When I'm traveling for business I couldn't care what pizza place I get so long as they deliver to my hotel. If pizza.com had a standard order form for all the local pizza places (just enter an address and it'll give a map or something) then I'd be quite happy to pay them a $0.50 or $1.00 convenience fee. Maybe I'm an isolated case (traveling for work is a weird venture), but there are business models here.
Great post above. It also depends on how you count "failure." I've had external drives fail where the disk would still spin up, but the interface was the failure point. I took the disk out of the external enclosure and it worked just fine with a direct IDE (I know, who uses that anymore?) connection.
If I were running a data-based business I'd count that as a "failure" since I had to go deal with the drive, but the HD company probably wouldn't since no data was permanently lost.
Keeping the information is the hardest part. If U-Was keeps the info then it has every incentive in the world to protect the privacy of its employees: Angry employees make bad employees and tend to leave their jobs. But, if an identity data broker keeps the information then they have every incentive to sell the data to the highest bidder, AND they are nothing but a giant target for dedicated identity thieves.
To address your other point, most (if not all) cell phones are truly "off" when they are off -- the cell company knows the last place where you connected to the network, but if you turn the phone off then you aren't tracked. The easy way to verify this is to put any SIM-based phone near your car radio and drive around a little bit. Every time you leave a cell tower's range you'll hear a burst of interference as the phone communicates with the new tower. If you turn the phone off, no bursts of interference.
A high-resolution display of that size is pretty expensive on its own. Add a waterproof touch sensor on top, plus the GPU required to run the graphics on that kind of system, and we're talking some substantial hardware investment. And don't forget that the touchscreen has to be near-instantaneous and support many objects touching it at once.
I'm sure MSoft will also try to make a killing on the software, but there is still a pretty significant hardware cost here.
Banks aren't the only problems. All of the giant database companies (like ChoicePoint) have giant bullseyes on their databases for hackers. They can implement all of the security measures in the world, but the data will still leak out with all of the negative consequences.
Each data broker intentionally has all of the information that's required to open any kind of loan account, from a credit card to a car loan to a marker at a casino. And so all it takes is one clever hacker to get that data out for a few thousand (or a few tens of thousands) of customers and *poof* he's able to create tens of thousands of fake loans by impersonating the customers whose information he just stole.
Until we see some legislation regulating security for data brokers we'll never see the end of identity theft.
Don't forget that a few games have found a form of "copy protection" these days through the physical hardware that comes with the game. It's awfully hard to pirate Rock Band or Guitar Hero; by the time you make your own big plastic guitar you might as well have bought the original. Same with Wii and emulators -- it's not worth programming your desktop computer to emulate a Wii without the fancy controllers.
Will this produce the same ozone (O3) emissions that the Ionic breeze does? It's not a huge deal for just one chip-sized cooler in a house (after all, people still buy the Ionic Breeze, which is much larger), but in a whole ton of racked servers in a closed room it could pretty easily exceed indoor air quality guidelines. Just another thing to endanger the health of server nerds.:)
There are plenty of people outside Redmond who still hate Google.
Some people are upset with the recent Google-Youtube-China situation. It's obviously not entirely Google's fault, but it's not a comfortable situation.
And lots of people are upset about PageRank -- from those who get a zero PR for no clear reason, to sites that get dropped, to anti-hate groups that dislike it when pro-hate groups get high rankings.
I don't know if any of those are GOOD reasons to hate Google, but plenty of people DO.
The expression "perfect storm" was popularized by the 2000 movie of the same title.
The idea is that two or more bad things that are both rare individually happen at the same time, so that any response system is overwhelmed. In the movie, it was a typical Nor'easter (a big winter storm off the coast of Massachusetts) that was given additional fuel by the remnants of a hurricane moving in from the south. A fishing boat is big enough to handle either one of those, but not both.
Blindingly bright blue lights are no match for the depths of black provided by a Sharpie (tm) brand fine-tip permanent marker. One swipe across and you go from "blindingly bright" to "pretty gosh darn dim." If you're not sure if you want a permanent solution, use a permanent marker on a piece of Scotch (tm) tape and slap that on the LED. Instant dark, but you can still tell when it's glowing.
First -- if the player is traveling near the speed of light _with_ the cargo, then he won't notice that the people who are not moving have aged. If the cargo is something useful and rare (fusion fuel, perhaps) or from a far-advanced culture (fusion reactors, perhaps) then he's reasonably assured of finding a market upon arrival even if he didn't get a chance to set up a deal ahead of time.
Second -- I'm not sure that a transaction that takes longer to complete than the life of any trader is necessarily impossible. People make investments they know will outlast them, largely because they hope to sell to somebody younger when they need the money. If I set cargo in motion that will return a $100 million payment in 100 years, I know that I'm not going to live long enough to ever see the return. But, in 50 years I can probably sell the right to the value of the cargo for $5 to $20 million, depending on interest rates (see present discounted value). Some young whippersnapper (or an institution with a long horizon, or somebody else who hopes to trade again) would be happy to take the deal. It doesn't matter that I'll personally never see the dividends; if the payment down the line is certain enough then somebody will be happy to buy it from me.
It's also possible that it just looked like a text link to IRS.gov. I've seen a fair bit of spam these days that looks like it has a text link to a proper eBay domain name, but the text of the link is not the same as the URL that is actually linked. In other words, it just LOOKS like a proper link, but really sends you off to some offshore webhost.
Thunderbird is pretty good about noticing those types of problems -- if the linked domain doesn't match it'll give a warning message.
How does the proposed law deal with international websites? Just like RIM (the makers of the Blackberry) keep their servers in Canada for patent-related reasons, it seems like offshore web hosting would suddenly grow very popular.
But, then again, an increase in price of services might change the marketplace.
It seems that NASA is well aware of extremophiles, but even considering the range of environments that support life here, there's still a limit. There is no life on Earth that exists without water, nor is there an alternative solvent available on Mars. There is no life on Earth that exists outside of a relatively tight temperature band (as far as the cosmos go, -50 C to 150 C is pretty narrow). There is no life on Earth that is able to survive a temperature swing of more than 100 C. Etc.
Maybe there's silicon-based life somewhere in the cosmos, but the chemical reactions that are required to sustain carbon-based life have certain limits. Temperature, pressure, the availability of certain minerals and the availability of water are chief among them.
The problem isn't your myspace account -- you are smart enough to keep it clean. It's if your FRIENDS have a myspace account and post a picture of you, then tag it with your name. Or even if just your acquaintences.
Or if some Anonymous Coward just lies completely and claims that a photo is of you (when it really isn't) just to be a jerk. If they post it through TOR then they can never be found. And a site like Encyclopedia Dramatica would never take it down. ED will claim that they're immune from liability forever under CDA 230, and the anonymous poster will never be found. It's a wierd situation where a bad act can go completely unpunished, even if the webhost knows that there's a problem.
At the very least the person who's reputation was being trashed should have contacted the hosting site and asked for the conversation to be taken down.
They did. The hosting site claimed that they were immune under CDA 230 and refused.
sued for Libel and possibly other things
There is a lawsuit pending, but the plaintiffs can't find any of the people who made the libels. The hosting site deleted or didn't keep IP logs, claiming that they didn't have to. And the hosting site claims that it's immune under CDA 230.
The problem is really CDA 230. If a web host can knowingly continue to publish libel by saying "it's not my fault, it's some user who came on and posted" then they should have to keep IP logs so that the user can be found and sued for libel. If the end user can't be found then the web host should have to take the material down. Right now the libelous material is still up and nothing can be done. Of course, it should take a subpoena to get IP addresses from a webhost, and there should be a showing of probable cause, but there has to be something done to fix CDA 230.
Potential employers want to know that you can exercize good judgement.
But what about things that aren't good or bad judgment, but just controversial. If I worked for a very conservative company, they might be concerned if they saw my pictures at the next Pride Parade in Greenwich Village. It's perfectly "good judgment" to support gay rights (I think it's even a duty), but I want to keep my private life separate from my work life. I'm careful to not post photos of myself attached to my real name, but I can't control other people.
What if Westboro Baptist went to the Pride Parade and posted photos of every indidvidual along with identifying information? My boss would definitely find out unless I took affirmative steps. Or what if they just went to a gay bar and took photos of people -- it'd be easy enough to get my name if you're good enough looking. There's just a problem when somebody is out to get you.
Great ideas (especially the part about hiring you). It sounds like some of these problems come up when the online and offline identities are connected through malice of a third-party. I agree that nobody cares if I attack "KublaiKhan" -- it's a little silly. But if I figured out your real-life identity and posted "John Smith is KublaiKhan, he lives at 123 Main Street, he works at AcmeCo, drives a blue Honda, and here's his home phone number. Follow him around and harass him for his views on {abortion/iraq/elections/copyright...}" then you have a differnet problem. All of the positive karma associated with KublaiKhan can't help you.
Where? I was living in a clean and perfectly acceptable unit in the inner Sunset (right near the N-Judah) for $700 a month. The floors were level, the rooms were spacious, the plumbing modern, and it even had a fire escape/balcony.
Yeah, it's not downtown, but it was right on major transit lines (on the N-Judah and the express bus lines, and a few blocks from the cross-park bus lines) and had everything I needed. If you want to live in a "hip" or "cool" neighborhood you have to pay for the location, but if you are looking for an affordable and perfectly functional place then there are plenty in the Sunset/Richmond area.
the pontiff looks at questions that have no place in reality or in rational discussion.
I'm sorry, but questions like "where did we come from," "why are we here," and "what is my moral duty to others" are important questions that have been part of rational discussion for literally thousands of years. Most of the great Western philosophers--people who perhaps define "rational"--have spent time thinking about those questions. For example Plato, Descartes ("I think, therefore I am"), Epictetus, Nietzsche, just to name a few. Each of those philosophers has thought about why we are here and what duty we owe to others--questions that the Pope also seeks to answer. He uses a different method to reach his answers, but the question is shared between secular and religious philosophers.
You might agree with the Pope's answers, but the questions are certainly important and deserve rational treatment.
Fair use is not all personal use. Some people argue that taking a sample of a song and using it in another song is fair use. Other people argue that putting videos on Youtube (which is a commercial, profit-making venture) can be fair use. Personal use is ONE part of fair use, but it's not ALL fair use.
Slashdot Mirror
When I'm traveling for business I couldn't care what pizza place I get so long as they deliver to my hotel. If pizza.com had a standard order form for all the local pizza places (just enter an address and it'll give a map or something) then I'd be quite happy to pay them a $0.50 or $1.00 convenience fee. Maybe I'm an isolated case (traveling for work is a weird venture), but there are business models here.
Great post above. It also depends on how you count "failure." I've had external drives fail where the disk would still spin up, but the interface was the failure point. I took the disk out of the external enclosure and it worked just fine with a direct IDE (I know, who uses that anymore?) connection.
If I were running a data-based business I'd count that as a "failure" since I had to go deal with the drive, but the HD company probably wouldn't since no data was permanently lost.
Keeping the information is the hardest part. If U-Was keeps the info then it has every incentive in the world to protect the privacy of its employees: Angry employees make bad employees and tend to leave their jobs. But, if an identity data broker keeps the information then they have every incentive to sell the data to the highest bidder, AND they are nothing but a giant target for dedicated identity thieves.
To address your other point, most (if not all) cell phones are truly "off" when they are off -- the cell company knows the last place where you connected to the network, but if you turn the phone off then you aren't tracked. The easy way to verify this is to put any SIM-based phone near your car radio and drive around a little bit. Every time you leave a cell tower's range you'll hear a burst of interference as the phone communicates with the new tower. If you turn the phone off, no bursts of interference.
Or first thing in the morning after getting into work on a cold wintery day. Frozen fingers do not type well.
A high-resolution display of that size is pretty expensive on its own. Add a waterproof touch sensor on top, plus the GPU required to run the graphics on that kind of system, and we're talking some substantial hardware investment. And don't forget that the touchscreen has to be near-instantaneous and support many objects touching it at once.
I'm sure MSoft will also try to make a killing on the software, but there is still a pretty significant hardware cost here.
In other news, engineers make good X, so long as X requires brainpower and not dance skills.
You'll never see a news story with the headline "engineers make great break-dancers."
Banks aren't the only problems. All of the giant database companies (like ChoicePoint) have giant bullseyes on their databases for hackers. They can implement all of the security measures in the world, but the data will still leak out with all of the negative consequences.
Each data broker intentionally has all of the information that's required to open any kind of loan account, from a credit card to a car loan to a marker at a casino. And so all it takes is one clever hacker to get that data out for a few thousand (or a few tens of thousands) of customers and *poof* he's able to create tens of thousands of fake loans by impersonating the customers whose information he just stole.
Until we see some legislation regulating security for data brokers we'll never see the end of identity theft.
Don't forget that a few games have found a form of "copy protection" these days through the physical hardware that comes with the game. It's awfully hard to pirate Rock Band or Guitar Hero; by the time you make your own big plastic guitar you might as well have bought the original. Same with Wii and emulators -- it's not worth programming your desktop computer to emulate a Wii without the fancy controllers.
Will this produce the same ozone (O3) emissions that the Ionic breeze does? It's not a huge deal for just one chip-sized cooler in a house (after all, people still buy the Ionic Breeze, which is much larger), but in a whole ton of racked servers in a closed room it could pretty easily exceed indoor air quality guidelines. Just another thing to endanger the health of server nerds. :)
There are plenty of people outside Redmond who still hate Google.
Some people are upset with the recent Google-Youtube-China situation. It's obviously not entirely Google's fault, but it's not a comfortable situation.
Lots of people think that Google has serious privacy problems. Not everyone thinks these are limited to its own data collection either--sometimes Google knows too much.
Some people think Google mis-manages its Adsense platform and hurts small publishers.
And lots of people are upset about PageRank -- from those who get a zero PR for no clear reason, to sites that get dropped, to anti-hate groups that dislike it when pro-hate groups get high rankings.
I don't know if any of those are GOOD reasons to hate Google, but plenty of people DO.
The expression "perfect storm" was popularized by the 2000 movie of the same title.
The idea is that two or more bad things that are both rare individually happen at the same time, so that any response system is overwhelmed. In the movie, it was a typical Nor'easter (a big winter storm off the coast of Massachusetts) that was given additional fuel by the remnants of a hurricane moving in from the south. A fishing boat is big enough to handle either one of those, but not both.
Blindingly bright blue lights are no match for the depths of black provided by a Sharpie (tm) brand fine-tip permanent marker. One swipe across and you go from "blindingly bright" to "pretty gosh darn dim." If you're not sure if you want a permanent solution, use a permanent marker on a piece of Scotch (tm) tape and slap that on the LED. Instant dark, but you can still tell when it's glowing.
First -- if the player is traveling near the speed of light _with_ the cargo, then he won't notice that the people who are not moving have aged. If the cargo is something useful and rare (fusion fuel, perhaps) or from a far-advanced culture (fusion reactors, perhaps) then he's reasonably assured of finding a market upon arrival even if he didn't get a chance to set up a deal ahead of time.
Second -- I'm not sure that a transaction that takes longer to complete than the life of any trader is necessarily impossible. People make investments they know will outlast them, largely because they hope to sell to somebody younger when they need the money. If I set cargo in motion that will return a $100 million payment in 100 years, I know that I'm not going to live long enough to ever see the return. But, in 50 years I can probably sell the right to the value of the cargo for $5 to $20 million, depending on interest rates (see present discounted value). Some young whippersnapper (or an institution with a long horizon, or somebody else who hopes to trade again) would be happy to take the deal. It doesn't matter that I'll personally never see the dividends; if the payment down the line is certain enough then somebody will be happy to buy it from me.
It's also possible that it just looked like a text link to IRS.gov. I've seen a fair bit of spam these days that looks like it has a text link to a proper eBay domain name, but the text of the link is not the same as the URL that is actually linked. In other words, it just LOOKS like a proper link, but really sends you off to some offshore webhost.
Thunderbird is pretty good about noticing those types of problems -- if the linked domain doesn't match it'll give a warning message.
How does the proposed law deal with international websites? Just like RIM (the makers of the Blackberry) keep their servers in Canada for patent-related reasons, it seems like offshore web hosting would suddenly grow very popular.
But, then again, an increase in price of services might change the marketplace.
It seems that NASA is well aware of extremophiles, but even considering the range of environments that support life here, there's still a limit. There is no life on Earth that exists without water, nor is there an alternative solvent available on Mars. There is no life on Earth that exists outside of a relatively tight temperature band (as far as the cosmos go, -50 C to 150 C is pretty narrow). There is no life on Earth that is able to survive a temperature swing of more than 100 C. Etc.
Maybe there's silicon-based life somewhere in the cosmos, but the chemical reactions that are required to sustain carbon-based life have certain limits. Temperature, pressure, the availability of certain minerals and the availability of water are chief among them.
Looks like one of the subjects of the article has addressed the question on its blog: Reputation Defender Blog.
I'd be curious to see if AutoAdmit posts an official response.
The problem isn't your myspace account -- you are smart enough to keep it clean. It's if your FRIENDS have a myspace account and post a picture of you, then tag it with your name. Or even if just your acquaintences.
Or if some Anonymous Coward just lies completely and claims that a photo is of you (when it really isn't) just to be a jerk. If they post it through TOR then they can never be found. And a site like Encyclopedia Dramatica would never take it down. ED will claim that they're immune from liability forever under CDA 230, and the anonymous poster will never be found. It's a wierd situation where a bad act can go completely unpunished, even if the webhost knows that there's a problem.
One BILLION dollars. Wha ha ha!
At the very least the person who's reputation was being trashed should have contacted the hosting site and asked for the conversation to be taken down.
They did. The hosting site claimed that they were immune under CDA 230 and refused.
sued for Libel and possibly other things
There is a lawsuit pending, but the plaintiffs can't find any of the people who made the libels. The hosting site deleted or didn't keep IP logs, claiming that they didn't have to. And the hosting site claims that it's immune under CDA 230.
The problem is really CDA 230. If a web host can knowingly continue to publish libel by saying "it's not my fault, it's some user who came on and posted" then they should have to keep IP logs so that the user can be found and sued for libel. If the end user can't be found then the web host should have to take the material down. Right now the libelous material is still up and nothing can be done. Of course, it should take a subpoena to get IP addresses from a webhost, and there should be a showing of probable cause, but there has to be something done to fix CDA 230.
Potential employers want to know that you can exercize good judgement.
But what about things that aren't good or bad judgment, but just controversial. If I worked for a very conservative company, they might be concerned if they saw my pictures at the next Pride Parade in Greenwich Village. It's perfectly "good judgment" to support gay rights (I think it's even a duty), but I want to keep my private life separate from my work life. I'm careful to not post photos of myself attached to my real name, but I can't control other people.
What if Westboro Baptist went to the Pride Parade and posted photos of every indidvidual along with identifying information? My boss would definitely find out unless I took affirmative steps. Or what if they just went to a gay bar and took photos of people -- it'd be easy enough to get my name if you're good enough looking. There's just a problem when somebody is out to get you.
Great ideas (especially the part about hiring you). It sounds like some of these problems come up when the online and offline identities are connected through malice of a third-party. I agree that nobody cares if I attack "KublaiKhan" -- it's a little silly. But if I figured out your real-life identity and posted "John Smith is KublaiKhan, he lives at 123 Main Street, he works at AcmeCo, drives a blue Honda, and here's his home phone number. Follow him around and harass him for his views on {abortion/iraq/elections/copyright...}" then you have a differnet problem. All of the positive karma associated with KublaiKhan can't help you.
Where? I was living in a clean and perfectly acceptable unit in the inner Sunset (right near the N-Judah) for $700 a month. The floors were level, the rooms were spacious, the plumbing modern, and it even had a fire escape/balcony.
Yeah, it's not downtown, but it was right on major transit lines (on the N-Judah and the express bus lines, and a few blocks from the cross-park bus lines) and had everything I needed. If you want to live in a "hip" or "cool" neighborhood you have to pay for the location, but if you are looking for an affordable and perfectly functional place then there are plenty in the Sunset/Richmond area.
the pontiff looks at questions that have no place in reality or in rational discussion.
I'm sorry, but questions like "where did we come from," "why are we here," and "what is my moral duty to others" are important questions that have been part of rational discussion for literally thousands of years. Most of the great Western philosophers--people who perhaps define "rational"--have spent time thinking about those questions. For example Plato, Descartes ("I think, therefore I am"), Epictetus, Nietzsche, just to name a few. Each of those philosophers has thought about why we are here and what duty we owe to others--questions that the Pope also seeks to answer. He uses a different method to reach his answers, but the question is shared between secular and religious philosophers.
You might agree with the Pope's answers, but the questions are certainly important and deserve rational treatment.
Fair use is not all personal use. Some people argue that taking a sample of a song and using it in another song is fair use. Other people argue that putting videos on Youtube (which is a commercial, profit-making venture) can be fair use. Personal use is ONE part of fair use, but it's not ALL fair use.