I called my cable company the other day and got an automated response that asked questions and responded, not only with words and instructions but also with a modem reset. The computer system could ask questions, determine responses and perform actions. Yes, it was limited, but decades past it would have been considered awe inspiring and doubtless would have been dubbed both a successful artificial intelligence and thinking machine.
What then is the proper definition of a thinking machine? We already have computers that can follow complex logic paths to arrive at unexpected results (bugs?) and offer solutions we would not have foreseen on our own. Similar in result to having a conversation with an expert in an unfamiliar field.
As machines, both hardware and software become more complex and capable, we are already raising the bar for what we consider an artificial intelligence. Doubtless we will continue to do so for quite some time, but when you can talk with a machine built on the ability to work with volumes of processable knowledge such as is being compiled in the OOR, how will we raise the bar?
Historically, humanity has considered people that they considered unlike themselves to be less than fully human. As the majority of our species progresses toward a more inclusive standard, our language and perception is becoming inadequate to differentiate a human from a very advanced machine. Already most of us consider the issues of race, language, geology, age and affiliation to be irrelevant to defining what makes someone human. Biology is even a wavering standard since we consider people with prosthetics to be people with human rights and human bodies with the inability to think (vegetables) to have none. We are left with the ability to think and biology as the standard, but the definition of thinking is somewhat hazy to say the least.
I think therefore I am, but what does it mean to say "I think" and how do you define thinking without biology in an external entity?
You're technically right, but you hint at a tremendous breath of possibility for improvement without making those suggestions.
Allow me to offer some of those options:
Do away with the lawyers
Elect jurors and pay them accordingly. (Strict limits against multiple consecutive terms, conflicts of interest, etc)
Create a weighted system for crimes with lack of evidence, lack of witnesses and nonviolent crimes being heard more quickly than strong cases
Give judges the option to hear cases without juries taking personal responsibility for decisions proven to be wrong. If a judge condemns a murderer to death, and it is proven the condemned was innocent, the judge is executed. If the judge finds the murderer innocent, and it is proven later that the defendant was guilty, then the judge is disbarred and banned from office. Most crimes would still be heard by jury, but it would allow judges to hear cases with obvious outcomes quickly.
Every one of these suggestions would dramatically change the system of justice in the US, and each would come with its own set of new problems. If I were less prone to keeping comments short, I could write pages worth of evaluation of each of the suggestions above and they're an off the cuff group to begin with. There is absolutely no reason we cannot change our justice system for the better, and there are plenty of people who could offer better solutions than some random/. poster. The real question is whether we believe they would be better. The system may suck, but it sucks less than many others. If we're not satisfied with it though, lets not dismiss the possibility that there could be a better one but I'm with you on your end point, let us dismiss those who criticize without suggesting improvement.
To someone who believes that the Chuck Norris Facts are real: "Really? Do you honestly have any reason to believe that?" Note that it wouldn't be in an angry tone, just asking the hypothetical person to expound on what they believe, because after all, that would require credulity at a level difficult to believe, but certainly make for an interesting perspective. (I would do it in the Shatner pausing style though, because now I believe it makes me sound awesome.)
Principal vs principle: Got it, thanks. I do strive for nearly decent grammar, semi-accurate spelling and occasional correct word choices. I appreciate the correction.
On the subject of context, Mr. Norris was being interviewed, speaking on the subject of the Chuck Norris facts, and explaining by example how and why they were wrong. The AC post seems to be intended solely to criticize the beliefs of Mr. Norris in a context where it is extremely improbable that Mr. Norris will have opportunity to respond and, even it were not so unlikely, the general tone is one of "I'm right, you're wrong and you're stupid. Neiner, neiner, neiner!" It might be reasonable to say that Mr. Norris' choice of venue was ineffective and probably a bad method of preaching, but then dbcad7 did say that later, and in a much more effective manner. The AC post is out of context because it doesn't address TFA, and the topic replied to was really about the lack of hostility Mr. Norris displayed in responding to the Internet versions of the jokes. The sole purpose of the contextual quote was to demonstrate Mr. Norris' forbearance. For the purpose of the example the quote could just as well been a bead recipe and Norris a famous chef explaining that his recipe was entirely different. Jumping on a tangential topic as if it were the primary with derisive statements is typical of a fanatic's response.
I call that type of response fanatical because it has no clear purpose except to advance a personal belief through irrational zeal. The strength of the belief is obvious, but there is a complete lack of interest rational debate on the subject. I've seen such things from preachers and politicians as well, and it always boils down to the same basic argument: Believe me because I am so forceful.
As to the "we all believe in the same god" type statements, I'm in agreement with you. The people who spew such drivel are either idiots or assume their audience are idiots.
You're a little late to the party though. We cynics already use Firefox and put on AdBlock Plus, AdBlock Filterset Updater, NoScript and Flashblock. I'm on Linux, using an encrypted partition, connected to my firewall through a VPN. No, I'm not really paranoid, I've just decided that it is easier to be careful up front than try to keep up with the latest round of vulnerabilities.
The *real* world is as you define it. Christ may not be a part of your definition, but Christ clearly is a part of what Mr. Norris would consider to be real. If you choose to believe that God exists and that Christ is God, then your perceptions are quite different.
You are actually offended that someone would have a perception so dramatically different from your own, and freely speak it, which is the epitome of religious intolerance. Certainly some Christians are guilty of the same and it is just as irrational when they are.
Our country is founded on the principal of religious freedom, which means that your right to express your view, as Mr. Norris' right to express his view, is protected. In short, your offense, doesn't matter. Mr. Norris' offense has no more significance than your own, but his venue of expressing it was in context, where your expression here is fanatical.
No doubt you have a legitimate viewpoint to express, but since your offense has no actual import, perhaps you should consider trying to present your view through rational discourse instead.
Part of the lawsuit distinguishes between legitimate satire and libel. First is the problem with the title: The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 facts about the World's Greatest Human
which is not clearly satire. Ditto for the site also in the suit: www.truthaboutchuck.com.
Alternatives that would have prevented this suit:
400 Things You Wish You Knew About Chuck
400 Chuck Norris Jokes
The Norris 400
The problem is that they don't have the same punch as calling them "facts" which is because, of course they are not facts, which makes the title of the book and site misleading. It is a portrayal of the jokes as facts, not just for humor. Since that portrayal is intended for marketing, it crosses the line from satire into libel.
Maybe it is legitimate satire, maybe it is libel, but it's in the realm of plausible that trying to sell the book by using a misleading title is in fact taking advantage of Chuck's likeness. Whether he wins the suit or not, Norris has a reasonable argument.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Chuck Norris movie fan, but I do think he is a decent guy trying to deal the hand he was dealt in a responsible way and for that I respect him.
(No edit or append option, so self correcting with a follow up post.)
Re-reading both articles, I fail to see where this applies only to new sites, it will appear to apply to existing services as well.
First note that this applies only to new services and only to live services.
It doesn't bother me that there is a movement to classify content and restrict mature content to mature audiences. The article was scanty on how the age verification would be done, but honestly, I have a hard time thinking that trying to restrict content online in the same way our (US here) system restricts printed material is really a bad thing. It does not say that the providers cannot provide content, it just says that they must limit access, the same as access to other things is restricted. Here we limit access to voting, access to tobacco, access to alcohol and of course 'adult' media already. This seems like a rational step in the same direction for Internet media.
Of course I expect to be told I'm wrong, I'm just curious to hear why.
It's now official, new machines have more RAM than my first computers had hard drive. I'm not sure how to use such power, though you can bet it will be with an open source OS.
This means that my next machine will likely be able to run the entire operating system from RAM if I want to use it that way, even with a GUI and applications I would have qualified as memory intensive just a couple years ago.
one of my co-workers who did told me that Jim mentioned that he runs Fedora on one of his computers, and is very much a Linux user. This brought a smile to my face.
No wait, what?!? You're kidding right? The idea that the new CEO might not be a Linux user, or might not run Red Hat software is so plausible that the confirmation that he is a "Linux user" is seen as noteworthy? What the heck? Would they consider putting someone in that position who was "a Mac user" or "a Windows user" or even "sometimes uses Linux?"
I know very little about Jim, but geez, the idea that it could be any other way makes me shudder to think.
Yes. I shudder when I think. I think it is a venereal disease I got from fsking a penguin.
Seriously, Yahoo's search engine is in some regards better than Google's. I read last year that they had better results as judged in a double blind and Google was judged better only when people knew it came from Google. Dubious, but curious, I started doing searches on Yahoo, sometimes just as a test, sometimes when dissatisfied with Google. I was shocked to discover that Yahoo did provide better results most of the time.
Somehow, I'm still addicted to Google, but it's not always my first choice anymore. Certainly I'm still a fan of google, and my gmail still beats my Yahoo mail. Google supports Apache too, good for them! I'm not going to start using one search engine solely based on who they're supporting, but I'll probably start telling people to try Yahoo as often as I tell them to Google it... interesting though, now that google is a verb meaning 'use a search engine to find' I wonder if I'll hear people say 'google on yahoo for'.
There seems to be quite a bit of nitpicking on this matter so I'll chime in. First the blunt opinion: The evidence does not exist unless it can be coerced. Until that time, it is a random bundle of patterns.
From TFA:
This debate has been one of analogy and metaphor.
It should not be. The real difference between being forced to hand over knowledge of a physical key and being forced to hand over a memorized password is that the key is a convenience and the password is not. Exactly as arminw describes.
Consider the reasoning behind the requirement to provide a key, it will cost time and effort that will achieve the same result if the key is not produced. Therefore, it is reasonable to require that someone assist the investigation with the production of a physical key, because the result is the same in terms of access, but different in terms of expense. Making the government spend unnecessary money to investigate is bad.
With a password however, the result is not the same. If you do not provide the password, there is a good chance that the investigation will not have the same result regardless of expense.
This difference holds true with all secrets that can only be discovered by confession. Thoughts, memories and unspoken intent may all have the same potential for protection. The only reason there is a question here is because it is possible to produce desired hard evidence if the desired password is provided.
A better defense: Password? What password? I was looking at a chat buddies computer with a VNC connection, I knew it was bad, but I didn't own it. If there is a PGP file, I didn't put it there, tell me when you find out what is on it.
I gave up on Yahoo many years ago and moved to Google in preference. More and more lately, with improved search results, useful information, less restrictive email, and now support for one of my favorite OSS projects, they lure me back.
You got some of it exactly straight, but I wouldn't say that it is unusual to be in a position of being mistakenly suspected for a crime. I didn't say it warrants cyber-snooping, because the point is that it doesn't have to.
Suffer: 3. To be injured; to sustain loss or damage. (dictionary.net)
I'd say that John clearly 'suffers' the loss of privacy and his rights under the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
This warrant-less search is made easy and without repercussion due to the tools made available by the government's tools.
Dang. Guess it's time to ask for a refund on my macbook.
But hang on a second, are we assuming that only networks connected to the Internet can be compromised? Are we forgetting that viruses can be loaded on *any* media?
Lets say China wants to get a big chunk of data off of a network not connected to the Internet. Maybe they break into the home computer of Sam Gov Lacky who is fond of downloading iTunes and putting them on CD. Sam takes it to work, slips it in, his supervisor wouldn't care if they noticed, and now everything Sam's computer touches is trying to bundle information into an invisible location on the hard drive. Now all they have to do is bribe for or luck into the hard drive with the information they want and decrypt.
<sarcasm>I'm sure nobody with high level access is technically stupid or lax in enforcing the rules. I'm sure that nobody could be bribed to forget to wipe a hard drive, that *shouldn't* have any important information on it.</sarcasm>
I think this is exactly the point I haven't seen anybody making, but that we're all feeling. If governments are actively engaging in hacking, assuming they find competent hackers, what is to stop somebody from using the tools to hit innocent civilians? Of course they could, of course they might, and maybe planting a little evidence? How would you prove it?
It goes toward that mentality of finding evidence, then getting a warrant. If you think John Citizen might be doing something wrong, you simply use the official tool, "classified cracker" and log into his computer and watch him off and on for a couple days. Maybe you get your evidence, maybe not. If you do, then you know where to look for evidence you can use to get a warrant, and if not, nobody is the wiser.
Of course it would be a huge invasion of privacy, but if it's not possible to prove it, and not submitted as primary evidence, then it can be ends justifying means. John Citizen suffers, maybe never knowing his expectation of privacy has been shredded.
That would make sense, but it is wrong. It all started back in the days when we chiseled our bits into stone and sent them by mule train from village to village...
It was the MP skit, not the cultural feelings about SPAM that caused it. Later references were made back to the skit comparison, eventually it was one of those things that people were supposed to just *know* if they were cool.
Skip the software, just pull together some UBE listings and tools, put the tools and run the servers and make the claim: "We define Spam" which nobody else can say, and which gives you a product that the software makers cannot pretend has nothing to do with you.
Having my product name become popular, no matter how popular, does not give other people the right to use it without my permission. Hormel was nice when they let people use the term spam, but they didn't have to be. They did defend it at first, but backed off due to strong public opinion. I hope they win on appeal.
Spam may be used to refer to UBE, but that is only because Spam was (and arguably is) a part of our culture, and can't be seen as anything but a huge product success. Hormel used to object to the use of the word spam to refer to UBE, but they backed off out of respect for public opinion. If Hormel is gracious enough to allow the use of the term to refer to things they have nothing to do with, just to get along, it doesn't mean that they give up the right to be the only company with the right to market a product with the name they came up with and popularized.
HORMEL, READ THIS: The obvious solution is to find a way to create your own anti-ube product and market it as "From the makers of good Spam, more goodness in defeating email spam." Heck the product can suck, but you'll have a valid defense against anybody trying to use your product name then, because you can prove your company has an interest in protecting their trademarked name precisely because it could cause confusion. Add a label to to every can of Spam while you're at it, saying "Spam in a can is good, email spam is bad, visit www.hormel.com/spam to download recipes for your software and stove!"
With a VMWare machine all communication with the processor must be interpreted, that is how the machine essentially works, it provides a fake communication channel that it can control. It does a really slick job of that, but it is still having to go through the extra step.
Not so with Xen, because it uses modified kernels that don't have to be interpreted (Which is why you can't just install your favorite OS in any old Xen like you can with VMWare.) This is why the overhead on Xen machines is 1% to 10% rather than 15% to 20% with VMWare. Essentially the only overhead you have is a minimal kernel that can not do much at all.
Further, VMWare has done some things recently that they say will put them in the same performance range as Xen if you're paying for their server product. I have not tried it.
It sounds to me like you've used VMWare and the defaults for a desktop or old server install and that means you used virtualized disks, which really, really sucks. If you're using VMWare player, you're doing the same thing essentially. IO most assuredly does not suck with Xen using drive partitions directly. Red Hat's implementation does something funky that way, but that may be why Oracle is making a big deal of theirs', it may be using the drive partitions directly, or even raw (without a format) as some databases, and I think Oracle does this, are prone to do. That means that they may be doing their own VM precisely because they can get better performance that way than with RH's product and if they can engineer the entire environment, I'd be shocked if their experts can't get better performance from a VM than most people setting it up even with significant experience.
One of the major selling points for VMWare is that it is ideal for development and if a major player in the development world, which Oracle is because they have the database, then there is much more appeal and legitimacy to doing virtualization through Xen. Now, personally I just got our company to buy a VMWare license for a couple of us because it is so easy and we're working with Macs. The issue wasn't a question of which VM system was better, it was a simple question of which was cheaper. I preferred VMWare by about a $10 margin over Parallels, and it turned out to be the less expensive of the two.
Now imagine thousands of people developing for Oracle asking themselves the same question, only now there is an official VM solution for Oracle development.. what do you think they will choose?
As to why it should reflect in stock prices, it's about name recognition. Most investors don't perceive Red Hat or SUSE or XenSource (Citrix) to be a competitor to VMWare, because they don't know who they are. Those same investors do recognize Oracle and as far as your average investor is concerned, virtualization is virtualization. Some of this may stabilize later as the difference in the products and the other competitors show up in stock market publishing, but don't expect it to disappear just because the people with the money realize there are other players on the field.
This is the year of the Linux desktop. I don't give a crap what metric you were expecting to use, when Walmart planned to stock and then sold out of them, the Linux desktop arrived.
Last I read on the things they had a modem but it wasn't compatible or at least wasn't configured for the system. I'd be shocked if somebody can't come up with a way to use it if there is demand but I don't think this is being sold as a dial-up capable machine.
Okay, so you say that my idealistic beliefs don't describe the world. Duh. That's why I started the sentence off with "I believe" rather than "I observe." You go on about pointing out examples of how parts of society distribute wealth otherwise, again, Duh. Then, however, you suggest taking resentment out on what I'd already submit are tragically abused children. I'm pretty sure I never suggested doing anything to them, or rather do you construe suggesting we don't further their mother's indulgence to be an active cause of suffering? Perhaps you feel that allowing someone to make a habit of doing a poor job caring for their kids to be the best way to serve them? Yeah, the mother is stupid and undeserving, it is after all the hypothetical person whom I created explicitly to example someone who is stupid and undeserving. Actually, it isn't having a kid with no expectation of supporting the kid that makes the mother stupid, it is the plural, but yeah, I stand by my assignment of a fictional example person being exactly that person I created them to exemplify.
Finally you do get around to stating an argument that as some merit, although it's observably wrong, you and I have wasted a lot of words getting to something of an actual point, which is why I call the argument shallow, which I'll come back to in a moment. Your meritable argument could be summed up as: children of people who make stupid choices will make stupid choices too (a cycle) unless we support the parents who make those stupid choices.
No, I don't buy it that giving people support (welfare is by definition "giving people support") when they make bad decisions, particularly on a continual basis, which is guaranteed by using my hypothetical person, will make the children less likely to make the same choices. Your implied goal is that you want to make sure the children don't make those choices, but how to do that? Hang the mother in the public square and sell the children into slavery. I'm personally against trying to break the cycle at that cost, but if you really want to accomplish your implied goal, that would do it. Of course, I doubt that will accomplish your real goal, one I suspect is probably in line with my own, which I'd state as: Whatever circumstances someone comes from, be it fortunate or not, every child deserves a chance and has a duty of becoming a productive member of society.
I'm not judging people lazy because they are on welfare, I am observing that some people who are on welfare are indeed lazy and giving a hypothetical example to demonstrate it. Surely you wouldn't say that no individual receiving welfare is lazy, to do so would contradict observable reality. In fact, by choosing a non-person to use as an example, I explicitly avoided stereotypes. Nice of you to bring in the buzzword though, it shows that you're looking to defend someone, but my made up person is not who you should be wasting your energy on. As to the meaning of the word greed, I didn't use it actually initially, but seeing you respond trying to assert that it didn't mean what it actually is defined to mean was enough to prompt me to respond with the accurate definition lest people assume that you knew what you were talking about. Which brings us back to shallow, saying that people who are receiving welfare are not greedy is in fact a shallow argument. It is a stereotype in fact, to assume that all people receiving welfare share any single common characteristic. To take umbrage with a single word of the statement and to state an inaccurate definition as cause is in fact about as shallow an argument as can be made. Should you have stated that "not all people who receive welfare are greedy, although some are" well it would have been accurate and worth little notice. The agreement would have been just as shallow as the argument and for exactly the same reasons. If you really wanted to make a case against there being a problem with recipients of welfare being likely to be greedy, which is to say wanting to receive that which they didn't deserve, then you'd
I was in the enviable position of having a lawyer already on retainer, and got him to draft an addendum indicating that only IP specifically related to company business would belong to them. The company refused to accept it with the addendum. So much for ask you lawyer, what they meant was "ask your lawyer if it is worth getting fired over."
Eventually, after about a year, their lawyer came back seeming shocked that they wanted to keep me after so long without signing, and "clarified" that their contract would not extend to IP not related to the company's business. I signed at that point, but by then I'd already gone most of the way to finding my next job. They didn't just lose me over it either, it was like all the smart rats jumped ship and the sheep stayed. I was the only one out of hundreds of employees though that was willing to lose my job over it. There might be strength in numbers, but don't count on it.
Slashdot Mirror
I called my cable company the other day and got an automated response that asked questions and responded, not only with words and instructions but also with a modem reset. The computer system could ask questions, determine responses and perform actions. Yes, it was limited, but decades past it would have been considered awe inspiring and doubtless would have been dubbed both a successful artificial intelligence and thinking machine.
What then is the proper definition of a thinking machine? We already have computers that can follow complex logic paths to arrive at unexpected results (bugs?) and offer solutions we would not have foreseen on our own. Similar in result to having a conversation with an expert in an unfamiliar field.
As machines, both hardware and software become more complex and capable, we are already raising the bar for what we consider an artificial intelligence. Doubtless we will continue to do so for quite some time, but when you can talk with a machine built on the ability to work with volumes of processable knowledge such as is being compiled in the OOR, how will we raise the bar?
Historically, humanity has considered people that they considered unlike themselves to be less than fully human. As the majority of our species progresses toward a more inclusive standard, our language and perception is becoming inadequate to differentiate a human from a very advanced machine. Already most of us consider the issues of race, language, geology, age and affiliation to be irrelevant to defining what makes someone human. Biology is even a wavering standard since we consider people with prosthetics to be people with human rights and human bodies with the inability to think (vegetables) to have none. We are left with the ability to think and biology as the standard, but the definition of thinking is somewhat hazy to say the least.
I think therefore I am, but what does it mean to say "I think" and how do you define thinking without biology in an external entity?
You're technically right, but you hint at a tremendous breath of possibility for improvement without making those suggestions.
Allow me to offer some of those options:
Every one of these suggestions would dramatically change the system of justice in the US, and each would come with its own set of new problems. If I were less prone to keeping comments short, I could write pages worth of evaluation of each of the suggestions above and they're an off the cuff group to begin with. There is absolutely no reason we cannot change our justice system for the better, and there are plenty of people who could offer better solutions than some random /. poster. The real question is whether we believe they would be better. The system may suck, but it sucks less than many others. If we're not satisfied with it though, lets not dismiss the possibility that there could be a better one but I'm with you on your end point, let us dismiss those who criticize without suggesting improvement.
To someone who believes that the Chuck Norris Facts are real: "Really? Do you honestly have any reason to believe that?" Note that it wouldn't be in an angry tone, just asking the hypothetical person to expound on what they believe, because after all, that would require credulity at a level difficult to believe, but certainly make for an interesting perspective. (I would do it in the Shatner pausing style though, because now I believe it makes me sound awesome.)
Principal vs principle: Got it, thanks. I do strive for nearly decent grammar, semi-accurate spelling and occasional correct word choices. I appreciate the correction.
On the subject of context, Mr. Norris was being interviewed, speaking on the subject of the Chuck Norris facts, and explaining by example how and why they were wrong. The AC post seems to be intended solely to criticize the beliefs of Mr. Norris in a context where it is extremely improbable that Mr. Norris will have opportunity to respond and, even it were not so unlikely, the general tone is one of "I'm right, you're wrong and you're stupid. Neiner, neiner, neiner!" It might be reasonable to say that Mr. Norris' choice of venue was ineffective and probably a bad method of preaching, but then dbcad7 did say that later, and in a much more effective manner. The AC post is out of context because it doesn't address TFA, and the topic replied to was really about the lack of hostility Mr. Norris displayed in responding to the Internet versions of the jokes. The sole purpose of the contextual quote was to demonstrate Mr. Norris' forbearance. For the purpose of the example the quote could just as well been a bead recipe and Norris a famous chef explaining that his recipe was entirely different. Jumping on a tangential topic as if it were the primary with derisive statements is typical of a fanatic's response.
I call that type of response fanatical because it has no clear purpose except to advance a personal belief through irrational zeal. The strength of the belief is obvious, but there is a complete lack of interest rational debate on the subject. I've seen such things from preachers and politicians as well, and it always boils down to the same basic argument: Believe me because I am so forceful.
As to the "we all believe in the same god" type statements, I'm in agreement with you. The people who spew such drivel are either idiots or assume their audience are idiots.
Preach it!
You're a little late to the party though. We cynics already use Firefox and put on AdBlock Plus, AdBlock Filterset Updater, NoScript and Flashblock. I'm on Linux, using an encrypted partition, connected to my firewall through a VPN. No, I'm not really paranoid, I've just decided that it is easier to be careful up front than try to keep up with the latest round of vulnerabilities.
The *real* world is as you define it. Christ may not be a part of your definition, but Christ clearly is a part of what Mr. Norris would consider to be real. If you choose to believe that God exists and that Christ is God, then your perceptions are quite different.
You are actually offended that someone would have a perception so dramatically different from your own, and freely speak it, which is the epitome of religious intolerance. Certainly some Christians are guilty of the same and it is just as irrational when they are.
Our country is founded on the principal of religious freedom, which means that your right to express your view, as Mr. Norris' right to express his view, is protected. In short, your offense, doesn't matter. Mr. Norris' offense has no more significance than your own, but his venue of expressing it was in context, where your expression here is fanatical.
No doubt you have a legitimate viewpoint to express, but since your offense has no actual import, perhaps you should consider trying to present your view through rational discourse instead.
Part of the lawsuit distinguishes between legitimate satire and libel. First is the problem with the title:
The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 facts about the World's Greatest Human
which is not clearly satire. Ditto for the site also in the suit: www.truthaboutchuck.com.
Alternatives that would have prevented this suit:
- 400 Things You Wish You Knew About Chuck
- 400 Chuck Norris Jokes
- The Norris 400
The problem is that they don't have the same punch as calling them "facts" which is because, of course they are not facts, which makes the title of the book and site misleading. It is a portrayal of the jokes as facts, not just for humor. Since that portrayal is intended for marketing, it crosses the line from satire into libel.Maybe it is legitimate satire, maybe it is libel, but it's in the realm of plausible that trying to sell the book by using a misleading title is in fact taking advantage of Chuck's likeness. Whether he wins the suit or not, Norris has a reasonable argument.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Chuck Norris movie fan, but I do think he is a decent guy trying to deal the hand he was dealt in a responsible way and for that I respect him.
(No edit or append option, so self correcting with a follow up post.)
Re-reading both articles, I fail to see where this applies only to new sites, it will appear to apply to existing services as well.
First note that this applies only to new services and only to live services.
It doesn't bother me that there is a movement to classify content and restrict mature content to mature audiences. The article was scanty on how the age verification would be done, but honestly, I have a hard time thinking that trying to restrict content online in the same way our (US here) system restricts printed material is really a bad thing. It does not say that the providers cannot provide content, it just says that they must limit access, the same as access to other things is restricted. Here we limit access to voting, access to tobacco, access to alcohol and of course 'adult' media already. This seems like a rational step in the same direction for Internet media.
Of course I expect to be told I'm wrong, I'm just curious to hear why.
It's now official, new machines have more RAM than my first computers had hard drive. I'm not sure how to use such power, though you can bet it will be with an open source OS.
This means that my next machine will likely be able to run the entire operating system from RAM if I want to use it that way, even with a GUI and applications I would have qualified as memory intensive just a couple years ago.
No wait, what?!? You're kidding right? The idea that the new CEO might not be a Linux user, or might not run Red Hat software is so plausible that the confirmation that he is a "Linux user" is seen as noteworthy? What the heck? Would they consider putting someone in that position who was "a Mac user" or "a Windows user" or even "sometimes uses Linux?"
I know very little about Jim, but geez, the idea that it could be any other way makes me shudder to think.
Yes. I shudder when I think. I think it is a venereal disease I got from fsking a penguin.
Seriously, Yahoo's search engine is in some regards better than Google's. I read last year that they had better results as judged in a double blind and Google was judged better only when people knew it came from Google. Dubious, but curious, I started doing searches on Yahoo, sometimes just as a test, sometimes when dissatisfied with Google. I was shocked to discover that Yahoo did provide better results most of the time.
Somehow, I'm still addicted to Google, but it's not always my first choice anymore. Certainly I'm still a fan of google, and my gmail still beats my Yahoo mail. Google supports Apache too, good for them! I'm not going to start using one search engine solely based on who they're supporting, but I'll probably start telling people to try Yahoo as often as I tell them to Google it... interesting though, now that google is a verb meaning 'use a search engine to find' I wonder if I'll hear people say 'google on yahoo for'.
There seems to be quite a bit of nitpicking on this matter so I'll chime in. First the blunt opinion: The evidence does not exist unless it can be coerced. Until that time, it is a random bundle of patterns.
From TFA:It should not be. The real difference between being forced to hand over knowledge of a physical key and being forced to hand over a memorized password is that the key is a convenience and the password is not. Exactly as arminw describes.
Consider the reasoning behind the requirement to provide a key, it will cost time and effort that will achieve the same result if the key is not produced. Therefore, it is reasonable to require that someone assist the investigation with the production of a physical key, because the result is the same in terms of access, but different in terms of expense. Making the government spend unnecessary money to investigate is bad.
With a password however, the result is not the same. If you do not provide the password, there is a good chance that the investigation will not have the same result regardless of expense.
This difference holds true with all secrets that can only be discovered by confession. Thoughts, memories and unspoken intent may all have the same potential for protection. The only reason there is a question here is because it is possible to produce desired hard evidence if the desired password is provided.
A better defense: Password? What password? I was looking at a chat buddies computer with a VNC connection, I knew it was bad, but I didn't own it. If there is a PGP file, I didn't put it there, tell me when you find out what is on it.
I gave up on Yahoo many years ago and moved to Google in preference. More and more lately, with improved search results, useful information, less restrictive email, and now support for one of my favorite OSS projects, they lure me back.
Keep up the good work Yahoo.
You got some of it exactly straight, but I wouldn't say that it is unusual to be in a position of being mistakenly suspected for a crime. I didn't say it warrants cyber-snooping, because the point is that it doesn't have to.
Suffer: 3. To be injured; to sustain loss or damage. (dictionary.net)
I'd say that John clearly 'suffers' the loss of privacy and his rights under the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
This warrant-less search is made easy and without repercussion due to the tools made available by the government's tools.
Hypothetically of course.
Dang. Guess it's time to ask for a refund on my macbook.
But hang on a second, are we assuming that only networks connected to the Internet can be compromised? Are we forgetting that viruses can be loaded on *any* media?
Lets say China wants to get a big chunk of data off of a network not connected to the Internet. Maybe they break into the home computer of Sam Gov Lacky who is fond of downloading iTunes and putting them on CD. Sam takes it to work, slips it in, his supervisor wouldn't care if they noticed, and now everything Sam's computer touches is trying to bundle information into an invisible location on the hard drive. Now all they have to do is bribe for or luck into the hard drive with the information they want and decrypt.
<sarcasm>I'm sure nobody with high level access is technically stupid or lax in enforcing the rules. I'm sure that nobody could be bribed to forget to wipe a hard drive, that *shouldn't* have any important information on it.</sarcasm>
I think this is exactly the point I haven't seen anybody making, but that we're all feeling. If governments are actively engaging in hacking, assuming they find competent hackers, what is to stop somebody from using the tools to hit innocent civilians? Of course they could, of course they might, and maybe planting a little evidence? How would you prove it?
It goes toward that mentality of finding evidence, then getting a warrant. If you think John Citizen might be doing something wrong, you simply use the official tool, "classified cracker" and log into his computer and watch him off and on for a couple days. Maybe you get your evidence, maybe not. If you do, then you know where to look for evidence you can use to get a warrant, and if not, nobody is the wiser.
Of course it would be a huge invasion of privacy, but if it's not possible to prove it, and not submitted as primary evidence, then it can be ends justifying means. John Citizen suffers, maybe never knowing his expectation of privacy has been shredded.
That would make sense, but it is wrong. It all started back in the days when we chiseled our bits into stone and sent them by mule train from village to village...
It was the MP skit, not the cultural feelings about SPAM that caused it. Later references were made back to the skit comparison, eventually it was one of those things that people were supposed to just *know* if they were cool.
See: http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamterm.html
And another thing!
Skip the software, just pull together some UBE listings and tools, put the tools and run the servers and make the claim: "We define Spam" which nobody else can say, and which gives you a product that the software makers cannot pretend has nothing to do with you.
Having my product name become popular, no matter how popular, does not give other people the right to use it without my permission. Hormel was nice when they let people use the term spam, but they didn't have to be. They did defend it at first, but backed off due to strong public opinion. I hope they win on appeal.
Spam may be used to refer to UBE, but that is only because Spam was (and arguably is) a part of our culture, and can't be seen as anything but a huge product success. Hormel used to object to the use of the word spam to refer to UBE, but they backed off out of respect for public opinion. If Hormel is gracious enough to allow the use of the term to refer to things they have nothing to do with, just to get along, it doesn't mean that they give up the right to be the only company with the right to market a product with the name they came up with and popularized.
HORMEL, READ THIS: The obvious solution is to find a way to create your own anti-ube product and market it as "From the makers of good Spam, more goodness in defeating email spam." Heck the product can suck, but you'll have a valid defense against anybody trying to use your product name then, because you can prove your company has an interest in protecting their trademarked name precisely because it could cause confusion. Add a label to to every can of Spam while you're at it, saying "Spam in a can is good, email spam is bad, visit www.hormel.com/spam to download recipes for your software and stove!"
You're thinking of VMWare, not Xen I suspect.
With a VMWare machine all communication with the processor must be interpreted, that is how the machine essentially works, it provides a fake communication channel that it can control. It does a really slick job of that, but it is still having to go through the extra step.
Not so with Xen, because it uses modified kernels that don't have to be interpreted (Which is why you can't just install your favorite OS in any old Xen like you can with VMWare.) This is why the overhead on Xen machines is 1% to 10% rather than 15% to 20% with VMWare. Essentially the only overhead you have is a minimal kernel that can not do much at all.
Further, VMWare has done some things recently that they say will put them in the same performance range as Xen if you're paying for their server product. I have not tried it.
It sounds to me like you've used VMWare and the defaults for a desktop or old server install and that means you used virtualized disks, which really, really sucks. If you're using VMWare player, you're doing the same thing essentially. IO most assuredly does not suck with Xen using drive partitions directly. Red Hat's implementation does something funky that way, but that may be why Oracle is making a big deal of theirs', it may be using the drive partitions directly, or even raw (without a format) as some databases, and I think Oracle does this, are prone to do. That means that they may be doing their own VM precisely because they can get better performance that way than with RH's product and if they can engineer the entire environment, I'd be shocked if their experts can't get better performance from a VM than most people setting it up even with significant experience.
One of the major selling points for VMWare is that it is ideal for development and if a major player in the development world, which Oracle is because they have the database, then there is much more appeal and legitimacy to doing virtualization through Xen. Now, personally I just got our company to buy a VMWare license for a couple of us because it is so easy and we're working with Macs. The issue wasn't a question of which VM system was better, it was a simple question of which was cheaper. I preferred VMWare by about a $10 margin over Parallels, and it turned out to be the less expensive of the two.
Now imagine thousands of people developing for Oracle asking themselves the same question, only now there is an official VM solution for Oracle development.. what do you think they will choose?
As to why it should reflect in stock prices, it's about name recognition. Most investors don't perceive Red Hat or SUSE or XenSource (Citrix) to be a competitor to VMWare, because they don't know who they are. Those same investors do recognize Oracle and as far as your average investor is concerned, virtualization is virtualization. Some of this may stabilize later as the difference in the products and the other competitors show up in stock market publishing, but don't expect it to disappear just because the people with the money realize there are other players on the field.
This is the year of the Linux desktop. I don't give a crap what metric you were expecting to use, when Walmart planned to stock and then sold out of them, the Linux desktop arrived.
Last I read on the things they had a modem but it wasn't compatible or at least wasn't configured for the system. I'd be shocked if somebody can't come up with a way to use it if there is demand but I don't think this is being sold as a dial-up capable machine.
Okay, so you say that my idealistic beliefs don't describe the world. Duh. That's why I started the sentence off with "I believe" rather than "I observe." You go on about pointing out examples of how parts of society distribute wealth otherwise, again, Duh. Then, however, you suggest taking resentment out on what I'd already submit are tragically abused children. I'm pretty sure I never suggested doing anything to them, or rather do you construe suggesting we don't further their mother's indulgence to be an active cause of suffering? Perhaps you feel that allowing someone to make a habit of doing a poor job caring for their kids to be the best way to serve them? Yeah, the mother is stupid and undeserving, it is after all the hypothetical person whom I created explicitly to example someone who is stupid and undeserving. Actually, it isn't having a kid with no expectation of supporting the kid that makes the mother stupid, it is the plural, but yeah, I stand by my assignment of a fictional example person being exactly that person I created them to exemplify.
Finally you do get around to stating an argument that as some merit, although it's observably wrong, you and I have wasted a lot of words getting to something of an actual point, which is why I call the argument shallow, which I'll come back to in a moment. Your meritable argument could be summed up as: children of people who make stupid choices will make stupid choices too (a cycle) unless we support the parents who make those stupid choices.
No, I don't buy it that giving people support (welfare is by definition "giving people support") when they make bad decisions, particularly on a continual basis, which is guaranteed by using my hypothetical person, will make the children less likely to make the same choices. Your implied goal is that you want to make sure the children don't make those choices, but how to do that? Hang the mother in the public square and sell the children into slavery. I'm personally against trying to break the cycle at that cost, but if you really want to accomplish your implied goal, that would do it. Of course, I doubt that will accomplish your real goal, one I suspect is probably in line with my own, which I'd state as: Whatever circumstances someone comes from, be it fortunate or not, every child deserves a chance and has a duty of becoming a productive member of society.
I'm not judging people lazy because they are on welfare, I am observing that some people who are on welfare are indeed lazy and giving a hypothetical example to demonstrate it. Surely you wouldn't say that no individual receiving welfare is lazy, to do so would contradict observable reality. In fact, by choosing a non-person to use as an example, I explicitly avoided stereotypes. Nice of you to bring in the buzzword though, it shows that you're looking to defend someone, but my made up person is not who you should be wasting your energy on. As to the meaning of the word greed, I didn't use it actually initially, but seeing you respond trying to assert that it didn't mean what it actually is defined to mean was enough to prompt me to respond with the accurate definition lest people assume that you knew what you were talking about. Which brings us back to shallow, saying that people who are receiving welfare are not greedy is in fact a shallow argument. It is a stereotype in fact, to assume that all people receiving welfare share any single common characteristic. To take umbrage with a single word of the statement and to state an inaccurate definition as cause is in fact about as shallow an argument as can be made. Should you have stated that "not all people who receive welfare are greedy, although some are" well it would have been accurate and worth little notice. The agreement would have been just as shallow as the argument and for exactly the same reasons. If you really wanted to make a case against there being a problem with recipients of welfare being likely to be greedy, which is to say wanting to receive that which they didn't deserve, then you'd
I was in the enviable position of having a lawyer already on retainer, and got him to draft an addendum indicating that only IP specifically related to company business would belong to them. The company refused to accept it with the addendum. So much for ask you lawyer, what they meant was "ask your lawyer if it is worth getting fired over."
Eventually, after about a year, their lawyer came back seeming shocked that they wanted to keep me after so long without signing, and "clarified" that their contract would not extend to IP not related to the company's business. I signed at that point, but by then I'd already gone most of the way to finding my next job. They didn't just lose me over it either, it was like all the smart rats jumped ship and the sheep stayed. I was the only one out of hundreds of employees though that was willing to lose my job over it. There might be strength in numbers, but don't count on it.