I cannot think of a single good fiction novel that is only entertainment. The idea of fiction is that you have less restrictions as a writer to make the point and develop the story you want to, be that for entertainment or other purposes.
But it's true that there is a mass market of fiction books that is intended only to entertain, and that's totally okay. It's just not a "rule".
Exactly. It's a bit like traveling to other countries and foreign cultures today. Languages, daily habits and circumstances of living can be very different from the outside, but once you've get to know them people are essentially the same everywhere - worrying about jobs, love, passions, etc.
If you'd be catapulted into the 15th Century, you'd be able to connect immediately to the people without any problems except for the language and some external habits (norms of politeness, classes, way to dress) that can indeed change drastically over time. (And you cannot change the latter arbitrarily as an author, because you would not be understood and you're writing for today.)
I don't know. While I personally don't really care which programming language is used and have no quirks with programming in Python if I had to (I've done it in the past), it's not easy to see why Python became so popular except for confirming the widely held suspicion that only lousy programming languages can become popular. Even Ada has higher productivity, testability and maintainability, and it's as fast as C.
To make things worse, Python is also slower than Ruby, Scala, Clojure, Racket, Common Lisp (sbcl), Rust, FreePascal, PHP,....
Also, explain to me why anyone should use an interpreted programming language when even CommonLisp was already compiled in the 80s?
It's also the slowest language, at least among the common ones. In fact it's so slow that it's even a lousy replacement for Basic, because most Basic implementations are faster. And it's not standardized.
I very much doubt that a high salary for an Ada engineer is an exception, it would be suprising if there are any low-wage Ada jobs at all. The same goes for COBOL, without doubt.
That's not only wrong, pirates would also not give a fuck about it. Piracy was alive and prosper well before Bittorrent was invented and *any* fast content delivery system can (and will, if needed) be used for piracy. People pirated video games on floppy disks and tapes.
If you want to stop piracy, you need to close the Internet (i.e., prohibit TCP/IP connections except those by content providers) and strictly prohibit all mass storage media like hard disks, USB sticks, CDs and DVDs, and Blueray. But if you really want to make sure, it's probably best to also prohibit computers because people will always look for a way to transfer files.
As long as the majority of the world population does not have enough money to buy the content anyway, piracy will always exist.
Whether the seizure was the legal the courts will decide.
NZ courts have already decided that the seizure was illegal.
Oh wait, you mean the US of A courts, the ones who claim to have legal authority over a German living in New Zealand whose company was registered in Hong Kong?
That's splitting hairs. Without his legal team, he had been extradited by now.
But this is commercial infringement.
Highly doubtful. He offered free access to delete content, a system similar to the one that Youtube has implemented, and had an additional team of employees to deal with copyright complaints. Three different legal teams checked the business model and gave him the thumbs up.
is anyone claiming he's actually an innocent guy getting railroaded?
I find it very unlikely that he's actually guilty of criminal copyright infringement. You would think that this law is designed for people who actually infringe copyright, but apparently not in the US. If he's guilty, then thousands of file hosting companies that are still in business would be guilty as well, and the executive boards of the biggest copyright infringers on earth Google and Youtube would all have to be in maximum security prison by now.
The problem is, however, that by "guilty" you might mean "guilty according to the faulty undue process of corrupt US justice, acting on illegaly obtained evidence and on the basis of breaking the laws of other souvereign nations". Well, in that case, he might indeed be guilty, although he still will still be able to make a pretty good case. The US does in fact not even have jurisdiction over his company, they had to resort to mind-boggling legal tricks to still be able to reach him -- tricks that no souvereign nation should allow to be pulled, but apparently some of them like New Zealand and UK are nothing more than additional states of the US.
There is plenty of evidence that this law is being abused. However, this evidence is only available to EU citizens who bother to cross-check their search results, which is probably the reason why the EU wants to make sure that they can't do that any longer.
It's even worse. The "right to be forgotten" is also being abused for political motives.
Take as an example a query for "Anna Ardin" in Europe versus the US version. Spot the difference? I'd say the US clearly wins this one with regard to freedom of information.
(These links might not work directly where you live, because they assume you're in Europe. If you live elsewhere you might need to find you own proxies that ensure that queries are really 'entered' in the US or Europe respectively.)
I wonder whether it would be possible to write a Firefox plugin that detects the omitted search results and launches a proxy search automatically. Until something like that exists I will always use a US proxy when Google Europe yields "rights to be forgotten" results.
As opposed to many fellow Europeans I'm generally very pro-EU, but fuck them for this one...
The defendant should not have a reason at all to cooperate and should be allowed to remain silent. It's the duty of the prosecutors to prove the crime, and if they have no solid evidence to start with then the case should never have gone to court.
On the other hand, you're also royally boned if you buy a Seagate in the first place. They break unbelievably fast in comparison to any other brand I've tried.
Nah, I can guarantee you that the reason is Bush and his regime. I'm an example myself, I was planning for a long time to apply at a US university and move to your lovely country, but Bush and his gang really did spoil the party.
I know some of you guys think differently, but across the pond Obama is more or less recognized like an overall very reasonable, if not a bit pale and too timid politician. Like, say, Jimmy Carter.
While the scientific merits of their approach are indeed somewhat questionable, their article addresses a topic of widespread public interest and they make a valid point. I suppose it has entered the journal not under the category "original research" but rather under "discussion and critical commentaries".
Yes, we know, because we know that Anna Ardin is more or less working for the CIA or at least various institutions that have a proven connection to the CIA - it's clear to anyone who can add 1+1.
Extradition treaties do not work the way you think they are.
For example, Portugal has recently refused to hand over George Wright, a convicted murder and airline hijacker, to the US on the grounds that he has built up a new existence in Portugal.
Slashdot Mirror
I cannot think of a single good fiction novel that is only entertainment. The idea of fiction is that you have less restrictions as a writer to make the point and develop the story you want to, be that for entertainment or other purposes.
But it's true that there is a mass market of fiction books that is intended only to entertain, and that's totally okay. It's just not a "rule".
Exactly. It's a bit like traveling to other countries and foreign cultures today. Languages, daily habits and circumstances of living can be very different from the outside, but once you've get to know them people are essentially the same everywhere - worrying about jobs, love, passions, etc.
If you'd be catapulted into the 15th Century, you'd be able to connect immediately to the people without any problems except for the language and some external habits (norms of politeness, classes, way to dress) that can indeed change drastically over time. (And you cannot change the latter arbitrarily as an author, because you would not be understood and you're writing for today.)
It would be kind of pointless because there is nothing to "cyber-attack" in North Korea.
I don't know. While I personally don't really care which programming language is used and have no quirks with programming in Python if I had to (I've done it in the past), it's not easy to see why Python became so popular except for confirming the widely held suspicion that only lousy programming languages can become popular. Even Ada has higher productivity, testability and maintainability, and it's as fast as C.
To make things worse, Python is also slower than Ruby, Scala, Clojure, Racket, Common Lisp (sbcl), Rust, FreePascal, PHP, ....
Also, explain to me why anyone should use an interpreted programming language when even CommonLisp was already compiled in the 80s?
It's also the slowest language, at least among the common ones. In fact it's so slow that it's even a lousy replacement for Basic, because most Basic implementations are faster. And it's not standardized.
Exceptions???
I very much doubt that a high salary for an Ada engineer is an exception, it would be suprising if there are any low-wage Ada jobs at all. The same goes for COBOL, without doubt.
The N. Koreans are all pissed off at Sony
Not just the North Koreans, though ... also about half of all people who ever had the misfortune of owning a Sony device. Or wait, make it 2/3 ...
Its main purpose is to facilitate piracy.
That's not only wrong, pirates would also not give a fuck about it. Piracy was alive and prosper well before Bittorrent was invented and *any* fast content delivery system can (and will, if needed) be used for piracy. People pirated video games on floppy disks and tapes.
If you want to stop piracy, you need to close the Internet (i.e., prohibit TCP/IP connections except those by content providers) and strictly prohibit all mass storage media like hard disks, USB sticks, CDs and DVDs, and Blueray. But if you really want to make sure, it's probably best to also prohibit computers because people will always look for a way to transfer files.
As long as the majority of the world population does not have enough money to buy the content anyway, piracy will always exist.
The only piece of shit here is you.
Whether the seizure was the legal the courts will decide.
NZ courts have already decided that the seizure was illegal.
Oh wait, you mean the US of A courts, the ones who claim to have legal authority over a German living in New Zealand whose company was registered in Hong Kong?
He's guilty of absolutely nothing, and he's actually fairly nice guy. But none of this will help him ...
They didn't bankrupt him; he did that.
That's splitting hairs. Without his legal team, he had been extradited by now.
But this is commercial infringement.
Highly doubtful. He offered free access to delete content, a system similar to the one that Youtube has implemented, and had an additional team of employees to deal with copyright complaints. Three different legal teams checked the business model and gave him the thumbs up.
is anyone claiming he's actually an innocent guy getting railroaded?
I find it very unlikely that he's actually guilty of criminal copyright infringement. You would think that this law is designed for people who actually infringe copyright, but apparently not in the US. If he's guilty, then thousands of file hosting companies that are still in business would be guilty as well, and the executive boards of the biggest copyright infringers on earth Google and Youtube would all have to be in maximum security prison by now.
The problem is, however, that by "guilty" you might mean "guilty according to the faulty undue process of corrupt US justice, acting on illegaly obtained evidence and on the basis of breaking the laws of other souvereign nations". Well, in that case, he might indeed be guilty, although he still will still be able to make a pretty good case. The US does in fact not even have jurisdiction over his company, they had to resort to mind-boggling legal tricks to still be able to reach him -- tricks that no souvereign nation should allow to be pulled, but apparently some of them like New Zealand and UK are nothing more than additional states of the US.
Of course it's censorship.
There is plenty of evidence that this law is being abused. However, this evidence is only available to EU citizens who bother to cross-check their search results, which is probably the reason why the EU wants to make sure that they can't do that any longer.
It's even worse. The "right to be forgotten" is also being abused for political motives.
Take as an example a query for "Anna Ardin" in Europe versus the US version. Spot the difference? I'd say the US clearly wins this one with regard to freedom of information.
(These links might not work directly where you live, because they assume you're in Europe. If you live elsewhere you might need to find you own proxies that ensure that queries are really 'entered' in the US or Europe respectively.)
I wonder whether it would be possible to write a Firefox plugin that detects the omitted search results and launches a proxy search automatically. Until something like that exists I will always use a US proxy when Google Europe yields "rights to be forgotten" results.
As opposed to many fellow Europeans I'm generally very pro-EU, but fuck them for this one...
The defendant should not have a reason at all to cooperate and should be allowed to remain silent. It's the duty of the prosecutors to prove the crime, and if they have no solid evidence to start with then the case should never have gone to court.
On the other hand, you're also royally boned if you buy a Seagate in the first place. They break unbelievably fast in comparison to any other brand I've tried.
Nah, I can guarantee you that the reason is Bush and his regime. I'm an example myself, I was planning for a long time to apply at a US university and move to your lovely country, but Bush and his gang really did spoil the party.
I know some of you guys think differently, but across the pond Obama is more or less recognized like an overall very reasonable, if not a bit pale and too timid politician. Like, say, Jimmy Carter.
While the scientific merits of their approach are indeed somewhat questionable, their article addresses a topic of widespread public interest and they make a valid point. I suppose it has entered the journal not under the category "original research" but rather under "discussion and critical commentaries".
Once again patent law helps innovative small companies and the customer!
There should be no VOIP 911 calls, for just about the same reason as nuclear missile launch commands should not be transmitted over the Internet.
Car analogy: You shouldn't use Microsoft Windows to control the electronic braking system of your car.
Yes, we know, because we know that Anna Ardin is more or less working for the CIA or at least various institutions that have a proven connection to the CIA - it's clear to anyone who can add 1+1.
Extradition treaties do not work the way you think they are.
For example, Portugal has recently refused to hand over George Wright, a convicted murder and airline hijacker, to the US on the grounds that he has built up a new existence in Portugal.
Your biased assessment would make more sense if Anna Ardin didn't work for the CIA...
Damn, should have checked my spelling of "proof" vs. "prove"...