Bonus irony: Galileo was persecuted by his fellow scientists, not by the Church.
The Church was mostly uninterested in Galileo's heliocentric theories, but was corrupt enough to take the side of unscrupulous scientists who would rather silence new research than admit they might have been wrong (being wrong meant losing their prestigious and lucrative positions as court scientists for the European powers).
So, the Church obligingly slapped Galileo on the wrist and sentenced him to house arrest... where he continued to do good new science just as before.
Suddenly the idea of global warming advocates shouting down the opposition in order to safeguard their government research grants makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?
Microsoft has never needed the Mac market before. As globalization accelerates, the gap between Microsoft's marketshare and Apple's marketshare is only going to increase, and the value of the Mac market to Microsoft will decrease as a result.
Meanwhile, most Mac users are fanatical and can't be reasoned with anyway. Taxing them to run Vista is just a way to make money off a few thousand chumps before the Mac goes the way of the dodo.
Yeah, but on the other hand, I match this profile, but have no interest in sabotaging the company. I already get to come in late, bitch at my co-workers, and perform poorly, and get paid well for the privilege. Why would I want to ruin a good thing by committing crimes?
Real estate agents already pay for a small army of photographers to go criss-crossing the country. It's almost a career for many people. I used to date a guy whose job was exactly this, to go take pictures of houses.
The only thing going on here is what always goes on in commerce: somebody sees an opportunity to profit from specialization. Instead of having each real estate agent hire their own photographer, why not specialize in real estate photography, build a catalog of photos, and sell it to real estate agents for much cheaper than it would cost to maintain their own photographer on their own payroll?
Whether or not this work can really scale in this way remains to be seen. That's why entrepeneurs are considered risk-takers. I wish these guys the best of luck, and hope that the paranoid asshats are all asleep or out to lunch when the photographers arrive.
Ah, but my job doesn't get more difficult every day.
I get paid to do whatever work they feel like paying me for. If they want to pay me to jump through hoops, fine with me. I honestly couldn't care less what kinds of policies it takes to run a company these days.
Again, my life is not my job, and my job is not my life.
Seriously, the corporation is a big, impersonal machine. I don't take it personally when the machine acts impersonal towards me. I just don't need the grief that comes from being disgruntled. It gets in the way of treating my fellow co-workers with dignity and respect. It gets in the way of me doing the work and getting paid. It gets in the way of me enjoying the fruits of my labor.
I don't feel like a criminal when I walk through airport security. I don't feel like a criminal when I work through corporate security. Life's too short for that kind of crankiness.
I figure, I could be living in a cave, hunting wooly mammoths with a rock on a stick, and praying I don't break my leg and that my fire doesn't go out. Instead, I get to lounge around in an air-conditioned office for a few hours every day. I'm already a step or two ahead of the game. That, I'm going to complain about? No thanks!
Treat employees well, like people instead of mercenaries.
I'm sorry, but this is all wrong.
First, mercenaries, like soylent green, are people. A certain kind of people: people whose loyalty can be bought with money. And like Machiavelli says, mercs will go to the highest bidder. Much better to use family, or loyal subjects... neither of which are really solid business models these days.
And honestly? I didn't join the company to make friends, thanks. I joined the company to do business. I treat my boss and other co-workers with dignity and respect. As long as they do the same, and as long as they pay me generously for the work I do, I have no complaints. I'm just here to earn money to fund my lifestyle. My job is not that lifestyle.
And the flip side of all this is, I'm being paid to do a job, and that job does not include crafting security breaches for my own personal benefit. So why should I care what surveillance they have in place to catch malicious hackers? If I'm being a malicious hacker, I'm not doing my job, and all the consequences that follow are my own damn fault. So I do my job, care not two figs for what lies in store for the asshats who don't do their job, and I get paid.
"Security through obscurity" is the idea that if you hide the information, you don't need to take any other security steps. It's a bad idea for a variety of reasons.
"Defense in depth" is the idea that the best security is security that comes in layers, uses a wide range of technologies, and makes every stage of your hypothetical opponent's attack more difficult for him to plan, rehearse, equip, and execute. So you hide as much of the information as possible, and you put up security cameras, and you put up checkpoints, and you put up roving patrols, and you put up a security perimeter, etc. Obscurity is actually a very important part of security. It's just not sufficient by itself.
There's a huge difference between "we don't have any security guards, but as long as we don't tell anybody..." and "we have plenty of security guards, and we make sure nobody has an opportunity to study their patterns, equipment, policies and procedures, etc. for weaknesses".
I suppose it boils down to finding the right sweet spot between getting maximum value and utility out of a service like Google maps, and eliminating risk to high-value targets.
No offense, but millions of people probably won't suffer if a burglar plans an escape route from your house. Successful takedown of a seat of government on the other hand...
Not only that, but any burglar savvy enough to consult Google Maps is probably savvy enough to escape from something as simple as a basic residence without needing Google Maps. This is partly because information about the floorplan of your house is already freely available through a variety of information sources--all of which have already been purged of information about sensitive locations (assuming such sensitive information even made it into those repositories in the first place).
You weren't complaining last year when your housing development's floorplans were on file at city hall, available to all citizens for a small archiving fee, while the floor plans to the White House were classified and restricted. Why complain this year that your house is on Google Maps, but Indian government facilities are not?
So you believe major credit reporting companies are committing fraud on a grand scale, but you don't want anybody to believe you.
You say you can back up your accusations, but instead you insult anybody who asks you to.
So why did you even bother commenting on this story in the first place?
And why, if you were just presenting an opinion, did you present it as a fact?
This doesn't have to be a childish debate.
All you need to do is say, "good point, here's the facts that convinced me that these companies are lying. Check them out for yourself, and see what you think".
I'm really not sure why you're so angry. There's nothing wrong with asking for evidence to back up claims. And there's nothing wrong with not providing that evidence if you don't want to. It's your extremely negative and insulting reaction that makes me think you don't actually have any evidence, just an opinion with nothing to support it.
You're accusing people of fraud. Without evidence, this is just your opinion. Without evidence, there's no reason for anybody else to share your opinion.
You want me to agree with you, right? That these numbers really are lies, and all that, right?
So why are you so strongly opposed to explaining the evidence on which your opinion is based? Why all the name-calling?
Is it really so hard for you to come up with any proof at all to back up your claims?
Do you really go around accusing people of major crimes without any evidence to back it up?
Do you have any reason at all why anybody, anywhere, should accept your opinion as fact?
(And in the end, the south actually won... if you look at an electoral map; or the balance of power in the Senate).
And yet neither the electoral distribution nor the balance of power in the Senate has enabled the Confederacy to keep either its slave-based economy or its independence from Federal authority, nor has it allowed them to successfully complete their secession.
No, I'd have to say that the south that fought in the civil war lost, and thoroughly. What you see now is a south that has learned to accept its place at the federal table, and has become accustomed to participating with the north in joint governance of the union.
You're the one making accusations of fraud, you're the one who has to provide evidence to support those accusations. I don't have to disprove anything. I'm just asking for your proof of your claims.
So far, you haven't given any. Instead, you've objected--and rudely, I might add--to the very fact that I'm questioning you about the proof for your claims.
These aren't nice claims claims you're making, either. And where in my original reply to you did I say anything mean or rude? Are you sure you really meant to complain that I'm not saying nice things to you?
I don't think anybody would mistake my post for a researched, pompous essay.
Just so long as nobody mistakes your post for an accurate or informed assessment either, I don't see a problem.
But seriously, I was wondering if you really did have anything more than sophomoric, cart-before-the-horse, suspicion-equals-proof reasoning to bring to the table.
It does not follow from wanting something to be better that we are entitled to the better thing we want.
You ask why you should have to bow to another's whim. Well, you shouldn't have to, and in fact nobody's saying you do have to... unless you freely choose to use their software, in which case you're stuck with the software they've freely chosen to develop. And if you enter into an agreement with them, then of course you're bound to abide by that agreement.
But nobody's forcing you to use their software, or enter into agreements with them about software. That's a trade-off you're free to choose for yourself, for whatever personal reasons seem best to you. And in no way are you entitled to quality third-party software.
You are, of course, entitled to do whatever you want with your own possessions--including putting crappy third-party software on them, or entering into usage agreements about them with third parties. But that's not what the OP is talking about, and it's not what I'm talking about. For more details on what we are talking about, feel free to re-read the OP, my comment to which you replied, and the top half of this reply to your reply.
So... Where does Maxwell's demon's energy come from?
Hell?
I mean, if the demon is performing an action, and it's not taking energy from the system in order to do so, then what? Might as well say, "any perpetual motion machine can be made to work... with magic".
It's interesting that they're reporting this ; but you can't take flat-out numbers with a grain of salt. They're either correct or complete lies ; and I think we all know they have to be complete lies.
Have to be? You've ruled out all other possibilities?
These companies don't report half the cases of identity theft to end-consumers, banks and definitely not the police
Half the cases? Do you have evidence to support this claim?
because they don't want to alarm anybody -- especially when the case is unsolvable.
Alleging a motive doesn't allow you to skip ahead to alleging a crime (or a lie, in this case). You actually have to start at the other end: prove a crime (or a lie), and then look at who might have a compelling motive to commit the crime (or tell the lie).
So. Where's your proof of the lie?
I've had my bank card 'suspended' 3 times in the past two years because someone has stolen my pin and copied the card at a gas station or variety store and the bank tells me only, "The card was copied along with a number of other cards. Your account hasn't been effected, just come into the bank for a new card and choose a new pin".
My account hasn't been affected because the bank noticed it and silently footed the bill ; only even bothering to tell me because I couldn't use the card.
Do you have evidence that this is the only reason they told you? Have you interviewed the bank officer who made the decision to tell you? Have you examined their published policies in detail, to see if maybe they told you for regulatory reasons or to fulfill a contractual obligation? Have you ruled out all other possibilities?
I imagine a credit card that has no PIN on it - you would never notice ;
How much of your comment is based on your imagination?
and how much easier would it be to copy a credit card. You don't need to read the pin over someone's shoulder.
If theft is down or up you'll never know the truth. If it's down by half, why wouldn't they say it's down by 3/4's. Even a reduction, if it occurred would likely be embellished.
Alleging an opportunity doesn't mean you can skip ahead to alleging a crime (or a lie). You have to start by proving the crime (or lie) actually happened, and then you can start looking into who may have had the opportunity.
So. Where's your evidence that these numbers are lies?
Why do you think it is, that so many in Romania were so enthusiastic about such inferior software, and that the universities--usually repositories of advanced knowledge--were unable to change their minds?
This is the Romanian economy we're talking about, right? Neutral is better than reverse.
And how much of a leap forward is it, really, to sell out to the devil for easy short-term gains?
Oh, wait. Piracy. So not only are they binding themselves to the devil's workshop, but they're also trying to cheat the devil out of his due.
The Geek's real problem isn't that he takes so long to invent a wheel, but that he consistently produces broken, buggy code by going for the quick fix instead of the long-term solution.
Besides, there's really no need to reinvent the wheel, just to use one that isn't quite so encumbered with diabolical caveats.
Next thing you'll tell me is that the police department doesn't belong to me. That might really break my mind.
Actually, unless you toil under a non-democratic regime, the police department does belong to you.
Of course, it belongs equally to several hundred thousand of your fellow citizens, and you've all agreed on a layer of bureaucracy between you and the police, to prevent each of you from trying to exercise direct control over the police department on an individual basis according to your whims and moods.
If you can think of a better way to manage a publically-owned police department, I'm sure political scientists the world over would be eager to hear about it.
Ah, but these IT professionals didn't just import physical goods according to commonly-accepted trade agreements and practices.
Instead of pirating MS information, with all the headaches that's sure to bring, both in dragging down Romanian computing, and in legal problems with a major multinational known for not playing well with others, why not pirate Linux information, or FreeBSD information, or any other computing information widely recoginized to be technically and legally superior to Microsoft products?
Or, hell, why not roll their own? I'm sure no nation really likes to import things rather than being self-reliant. And it's not like you need lots of raw materials or costly infrastructure to be self-reliant in software. Physical goods requiring major manufacturing resources are probably going to need more ramp-up time.
That the Romanian IT industry shackled themselves to an aggressive and intolerant multinational corporation for their operating system and many valuable software tools, instead of taking the initiative to create their own operating systems and tools, free of Microsoft's interference and encumbrance.
These Romanian IT professionals should be ashamed of themselves, admitting in public that they knowingly (and criminally, not that Slashdot cares) signed up for Microsoft's bullshit instead of crafting their own IT resources.
There's a difference between having high expectations and claiming entitlements where none exist.
There's also a difference between high expectations and having unrealistic expectations.
Anyway, it's not that I have low expectations. It's that I see this ideal of an entitlement to ideal computing platforms as silly and misguided. Like I said, the vast majority of people have figured out how to get value from imperfect operating systems. They're living up to my high expectations of them.
Idealism is great. Optimism is great. Becoming bitter and disgruntled because the world doesn't always justify your optimism or live up to your ideals is... not so great.
Slashdot Mirror
Bonus irony: Galileo was persecuted by his fellow scientists, not by the Church.
The Church was mostly uninterested in Galileo's heliocentric theories, but was corrupt enough to take the side of unscrupulous scientists who would rather silence new research than admit they might have been wrong (being wrong meant losing their prestigious and lucrative positions as court scientists for the European powers).
So, the Church obligingly slapped Galileo on the wrist and sentenced him to house arrest... where he continued to do good new science just as before.
Suddenly the idea of global warming advocates shouting down the opposition in order to safeguard their government research grants makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?
Microsoft has never needed the Mac market before. As globalization accelerates, the gap between Microsoft's marketshare and Apple's marketshare is only going to increase, and the value of the Mac market to Microsoft will decrease as a result.
Meanwhile, most Mac users are fanatical and can't be reasoned with anyway. Taxing them to run Vista is just a way to make money off a few thousand chumps before the Mac goes the way of the dodo.
Yeah, but on the other hand, I match this profile, but have no interest in sabotaging the company. I already get to come in late, bitch at my co-workers, and perform poorly, and get paid well for the privilege. Why would I want to ruin a good thing by committing crimes?
Real estate agents already pay for a small army of photographers to go criss-crossing the country. It's almost a career for many people. I used to date a guy whose job was exactly this, to go take pictures of houses.
The only thing going on here is what always goes on in commerce: somebody sees an opportunity to profit from specialization. Instead of having each real estate agent hire their own photographer, why not specialize in real estate photography, build a catalog of photos, and sell it to real estate agents for much cheaper than it would cost to maintain their own photographer on their own payroll?
Whether or not this work can really scale in this way remains to be seen. That's why entrepeneurs are considered risk-takers. I wish these guys the best of luck, and hope that the paranoid asshats are all asleep or out to lunch when the photographers arrive.
Ah, but my job doesn't get more difficult every day.
I get paid to do whatever work they feel like paying me for. If they want to pay me to jump through hoops, fine with me. I honestly couldn't care less what kinds of policies it takes to run a company these days.
Again, my life is not my job, and my job is not my life.
Seriously, the corporation is a big, impersonal machine. I don't take it personally when the machine acts impersonal towards me. I just don't need the grief that comes from being disgruntled. It gets in the way of treating my fellow co-workers with dignity and respect. It gets in the way of me doing the work and getting paid. It gets in the way of me enjoying the fruits of my labor.
I don't feel like a criminal when I walk through airport security. I don't feel like a criminal when I work through corporate security. Life's too short for that kind of crankiness.
I figure, I could be living in a cave, hunting wooly mammoths with a rock on a stick, and praying I don't break my leg and that my fire doesn't go out. Instead, I get to lounge around in an air-conditioned office for a few hours every day. I'm already a step or two ahead of the game. That, I'm going to complain about? No thanks!
First, mercenaries, like soylent green, are people. A certain kind of people: people whose loyalty can be bought with money. And like Machiavelli says, mercs will go to the highest bidder. Much better to use family, or loyal subjects... neither of which are really solid business models these days.
And honestly? I didn't join the company to make friends, thanks. I joined the company to do business. I treat my boss and other co-workers with dignity and respect. As long as they do the same, and as long as they pay me generously for the work I do, I have no complaints. I'm just here to earn money to fund my lifestyle. My job is not that lifestyle.
And the flip side of all this is, I'm being paid to do a job, and that job does not include crafting security breaches for my own personal benefit. So why should I care what surveillance they have in place to catch malicious hackers? If I'm being a malicious hacker, I'm not doing my job, and all the consequences that follow are my own damn fault. So I do my job, care not two figs for what lies in store for the asshats who don't do their job, and I get paid.
Then I go home and enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Not security through obsucrity: defense in depth.
"Security through obscurity" is the idea that if you hide the information, you don't need to take any other security steps. It's a bad idea for a variety of reasons.
"Defense in depth" is the idea that the best security is security that comes in layers, uses a wide range of technologies, and makes every stage of your hypothetical opponent's attack more difficult for him to plan, rehearse, equip, and execute. So you hide as much of the information as possible, and you put up security cameras, and you put up checkpoints, and you put up roving patrols, and you put up a security perimeter, etc. Obscurity is actually a very important part of security. It's just not sufficient by itself.
There's a huge difference between "we don't have any security guards, but as long as we don't tell anybody..." and "we have plenty of security guards, and we make sure nobody has an opportunity to study their patterns, equipment, policies and procedures, etc. for weaknesses".
I suppose it boils down to finding the right sweet spot between getting maximum value and utility out of a service like Google maps, and eliminating risk to high-value targets.
No offense, but millions of people probably won't suffer if a burglar plans an escape route from your house. Successful takedown of a seat of government on the other hand...
Not only that, but any burglar savvy enough to consult Google Maps is probably savvy enough to escape from something as simple as a basic residence without needing Google Maps. This is partly because information about the floorplan of your house is already freely available through a variety of information sources--all of which have already been purged of information about sensitive locations (assuming such sensitive information even made it into those repositories in the first place).
You weren't complaining last year when your housing development's floorplans were on file at city hall, available to all citizens for a small archiving fee, while the floor plans to the White House were classified and restricted. Why complain this year that your house is on Google Maps, but Indian government facilities are not?
So you believe major credit reporting companies are committing fraud on a grand scale, but you don't want anybody to believe you.
You say you can back up your accusations, but instead you insult anybody who asks you to.
So why did you even bother commenting on this story in the first place?
And why, if you were just presenting an opinion, did you present it as a fact?
This doesn't have to be a childish debate.
All you need to do is say, "good point, here's the facts that convinced me that these companies are lying. Check them out for yourself, and see what you think".
I'm really not sure why you're so angry. There's nothing wrong with asking for evidence to back up claims. And there's nothing wrong with not providing that evidence if you don't want to. It's your extremely negative and insulting reaction that makes me think you don't actually have any evidence, just an opinion with nothing to support it.
You're accusing people of fraud. Without evidence, this is just your opinion. Without evidence, there's no reason for anybody else to share your opinion.
You want me to agree with you, right? That these numbers really are lies, and all that, right?
So why are you so strongly opposed to explaining the evidence on which your opinion is based? Why all the name-calling?
Is it really so hard for you to come up with any proof at all to back up your claims?
Do you really go around accusing people of major crimes without any evidence to back it up?
Do you have any reason at all why anybody, anywhere, should accept your opinion as fact?
No, I'd have to say that the south that fought in the civil war lost, and thoroughly. What you see now is a south that has learned to accept its place at the federal table, and has become accustomed to participating with the north in joint governance of the union.
You're the one making accusations of fraud, you're the one who has to provide evidence to support those accusations. I don't have to disprove anything. I'm just asking for your proof of your claims.
So far, you haven't given any. Instead, you've objected--and rudely, I might add--to the very fact that I'm questioning you about the proof for your claims.
These aren't nice claims claims you're making, either. And where in my original reply to you did I say anything mean or rude? Are you sure you really meant to complain that I'm not saying nice things to you?
Really? You're entitled to decide what products, with what features, free people must make and sell?
I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.
But seriously, I was wondering if you really did have anything more than sophomoric, cart-before-the-horse, suspicion-equals-proof reasoning to bring to the table.
I'm guessing... no, not really.
It does not follow from wanting something to be better that we are entitled to the better thing we want.
You ask why you should have to bow to another's whim. Well, you shouldn't have to, and in fact nobody's saying you do have to... unless you freely choose to use their software, in which case you're stuck with the software they've freely chosen to develop. And if you enter into an agreement with them, then of course you're bound to abide by that agreement.
But nobody's forcing you to use their software, or enter into agreements with them about software. That's a trade-off you're free to choose for yourself, for whatever personal reasons seem best to you. And in no way are you entitled to quality third-party software.
You are, of course, entitled to do whatever you want with your own possessions--including putting crappy third-party software on them, or entering into usage agreements about them with third parties. But that's not what the OP is talking about, and it's not what I'm talking about. For more details on what we are talking about, feel free to re-read the OP, my comment to which you replied, and the top half of this reply to your reply.
So... Where does Maxwell's demon's energy come from?
Hell?
I mean, if the demon is performing an action, and it's not taking energy from the system in order to do so, then what? Might as well say, "any perpetual motion machine can be made to work... with magic".
So. Where's your proof of the lie? Do you have evidence that this is the only reason they told you? Have you interviewed the bank officer who made the decision to tell you? Have you examined their published policies in detail, to see if maybe they told you for regulatory reasons or to fulfill a contractual obligation? Have you ruled out all other possibilities? How much of your comment is based on your imagination? Alleging an opportunity doesn't mean you can skip ahead to alleging a crime (or a lie). You have to start by proving the crime (or lie) actually happened, and then you can start looking into who may have had the opportunity.
So. Where's your evidence that these numbers are lies?
Why do you think it is, that so many in Romania were so enthusiastic about such inferior software, and that the universities--usually repositories of advanced knowledge--were unable to change their minds?
Your ideas are interesting, but they miss my point.
This is the Romanian economy we're talking about, right? Neutral is better than reverse.
And how much of a leap forward is it, really, to sell out to the devil for easy short-term gains?
Oh, wait. Piracy. So not only are they binding themselves to the devil's workshop, but they're also trying to cheat the devil out of his due.
The Geek's real problem isn't that he takes so long to invent a wheel, but that he consistently produces broken, buggy code by going for the quick fix instead of the long-term solution.
Besides, there's really no need to reinvent the wheel, just to use one that isn't quite so encumbered with diabolical caveats.
Of course, it belongs equally to several hundred thousand of your fellow citizens, and you've all agreed on a layer of bureaucracy between you and the police, to prevent each of you from trying to exercise direct control over the police department on an individual basis according to your whims and moods.
If you can think of a better way to manage a publically-owned police department, I'm sure political scientists the world over would be eager to hear about it.
Ah, but these IT professionals didn't just import physical goods according to commonly-accepted trade agreements and practices.
Instead of pirating MS information, with all the headaches that's sure to bring, both in dragging down Romanian computing, and in legal problems with a major multinational known for not playing well with others, why not pirate Linux information, or FreeBSD information, or any other computing information widely recoginized to be technically and legally superior to Microsoft products?
Or, hell, why not roll their own? I'm sure no nation really likes to import things rather than being self-reliant. And it's not like you need lots of raw materials or costly infrastructure to be self-reliant in software. Physical goods requiring major manufacturing resources are probably going to need more ramp-up time.
That the Romanian IT industry shackled themselves to an aggressive and intolerant multinational corporation for their operating system and many valuable software tools, instead of taking the initiative to create their own operating systems and tools, free of Microsoft's interference and encumbrance.
These Romanian IT professionals should be ashamed of themselves, admitting in public that they knowingly (and criminally, not that Slashdot cares) signed up for Microsoft's bullshit instead of crafting their own IT resources.
Al Capone says bootlegging built the Prohibition Era retail alchohol industry. Elliot Ness declines to comment.
Arellano Felix says drug mules built the Medellin Cartel's cocaine industry. DEA spokesmen decline to comment.
There's a difference between having high expectations and claiming entitlements where none exist.
There's also a difference between high expectations and having unrealistic expectations.
Anyway, it's not that I have low expectations. It's that I see this ideal of an entitlement to ideal computing platforms as silly and misguided. Like I said, the vast majority of people have figured out how to get value from imperfect operating systems. They're living up to my high expectations of them.
Idealism is great. Optimism is great. Becoming bitter and disgruntled because the world doesn't always justify your optimism or live up to your ideals is... not so great.