Obviously online distribution and/or On Demand is going to be the rule in 5 years, not the exception. But I keep buying DVDs for the commentaries and extra material.
Is there going to be the economic incentive to provide all this extra material with online distribution?
Some of us type more than ten times faster than we write and like to transfer our text conveniently.
There are easy solutions though - a used Jornada off ebay and a targus stowaway keyboard cost me less than $100. It isn't the perfect solution, but it actually addresses the poster's needs.
For all of you writing those novels on notecards with pencils, good luck with that. Seems to have worked for Stephenson.
I love to be able to play against my console-loving nephews with a mouse-keyboard setup. Maybe I'd finally stop giving them the boundless amusement of slapping around Uncle Jim!
What is really missing here is that they thought light was instantaneous. The fact that you assume it takes time for light to reach Earth shows how deeply ingrained Einstein is.
But you undermine the argument by overstating it and picking examples of even more serious crimes to compare them to. A cop takes a body on the ground more seriously than economic damage, bandwidth loss, destroyed data and lost time because it IS much much more serious. A microbiology student infecting people with a real virus would be a far more serious crime than even the most damaging computer virus.
I didn't mean to imply that computer sabotage is more serious that those crimes - quite the opposite. There is no serious choice between murder and computer crime (where those two don't overlap, yet) for an individual officer's resources.
On the other hand being blind to considerations of motivation and association could be taken too far. Society, if only to protect itself must take them into account.
Absolutely! It is critical to understand the 4 primary rationales for criminal punishment - retaliation/retribution, rehabilitation, general deterrence, and specific deterrence. In taking into account the mental state of the actor given any criminal act, we can better tailor the punishment to serve these ends. We can also better judge the probability of recidivism. So of course motivation makes a difference.
It isn't that the thought is the crime, it is what the motive says about whether an individual is likely to recommit the same crime.
As the article implies, authorities deem these attacks trivial because they cannot see actual physical damage done to equipment. Economic damages, bandwidth loss, destroyed data, and wasted time are harder for a cop to take seriously than, for instance, a body on the ground. Of course, the fact that virus writers are usually script-kiddie teenagers helps to make the attacks seems like pranks. It is an interesting thought experiment to consider what will happen when a teenager playing in an advanced biology course cultures a virulent bacteria or virus. Or consider if "goner" had been tracked to the other side of the tanks... to a group a Palestinians.
Though you are correct that federal employees in general have more rights than private sector employees, the original poster doesn't work in just any government office.
(s)He works as a scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Do you see a connection to current happenings? He does not specify what his job is, but the NIH lab there was one of the first responders to the Ebola outbreak (among lab monkeys) in Reston, VA in the 80's, indicating that they in part specialize in epidemic diseases. Under those circumstances, the public policy side of the equation weighs a little heavier in favor of security than it would if he was just a statistician in Cincinnati specializing in obesity figures.
All the psychotics have to do is print up fake credit-card offers, pizza coupons and steam-cleaning advertisements. Snail mail is primarily an advertising medium these days, with only 10% of the traffic meaningful or solicited.
Arguing with a typical adolescent parasite about Napster, I asked hmi what the hell he did for money. He cooked. So I said, "Make me a samwich, bitch," and he took offense.
Seems he didn't want to work for free. Get it?
The best advice I have is COOP! Or work while you are in school, or take 5 years and alternate years with working and education. When someone is sifting through a stack of a few hundred identical resumes, experience stands out more than education. A portfolio of good work is even more impressive, with the other two grounding it. I also think you will find that the experience will help you decide whether your education is going in the direction of your greatest interests.
The parent poster is a little emphatic about not majoring in the tech degree. You will find that those in the industry without one tend have a major chip on the shoulder about it. Take the advice with a grain of salt. NOT having the degree closes some doors. I specialized in patent IP in law school, then was unable to take the patent bar because I don't have one of a set of specified technical degrees.
Also, if you might be interested in a graduate school you'll find it difficult to get into the best programs with an unrelated degree.
Last advice - be interdisciplinary. Techs may be in high demand, but more so are those with more than just technical expertise to offer. And you will probably find that you are able to break new ground in areas an everage tech would be unable to master.
Oh - one more thing. Browse the whole campus bookstore and choose courses based on the source material for any humanities subjects.
Here in Cincinnati, we are spending over $1 billion for two new sports stadiums, and yet every slack-jawed mouth-breather out there wants to take a swipe at science as a waste of money and resources? It seems to me there comes a point where if you don't get it, you never will. Still, it is pretty funny for the rest of us to see that you use a computer to express your hatred of science and technological advance.
I think he's probably just too funny for x-files though... and too much of a pretty boy to get taken seriously. They always cast him when they need someone as a hero - but over-the-top and sorta campy. The guy should get a couple of good facial scars and get his nose broken if he wants to be taken seriously. Or just keep being the funniest sci-fi hero in the business.
Another good read is "Discipline and Punish" by Michel Foucault, in which among other things he discusses the autoculpability effect of the panopticon... in other words, if everyone thinks they are being monitored, they will freak out and admit guilt even when innocent.
Cars must be stopped at all cost! As a recovering driver, I must take issue with the idea of driving safely. I was in an accident, and though it was clearly my fault, it has convinced me that no one should be allowed to drive. I have seen far too many friends get behind the wheel and never get back out (except with the jaws of life). Bikes, skateboards, scooters and inline skates are "gateway vehicles" which will only lead to faster transportation. Because I chose to use a known unsafe car, with big jet packs on the back and a nitro-injector which I got from an unscrupulous dealer with a reputation for cutting the brakelines on his cars, I am certain that cars in perfect working order, used once in a while for recreation, are the work of the devil.
Remember, the road to hell is paved with... ummm.... pavement?
In all seriousness, I am sorry your life has been so messed up by your bad choices. However, you are projecting your problem with heroin onto everyone else's recreation with far less addicting substances. That's just absurd.
No joke - I once worked for a company that repeatedly paged a guy at the hospital where he was waiting for word on his 2-yr-old son's life-or-death kidney operation, instisting that he take tech support calls. Of course, the average length of employment there is less than one year.
I have to interpret as humor any post that claims that warrants are difficult to get. Clearly you have never worked in law enforcement or in the legal field. The system has been warped to make it easier and easier, and the common-law created by the conservative S.Ct. has admitted evidence obtained through clearly improper police procedure under the "good faith" exception. Even Miranda was under attack, and will be overturned if the next president to seat a Justice is republican. Doubt me? Read Scalia's writings some time. If you want to see how 'carnivore' will be abused, look at the L.A. scandals, and recall that the statistics hold that for every prosecuted instance of police misconduct, at least 100 other instances are successfully covered up. I have great respect and gratitude for many of the police officers patrolling the streets, but nothing but contempt and scouring anger toward those who abuse their power. And it goes without saying that this system will be abused, as every other police power is eventually abused. The question is always, do we want to accept that abuse in favor of the criminal activity it will stop? Do we want to accept that this will be used to spy on ex-wives, on political foes? What if it is the only way to stop a virologist version of the Unibomer?
G.Gordon Liddy was once a prosecutor. Do you think he would blanch at faking a warrant if he felt that he was fighting a just cause? Have you seen the enemies lists he compiled for Nixon, with recommendations of assassination? Don't fool yourself into thinking that it is always rational, good-hearted people running the show. And whatever your politics, remember that the other side will occasionally have control of this mechanism, and will use it with the same fervor as a Gordon Liddy or James Carville - pick your villian.
My understanding (I don't have time to look into the contract until I get home from work) is that Network Solutions is still bound by the original agreement with the US Government to distribute the US TLDs. When did they get the right to unilaterally rewrite this contract, and auction the names for many multiples of the fee they can legally charge?
So when did you change the patent laws without telling the rest of us? So now the US has abandoned priority of invention as a requirement for patent, to match the "race to the patent office" laws of the EU?
Slashdot Mirror
I knew I should have patented the idea of patent-trolling. Dang.
Obviously online distribution and/or On Demand is going to be the rule in 5 years, not the exception. But I keep buying DVDs for the commentaries and extra material.
Is there going to be the economic incentive to provide all this extra material with online distribution?
What's going to happen to Criterion?
Some of us type more than ten times faster than we write and like to transfer our text conveniently.
There are easy solutions though - a used Jornada off ebay and a targus stowaway keyboard cost me less than $100. It isn't the perfect solution, but it actually addresses the poster's needs.
For all of you writing those novels on notecards with pencils, good luck with that. Seems to have worked for Stephenson.
Will they each step on a ceremonial butterfly?
When do we grant an AI standing - the legal personhood required to assert rights?
That question determines not only a lot of things about our future with AI, but also about us.
When you say there is a black and a white edition, you're not saying textual differences like in The Dictionary of the Khazars, right?
I love to be able to play against my console-loving nephews with a mouse-keyboard setup. Maybe I'd finally stop giving them the boundless amusement of slapping around Uncle Jim!
What is really missing here is that they thought light was instantaneous. The fact that you assume it takes time for light to reach Earth shows how deeply ingrained Einstein is.
But you undermine the argument by overstating it and picking examples of even more serious crimes to compare them to. A cop takes a body on the ground more seriously than economic damage, bandwidth loss, destroyed data and lost time because it IS much much more serious. A microbiology student infecting people with a real virus would be a far more serious crime than even the most damaging computer virus.
I didn't mean to imply that computer sabotage is more serious that those crimes - quite the opposite. There is no serious choice between murder and computer crime (where those two don't overlap, yet) for an individual officer's resources.
On the other hand being blind to considerations of motivation and association could be taken too far. Society, if only to protect itself must take them into account.
Absolutely! It is critical to understand the 4 primary rationales for criminal punishment - retaliation/retribution, rehabilitation, general deterrence, and specific deterrence. In taking into account the mental state of the actor given any criminal act, we can better tailor the punishment to serve these ends. We can also better judge the probability of recidivism. So of course motivation makes a difference.
It isn't that the thought is the crime, it is what the motive says about whether an individual is likely to recommit the same crime.
As the article implies, authorities deem these attacks trivial because they cannot see actual physical damage done to equipment. Economic damages, bandwidth loss, destroyed data, and wasted time are harder for a cop to take seriously than, for instance, a body on the ground. Of course, the fact that virus writers are usually script-kiddie teenagers helps to make the attacks seems like pranks. It is an interesting thought experiment to consider what will happen when a teenager playing in an advanced biology course cultures a virulent bacteria or virus. Or consider if "goner" had been tracked to the other side of the tanks... to a group a Palestinians.
Though you are correct that federal employees in general have more rights than private sector employees, the original poster doesn't work in just any government office.
(s)He works as a scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Do you see a connection to current happenings? He does not specify what his job is, but the NIH lab there was one of the first responders to the Ebola outbreak (among lab monkeys) in Reston, VA in the 80's, indicating that they in part specialize in epidemic diseases. Under those circumstances, the public policy side of the equation weighs a little heavier in favor of security than it would if he was just a statistician in Cincinnati specializing in obesity figures.
All the psychotics have to do is print up fake credit-card offers, pizza coupons and steam-cleaning advertisements. Snail mail is primarily an advertising medium these days, with only 10% of the traffic meaningful or solicited.
Arguing with a typical adolescent parasite about Napster, I asked hmi what the hell he did for money. He cooked. So I said, "Make me a samwich, bitch," and he took offense. Seems he didn't want to work for free. Get it?
The best advice I have is COOP! Or work while you are in school, or take 5 years and alternate years with working and education. When someone is sifting through a stack of a few hundred identical resumes, experience stands out more than education. A portfolio of good work is even more impressive, with the other two grounding it. I also think you will find that the experience will help you decide whether your education is going in the direction of your greatest interests.
The parent poster is a little emphatic about not majoring in the tech degree. You will find that those in the industry without one tend have a major chip on the shoulder about it. Take the advice with a grain of salt. NOT having the degree closes some doors. I specialized in patent IP in law school, then was unable to take the patent bar because I don't have one of a set of specified technical degrees.
Also, if you might be interested in a graduate school you'll find it difficult to get into the best programs with an unrelated degree.
Last advice - be interdisciplinary. Techs may be in high demand, but more so are those with more than just technical expertise to offer. And you will probably find that you are able to break new ground in areas an everage tech would be unable to master.
Oh - one more thing. Browse the whole campus bookstore and choose courses based on the source material for any humanities subjects.
(Company_revenue - Campaign_Donation + Increased_Profit_From_Special_Treatment) > Company_Revenue
Get it?
Here in Cincinnati, we are spending over $1 billion for two new sports stadiums, and yet every slack-jawed mouth-breather out there wants to take a swipe at science as a waste of money and resources? It seems to me there comes a point where if you don't get it, you never will. Still, it is pretty funny for the rest of us to see that you use a computer to express your hatred of science and technological advance.
I think he's probably just too funny for x-files though... and too much of a pretty boy to get taken seriously. They always cast him when they need someone as a hero - but over-the-top and sorta campy. The guy should get a couple of good facial scars and get his nose broken if he wants to be taken seriously. Or just keep being the funniest sci-fi hero in the business.
Another good read is "Discipline and Punish" by Michel Foucault, in which among other things he discusses the autoculpability effect of the panopticon... in other words, if everyone thinks they are being monitored, they will freak out and admit guilt even when innocent.
The other funny side of this phenomenon is that when the S.Ct. overturns unconstitutional laws, they are decried as overreaching and "activist."
Here's a simple(minded) analogy for ya:
Cars must be stopped at all cost! As a recovering driver, I must take issue with the idea of driving safely. I was in an accident, and though it was clearly my fault, it has convinced me that no one should be allowed to drive. I have seen far too many friends get behind the wheel and never get back out (except with the jaws of life). Bikes, skateboards, scooters and inline skates are "gateway vehicles" which will only lead to faster transportation. Because I chose to use a known unsafe car, with big jet packs on the back and a nitro-injector which I got from an unscrupulous dealer with a reputation for cutting the brakelines on his cars, I am certain that cars in perfect working order, used once in a while for recreation, are the work of the devil.
Remember, the road to hell is paved with... ummm.... pavement?
In all seriousness, I am sorry your life has been so messed up by your bad choices. However, you are projecting your problem with heroin onto everyone else's recreation with far less addicting substances. That's just absurd.
No joke - I once worked for a company that repeatedly paged a guy at the hospital where he was waiting for word on his 2-yr-old son's life-or-death kidney operation, instisting that he take tech support calls. Of course, the average length of employment there is less than one year.
I have to interpret as humor any post that claims that warrants are difficult to get. Clearly you have never worked in law enforcement or in the legal field. The system has been warped to make it easier and easier, and the common-law created by the conservative S.Ct. has admitted evidence obtained through clearly improper police procedure under the "good faith" exception. Even Miranda was under attack, and will be overturned if the next president to seat a Justice is republican. Doubt me? Read Scalia's writings some time. If you want to see how 'carnivore' will be abused, look at the L.A. scandals, and recall that the statistics hold that for every prosecuted instance of police misconduct, at least 100 other instances are successfully covered up. I have great respect and gratitude for many of the police officers patrolling the streets, but nothing but contempt and scouring anger toward those who abuse their power. And it goes without saying that this system will be abused, as every other police power is eventually abused. The question is always, do we want to accept that abuse in favor of the criminal activity it will stop? Do we want to accept that this will be used to spy on ex-wives, on political foes? What if it is the only way to stop a virologist version of the Unibomer?
G.Gordon Liddy was once a prosecutor. Do you think he would blanch at faking a warrant if he felt that he was fighting a just cause? Have you seen the enemies lists he compiled for Nixon, with recommendations of assassination? Don't fool yourself into thinking that it is always rational, good-hearted people running the show. And whatever your politics, remember that the other side will occasionally have control of this mechanism, and will use it with the same fervor as a Gordon Liddy or James Carville - pick your villian.
Before you hit me with the flamewall, I see that they limit their take to the full registration fee. Objection Withdrawn, your Honor.
My understanding (I don't have time to look into the contract until I get home from work) is that Network Solutions is still bound by the original agreement with the US Government to distribute the US TLDs. When did they get the right to unilaterally rewrite this contract, and auction the names for many multiples of the fee they can legally charge?
So when did you change the patent laws without telling the rest of us? So now the US has abandoned priority of invention as a requirement for patent, to match the "race to the patent office" laws of the EU?