Which FA would you like us to read? The one that talks about the shrew, or the link to the website that appears to have its entire backend offline? I'm no genius, but if there are two options presented, one of which leads directly into a pit of despair, the other of which leads to a library containing the information I seek... I generally don't throw myself into the pit on the off chance the library is a trap.
They suggest that the creatures might wedge themselves between the trunk of a palm tree and the base of its leaves, then use the strength and flexion of their muscular spine to force open this crevice, revealing insect larvaeâ"a food source that other animals can't access."
Yeah.. it could be that. Or, "ZOMFG WHAT IS THAT!?" (stomp) "ITS NOT DYING! DAMN YOU EVOLUTION... Daaaaaamn yoooouuuuuuu...."
You must not have bash installed on your computer. My sarcasm-off.sh script generally compiles and informs users that sarcasm is no longer being used. Are you running a ksh system?
Disabling sarcasm requires recompiling the kernel. I don't want to reset my uptime just so I can run mod_nohumor.so
You appear to exist in a self-created world of false dichotomies.
Because I suggested that exclusive contracts impede competition, that's a false dichotomy? Those words, I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
That's because it's less likely that the private corporations will affect third parties when they attempt to find ways to externalize costs and compete unfairly.
You mean by demanding exclusive contracts from the government?
If you understand how insurance works, this is not a hard concept to grasp, but it appears you'll hold on to your ideology regardless of what is true. Enjoy it.
I wasn't aware I had an ideology, but thank you for enlightening me with your smug demeanor. I bet that translates real well into the real world.
The fatal flaw of all of the libertarian nonsense is that the failure or corruption of certain governments can only be replaced with privatization. The correct answer to ineffective government is effective government. Let me provide you with a concrete example:
Normally, building a strawman and then huffing, and puffing, and blowing their house down is a cause for -1 on slashdot, not +5. My "Libertarian nonsense" was just an attempt at humor, but what the hell... you want a fight and I can oblige.
In Washington State, in areas where fiber is provided by the state, I can get a 100x100 connection for $59 per month. No contract. From a private entity. How is that possible?
Because Washington State removed exclusive contracts from the equation. It doesn't take a four paragraph dissertation to realize that if the government creates a natural monopoly (land access rights), then you won't have competition. And who asked for this? Private interests, in order to guarantee a return on their "expensive investment" in fiber, etc. But nevermind that... you've got a good rant going. Let us not burden it with facts.
In modern societies the basic physical plants are installed and run by the government and funded through equitable taxation. A similar analogy is
Wait... first you're all like "Privatization is good!" Then you're all like "Privatization is evil!" Well man, which is it? And for that matter, why is it that modern society does it that way? Well, I'm sure it's just more libertarian nonsense to ask such questions.
So, keep the libertarian fantasy going. Dog-ear that copy of Atlas Shrugged for the nth time. When you're ready to discuss solutions, consider reality.
Reality? Your post is shockingly devoid of it. The only story here is that one municipality out of hundreds was able to use government funds to lay fiber, because they had a fat pile of money and a relatively compact population distribution, and then decided they didn't want to administer it, so they sold off access to private companies. There's no "libertarian nonsense" here, or conservative nonsense, or any nonsense. It's just you, failing to understand basic economics.
I am so glad you corrected the OP. I am really sick and tired of people getting facts about fake things wrong!./sarcasm-off.sh
I'm so glad we can always count on a slashdotter to abjectly fail to have a sense of humor, just like those NSA agent that are watching them while they masturbate!
No no, this is totally different... instead of a modem connected to the phone, the phone is now the modem! See! Totally different! Somebody bring me my pile of gold now. kthxbai!
For those who favor the idea of Internet service as a government-run utility, what do you see as the best-case scenario for such a system?
Pretty much what we have now. The NSA spending billions to monitor every aspect of it, something we can be quite sure doesn't slow down or impair internet traffic in any way... while funding to improve it is delayed, debated in committee, or rejected because "there's not sufficient demand for it." Plus the national security argument that upgrading our internet would make us vulnerable to cyber attack because it would require more resources to monitor it. *cough* Oh, and everything would be criminalized. Wait... it already is. And who supplied all that tech to Iran, China, etc., for their censorship programs?
That's the government for you; An epic cluster fuck you wind up paying through the nose for. I prefer to stick with private ownership, thank you very much... it's an epic cluster fuck I wind up paying through the nose for but I have my choice on how to be screwed.
Why should a 3D printer be able to bypass protections that a 2D printer or DVD-burner cannot?
Better question: Why should we add such protections to a 3D printer? And if we do decide to, how would we go about doing such a thing, since we can't even get a watermark in a picture to survive 30 seconds with Photoshop? Shall we install NSA black boxes? Perhaps a shotgun that randomly fires whenever someone presses the print button? How about an internet connected device that requires a retinal scan, anal probe, and blood samples?
We can't even manage to come up with effective copy protection for things that don't even have dimensions... I don't see how you're going to impliment it with a device that accepts arbitrary inputs and converts it into a 3D object. Even our most sophisticated artificial intelligence can't really tell the difference between a banana and a penis better than about 98% of the time based just on dimensions.
IP law distinguishes between purely decorative and useful objects, but how should the digital files that provide a design for those objects be treated?"
Corporations: Treat possession of them as major criminal activity. Outlaw them. Nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure.
Academics: We should probably make a fair use exception, so anyone can do it for personal use, or if its a parody work... you know, non-commercial.
Slashdotters: Screw profits! Digital blue prints want to be freeeeeeeee!
Richard Stallman: We should join our hands together and sing songs, using copyright against them! By creating free alternatives to commercial products without restriction, we can build a stronger community.
Me: Until it can print a cat, the internet won't care.
Trying to block out google analytics using various add-ons has been an enlightening experience to say the least. The majority of websites out there have links to third party tracking sites, google analytics figuring highly among them. Trying to exist on the internet without revealing some aspect of one's identity, even for the most mundane thing -- a search for information, is becoming very difficult.
Even here on Slashdot, they've blocked Tor. Amusing -- they let anyone post "anonymously", and unless of course you actually try to post anonymously you might believe it. If a website that caters to those most likely to understand privacy on the internet can't get it right...
... the Old Testament laws lacked a jury. And it overprescribes death. Any system of justice that can't admit it might be wrong isn't a system of justice at all. That's why I'm against the death penalty (and religious fundamentalism): It says "Death to ______ [insert group here]" without considering it might later turn out that those riding high on mob mentality might be mistaken, and now there's a lot of extra corpses.
The problem with that law is it is meant for people, it depend on people to be honest, not wanting extra money, not being able to be blackmailed or social engineered, not falling into common human bias like the ones shown in the Stanford prison experiment.
If people were honest, not greedy, and incapable of having any vices, and weren't stupid... there'd be no need for laws! The problem isn't the law, it's the people enforcing it. Think about the legal texts of old -- the Magna Carta. The Constitution. Hell, why not even throw in a few holy texts -- the Bible, Koran, etc. My point is a basic code of conduct took one book or less to draw the boundaries for most situations. Now, I don't want to discuss their relative merits, coz that'll take us to nasty flaming troll of doom land, it's just there to illustrate that the legal process doesn't have to be complex to be fairly complete.
This extra complexity is meant to blunt the minds of its critics and enable people to operate under color of authority to do things that many of us consider unethical or immoral. And that is the problem. The judicial process no longer has any feedback mechanism -- no way of saying "good" or "bad". Laws are written, but rarely repealed. They have no expiration date. So the system grows more and more complex, and people's ethics and morality slowly erode. Slow enough, anyway, that it's not obvious to anyone what's happening... at least until most of it has been lost.
Which pretty much describes his behavior on the vitamin issue - He used dodgy medical trials, shoddy statistics, and anecdotal evidence to build his case. Don't assume that because he was a competent and careful scientist in one area (the one where he he earned the Nobel Prize), that he couldn't or didn't have a bee in his bonnet in another (in which he had no formal training or qualifications).
Well, he did several papers within the medical field that are still largely valid and lacked these problems. Those dodgy medical trials, shoddy statistics, and anecdotal evidence were largely all that was available at the time. So I'm not saying he didn't make mistakes... but I don't think he was a "quack". He was trying to put forward his best effort -- keep in mind though he was in his sixties at the time. Cognitive decline is common at that age. I do firmly believe he was sincere in his efforts; That is not the behavior of a quack. It's the behavior of someone who's old, senile, and sincere -- but mistaken.
That's the whole point of the article - vitamin supplements been pushed for decades (long before Linus Pauling in fact), but rarely if ever studied in detail. It's been assumed by the medical community for most of a century that vitamin supplements are A Good Thing.
I came away with a far different conclusion -- the article was written by people who think science is like math. Once you have an answer, it doesn't change. Science isn't like that. It changes all the time. There is so much we don't know, and our medical science is still in its infancy. We can't even say with any certainty how our own brains work, or the complex interplay of the immune system and endocrine system with each other, let alone the entire body. These aren't assumptions people made -- these are conclusions based on available data. Scant. Available. Data. His investigation into it and publications led to closer inspection of the data, and a decision to invest more resources in getting more data from which to draw conclusions. That's science!
Pot, meet kettle. Your faith in scientists is charming, but badly misplaced here. Your defense of them is ludicrous and sounds more like a cargo cult than science.
I have faith in people who search for the truth. I have less faith in people like you who claim to have found it.
The NSA's corrupt and unethical activities have shown a bright light on the blackened and burned out husk of our ethics within the justice system. Which is to say, there really aren't any left to speak of.
The law has absolutely nothing to do with right or wrong anymore. It's just a prescription for what is allowed and isn't, not whether you should or shouldn't. It's not unlike owning a gun; By itself, it's harmless. Put it someone's hands, and what they do with it can be catastrophic. Laws are just tools. It's what is done with them we need to look at.
So far, I'm not encouraged by what I am seeing those tools used for. Perhaps its time to take them away, until they can learn to handle them responsibly.
Why are you such a troll? First, the quote is from the article. So it's the writers fault, not slashdot's.
Why are you such a sniveling piece of shit? Deal with the message, instead of attacking the messenger. It just makes you look like... a sniveling piece of shit. Now, let's deal with your post -- first, Slashdot reposted it. That makes them responsible. They have editors... look up the definition of that sometime. Calling someone names (as I just did to you) is embarassing, it flares tempers, and very little good can come of it. So Slashdot was wrong to post that quote. Period. End of discussion. It was name calling and it has no business on the front page.
Second, you should try reading TFA. You say, "A quack is someone who doesn't use the right process, who avoids peer review, who insists they can't be wrong.". Guess what? If you read the fucking article, you would know that he did exactly that.
Use the word 'fucking' more often. It makes you look smarter! Now how about we talk about that "fucking" article... the research was originally done in 1931. Go back and take a look at how much we knew in 1931 -- the theory of relativity was still pretty fresh back then. Today, it's proven science, but back then... it was an interesting mathematical assertion. We've gone back and tested it since then hundreds of times, but stop and really think about the state of the art back then. Even Einstein (according to the "fucking" article!) thought it was complicated stuff. This guy published dozens of scientific articles and contributed greatly to scientific progress.
And then, in the wizened old age of 65, he made a mistake. One. Mistake. Amidst a career of amazing accomplishment. And you say that slashdot calling him a "quack" or the article, is justified. Need I pull up the scientific literature that says that (a) people at that age can make cognitive and reasoning errors and (b) scientists are people? But let's ignore that, shall we?
Only a select few studies had been done on Vitamin C at the time of publication. There wasn't much research being done. Thanks to him, a lot more attention was given to it, and we now know that vitamin C doesn't do any of these things. This is how science works.
You can't take a man with a career of getting it right, and at the tail end of it, when he's bordering on senility, turn around and call him a quack. You're an asshole, sir, for doing that. So is slashdot. So are the publishers of the original article. Just because one person's an asshole doesn't mean you can keep repeating what was said and then claim "I'm not being an asshole, I'm just saying what these other assholes said!" No; You're responsible for whatever you publish. That's the whole point of the editorial process.
Look at the very definition of quack; "An untrained person who pretends to be a physician and dispenses medical advice and treatment." This guy was trained. He published several articles on medicine. But he wasn't a physician and he wasn't treating anyone -- he was an advocate. A sincere, but mistaken, person, who was old, at the end of his career, and obsessed with his own health like so many his age. This isn't something worthy of name calling, and certainly isn't worth you defending it by telling others to "STFU". It's just sad... a man with a distinguished career who in his twilight years made a mistake that we're now going to remember him forever about. He didn't even live long enough to see most of the research the article cites.
Pathetic. I stand by what I say -- Slashdot should be ashamed for holding him up as a quack. This was a story of a scientist who got old and made a mistake, at a time when there wasn't a lot of research being done. And he helped catapult research into it, so we know have much firmer ground to stand on. Incase you still think being wrong doesn't count for something, ask Edison about how many attempts he made to create the lightbulb before he found something that worked. This is how science works.
Name calling isn't something we should endorse in this community, especially when it's so unjustified.
You can't really blame him for reaching the conclusion that he did.
Well, we could, but it's silly. Science is a self-correcting mechanism. But just like an airplane in flight, it's almost always flying in the wrong direction. Somehow, you still manage to get where you're going, because of minute course corrections. I take great offense to this editor posting such drivel on the front page of a website that caters to the scientific and technical communities, and nothing short of a front page retraction is satisfactory. The sooner -- the better. I can understand getting one's facts wrong, but this is just plain slanderous! This kind of crap should never have made it past even the most mediocre editorial staff.
A man who was so spectacularly right that he won two Nobel Prizes and so spectacularly wrong that he was arguably the world's greatest quack.
Being wrong doesn't make you a quack, slashdot. You can follow the scientific method perfectly and arrive at the wrong result. In fact, you can be fairly certain that most of what we think we know today will later be proven wrong. Even Einstein said he hoped people would one day prove him wrong -- being proven wrong means progress. It means a better understanding of the universe. Scientists, real ones, don't mind being wrong, or mistaken. Sure, there's pride in one's work, and yes, that can make it hard for people to accept a new truth. But by and far, scientists do get around to doing it.
A quack is someone who doesn't use the right process, who avoids peer review, who insists they can't be wrong. They aren't true scientists. This man won two nobel prizes because he followed the scientific process. And, today, that process is still being followed, and that man's original assertions are now wrong. Taking vitamins is something tens of thousands of doctors and medical professionals have advised. Researchers the world over have endorsed it. That doesn't happen with, say, magnetically vortexed water that some people believe has a "higher energy level" and is thus more beneficial to drink, or that crystals or magnets will somehow improve our health.
It's wrong to put him in the same category as those people. Slashdot, you fail, and you should be ashamed. You should issue a retraction immediately -- you're using words and making accusations that you don't really understand. Your editors are stating opinions that are overall harmful to the scientific and medical community.
People who search for the truth should never be called names, or subjected to ridicule. That is the ultimate goal of all science. The fact that people get it wrong is inconsequential, as long as they did their best to get it right. Shame, slashdot. Shame on you.
Go re-read your manifesto and see how few changes you'd have to make. So why do we have so many stories here about the NSA, and corporate massing/buying and selling/crunching Big Data on individuals?
It's not a manifesto, for one. And to answer your question -- only an Anonymous Coward could be as stupid as to mistake a technical problem for a social one.
the electronic version is quickly pirated and easily available around the world each month...
Here's the thing; Everyone wants to change the world. Nobody thinks of changing their own thinking or approach to a problem. Nobody's going to beat "piracy". Not you, not the RIAA, the MPAA, or even the most powerful governments on Earth. All they can do is guilt and shame people, threaten and cajoule them, punish them, but they cannot stop them. Everyone thinks we're well into the information age, and it's easy to believe that when the devices we use are changing so fast. But we're still at the very beginning. This is a change to society that will take generations, not years. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Now, let's talk about computers. At their most basic, they are devices for the storage, transmission, and manipulation, of binary data. Fundamentally, information sharing is what computers do best, and that capability is what is driving this revolution of human consciousness. Trying to limit it or create new designs so it only works in one direction, is a practice doomed to failure over the long term. We can make short term alterations to our devices, make it more difficult, but we can't eliminate it without destroying the very thing that gives the computer value. This is something hackers, engineers, programmers, and geeks understand implicitly, but we have a hard time verbalizing it to outsiders.
We have an even harder time convincing people like you, whose business depends on an outmodded idea that publication and distribution are married to each other, that distribution can be controlled in any way. It's our fault in part because we aren't naturally gifted at communicating how computers work -- it is a radically different approach to everything that came before. Sure, we can come up with phrases like "Information wants to be free", but it rings hollow before traditional modes of thinking. It doesn't communicate the why behind it. Information doesn't want anything. But its creation in digital format means that it is now bound to a new set of rules. Knowledge, once converted to digital form, is now subject to a whole new universe -- it's like the laws of physics got rewritten once digitized.
You cannot stop "piracy". The future is instantanious information exchange, two-way, multi-modal, and without restriction. No matter what you, or the government, or anyone does, this will eventually be the case. I know it took hundreds of years before people really accepted the Earth is flat, and perhaps it will take even longer before people truly embrace unrestricted information exchange; But it is an inevitability.
If you want help stopping this, you've come to the wrong place. The solutions offered up will be temporary, incomplete, and at a high cost. My advice to you is to change your thinking. You cannot stop information exchange, but you can give it additional value. In a world where all information is easily exchanged, the only value is in the decision to exchange it. The more you can do to convince people to make that exchange, the more value the goods will have. And as a packaged product, you can put things in like advertisement, etc., to support the costs of publication. Leverage this new resource to all but eliminate the cost of distribution. The network will find a way to do that for you. Focus on creating something worth sharing; And your reputation, your name, will gain value. That is what you sell, not the work itself. The work itself is just a collection of data.
Seriously? Gee, I don't know... maybe it's because those private parties can't ruin your fucking life like a government can?
Hello? Your student loans called. Something about ruining your life? I took a message.
When was the last time Facebook's swat team raided someone's house, taking all posessions and ruining their job/social image?
Depends... Ever posted a link to a torrent?
Now granted if a company the size of Facebook decided to target an individual, that person would have a very hard time defending due to the large mismatch in resources. But this kind of this doesn't happen often, because it's not really profitable.
That's adorable. You do realize that they are targetting individuals, right? That's their whole business plan. The more data you volunteer with your name on it, the more valuable your marketing profile becomes, which they sell in aggregate to third parties.
On the other hand, targetting alleged law-breaking individuals is part of the government's job and is a regular occurence.
Yes, amazingly, the government does try to put a priority on investigating, arresting, and charging people who engage in criminal activity like murder, rape, or double parking.
The government is granted a lot of power for the good of society -- power to decide the fate of any citizen or company. In exchange for that power, they are held to a much higher standard and have a responsibility to implement the most stringent safeguards. However inconvenient those safeguards might be, it's the price of maintaining public confidence.
Actually, they aren't. The power is derived from the consent of the governed. I think there's something about that in the Declaration of Independence. And as far as higher standards... I think you're mistaken. The standards have been astonishingly low ever since the Patriot Act was enacted, and continues to drop like a lead balloon. And there is no public confidence in the government... approval level is right now somewhere around 28%, last I checked.
Now with all that out of the way, the reason why people don't trust the government isn't because of any of the things you mentioned. I think I've made that rather clear. The reason people don't trust the government is because much of what you hear about in the news and elsewhere is politically slanted. The government is taking punitive action against people for political reasons on a regular basis. And they trust corporations more because they're not paying to be persecuted by them -- it's an exchange of goods and services. Perhaps an unequal exchange, even a grossly unfair exchange, but willing nonetheless. Taxes aren't voluntary. As well, corporations aren't as often politically motivated as they are profit-oriented. While that may in practice result in even greater evils in society, people understand the desire for profit. Nobody says "I think I'll be poor!" So greed is something most people can identify with, unlike the government, whose persecutions, show trials, and ever-shifting political landscape, eventually winds up shitting on something you value. It's this inconsistency that makes the government untrustworthy... and it comes from the fact that the government isn't one large organization -- it's a bunch of them, often with opposing goals, and working at cross-purposes. The end result often appears both random and malicious. Some would argue it goes beyond mere appearance and is actually random and malicious, but that's a discussion for another day.
TL;DR - The government is political. Corporations aren't, they're profit-oriented.
Would you say "(oh noes!)" to the families of the 2000 Fukishima workers who are now at risk for thyroid cancer? Do you think those workers were maybe exposed to more radiation than a "coal base load plant"?
They were at risk before. So are you. Everyone has a non-zero risk for everything. Quantum mechanics demands that there is, in fact, a vanishingly small probability that you will turn into a jelly doughnut while reading this. Now let's talk actual risk. The quoted figure is 100 millisieverts. That is the lowest figure for which there is a predicted increase in cancer rates. Below that level, we can't plausibly say that there even is a risk. 20 mSv a year is the current international limit for nuclear plant workers.
So what they're saying is, before the risk was so low, it wasn't worth mentioning. Now the risk is so low, that it's equal to having worked in the plant for five years.
And is a comparison to a coal plant really a recommendation?
No, it's a recommendation that you stop going "oh noes! radiation! it must be bad because all the newspapers put it in big scary red letters!" Well, I can drown you with just a glass of water, but nobody considers that particularly dangerous; And it's the same with radiation. Everything is radioactive. Bananas are radioactive especially. Most radioactive food you can eat, in fact. Nobody is running around going "oh fuck! the bananas are going to kill us all." Perspective man, that's what you're lacking here.
Three Mile Island resulted in no major ecological or radiological disaster... the plant was simply rendered inoperable... and expensive mess, but if that's the worst that can happen in a 'nuclear disaster' with modern equipment... I'm satisfied it is safe.
And yes, there was some release of radioactive steam (oh noes!) but over the course of a year, a coal base load plant releases many times that amount of radiation... and nobody says anything.
Slashdot Mirror
seriously, is nobody trying to actually RTFA?
Which FA would you like us to read? The one that talks about the shrew, or the link to the website that appears to have its entire backend offline? I'm no genius, but if there are two options presented, one of which leads directly into a pit of despair, the other of which leads to a library containing the information I seek... I generally don't throw myself into the pit on the off chance the library is a trap.
They suggest that the creatures might wedge themselves between the trunk of a palm tree and the base of its leaves, then use the strength and flexion of their muscular spine to force open this crevice, revealing insect larvaeâ"a food source that other animals can't access."
Yeah.. it could be that. Or, "ZOMFG WHAT IS THAT!?" (stomp) "ITS NOT DYING! DAMN YOU EVOLUTION... Daaaaaamn yoooouuuuuuu...."
You must not have bash installed on your computer. My sarcasm-off.sh script generally compiles and informs users that sarcasm is no longer being used. Are you running a ksh system?
Disabling sarcasm requires recompiling the kernel. I don't want to reset my uptime just so I can run mod_nohumor.so
You appear to exist in a self-created world of false dichotomies.
Because I suggested that exclusive contracts impede competition, that's a false dichotomy? Those words, I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
That's because it's less likely that the private corporations will affect third parties when they attempt to find ways to externalize costs and compete unfairly.
You mean by demanding exclusive contracts from the government?
If you understand how insurance works, this is not a hard concept to grasp, but it appears you'll hold on to your ideology regardless of what is true. Enjoy it.
I wasn't aware I had an ideology, but thank you for enlightening me with your smug demeanor. I bet that translates real well into the real world.
The terrorist organization in GI Joe is Cobra. Hydra is a terrorist organization in the Marvel Universe fighting SHIELD and Captain America.
Well... it's been awhile since I watched cartoons.
The fatal flaw of all of the libertarian nonsense is that the failure or corruption of certain governments can only be replaced with privatization. The correct answer to ineffective government is effective government. Let me provide you with a concrete example:
Normally, building a strawman and then huffing, and puffing, and blowing their house down is a cause for -1 on slashdot, not +5. My "Libertarian nonsense" was just an attempt at humor, but what the hell... you want a fight and I can oblige.
In Washington State, in areas where fiber is provided by the state, I can get a 100x100 connection for $59 per month. No contract. From a private entity. How is that possible?
Because Washington State removed exclusive contracts from the equation. It doesn't take a four paragraph dissertation to realize that if the government creates a natural monopoly (land access rights), then you won't have competition. And who asked for this? Private interests, in order to guarantee a return on their "expensive investment" in fiber, etc. But nevermind that... you've got a good rant going. Let us not burden it with facts.
In modern societies the basic physical plants are installed and run by the government and funded through equitable taxation. A similar analogy is
Wait... first you're all like "Privatization is good!" Then you're all like "Privatization is evil!" Well man, which is it? And for that matter, why is it that modern society does it that way? Well, I'm sure it's just more libertarian nonsense to ask such questions.
So, keep the libertarian fantasy going. Dog-ear that copy of Atlas Shrugged for the nth time. When you're ready to discuss solutions, consider reality.
Reality? Your post is shockingly devoid of it. The only story here is that one municipality out of hundreds was able to use government funds to lay fiber, because they had a fat pile of money and a relatively compact population distribution, and then decided they didn't want to administer it, so they sold off access to private companies. There's no "libertarian nonsense" here, or conservative nonsense, or any nonsense. It's just you, failing to understand basic economics.
I am so glad you corrected the OP. I am really sick and tired of people getting facts about fake things wrong! ./sarcasm-off.sh
I'm so glad we can always count on a slashdotter to abjectly fail to have a sense of humor, just like those NSA agent that are watching them while they masturbate!
using sound to send data....sort of like a modem?
No no, this is totally different... instead of a modem connected to the phone, the phone is now the modem! See! Totally different! Somebody bring me my pile of gold now. kthxbai!
Proof that the US government truly has gone evil: They've named their latest drone carrier after the terrorist organization in GI Joe.
For those who favor the idea of Internet service as a government-run utility, what do you see as the best-case scenario for such a system?
Pretty much what we have now. The NSA spending billions to monitor every aspect of it, something we can be quite sure doesn't slow down or impair internet traffic in any way... while funding to improve it is delayed, debated in committee, or rejected because "there's not sufficient demand for it." Plus the national security argument that upgrading our internet would make us vulnerable to cyber attack because it would require more resources to monitor it. *cough* Oh, and everything would be criminalized. Wait... it already is. And who supplied all that tech to Iran, China, etc., for their censorship programs?
That's the government for you; An epic cluster fuck you wind up paying through the nose for. I prefer to stick with private ownership, thank you very much... it's an epic cluster fuck I wind up paying through the nose for but I have my choice on how to be screwed.
Why should a 3D printer be able to bypass protections that a 2D printer or DVD-burner cannot?
Better question: Why should we add such protections to a 3D printer? And if we do decide to, how would we go about doing such a thing, since we can't even get a watermark in a picture to survive 30 seconds with Photoshop? Shall we install NSA black boxes? Perhaps a shotgun that randomly fires whenever someone presses the print button? How about an internet connected device that requires a retinal scan, anal probe, and blood samples?
We can't even manage to come up with effective copy protection for things that don't even have dimensions... I don't see how you're going to impliment it with a device that accepts arbitrary inputs and converts it into a 3D object. Even our most sophisticated artificial intelligence can't really tell the difference between a banana and a penis better than about 98% of the time based just on dimensions.
IP law distinguishes between purely decorative and useful objects, but how should the digital files that provide a design for those objects be treated?"
Corporations: Treat possession of them as major criminal activity. Outlaw them. Nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure.
Academics: We should probably make a fair use exception, so anyone can do it for personal use, or if its a parody work... you know, non-commercial.
Slashdotters: Screw profits! Digital blue prints want to be freeeeeeeee!
Richard Stallman: We should join our hands together and sing songs, using copyright against them! By creating free alternatives to commercial products without restriction, we can build a stronger community.
Me: Until it can print a cat, the internet won't care.
Trying to block out google analytics using various add-ons has been an enlightening experience to say the least. The majority of websites out there have links to third party tracking sites, google analytics figuring highly among them. Trying to exist on the internet without revealing some aspect of one's identity, even for the most mundane thing -- a search for information, is becoming very difficult.
Even here on Slashdot, they've blocked Tor. Amusing -- they let anyone post "anonymously", and unless of course you actually try to post anonymously you might believe it. If a website that caters to those most likely to understand privacy on the internet can't get it right...
... the Old Testament laws lacked a jury. And it overprescribes death. Any system of justice that can't admit it might be wrong isn't a system of justice at all. That's why I'm against the death penalty (and religious fundamentalism): It says "Death to ______ [insert group here]" without considering it might later turn out that those riding high on mob mentality might be mistaken, and now there's a lot of extra corpses.
The problem with that law is it is meant for people, it depend on people to be honest, not wanting extra money, not being able to be blackmailed or social engineered, not falling into common human bias like the ones shown in the Stanford prison experiment.
If people were honest, not greedy, and incapable of having any vices, and weren't stupid... there'd be no need for laws! The problem isn't the law, it's the people enforcing it. Think about the legal texts of old -- the Magna Carta. The Constitution. Hell, why not even throw in a few holy texts -- the Bible, Koran, etc. My point is a basic code of conduct took one book or less to draw the boundaries for most situations. Now, I don't want to discuss their relative merits, coz that'll take us to nasty flaming troll of doom land, it's just there to illustrate that the legal process doesn't have to be complex to be fairly complete.
This extra complexity is meant to blunt the minds of its critics and enable people to operate under color of authority to do things that many of us consider unethical or immoral. And that is the problem. The judicial process no longer has any feedback mechanism -- no way of saying "good" or "bad". Laws are written, but rarely repealed. They have no expiration date. So the system grows more and more complex, and people's ethics and morality slowly erode. Slow enough, anyway, that it's not obvious to anyone what's happening... at least until most of it has been lost.
Which pretty much describes his behavior on the vitamin issue - He used dodgy medical trials, shoddy statistics, and anecdotal evidence to build his case. Don't assume that because he was a competent and careful scientist in one area (the one where he he earned the Nobel Prize), that he couldn't or didn't have a bee in his bonnet in another (in which he had no formal training or qualifications).
Well, he did several papers within the medical field that are still largely valid and lacked these problems. Those dodgy medical trials, shoddy statistics, and anecdotal evidence were largely all that was available at the time. So I'm not saying he didn't make mistakes... but I don't think he was a "quack". He was trying to put forward his best effort -- keep in mind though he was in his sixties at the time. Cognitive decline is common at that age. I do firmly believe he was sincere in his efforts; That is not the behavior of a quack. It's the behavior of someone who's old, senile, and sincere -- but mistaken.
That's the whole point of the article - vitamin supplements been pushed for decades (long before Linus Pauling in fact), but rarely if ever studied in detail. It's been assumed by the medical community for most of a century that vitamin supplements are A Good Thing.
I came away with a far different conclusion -- the article was written by people who think science is like math. Once you have an answer, it doesn't change. Science isn't like that. It changes all the time. There is so much we don't know, and our medical science is still in its infancy. We can't even say with any certainty how our own brains work, or the complex interplay of the immune system and endocrine system with each other, let alone the entire body. These aren't assumptions people made -- these are conclusions based on available data. Scant. Available. Data. His investigation into it and publications led to closer inspection of the data, and a decision to invest more resources in getting more data from which to draw conclusions. That's science!
Pot, meet kettle. Your faith in scientists is charming, but badly misplaced here. Your defense of them is ludicrous and sounds more like a cargo cult than science.
I have faith in people who search for the truth. I have less faith in people like you who claim to have found it.
The NSA's corrupt and unethical activities have shown a bright light on the blackened and burned out husk of our ethics within the justice system. Which is to say, there really aren't any left to speak of.
The law has absolutely nothing to do with right or wrong anymore. It's just a prescription for what is allowed and isn't, not whether you should or shouldn't. It's not unlike owning a gun; By itself, it's harmless. Put it someone's hands, and what they do with it can be catastrophic. Laws are just tools. It's what is done with them we need to look at.
So far, I'm not encouraged by what I am seeing those tools used for. Perhaps its time to take them away, until they can learn to handle them responsibly.
Why are you such a troll? First, the quote is from the article. So it's the writers fault, not slashdot's.
Why are you such a sniveling piece of shit? Deal with the message, instead of attacking the messenger. It just makes you look like... a sniveling piece of shit. Now, let's deal with your post -- first, Slashdot reposted it. That makes them responsible. They have editors... look up the definition of that sometime. Calling someone names (as I just did to you) is embarassing, it flares tempers, and very little good can come of it. So Slashdot was wrong to post that quote. Period. End of discussion. It was name calling and it has no business on the front page.
Second, you should try reading TFA. You say, "A quack is someone who doesn't use the right process, who avoids peer review, who insists they can't be wrong.". Guess what? If you read the fucking article, you would know that he did exactly that.
Use the word 'fucking' more often. It makes you look smarter! Now how about we talk about that "fucking" article... the research was originally done in 1931. Go back and take a look at how much we knew in 1931 -- the theory of relativity was still pretty fresh back then. Today, it's proven science, but back then... it was an interesting mathematical assertion. We've gone back and tested it since then hundreds of times, but stop and really think about the state of the art back then. Even Einstein (according to the "fucking" article!) thought it was complicated stuff. This guy published dozens of scientific articles and contributed greatly to scientific progress.
And then, in the wizened old age of 65, he made a mistake. One. Mistake. Amidst a career of amazing accomplishment. And you say that slashdot calling him a "quack" or the article, is justified. Need I pull up the scientific literature that says that (a) people at that age can make cognitive and reasoning errors and (b) scientists are people? But let's ignore that, shall we?
Only a select few studies had been done on Vitamin C at the time of publication. There wasn't much research being done. Thanks to him, a lot more attention was given to it, and we now know that vitamin C doesn't do any of these things. This is how science works.
You can't take a man with a career of getting it right, and at the tail end of it, when he's bordering on senility, turn around and call him a quack. You're an asshole, sir, for doing that. So is slashdot. So are the publishers of the original article. Just because one person's an asshole doesn't mean you can keep repeating what was said and then claim "I'm not being an asshole, I'm just saying what these other assholes said!" No; You're responsible for whatever you publish. That's the whole point of the editorial process.
Look at the very definition of quack; "An untrained person who pretends to be a physician and dispenses medical advice and treatment." This guy was trained. He published several articles on medicine. But he wasn't a physician and he wasn't treating anyone -- he was an advocate. A sincere, but mistaken, person, who was old, at the end of his career, and obsessed with his own health like so many his age. This isn't something worthy of name calling, and certainly isn't worth you defending it by telling others to "STFU". It's just sad... a man with a distinguished career who in his twilight years made a mistake that we're now going to remember him forever about. He didn't even live long enough to see most of the research the article cites.
Pathetic. I stand by what I say -- Slashdot should be ashamed for holding him up as a quack. This was a story of a scientist who got old and made a mistake, at a time when there wasn't a lot of research being done. And he helped catapult research into it, so we know have much firmer ground to stand on. Incase you still think being wrong doesn't count for something, ask Edison about how many attempts he made to create the lightbulb before he found something that worked. This is how science works.
Name calling isn't something we should endorse in this community, especially when it's so unjustified.
You can't really blame him for reaching the conclusion that he did.
Well, we could, but it's silly. Science is a self-correcting mechanism. But just like an airplane in flight, it's almost always flying in the wrong direction. Somehow, you still manage to get where you're going, because of minute course corrections. I take great offense to this editor posting such drivel on the front page of a website that caters to the scientific and technical communities, and nothing short of a front page retraction is satisfactory. The sooner -- the better. I can understand getting one's facts wrong, but this is just plain slanderous! This kind of crap should never have made it past even the most mediocre editorial staff.
A man who was so spectacularly right that he won two Nobel Prizes and so spectacularly wrong that he was arguably the world's greatest quack.
Being wrong doesn't make you a quack, slashdot. You can follow the scientific method perfectly and arrive at the wrong result. In fact, you can be fairly certain that most of what we think we know today will later be proven wrong. Even Einstein said he hoped people would one day prove him wrong -- being proven wrong means progress. It means a better understanding of the universe. Scientists, real ones, don't mind being wrong, or mistaken. Sure, there's pride in one's work, and yes, that can make it hard for people to accept a new truth. But by and far, scientists do get around to doing it.
A quack is someone who doesn't use the right process, who avoids peer review, who insists they can't be wrong. They aren't true scientists. This man won two nobel prizes because he followed the scientific process. And, today, that process is still being followed, and that man's original assertions are now wrong. Taking vitamins is something tens of thousands of doctors and medical professionals have advised. Researchers the world over have endorsed it. That doesn't happen with, say, magnetically vortexed water that some people believe has a "higher energy level" and is thus more beneficial to drink, or that crystals or magnets will somehow improve our health.
It's wrong to put him in the same category as those people. Slashdot, you fail, and you should be ashamed. You should issue a retraction immediately -- you're using words and making accusations that you don't really understand. Your editors are stating opinions that are overall harmful to the scientific and medical community.
People who search for the truth should never be called names, or subjected to ridicule. That is the ultimate goal of all science. The fact that people get it wrong is inconsequential, as long as they did their best to get it right. Shame, slashdot. Shame on you.
Go re-read your manifesto and see how few changes you'd have to make. So why do we have so many stories here about the NSA, and corporate massing/buying and selling/crunching Big Data on individuals?
It's not a manifesto, for one. And to answer your question -- only an Anonymous Coward could be as stupid as to mistake a technical problem for a social one.
the electronic version is quickly pirated and easily available around the world each month...
Here's the thing; Everyone wants to change the world. Nobody thinks of changing their own thinking or approach to a problem. Nobody's going to beat "piracy". Not you, not the RIAA, the MPAA, or even the most powerful governments on Earth. All they can do is guilt and shame people, threaten and cajoule them, punish them, but they cannot stop them. Everyone thinks we're well into the information age, and it's easy to believe that when the devices we use are changing so fast. But we're still at the very beginning. This is a change to society that will take generations, not years. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Now, let's talk about computers. At their most basic, they are devices for the storage, transmission, and manipulation, of binary data. Fundamentally, information sharing is what computers do best, and that capability is what is driving this revolution of human consciousness. Trying to limit it or create new designs so it only works in one direction, is a practice doomed to failure over the long term. We can make short term alterations to our devices, make it more difficult, but we can't eliminate it without destroying the very thing that gives the computer value. This is something hackers, engineers, programmers, and geeks understand implicitly, but we have a hard time verbalizing it to outsiders.
We have an even harder time convincing people like you, whose business depends on an outmodded idea that publication and distribution are married to each other, that distribution can be controlled in any way. It's our fault in part because we aren't naturally gifted at communicating how computers work -- it is a radically different approach to everything that came before. Sure, we can come up with phrases like "Information wants to be free", but it rings hollow before traditional modes of thinking. It doesn't communicate the why behind it. Information doesn't want anything. But its creation in digital format means that it is now bound to a new set of rules. Knowledge, once converted to digital form, is now subject to a whole new universe -- it's like the laws of physics got rewritten once digitized.
You cannot stop "piracy". The future is instantanious information exchange, two-way, multi-modal, and without restriction. No matter what you, or the government, or anyone does, this will eventually be the case. I know it took hundreds of years before people really accepted the Earth is flat, and perhaps it will take even longer before people truly embrace unrestricted information exchange; But it is an inevitability.
If you want help stopping this, you've come to the wrong place. The solutions offered up will be temporary, incomplete, and at a high cost. My advice to you is to change your thinking. You cannot stop information exchange, but you can give it additional value. In a world where all information is easily exchanged, the only value is in the decision to exchange it. The more you can do to convince people to make that exchange, the more value the goods will have. And as a packaged product, you can put things in like advertisement, etc., to support the costs of publication. Leverage this new resource to all but eliminate the cost of distribution. The network will find a way to do that for you. Focus on creating something worth sharing; And your reputation, your name, will gain value. That is what you sell, not the work itself. The work itself is just a collection of data.
Seriously? Gee, I don't know... maybe it's because those private parties can't ruin your fucking life like a government can?
Hello? Your student loans called. Something about ruining your life? I took a message.
When was the last time Facebook's swat team raided someone's house, taking all posessions and ruining their job/social image?
Depends... Ever posted a link to a torrent?
Now granted if a company the size of Facebook decided to target an individual, that person would have a very hard time defending due to the large mismatch in resources. But this kind of this doesn't happen often, because it's not really profitable.
That's adorable. You do realize that they are targetting individuals, right? That's their whole business plan. The more data you volunteer with your name on it, the more valuable your marketing profile becomes, which they sell in aggregate to third parties.
On the other hand, targetting alleged law-breaking individuals is part of the government's job and is a regular occurence.
Yes, amazingly, the government does try to put a priority on investigating, arresting, and charging people who engage in criminal activity like murder, rape, or double parking.
The government is granted a lot of power for the good of society -- power to decide the fate of any citizen or company. In exchange for that power, they are held to a much higher standard and have a responsibility to implement the most stringent safeguards. However inconvenient those safeguards might be, it's the price of maintaining public confidence.
Actually, they aren't. The power is derived from the consent of the governed. I think there's something about that in the Declaration of Independence. And as far as higher standards... I think you're mistaken. The standards have been astonishingly low ever since the Patriot Act was enacted, and continues to drop like a lead balloon. And there is no public confidence in the government... approval level is right now somewhere around 28%, last I checked.
Now with all that out of the way, the reason why people don't trust the government isn't because of any of the things you mentioned. I think I've made that rather clear. The reason people don't trust the government is because much of what you hear about in the news and elsewhere is politically slanted. The government is taking punitive action against people for political reasons on a regular basis. And they trust corporations more because they're not paying to be persecuted by them -- it's an exchange of goods and services. Perhaps an unequal exchange, even a grossly unfair exchange, but willing nonetheless. Taxes aren't voluntary. As well, corporations aren't as often politically motivated as they are profit-oriented. While that may in practice result in even greater evils in society, people understand the desire for profit. Nobody says "I think I'll be poor!" So greed is something most people can identify with, unlike the government, whose persecutions, show trials, and ever-shifting political landscape, eventually winds up shitting on something you value. It's this inconsistency that makes the government untrustworthy... and it comes from the fact that the government isn't one large organization -- it's a bunch of them, often with opposing goals, and working at cross-purposes. The end result often appears both random and malicious. Some would argue it goes beyond mere appearance and is actually random and malicious, but that's a discussion for another day.
TL;DR - The government is political. Corporations aren't, they're profit-oriented.
Would you say "(oh noes!)" to the families of the 2000 Fukishima workers who are now at risk for thyroid cancer? Do you think those workers were maybe exposed to more radiation than a "coal base load plant"?
They were at risk before. So are you. Everyone has a non-zero risk for everything. Quantum mechanics demands that there is, in fact, a vanishingly small probability that you will turn into a jelly doughnut while reading this. Now let's talk actual risk. The quoted figure is 100 millisieverts. That is the lowest figure for which there is a predicted increase in cancer rates. Below that level, we can't plausibly say that there even is a risk. 20 mSv a year is the current international limit for nuclear plant workers.
So what they're saying is, before the risk was so low, it wasn't worth mentioning. Now the risk is so low, that it's equal to having worked in the plant for five years.
And is a comparison to a coal plant really a recommendation?
No, it's a recommendation that you stop going "oh noes! radiation! it must be bad because all the newspapers put it in big scary red letters!" Well, I can drown you with just a glass of water, but nobody considers that particularly dangerous; And it's the same with radiation. Everything is radioactive. Bananas are radioactive especially. Most radioactive food you can eat, in fact. Nobody is running around going "oh fuck! the bananas are going to kill us all." Perspective man, that's what you're lacking here.
Three-mile Island was.
Three Mile Island resulted in no major ecological or radiological disaster... the plant was simply rendered inoperable... and expensive mess, but if that's the worst that can happen in a 'nuclear disaster' with modern equipment... I'm satisfied it is safe.
And yes, there was some release of radioactive steam (oh noes!) but over the course of a year, a coal base load plant releases many times that amount of radiation... and nobody says anything.