Harbor? As any avid Simpsons watcher within any of the last ten years will tell you, he doesn't harbor hostile feelings toward Fox. They're off to sea, full sail, and if Groening had his way they'd be packed with nuclear explosives and headed straight for Rupert Murdoch's front door. Unfortunately the Simpson's brand doesn't pull in the kind of capitol it did back when everyone had a Bart keychain, so his hostility is instead packed chock full of beans. Very old beans.
I'm sorry, but saying someone should be raped doesn't damage that person's safety. Neither does saying they have herpes (which are the only two examples I saw in the article). Unless there's something of quite a different nature that wasn't included none of it actually harmed the girls. And it's not your, nor any branch of government's job to change attitudes. If I, or anyone else, wants to hate a group of people or a person in particular and preach that hate from a rooftop that's fine, unless they're violating one town law or another by shouting something people don't want to hear from a rooftop.
Womens' rights and their safety is far more important than the "right" for misogynists to remain anonymous.
Unfortunately it's not really a matter of the right of unpopular people to be anonymous, and unless you can show actual harm resulting from the statements it's not about women's safety, either. There is no concrete harm, it's an attitude. The spread of the attitude results in harm to the group, but you have no right to police an attitude, only the result of that attitude. Due to the fact that the article stated that the case is shaky at best it sounds likely that this is more about publicizing the identities of the posters and causing them indirect harm which is not what the court system is for. Nor, again, is it the place of the government to make everyone act as if they accept everyone else. If someone wants to hate a woman or women in general that's their business. If they state it publicly they can be ostracized and their statements removed if the medium allows. But in a privately owned space speech is free, and I'd gladly take a flamethrower to anyone who sought to make it illegal to say "I think she has herpes".
Oh, and I rather doubt that if a man said another man should be beat with a baseball bat, or said he had crabs, that it would get anywhere near a courtroom. Why should women be more protected from being spoken against than men? We're equal in the eyes of the law, even if not in practical application. I don't think it's right to say that sort of thing to anyone, but I also don't like favoritism. Society in general is free to play favorites in many ways, but the law is not.
I think it's not just a depiction, but does the difference between depiction and interactivity really that large? We're sensory processing machines. Our behavior patterns are formed to a small extent from the contemplative process, and only if the result of that thought process is reinforced repeatedly from the outside. To a much greater extent experience teaches us how we react to the world. What we see, feel, hear, taste, and smell, that's what forms our view of the world and our beliefs as to what's acceptable and good for achieving our goals.
Games do not stimulate us in the same way that actually running out and carjacking someone does. When you fire a gun in Quake you don't feel the recoil, when you get shot it doesn't hurt, when you steal someone's car in GTA they don't fight back. Yes, if you take someone with an economic or psychological reason for violence, yes, it may give them a bad idea. And yes, children shouldn't play GTA and other games which are similarly dismissive of human life and property. Violence and, more importantly, a lack of empathy for your fellow man shouldn't be practiced at time when a person is just starting to define their morality. However, I reject the idea that a game (except for those sweet-ass virtual reality games from 90's sci-fi movies, I'd sacrifice my moral foundation to play one of those) can provide a relatively mature brain with enough varied stimulation and experience to make a change in the fundamental morality of that person.
I'd like to see which Toshiba laptop you're talking about. I just did a little fiddling at Toshiba's store and the only 17" laptops I saw that were anywhere near $800 had nowhere near the specs of even the base 17" Macbook Pro, so I call shenanigans until I see what you say you're looking at. I didn't even bother doing any spec comparison and I'm guessing that the laptop you're talking about would cost at least double what you quote.
The code that falls under the GPL, Darwin, is available completely free through Apple's website and can be installed on whatever your heart desires. The problem is there's a lot of code in OS X that only ties into the BSD underpinnings which includes, among other things, the entire GUI. The thing that Apple did that you say galls you, making software that can only be run on your hardware, is exactly (really, exactly, I'm not exaggerating) the same as the software that runs the Wii.
As someone above said, if someone started making boxes that could run Wii software Nintendo would, and should, come after them like the fist of an angry god.
Also, Apple is not in the same business as Microsoft. They don't have the market control that Microsoft has, nor have they tried to restrict to make a profit at the expense of competition within a related-but-separate field of computer hardware the same way Microsoft did. When it comes to Apple they -are- the hardware, so they get to run their business the way they want.
So, to sum up, I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm just saying, your GPL objections aren't actually based on the reality of the GPL'd software in use. And whether or not you like the idea, they're selling a full product, software and hardware, in a closed environment just like a console. Of course, if I wasn't a Mac user from way back and a bit of a geek I woudn't know this, so I honestly hope you reconsider your position.
You might not, but you wouldn't have done your homework, and it would be your fault.
Besides, and this is my own assumption, but I'm thinking that most people who lack the basic legal knowledge to understand that the Psystars weren't exactly on the up-and-up, would probably be heading down to Wal-Mart to pick up a Whatevertheysellatwalmart 3000 Plus and a joystick rather than one of those uppity Macs.
Anyway, if you have a Psystar the only downside is that you can't get updates. I could take my Mac Pro and never update it and use it just fine for years and years and years. There may be some security patches I might really want somewhere along the line, but people running Mac OS 10.4.0 isn't exactly a honeypot waiting to be hijacked.
Nah, cause MS takes good ideas and crowbars them into a very successful product. The success of the product is then sustained by the inclusion of the good ideas implemented in a generally half-assed way, rather than spurring its popularity. It's more like, failovation? Paceovation?
Not that MS hasn't had one or two winners along the line, but that's strictly on a case-by-case basis, within the scope of an idea or two, and never executed well enough to integrate well with anything else they've implemented. It's been a while since I've seen a full concept come out of MS without shaking my head and wishing either Linux or Mac would take the lead.
While I agree that MySpace itself has all the right in the world to punish people who supply false personal data within the service, applying a criminal penalty is wrong.
The reason it's illegal to falsify information when applying for a job or a pay service (and not just against the rules of the company you're supplying the false information to) is because in that case your false information opens them up to potential liability. Supplying a false name and social security # to an employer effects issues such as taxes, background checks, etc. The reason you provide personal information to a cell phone provider is to ascertain whether or not you have the credit score they desire. False information related to the exchange of money, taxation, background screening for the safety of others, these are all things which, when circumvented, can harm people. Please, correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not a lawyer nor have I looked into the illegality of falsifying credit screening data, but I'm pretty sure lying on a cell phone application is not a criminal matter.
By itself, no matter what your background or what you do on the site as long as it's within the law, registering on MySpace with false information will almost never open MySpace up to any legal or financial liability. Even in a case in which registering itself isn't legal for you (say, if you have a hacking conviction and have been ordered never to use a computer) MySpace still isn't libel.
If you can show me a concrete circumstance under which MySpace itself is harmed by the act of signing up with a false name, then I'll agree it should be illegal. I'll even agree that possibly providing false credentials for the purposes of comitting a crime should be illegal. But simply lying to someone about what your name is?
Well, yes, except there's no reason to disable the laptop. Disabling it will probably make the person suspect something's up, if not get rid of the laptop altogether.
Or, they could think it's broken, and take it to a shop, and when the police arrive there's no laptop on premises and they don't know what laptop they could be talking about (even if you just bought the laptop honestly thinking it was just second-hand, there's a good chance you'll deny everything with armed officers at your door).
The police leave, you pick up the laptop after it's been wiped and reinstalled, because the simplest way to clear up really screwed permissions would probably be a windows reinstall, and there goes the only lead you had.
So, my plan is to instruct every babysitter in the fine art of forensic psychology. That way they can utilize their access to the children under their care and be able to tell when a child's been abused and report the parents to the proper authorities. Unlike busting people for having child porn (note: this is in no way an endorsement of child porn) this will actually directly prevent the harming of a child, and the training involved will improve the child care the babysitter provides.
It's a win-win. Unlike forcing pc repair people to become PIs which will result in more arrests and do almost zippy-do-da for the children who have been harmed.
Slashdot Mirror
Harbor? As any avid Simpsons watcher within any of the last ten years will tell you, he doesn't harbor hostile feelings toward Fox. They're off to sea, full sail, and if Groening had his way they'd be packed with nuclear explosives and headed straight for Rupert Murdoch's front door. Unfortunately the Simpson's brand doesn't pull in the kind of capitol it did back when everyone had a Bart keychain, so his hostility is instead packed chock full of beans. Very old beans.
I'm sorry, but saying someone should be raped doesn't damage that person's safety. Neither does saying they have herpes (which are the only two examples I saw in the article). Unless there's something of quite a different nature that wasn't included none of it actually harmed the girls. And it's not your, nor any branch of government's job to change attitudes. If I, or anyone else, wants to hate a group of people or a person in particular and preach that hate from a rooftop that's fine, unless they're violating one town law or another by shouting something people don't want to hear from a rooftop.
Womens' rights and their safety is far more important than the "right" for misogynists to remain anonymous.
Unfortunately it's not really a matter of the right of unpopular people to be anonymous, and unless you can show actual harm resulting from the statements it's not about women's safety, either. There is no concrete harm, it's an attitude. The spread of the attitude results in harm to the group, but you have no right to police an attitude, only the result of that attitude. Due to the fact that the article stated that the case is shaky at best it sounds likely that this is more about publicizing the identities of the posters and causing them indirect harm which is not what the court system is for. Nor, again, is it the place of the government to make everyone act as if they accept everyone else. If someone wants to hate a woman or women in general that's their business. If they state it publicly they can be ostracized and their statements removed if the medium allows. But in a privately owned space speech is free, and I'd gladly take a flamethrower to anyone who sought to make it illegal to say "I think she has herpes".
Oh, and I rather doubt that if a man said another man should be beat with a baseball bat, or said he had crabs, that it would get anywhere near a courtroom. Why should women be more protected from being spoken against than men? We're equal in the eyes of the law, even if not in practical application. I don't think it's right to say that sort of thing to anyone, but I also don't like favoritism. Society in general is free to play favorites in many ways, but the law is not.
I think it's not just a depiction, but does the difference between depiction and interactivity really that large? We're sensory processing machines. Our behavior patterns are formed to a small extent from the contemplative process, and only if the result of that thought process is reinforced repeatedly from the outside. To a much greater extent experience teaches us how we react to the world. What we see, feel, hear, taste, and smell, that's what forms our view of the world and our beliefs as to what's acceptable and good for achieving our goals.
Games do not stimulate us in the same way that actually running out and carjacking someone does. When you fire a gun in Quake you don't feel the recoil, when you get shot it doesn't hurt, when you steal someone's car in GTA they don't fight back. Yes, if you take someone with an economic or psychological reason for violence, yes, it may give them a bad idea. And yes, children shouldn't play GTA and other games which are similarly dismissive of human life and property. Violence and, more importantly, a lack of empathy for your fellow man shouldn't be practiced at time when a person is just starting to define their morality. However, I reject the idea that a game (except for those sweet-ass virtual reality games from 90's sci-fi movies, I'd sacrifice my moral foundation to play one of those) can provide a relatively mature brain with enough varied stimulation and experience to make a change in the fundamental morality of that person.
I'd like to see which Toshiba laptop you're talking about. I just did a little fiddling at Toshiba's store and the only 17" laptops I saw that were anywhere near $800 had nowhere near the specs of even the base 17" Macbook Pro, so I call shenanigans until I see what you say you're looking at. I didn't even bother doing any spec comparison and I'm guessing that the laptop you're talking about would cost at least double what you quote.
...shouldn't have a paper trail attached to them!
The code that falls under the GPL, Darwin, is available completely free through Apple's website and can be installed on whatever your heart desires. The problem is there's a lot of code in OS X that only ties into the BSD underpinnings which includes, among other things, the entire GUI. The thing that Apple did that you say galls you, making software that can only be run on your hardware, is exactly (really, exactly, I'm not exaggerating) the same as the software that runs the Wii.
As someone above said, if someone started making boxes that could run Wii software Nintendo would, and should, come after them like the fist of an angry god.
Also, Apple is not in the same business as Microsoft. They don't have the market control that Microsoft has, nor have they tried to restrict to make a profit at the expense of competition within a related-but-separate field of computer hardware the same way Microsoft did. When it comes to Apple they -are- the hardware, so they get to run their business the way they want.
So, to sum up, I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm just saying, your GPL objections aren't actually based on the reality of the GPL'd software in use. And whether or not you like the idea, they're selling a full product, software and hardware, in a closed environment just like a console. Of course, if I wasn't a Mac user from way back and a bit of a geek I woudn't know this, so I honestly hope you reconsider your position.
You might not, but you wouldn't have done your homework, and it would be your fault.
Besides, and this is my own assumption, but I'm thinking that most people who lack the basic legal knowledge to understand that the Psystars weren't exactly on the up-and-up, would probably be heading down to Wal-Mart to pick up a Whatevertheysellatwalmart 3000 Plus and a joystick rather than one of those uppity Macs.
Anyway, if you have a Psystar the only downside is that you can't get updates. I could take my Mac Pro and never update it and use it just fine for years and years and years. There may be some security patches I might really want somewhere along the line, but people running Mac OS 10.4.0 isn't exactly a honeypot waiting to be hijacked.
Nah, cause MS takes good ideas and crowbars them into a very successful product. The success of the product is then sustained by the inclusion of the good ideas implemented in a generally half-assed way, rather than spurring its popularity. It's more like, failovation? Paceovation?
Not that MS hasn't had one or two winners along the line, but that's strictly on a case-by-case basis, within the scope of an idea or two, and never executed well enough to integrate well with anything else they've implemented. It's been a while since I've seen a full concept come out of MS without shaking my head and wishing either Linux or Mac would take the lead.
While I agree that MySpace itself has all the right in the world to punish people who supply false personal data within the service, applying a criminal penalty is wrong.
The reason it's illegal to falsify information when applying for a job or a pay service (and not just against the rules of the company you're supplying the false information to) is because in that case your false information opens them up to potential liability. Supplying a false name and social security # to an employer effects issues such as taxes, background checks, etc. The reason you provide personal information to a cell phone provider is to ascertain whether or not you have the credit score they desire. False information related to the exchange of money, taxation, background screening for the safety of others, these are all things which, when circumvented, can harm people. Please, correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not a lawyer nor have I looked into the illegality of falsifying credit screening data, but I'm pretty sure lying on a cell phone application is not a criminal matter.
By itself, no matter what your background or what you do on the site as long as it's within the law, registering on MySpace with false information will almost never open MySpace up to any legal or financial liability. Even in a case in which registering itself isn't legal for you (say, if you have a hacking conviction and have been ordered never to use a computer) MySpace still isn't libel.
If you can show me a concrete circumstance under which MySpace itself is harmed by the act of signing up with a false name, then I'll agree it should be illegal. I'll even agree that possibly providing false credentials for the purposes of comitting a crime should be illegal. But simply lying to someone about what your name is?
Well, yes, except there's no reason to disable the laptop. Disabling it will probably make the person suspect something's up, if not get rid of the laptop altogether.
Or, they could think it's broken, and take it to a shop, and when the police arrive there's no laptop on premises and they don't know what laptop they could be talking about (even if you just bought the laptop honestly thinking it was just second-hand, there's a good chance you'll deny everything with armed officers at your door).
The police leave, you pick up the laptop after it's been wiped and reinstalled, because the simplest way to clear up really screwed permissions would probably be a windows reinstall, and there goes the only lead you had.
So, my plan is to instruct every babysitter in the fine art of forensic psychology. That way they can utilize their access to the children under their care and be able to tell when a child's been abused and report the parents to the proper authorities. Unlike busting people for having child porn (note: this is in no way an endorsement of child porn) this will actually directly prevent the harming of a child, and the training involved will improve the child care the babysitter provides.
It's a win-win. Unlike forcing pc repair people to become PIs which will result in more arrests and do almost zippy-do-da for the children who have been harmed.
I'm circulating a petition. I'm hopeful.