producers of Knight Rider Hid From Fans," "Epic Bungee Jump Takes Unfortunate Turn," "The Amish Kept These Details Hidden For a Good Reason." Those are the Sponsored Links.
Which headline is more informative and carefully written? "Most US cable subscribers pay 40% more for TV than they did five years ago," or "You're Paying 40% More For TV Than You Were 5 Years Ago?" Journalists who take themselves seriously don't use the second person in headlines. Puff pieces with no substance that look for ways to haul people in like carnies at an amusement park do.
Non-sense. When the entertainment industry starts a tip jar I'll start contributing.
I'm sure if you send them money, they'll be quite happy to take it!
So I can "steal" the GNP of the entire planit, and double our productivity? The theory of "lost revenue" implies that the revenue was there to be lost.
Yet you gained value from it, value that was only offered in exchange for money.
That presupposes that I would or even could pay the amount they are demanding. If those aren't true, they benefit in no way at all from me not enjoying that content.
Or another case. Let's say I plan to watch something on cable that I subscribe to, but 30 minutes in, the idiot up the street manages to cut a tree down and take the cable with it. In that case, I already paid the cableco which already paid the broadcaster who already paid the content producer, etc etc. So who would I be stealing from if I download the torrent posted by the guy upstream of the idiot with a chainsaw?
That's where I draw the line, too. I have no problems 'pirating' content I've already paid for.
I didn't have a problem either when I torrented Game of Thrones episodes after my GOT Blu-Rays developed some strange bit-rot making a few episodes unreadable.
Why don't just provide a link to the video and let *me* use the video player of my choice?
1) Flash was everywhere. It was reliably installed, and every flash doohickey in a web site would include a link to install flash if your computer didn't already have it. Video would never caught on if it had to be up to the end user. Half the web users don't want to go to some random video player site to install it, especially if they're just on a library computer, or they want to send a video link to grandma, etc.
2) Sorry, as much as you want your own presentation, none of the web sites that serve content want you to leave their website to view that content. It's shooting themselves in the foot, and it's their content and their decision.
3) Your media player is under your control. If ads are necessary to pay for the content and bandwidth, then sites are going to want to make sure you're using a player that can't skip ads. #2 applies here too.
+1 to the "why can't I stop videos from autoplaying" problem. Those extensions force frequent browser upgrades too, as apparently the latest "Disable HTML5 Autoplay" extension usually requires the very latest Chrome. It's an immature field that is still under rapid development. And dammit, I'm sometimes working on a slow link, or have limited data. I don't want that link clogged trying to download a video I have no intention of playing. I don't want a "no autoplay" half-measure -- I don't want my browser to download the video file. It's MY browser, why can't that be my decision? This was the one and only saving grace of flash: it was so easy to block.
What next? HTML5 tracking cookies to get around user privacy settings the same way flash cookies were?
And HTML5 is the primary reason why I finally installed NoScript.
HTML5 works better than Flash, but a headphone jack works a lot better than having no headphone jack.
adaptive bitrate
How about providing just an HD switch and let browsers buffer as much as they please instead of trying to be smart by switching to garbage resolutions?
Because you may not have the bandwidth to stream HD, and most users prefer lower resolutions they can play in real time instead of an HD stream which will buffer for a long time, then pause the video when it runs out of buffer.
Of course I'm guessing your post is just another one of those "government is bad, mmmkay" type posts where everyone is always doing everything wrong despite never including any actual examples. It's always easier to bring generic discontent than specific talking points.
It's a combination of that as well as "these guys made a ruling that disagrees with my political leaning and my interpretation of the Constitution, so they're definitely corrupt and lacking in morals."
I think I was about 20 years old when I finally grew out of that. :-D
As an ISP you're already required to report address allocation information to the regional registry who makes the associations publicly available. The police know whether they're looking for ISP staff or a customer when they show up at the door because as an ISP you published enough information for them to make that determination.
What does any of that have to do with police abuse against people doing nothing illegal?
They aren't going to jail. But if you run something that makes it difficult to tell whether you or just someone that you're proxying is the source of illegal content, you'll just have to accept that you're going to be an initial suspect in police investigations. That's kindof a part of the "route all information, even illegal traffic, through my network" decision that is running a Tor exit node.
I have a paid copy of Star Wars 2, tied to a Battle.NET account,
Huh? You sure you're not thinking of Steam?
which is tied to an e-mail address at a previous ISP that I don't have access to.
You can change your email address in the battlenet account management page. If you don't remember your password, then you weren't logging into battle.net to play a game in the first place.
Wow multiplayer rewards are great.
However, the Diablo and Diablo 2 multiplayer experiences were SO bad, and so abused, that I stayed away from WoW for some time just because I didn't like the idea of it being a game where you're interacting with other people. Every single public D2 game I was ever in had the exact same thing happen: a boss dies, all the loot drops to the ground, and EVERYONE rush in and clicks as fast as they possibly can to claim every set and unique item themselves, whether they needed it or not. If you need some awesome item that dropped, good luck! No one in the group will let you have it, they're too busy looking up what black market item selling price they can get. Everyone screwed over everyone else, so everyone was comfortable doing so.
Also, pretty quickly every public game would have 3 regular people and 5 item selling/spamming bots, and for Diablo2, that's a problem they never addressed. At least in WoW they worked semi-hard to add ignore tools, spam-reporting tools, made it so level 1 characters can't send whispers or use public channels, and closed down accounts.
But public D2 multiplayer.. ugh. Not a good experience.
Letting the media companies tell you what you want to watch is not appealing.
They already tell you what to watch, since they decide what to make. Many an idea dies because a studio won't pick it up because they think it's not marketable.