My dad is a retired cop, very honest guy (though maybe I'm a bit biased). Most of the guys on the force were genuine good guys, of course there was 1 or 2 jackass's that would do stupid shit.
Ask him if these jackasses ever did any stupid shit that he observed. Did he arrest them? Did he report them? Did he let it slide? Did he cover it up?
If he answers more towards the later, rather than the former, then he wasn't a "genuine good guy". Everyone I've ever talked to with ties to a police department swears that the majority are good apples, and yet the entire police force seems to look after their own when shit hits the fan.
It's a good idea, don't get me wrong. It's about time we used this ubiquitous cheap technology in an obviously beneficial way. It's a good move, and one I support.
But either after this comes about, or as part of the deal, the content of that camera needs to be stored offsite and specifically out of the reach of the police officer. Otherwise we're going to see a lot of data simply go missing at convenient times. To be frank, we can't trust police departments to hold onto evidence that could incriminate themselves.
And any evidence that an officer tampered with their camera in an effort to suppress incriminating evidence should be dealt with exactly as if they had destroyed evidence. Because that's what it is.
Some people are better carpenters, better coders, better fencers, or better with words. Some people know how to get others to cheer up, or laugh, or get riled, or get angry.
But we're all equally human, and deserve all the respect that humans are afforded.
In what useful and practical sense of the word is everyone "equal?"
OH, you want "practical"? That's easy: Legal rights. Equal protection under the law. Equal rights of movement, speech, organization, ownership, blah blah blah. Everyone has the same rights to vote (barring you don't get convicted with a felony). There is most definitely some minor imbalances, but on the whole, the USA is doing pretty good with this one. Personally, the imbalance that irks me the most right now is that James Clapper blatantly lied to congress and hasn't been prosecuted yet. It's a breakdown in the rule of law and shows that the heads of the intelligence community are not our equals. It's a problem.
If I spent as much retraining US workers as I did hiring those skillsets I've filled with H1B's, I'd have fired at least half for not doing a fucking thing after failing to learn in whatever training they wasted money on.
If you spent more time retraining workers.... then you'd fire half of them?
"failing to learn in"?
because I've looked for 10 months for all three of them before giving in an attempting the bullshit to find someone willing to work with the appropriate skillset.
. . . I'm pretty sure that "an" is supposed to be "and". So.... you gave in... and then attempted.... to find someone with the skillset? Maybe that "an" is superfluous. Maybe you spent 10 months before giving up and accepting you failed to find anyone with the skillset.
Have you considered training yourself in English?
One of the big flaws in corporate America is the idea that a couple day's "training" where they sit you in front of a salesman and some slides will actually impart anything of value. "Job Training" takes years of working with a mentor showing you the ropes the entire way with both of you doing meaningful work. It's not something you get a cert for after a week. At least, you know, for the sort of knowledge work that I'm tasked with. Certs and that sort of training are good for, say, introducing a new tool when nobody in the office has any experience with it.
But hey, let me guess, you need someone to be an expert with a laundry list of niche technologies and you're only going to pay $40K in shitsville, Iowa. Good luck with that.
"What do you think of the immigrants coming and taking your jobs and lowering your salary. My honest response was, "Without the kind of talent the people I'm working with bring to this country, my company wouldn't exist."
Wait.... you understand that "most of the visas" are "trade school hacks", "clearly underskilled", with "false resumes". That most of this program is just to undercut the local employees. You are fully cognizant of this.... and when someone asked you what you thought about that... you ignored the question and how themajority of the system operates, and focused on how well the system worked for your company.
Huh.
As a tangent, why aren't you working for the high-tech joint anymore? Did they replace you with an Indian PHD and force you to move down into the trenches of web-dev? What do you think of that?
The two party system is fine, until the parties have the ability to redraw their own districts without any rules as to how those districts should be shaped.
Uhhhhhhhh..... yeah, gerrymandering. That's in effect NOW, for most of the USA.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure Congress is up to the task right now, which is a massive problem since the problem will continue to get worse, which makes it even less likely to happen...
Well that doesn't matter as congress has fuck all to say about how the STATES vote for their representatives and how they draw their districts.
And fuck "limiting", have the districts be drawn by an algorithm. A hard-set rule that determines who the politicians represent. The problem is that the algorithm has to be made while a party is in power, and the algorithm will therefore be made to support said party. This sort of change to the power structure could really only happen during a revolution of some sort. Like if the tea-partiers had made it one of their agendas.
Well that's the march of progress. The cutting edge of technology eventually filters down into the hands of everybody.
But for this specific concern, the creations of blatantly false information, it's a cat and mouse game. There are technologies out there to identify fakes. Analyzing lighting, mostly, from my brief glances. But it means the thoughtless email "omglookatthisvideoTHANKSOBAMA" spam will dive off into the deep end of the crazy pool. As if they weren't already there. Ultimately, we had a brief window between the point where evidence could be created without the ability to falsify that evidence, and the point where everything had to be taken with a grain of salt. I imagine the future content will be trusted solely based on who presented it. The echo chambers will intensify and trustworthiness will have value.
The poor in Egypt were motherfucking skinny. At least they were in 2008. Maybe you were looking at the shopkeepers or taxi-drivers, or tour guides who spoke English.
Same for Peru. Also went through the Caribbeans, but never really saw the poor there.
Costa Rica is doing just fine. That was a pleasant experience. Nice enough I felt fine just driving around by myself. I'd feel fine accepting them in as another state if it weren't for my OCD demanding there be an even number of states.
Outright famine still happens, but is certainly the exception even in the latter.
I was going to give you shit about saying that first world nations experienced famine, but then I looked up the actual definition of first, second, and third-world nations. I thought it just meant established vs poor-as-shits-ville. Rather, it's a hold-over from the cold war. But sure, if you consider Oman first world, then that's totally legit.
At the same time, I usually failed to pick jobs for the best reason: What will help me progress in my career? Sometimes that means taking a job for less money but more responsibility or better opportunities.
IMMEDIATE and urgent RED FLAG! No I don't think that this job is a "career opportunity leading to rapid advancement". I will not work for "exposure".
Fuck you, pay me!
6. Work more than 40 hours per week.... If the only time you learn something is on your boss's dime, then prepare to have your options limited -- your boss isn't going to train you...
What kind of class-warfare propaganda bullshit is this? Hey, I get the sentiment, having a home/hobby project where you code in your spare time does indeed help turn you into a better programmer. But the way he spins it... dude, what the hell?
Weeeeellllll, you have to remember that he said "democratic framework". I was going to call bullshit on that aspect of his post until I re-read it and realized he didn't actually say that the USA was democratic at the time, just that it had the framework for a democracy. One which we could re-enable with relative ease. "Relative ease" still being decades of unrest.
We're not all that democratic right now, all things considered. The two party system both pay lip-service to the polls and their talking points. When something new comes along like the Snowden's whistle-blowing, they scramble to figure out which side of the fence they belong on and make sure it's balanced so that nothing gets done.
China's communist system, where the party members vote on things and who is in charge, could kinda sorta be construed as something similar to the democratic process. It'll be different, certainly.
Have you ever been to a third-world country? Have you lived there? Because I think it's quite apparent that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. But here's a quick'n'easy test: Our poor are fat. Their poor are skinny.
Chinese manufacturing wages have nearly quintupled since 2004
They're going to have growing pains. Developing a middle class and shifting from expendable factory workers to knowledge workers doesn't happen overnight. We had our own struggles during the era of the robber-barons. I hope they have an easier time of it.
What the fuck are you smoking? "old, narrower meaning"? Son, the enlightenment has a lot to say about censorship and it got codified into some of the laws. Since then, people with power have tried to stuff the term into a narrow little box that only applies to other people. So you can take your "older" meaning and shove it right up your box.
The term "censorship" has an definition. Has had it for a very long time. It has negative connotations because it DAMN WELL SHOULD. If you pay for and run a server which allows users to post comments, you have the right (in the USA, barring contracts and licenses) to delete someone's posts. Exercising that right is most certainly an act of censorship. Straight up. Negative connotations and all.
Some censorship is good. Some censorship is bad. It's one of those things that people should take a critical eye to because of how it can be abused.
Nothing about trying to use the word in its true, limited, serious meaning...
You are litterally redefining the word to suit your purpose.
I run several websites,
Bias confirmed.
if you think you're going to get me to let you post your anti-semitic, anti-christian, anti-islamic, anti-gay, pro-abortion, and anti-abortion sentiments on any of them out of some concern for protecting such speech
I don't, because I won't, because I don't hold any such sentiments. And I'm fully aware that a lot of people do not hold any sort of lofty ideals when it comes to the freedom of speech. Plebeian shmucks who haven't thought it through, affluent power-mongers who want to control people, self-centered assholes who don't give a fuck about society while leeching off it as much they can. Since you "run several websites" you probably lean towards the power-monger type.
It is not censorship if I keep your comments off, no more so than if I were an editor to a newspaper and I did not select one of your letters to the editor containing such babble for publication.
It IS censorship. In very much the same way an editor selects editorials. Don't redefine the word and then bitch about people not using your definition. Learn some history kiddo.
Yeah, man, the LAUNCH of the next version of D&D. These are rule-books, most of the people who play the game already have the pathfinder core rulebooks. That is, sales of core rulebooks represent market share growth. The launch of an edition should be similar to an IPO with everyone scrambling to get it. Conversly, the sales of a 5 year old rule-book should be petering off. I would have imagined that the 5th ed D&D would trounce any other sales at GenCon as all the established gamers who already own both pathfinder and D&D1,2,3,4 rulebooks should be getting the 5th ed books, even if they hate it.
So yeah, hearing that more Pathfinder core rule-books were sold at GenCon than D&D 5th ed core rule-books on it's launch day.... Yeah that's pretty damn shocking. I mean, GenCon was a D&D convention. Gary founded it when D&D was taking off. And maybe he would have smiled at this turn of events. Showing that the soul of D&D is not in the hands of some corporate whore with controlling shares, but rather in the hands of the gamers who liked what they had going on back when Gary was driving the boat.
But maybe it's because the MM isn't out yet, and just the PHB was up for sale. And everyone who really wanted it it had early access of some sort. So it wasn't exactly a "launch date". Dunno.
And anyone can sue anyone for anything at any time.
With or without the OGL.
The political ramifications for WotC suing some dinky third-party for releasing a campaign in a similar fashion of the not-so-dinky publishers would be severe enough that WotC wouldn't do such a thing.
Yes that big thug in the room can squish you. No, he probably won't. Yay society.
For those who don't know, the OGL was introduced in the 3rd edition (and continued its minor update, v3.5) of D&D. It was truly revolutionary. The OGL not only permitted players to redistribute the base rule system as they wished, including publishing it online for free almost in its entirety, but empowered players, writers, and campaign masters to edit, change and adapt the rules as they saw fit -- and publish those changes, as long as they too were under the OGL. It's open source for gaming systems.
And you're apparently not one of those people "in the know". The OGL did nothing other than announce that Wizards of the Coast were cool with people making supplements to their games. Legally, it did nothing. Everyone already had all the rights they needed to publish campaigns, rules, worlds, classes, feats, spells, content, that worked with, worked within, altered, expanded, truncated, or fixed the rules published by Wizards of the Coast. Such activities need no special licensing.
But hey, having a lawyer say that something is totally cool, and they promise not to sue really DOES have an effect. It's psychological rather than legal. It might have been all smoke and mirrors, but it encouraged gamers to create content. So in short, it worked.
It's equivalent to screaming. Probably not going to fix anything, could even make things worse by panicking the passengers, but it has a chance of alerting the passengers that they should do something.
But most regular drivers would have a similar narrow set of options available: 1: Pray, 2: Scream, 3: Get fucked .
What would YOU do in this contrived scenario? And yes, it is contrived. If there's so much traffic that the interstate is at a stand-still, the sleeping trucker will hit someone slowing down WAY before he hits any stopped cars.
Do you ram the car in front of you trying to push your way into the ditch? That is trucker's only alternative path if he wants to try and swerve away. Not that that's a good option either. But now you've blocked his only escape route and lined yourself up for a T-boning.
Do you get out of the car and run? Oh that's great, now you're out of your armor and extra-squishy.
So what EXACTLY would you want the AI to do in this scenario?
One of google's cars has ALREADY been rear-ended at a stoplight. Human error. Holy shit dude, did you think driving was safe? Those other fuckers on the road are gonna kill you.
Would it careen into a queue of children to protect you from truck?
It would slam on the breaks trying to stop as quickly as possible and minimize the damage to everyone involved.
JesusfuckingCHRIST people keep on bringing this up like it's some sort of mystical mind-blowing new problem. When shit hits the fan, the DEFAULT and MOST PROBABLE CORRECT action will be employed AS PER POLICY. Just like you're supposed to drive when you're behind the wheel.
Truck, passenger, and school children be damned. When the self-driving car thinks a crash is imminent, it tries to stop. Period. End of philosophical rant about Asimov's laws, morality, and manufacturer's liability.
A website that does not allow you to post x is not infringing your freedom of speech in the context of the first amendment because that only stops the government from censoring you, and doesn't stop individuals from censoring others nor does it force individuals to perpetuate others speech (as in host it).
But it is most certainly censoring you on their website. That is almost exactly the definition of censorship. It would be exactly the definition of censorship if you posted X, and then they removed said post. If they have a blanket ban on X prior to any such post, that can still be considered censorship. And hey man, some censorship is good:
-Self-censorship is best. I'm not going to wave my dick about on a playground. That'd be pretty fucked up. And illegal. And rightfully so.
-Outlawing any discussion of global warming, anywhere, online or off, would be a crazy-stupid level of censorship. And illegal.
-StackOverflow censors any open-ended discussions, because it's a Q&A site striving for quality posts rather than bickering about which language to use. And I'm down with that.
But news aggregators like Fark and Slashdot where the "value added content" is the community and commentary, I prefer the censors to have a light touch. If someone is being a real douche, sure, ban'em. But I'd be worried about mods becoming tyrants. And from the sounds of it, I'm glad I'm not a regular on Fark anymore.
You are allowed to say whatever you want "within reason aka slander, fraud, and so on" you have no right to say it everywhere.
Correct. Just like I said in my post. It's great we agree. But that sure as shit doesn't mean that Fark's new policy isn't censorship. (Also, and I'm just being pedantic here, you DO have the right to say it, but they also have the right to ban you/kick you out of their store/house/server. Effectively, no you don't have the right to say it everywhere)
Remember, what rights you have is a legal quandary. The act of censorship, which is the anti-thesis of freedom of speech, is not tied to legal matters. If you want to sue/arrest someone, consult the law books. If you want to uphold the ideals of freedom of speech, you need not consult the law.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a damn good roadmap.
My dad is a retired cop, very honest guy (though maybe I'm a bit biased). Most of the guys on the force were genuine good guys, of course there was 1 or 2 jackass's that would do stupid shit.
Ask him if these jackasses ever did any stupid shit that he observed. Did he arrest them? Did he report them? Did he let it slide? Did he cover it up?
If he answers more towards the later, rather than the former, then he wasn't a "genuine good guy". Everyone I've ever talked to with ties to a police department swears that the majority are good apples, and yet the entire police force seems to look after their own when shit hits the fan.
It's a good idea, don't get me wrong. It's about time we used this ubiquitous cheap technology in an obviously beneficial way. It's a good move, and one I support.
But either after this comes about, or as part of the deal, the content of that camera needs to be stored offsite and specifically out of the reach of the police officer. Otherwise we're going to see a lot of data simply go missing at convenient times. To be frank, we can't trust police departments to hold onto evidence that could incriminate themselves.
And any evidence that an officer tampered with their camera in an effort to suppress incriminating evidence should be dealt with exactly as if they had destroyed evidence. Because that's what it is.
Except for bankers. He whipped those fuckers with a switch.
-- John 2:15
They shit in a box and cover it up afterwards. They're more domesticated than dogs.
Some people are better carpenters, better coders, better fencers, or better with words. Some people know how to get others to cheer up, or laugh, or get riled, or get angry.
But we're all equally human, and deserve all the respect that humans are afforded.
In what useful and practical sense of the word is everyone "equal?"
OH, you want "practical"? That's easy: Legal rights.
Equal protection under the law. Equal rights of movement, speech, organization, ownership, blah blah blah. Everyone has the same rights to vote (barring you don't get convicted with a felony). There is most definitely some minor imbalances, but on the whole, the USA is doing pretty good with this one. Personally, the imbalance that irks me the most right now is that James Clapper blatantly lied to congress and hasn't been prosecuted yet. It's a breakdown in the rule of law and shows that the heads of the intelligence community are not our equals. It's a problem.
the shitbags who think they're degree
Quality!
If I spent as much retraining US workers as I did hiring those skillsets I've filled with H1B's, I'd have fired at least half for not doing a fucking thing after failing to learn in whatever training they wasted money on.
If you spent more time retraining workers.... then you'd fire half of them?
"failing to learn in"?
because I've looked for 10 months for all three of them before giving in an attempting the bullshit to find someone willing to work with the appropriate skillset.
. . . I'm pretty sure that "an" is supposed to be "and". So.... you gave in... and then attempted.... to find someone with the skillset?
Maybe that "an" is superfluous. Maybe you spent 10 months before giving up and accepting you failed to find anyone with the skillset.
Have you considered training yourself in English?
One of the big flaws in corporate America is the idea that a couple day's "training" where they sit you in front of a salesman and some slides will actually impart anything of value. "Job Training" takes years of working with a mentor showing you the ropes the entire way with both of you doing meaningful work. It's not something you get a cert for after a week. At least, you know, for the sort of knowledge work that I'm tasked with. Certs and that sort of training are good for, say, introducing a new tool when nobody in the office has any experience with it.
But hey, let me guess, you need someone to be an expert with a laundry list of niche technologies and you're only going to pay $40K in shitsville, Iowa. Good luck with that.
"What do you think of the immigrants coming and taking your jobs and lowering your salary. My honest response was, "Without the kind of talent the people I'm working with bring to this country, my company wouldn't exist."
Wait.... you understand that "most of the visas" are "trade school hacks", "clearly underskilled", with "false resumes". That most of this program is just to undercut the local employees. You are fully cognizant of this.... and when someone asked you what you thought about that... you ignored the question and how themajority of the system operates, and focused on how well the system worked for your company.
Huh.
As a tangent, why aren't you working for the high-tech joint anymore? Did they replace you with an Indian PHD and force you to move down into the trenches of web-dev? What do you think of that?
awwwww, he's just whistling dixie. Nothin' more to it.
(SARCASM with a dose of historical anecdote)
The two party system is fine, until the parties have the ability to redraw their own districts without any rules as to how those districts should be shaped.
Uhhhhhhhh..... yeah, gerrymandering. That's in effect NOW, for most of the USA.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure Congress is up to the task right now, which is a massive problem since the problem will continue to get worse, which makes it even less likely to happen...
Well that doesn't matter as congress has fuck all to say about how the STATES vote for their representatives and how they draw their districts.
And fuck "limiting", have the districts be drawn by an algorithm. A hard-set rule that determines who the politicians represent. The problem is that the algorithm has to be made while a party is in power, and the algorithm will therefore be made to support said party. This sort of change to the power structure could really only happen during a revolution of some sort. Like if the tea-partiers had made it one of their agendas.
Well that's the march of progress. The cutting edge of technology eventually filters down into the hands of everybody.
But for this specific concern, the creations of blatantly false information, it's a cat and mouse game. There are technologies out there to identify fakes. Analyzing lighting, mostly, from my brief glances. But it means the thoughtless email "omglookatthisvideoTHANKSOBAMA" spam will dive off into the deep end of the crazy pool. As if they weren't already there. Ultimately, we had a brief window between the point where evidence could be created without the ability to falsify that evidence, and the point where everything had to be taken with a grain of salt. I imagine the future content will be trusted solely based on who presented it. The echo chambers will intensify and trustworthiness will have value.
The poor in Egypt were motherfucking skinny. At least they were in 2008. Maybe you were looking at the shopkeepers or taxi-drivers, or tour guides who spoke English.
Same for Peru. Also went through the Caribbeans, but never really saw the poor there.
Costa Rica is doing just fine. That was a pleasant experience. Nice enough I felt fine just driving around by myself. I'd feel fine accepting them in as another state if it weren't for my OCD demanding there be an even number of states.
Outright famine still happens, but is certainly the exception even in the latter.
I was going to give you shit about saying that first world nations experienced famine, but then I looked up the actual definition of first, second, and third-world nations. I thought it just meant established vs poor-as-shits-ville. Rather, it's a hold-over from the cold war. But sure, if you consider Oman first world, then that's totally legit.
Hey there, don't fret too much. I'm sure Oracle will take good care of you.
At the same time, I usually failed to pick jobs for the best reason: What will help me progress in my career? Sometimes that means taking a job for less money but more responsibility or better opportunities.
IMMEDIATE and urgent RED FLAG!
No I don't think that this job is a "career opportunity leading to rapid advancement". I will not work for "exposure".
Fuck you, pay me!
6. Work more than 40 hours per week. ... If the only time you learn something is on your boss's dime, then prepare to have your options limited -- your boss isn't going to train you...
What kind of class-warfare propaganda bullshit is this? Hey, I get the sentiment, having a home/hobby project where you code in your spare time does indeed help turn you into a better programmer. But the way he spins it... dude, what the hell?
Weeeeellllll, you have to remember that he said "democratic framework". I was going to call bullshit on that aspect of his post until I re-read it and realized he didn't actually say that the USA was democratic at the time, just that it had the framework for a democracy. One which we could re-enable with relative ease. "Relative ease" still being decades of unrest.
We're not all that democratic right now, all things considered. The two party system both pay lip-service to the polls and their talking points. When something new comes along like the Snowden's whistle-blowing, they scramble to figure out which side of the fence they belong on and make sure it's balanced so that nothing gets done.
China's communist system, where the party members vote on things and who is in charge, could kinda sorta be construed as something similar to the democratic process. It'll be different, certainly.
Have you ever been to a third-world country?
Have you lived there?
Because I think it's quite apparent that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. But here's a quick'n'easy test: Our poor are fat. Their poor are skinny.
Chinese manufacturing wages have nearly quintupled since 2004
They're going to have growing pains. Developing a middle class and shifting from expendable factory workers to knowledge workers doesn't happen overnight. We had our own struggles during the era of the robber-barons. I hope they have an easier time of it.
What the fuck are you smoking?
"old, narrower meaning"? Son, the enlightenment has a lot to say about censorship and it got codified into some of the laws. Since then, people with power have tried to stuff the term into a narrow little box that only applies to other people. So you can take your "older" meaning and shove it right up your box.
The term "censorship" has an definition. Has had it for a very long time. It has negative connotations because it DAMN WELL SHOULD. If you pay for and run a server which allows users to post comments, you have the right (in the USA, barring contracts and licenses) to delete someone's posts. Exercising that right is most certainly an act of censorship. Straight up. Negative connotations and all.
Some censorship is good. Some censorship is bad. It's one of those things that people should take a critical eye to because of how it can be abused.
Nothing about trying to use the word in its true, limited, serious meaning...
You are litterally redefining the word to suit your purpose.
I run several websites,
Bias confirmed.
if you think you're going to get me to let you post your anti-semitic, anti-christian, anti-islamic, anti-gay, pro-abortion, and anti-abortion sentiments on any of them out of some concern for protecting such speech
I don't, because I won't, because I don't hold any such sentiments. And I'm fully aware that a lot of people do not hold any sort of lofty ideals when it comes to the freedom of speech. Plebeian shmucks who haven't thought it through, affluent power-mongers who want to control people, self-centered assholes who don't give a fuck about society while leeching off it as much they can. Since you "run several websites" you probably lean towards the power-monger type.
It is not censorship if I keep your comments off, no more so than if I were an editor to a newspaper and I did not select one of your letters to the editor containing such babble for publication.
It IS censorship. In very much the same way an editor selects editorials. Don't redefine the word and then bitch about people not using your definition. Learn some history kiddo.
Yeah, man, the LAUNCH of the next version of D&D. These are rule-books, most of the people who play the game already have the pathfinder core rulebooks. That is, sales of core rulebooks represent market share growth. The launch of an edition should be similar to an IPO with everyone scrambling to get it. Conversly, the sales of a 5 year old rule-book should be petering off. I would have imagined that the 5th ed D&D would trounce any other sales at GenCon as all the established gamers who already own both pathfinder and D&D1,2,3,4 rulebooks should be getting the 5th ed books, even if they hate it.
So yeah, hearing that more Pathfinder core rule-books were sold at GenCon than D&D 5th ed core rule-books on it's launch day.... Yeah that's pretty damn shocking. I mean, GenCon was a D&D convention. Gary founded it when D&D was taking off. And maybe he would have smiled at this turn of events. Showing that the soul of D&D is not in the hands of some corporate whore with controlling shares, but rather in the hands of the gamers who liked what they had going on back when Gary was driving the boat.
But maybe it's because the MM isn't out yet, and just the PHB was up for sale. And everyone who really wanted it it had early access of some sort. So it wasn't exactly a "launch date". Dunno.
And anyone can sue anyone for anything at any time.
With or without the OGL.
The political ramifications for WotC suing some dinky third-party for releasing a campaign in a similar fashion of the not-so-dinky publishers would be severe enough that WotC wouldn't do such a thing.
Yes that big thug in the room can squish you. No, he probably won't. Yay society.
For those who don't know, the OGL was introduced in the 3rd edition (and continued its minor update, v3.5) of D&D. It was truly revolutionary. The OGL not only permitted players to redistribute the base rule system as they wished, including publishing it online for free almost in its entirety, but empowered players, writers, and campaign masters to edit, change and adapt the rules as they saw fit -- and publish those changes, as long as they too were under the OGL. It's open source for gaming systems.
And you're apparently not one of those people "in the know". The OGL did nothing other than announce that Wizards of the Coast were cool with people making supplements to their games. Legally, it did nothing. Everyone already had all the rights they needed to publish campaigns, rules, worlds, classes, feats, spells, content, that worked with, worked within, altered, expanded, truncated, or fixed the rules published by Wizards of the Coast. Such activities need no special licensing.
But hey, having a lawyer say that something is totally cool, and they promise not to sue really DOES have an effect. It's psychological rather than legal. It might have been all smoke and mirrors, but it encouraged gamers to create content. So in short, it worked.
Honk?
It's equivalent to screaming. Probably not going to fix anything, could even make things worse by panicking the passengers, but it has a chance of alerting the passengers that they should do something.
But most regular drivers would have a similar narrow set of options available: 1: Pray, 2: Scream, 3: Get fucked .
What would YOU do in this contrived scenario? And yes, it is contrived. If there's so much traffic that the interstate is at a stand-still, the sleeping trucker will hit someone slowing down WAY before he hits any stopped cars.
Do you ram the car in front of you trying to push your way into the ditch? That is trucker's only alternative path if he wants to try and swerve away. Not that that's a good option either. But now you've blocked his only escape route and lined yourself up for a T-boning.
Do you get out of the car and run? Oh that's great, now you're out of your armor and extra-squishy.
So what EXACTLY would you want the AI to do in this scenario?
One of google's cars has ALREADY been rear-ended at a stoplight. Human error. Holy shit dude, did you think driving was safe? Those other fuckers on the road are gonna kill you.
Would it careen into a queue of children to protect you from truck?
It would slam on the breaks trying to stop as quickly as possible and minimize the damage to everyone involved.
JesusfuckingCHRIST people keep on bringing this up like it's some sort of mystical mind-blowing new problem. When shit hits the fan, the DEFAULT and MOST PROBABLE CORRECT action will be employed AS PER POLICY. Just like you're supposed to drive when you're behind the wheel.
Truck, passenger, and school children be damned. When the self-driving car thinks a crash is imminent, it tries to stop. Period. End of philosophical rant about Asimov's laws, morality, and manufacturer's liability.
Ugh.
Right.
Did I somehow imply otherwise?
A website that does not allow you to post x is not infringing your freedom of speech in the context of the first amendment because that only stops the government from censoring you, and doesn't stop individuals from censoring others nor does it force individuals to perpetuate others speech (as in host it).
But it is most certainly censoring you on their website. That is almost exactly the definition of censorship. It would be exactly the definition of censorship if you posted X, and then they removed said post. If they have a blanket ban on X prior to any such post, that can still be considered censorship. And hey man, some censorship is good:
-Self-censorship is best. I'm not going to wave my dick about on a playground. That'd be pretty fucked up. And illegal. And rightfully so.
-Outlawing any discussion of global warming, anywhere, online or off, would be a crazy-stupid level of censorship. And illegal.
-StackOverflow censors any open-ended discussions, because it's a Q&A site striving for quality posts rather than bickering about which language to use. And I'm down with that.
But news aggregators like Fark and Slashdot where the "value added content" is the community and commentary, I prefer the censors to have a light touch. If someone is being a real douche, sure, ban'em. But I'd be worried about mods becoming tyrants. And from the sounds of it, I'm glad I'm not a regular on Fark anymore.
You are allowed to say whatever you want "within reason aka slander, fraud, and so on" you have no right to say it everywhere.
Correct. Just like I said in my post. It's great we agree. But that sure as shit doesn't mean that Fark's new policy isn't censorship.
(Also, and I'm just being pedantic here, you DO have the right to say it, but they also have the right to ban you/kick you out of their store/house/server. Effectively, no you don't have the right to say it everywhere)
Remember, what rights you have is a legal quandary. The act of censorship, which is the anti-thesis of freedom of speech, is not tied to legal matters. If you want to sue/arrest someone, consult the law books. If you want to uphold the ideals of freedom of speech, you need not consult the law.