I'm guessing you meant theft. If you're starving to death, stealing a loaf of bread is something few people would say is unethical. As for the other three... well, they all involve money, and as we know, money is the root of all evil.
1. Have a special asic rig that is custom made for mining bitcoins.
A technology unavailable to the average person, thus effectively ensuring that this fiat currency is only produced by corporations. In other words, those who control the ASICs will be the OPEC of the digital currency world.
2. Have a botnet that you put to work mining bitcoins using other peoples electricity.
Which, legalities aside, will quickly make the production of bitcoins more expensive than any currency ever developed; And it's designed to continue to use resources up like a cancer. The Native Americans once said "Only after the white man has killed every buffalo, and cut down every tree. Only then, will the white man learn he cannot eat money." They probably didn't realize at the time that the siren call of 'digital' currency would result in the creation of a cancerous monetary system that attaches itself directly to the nervous system of society: Our energy grid.
3. Speculate in bitcoins and bet that they will go up or down in value.
We've already seen where speculation leads: Every major economic collapse has been based on investing on the guesswork of what other people will invest in... instead of investing in actual goods and services. Every. Last. One. Bitcoin will not be the thing that changes the historical record.
4. Hack someone else that has bitcoins.
Already quite popular, but this at least is something that can realistically be solved... through more corporate control. Yup, you heard me: By centralizing the "decentralized" currency, you can provide effective security. Which defeats the main reason why bitcoins were created in the first place: Anonymity.
So what I see is basically the next Paypal of the internet, except instead of having one corporation fucking us all over, we'll have dozens. And once the corporations are in control, then the governments will move in to attach strings and turn them into marionettes. And after that... it becomes a political power struggle to control the new de facto currency of the internet.
And we all know how well government control of the internet has been working out for us so far... now we're going to marry a cancerous monetary system that depends on exponentially increasing our energy consumption to government oversight, corporate profiteering, and then blobbing our global communications infrastructure and global economies together.
Operation This Will Most Likely End Badly is a go.
Did they secure the rights and pay the royalties on this recording? Someone call the RIAA. I smell a copyright lawsuit!
The original recording has no copyright. The recording of the recording, does, since the original had no copyright. Copyright is like a parasite... it attaches itself to everything.
Oh... and color-coordinate your cabling. Power cables black, ethernet internal grey, ethernet to the 'outside world', red... whatever, just make sure it's consistent and have bins of replacements nearby of the appropriate color. Staging areas become a morass of cabling very quickly -- color coding everything will make plugging things in right easier, and faster. You may also want to color-code the actual tables... blue for assembly, green for testing, orange for staging, etc., so that a quick eyeball can provide an estimate of what's being done, and take inventory.
It sounds like what you're trying to build is what we call a "rollout room".
Well, there's a few things -- first, you need to think vertical. Even just a couple people in a space that small can start to feel cramped. You want overhead space to run cables, power, hang lights, and have it open so equipment can be staged there and left in-place. You'll want KVMs, port duplicators, etc., with an eye on minimizing the number of peripherals in the room. The only thing that should be in the staging area besides the "box" is a power cable. I also suggest overhead for staging because it's less likely to be bumped or shoved off the end of a table, thus damaging the (yet unused!) equipment.
Second, you want aisles that can easily allow someone carrying equipment past someone who's standing. There also needs to be plenty of elbow room between workstations. Some engineers are thin. Others, are sorta round. You may at some point hire someone who has a wheelchair. Think of these things now, and try to maximize the amount of available walking/moving/standing space in the room. This ties in with "think vertical!" above.
A personal note -- Engineers are very picky about their own tools -- have heavy-duty rail-mounted drawers (or a small tool chest) with individual keys. They don't have to be big, and can be put at the table-ends. Even though you're creating a communal working area, tools are not communal, tools are private. Second, air conditioning, as much as you can put in there, but more importantly is air ventilation and sound-proofing on the walls, etc. Staging areas are loud. Loud enough you could be edging into OSHA territory and requiring ear protection. Also... a lot of computer people neglect personal hygiene. It's not a problem when they're living in a cube... but it's going to take your quality of life index way down when Joe shows up and smells like he hasn't showered in a week. Good ventilation goes a long way towards limiting the man-stench of a dozen dudes crammed into a confined space.
Lastly, lighting. I'm sure you'll be stuck with fluorescent lighting like every other corporate environment on the planet, but try to choose 'natural light' bulbs if you can swing it. Believe it or not, the color 'warmth' of a bulb can have a significant psychological impact on a workspace. And consider something other than pure white on the walls. Obviously, don't go retarded and throw pastels up... but go to a hospital and see how they paint their hallways and stuff; Use that as inspiration for creating your own open space. And lastly, on the topic of lighting -- you will want swing-arm spot-lights wherever equipment assembly will take place.
One more thing: If there's carpeting in the room, take it out. You need to eliminate static discharge. Everything should be grounded and there should be multiple signs indicating where to connect grounding straps, etc. Also, that elbow-room comment I made above? There's a practical reason for it too -- if someone bumps you while working on equipment, they can inadvertently transfer a static discharge onto the other person, and from there, onto the device.
OH! And make sure you have plenty of circuit breakers and UPS in the room -- new equipment has a much higher failure rate than equipment that's been in the field for a short time... and the most common thing to blow is a power supply. Isolate assembly and testing areas from staging areas (where imaging, etc., takes place) electrically. You will short things out.. don't let one device ruin your night.
At the end of the day, it became a backdoor to huge separate systems that shouldn't be online anyway.
Well, duh. There's about a million tons worth of devices that shouldn't be on the internet, but they are. Rather than bemoan something we've known since the internet was first turned into a public network... why not ask ourselves some more probing questions, like why they're on the internet?
I'll give you a hint: Because auto-configuration (DHCP!) and gateways that allow anything hitting them from the inside to freely traverse are the norm. And it's easier to fix a single gateway than a hundred devices.
The information you can read via NFC isn't very useful. Same as the chip interface.
You can read it and then replay it for a POS transaction a few minutes later. Since the data is a binary blob, you could have one person wandering a busy mall, and another person appearing to browse at an electronics store. Beep! And a minute later someone's standing in line ready to purchase a giant flat panel on your credit card.
So... you were saying something about how it "isn't very useful"?
ha, don't take any offense... all political discourse (esp. on/. ) is trolling.
It's just that the moderation quality in general has gone down on the site since it was bought out. The very knowledgable 'elite' that would guide and direct the conversation in a constructive and educational way has given way to rhetoric by wanna-be bloggers and pundits. So now when you have, say an apple fanboy or a linux fanboy post something, they're moderated based on whether the moderator agrees or disagrees with their religious preference rather than the strength of their commentary.
In a few more months, I'll probably just stop logging in to post and start looking for alternatives to Slashdot. It's been with us for so long though... it's tough letting go.
Hmm. Amusingly, it appears the slashmods went full retard again: Suggesting that our elected officials are incompetent? Something about 80% of americans believe, is apparently "trolling". And firing them so that more competent people can be moved into those positions and actually fix the problem? Trolling.
Yeah. I'm really losing respect for this website... ever since it was bought out, it's become a craven hole of repugnant hipsters.
U.S. Democrats and Republicans spent the day using the FAA's statement as political fodder rather than working on resolving sequestration.
The Republicans got what they wanted: Spending cuts. Who gives a flying fark through a rolling doughnut how badly it was implimented? Now we all have to suffer because a bunch of fat bastards in suits can't behave any better than children. A better idea would have been to pass a law saying that if they couldn't agree on a budget they'd all be fired.
The older crowd will share info with people they trust, and the millenials when they can turn a buck. I don't see the difference, really -- the only variable is the currency. Trust relationships are also based on a give-take, but it's implicit. In the latter case, the relationship is an explicit give-take. So what this comes down to is exaggerating the differences between two groups -- and gee, go figure... news agencies thrive on creating differences where none exist in order to generate a story.
Has online journalism/tech news fallen so low that this qualifies as worth a front-page mention?
The editors on Slashdot were outsourced to 7 line perl scripts. This story had all of the right keywords, so it was posted. It's your fault, really. If you'd thrown more money at the site before this had happened, the site's editors could have been replaced by a 12 line perl script...
Careful now, this withchunt could still happen on Slashdot too but in several days and with hot grits.
(steps forward) I VOLUNTEER! I have tons of experience in being hunted as a witch. I can provide professional references. Also, my epic amounts of snark will at least make the attempt amusing for all participants.
Oh, I'm sorry? Is the UK not part of the rest of the planet? Does the UK have its own internet that nobody else outside the UK can access? Is there no such thing as international laws? Assumptions are the mother of all fuckups -- and PARDON ME for not wanting to just blindly assume. I'd rather know exactly what we're talking about, than guessing and later discovering that we were talking about two totally different things.
Yeah. The editors used to be a pair of 7 line perl scripts, but now that Slashdot is under new management, they've had to cut back... now it's just one 7 line perl script.
Try using google like everyone else instead of expecting other people to do your research.
I googled "They". It came back with 7.7 billion results, none of which were very helpful (yes, I read all 7.7 billion pages, because I'm like, God and shit).
Out of kindness I will help you by telling you that the act is called "Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act".
Ah. Well now, that's much more specific. And British. I suppose I am expected to keep up with all the laws of not just my own country (whose laws are so numerous that even my own government cannot provide an exact count), but all the laws of the other 173 countries (give or take a dozen) as well. I feel like such a failure as a human being for not being able to memorize several libraries of congress' worth of legal documentation and intuitively know which, exact, legal document you were referring to based on the word "They". Thank goodness you didn't mean "Them" though, or I'd be really screwed... there's a lot more of Them than They. Incidentally, They was a terrible movie. I know, off topic, but I thought I'd share.
Now, out of kindness to others, look after yourself.
Well, I do try, but sometimes despite my bestest of intentions, I just can't keep up with all of the internet pundits. It's a personal failing I am working very hard at.
That was my point, since the same is true with Apple's design patents (though I'll readily agree that some of them are rather vague/broad, including the one you've cited).
I won't disagree with any of the other statements you've made, because frankly, it's a defensible position. It's not the best one, in my opinion, but a reasonable person can lay claim to it. But this statement you've made right here goes to the very heart of the matter: If it's vague and overly broad, then the patent shouldn't have been granted. And the patent Apple was granted was vague, and it was overly broad, and as a result it's been dragged through our court system (and that of many other countries), costing you, me, and every other taxpayer in many different countries.
Which just underscores that this isn't a clear-cut issue; You can't say Apple's in the clear, anymore than you can say Apple doesn't have a leg to stand on. If the patent had been more narrowly-defined and was about a unique and easily-recognizable design, none of this would have happened. We wouldn't be having this conversation. We wouldn't have to disagree, because it would have been the optimal case.
I've already addressed that point, and if you look through some of the various iPhone design patents, you can see that the same arguments I've made already would apply to them as well.
Which is fine, but irrelevant. We're talking about the so-called "rounded edges" patent/design. The argument you're making may very well be valid in those cases, but that's not the case we're talking about.
Long story short, you seem to have accused me of derping on one point and automatically being wrong, then dismissed everything after that as being wrong as well, even though you never said why I was wrong in the first place. I'd actually be very eager to hear why you thought I was wrong about Coke.
At the time Coca-Cola applied for the patent, bottles just didn't look like that; The bottle in the patent is nothing like the coke bottles used today, which still have curves, but subdued considerably from the original design. That made the design unique, and it wasn't directly connected to its function, which was the storage and transport of a beverage. As such, the design wasn't purely functional. In the Apple case, the very design itself is functional -- it's a giant LCD panel with a rear plate, and in between is the computer. It's about the only form factor that makes any sense for a device that is designed to be (a) portable and (b) interacted with only by touch screen. Apple didn't take more than maybe a half-step away from the "purely functional" aspect of the device; Anyone who designed something similar would arrive at a device that looked more or less like the one Apple did. There's nothing unique, special, or distinctive, about Apple's design. Which is why it is very different from the quintessential example of the coke bottle.
What will they do when their snooping forces a large percentage of the people to use Tor or a VPN?
It's already happening. Typically, this is solved by doing the same thing that law enforcement's been doing since the days of Sherlock Holmes: You watch the suspect. Today, it's easier than having to use the old Mark 1 Eyeball -- we have a large variety of electronic surveillance devices to choose from, but the fundamentals of investigation haven't changed.
On the other hand, if your only lead starts at a Tor exit node, well... sucks to be you. Now you're going to have to work for your doughnut.
They can already lock you up for 2 years for failing to divulge encryption keys or passwords.
Citation needed. "They" is a bit non-specific.
When I look at the definition of terrorists and then at my government I really dont see much difference these days.
Well, I do. The government is better funded, they wear sharp uniforms, and are atleast partially accountable to the people my peers voted into office. Terrorists, on the other hand, want to make you part of their latest political statement... and unlike with the government, you aren't likely to survive the process.
They immediately find you have an association with a Russian criminal gang. Suddenly you are Prime Suspect! That's what's wrong with it. Stupider things have happened, to me!
Well, were you associated with a Russian criminal gang? Because if you were, and that criminal gang had a history of (or a direct link to!) the crime they were investigating, then you have some explaining to do. If you don't, well then, you've met the criterion for "reasonable suspicion", which merits someone interviewing you, but doesn't ordinarily rise to the standard of being sufficient for a search warrant.
A lot of times, what the police do is inconvenient, but it isn't "stupid". Investigators focus on people with a criminal past or criminal connections because those are the people that, statistically, are the most likely in a pool of suspects to be the actual criminal. And if you're going to be a successful investigator, you'd better play by the numbers.
... and of not telling their customers what they are up to.
Well yeah. Their customers don't show up at their doorstep with shotguns and take whatever they feel like when they aren't told certain things. The government does. And every government I'm aware of tells businesses not to tell their customers when they show up that they showed up. That whole "ongoing investigation" business.
So let the privacy groups whine until the cows come home, that will never change no matter where you live. On the other hand, if you want to go after dragnets and mass-storage of everyone's data, which is then trolled through by law enforcement without a warrant or similar, well then I'm all ears and then some. The mere storage of data that can then be searched, in the future, with a properly-executed warrant, is a non-issue. The transitory nature of the internet means that without audit logs such as this, you'd never catch anyone. For anything. "Well, I'm sorry Mr. President, but we weren't able to catch that terrorist who gave us a specific and credible threat, because we didn't know ahead of time he was going to do it. Sorry about all those dead civilians, but you know, we gotta respect people's privacy and all that," said no law enforcement officer ever.
Privacy groups making unreasonable demands like this I put in the same category as scumbag politicians who want to remove judicial protections like probable cause before invading someone's privacy. It doesn't matter which you are to me, you're both extremists.
This is not a troll. These are factual statements. You do not get to moderate -1 "disagree". Suck it up, cupcakes, and deal with the fact that Apple is a business, not a religion.
Go ahead, mod me down. I got karma to burn and an army of you fanboys can't silence me.
This is not a troll. These are factual statements. You do not get to moderate -1 "disagree". Suck it up, cupcakes, and deal with the fact that Apple is a business, not a religion.
I also think that there could be a better authentication system at FB.
We'll think about this while taking our fourth shower of wealth in our gold-plated bathtub. In the meantime, did you know you can promote a customer service inquiry by paying only an additional $3.99?
Seriously dude, you're the product, not the customer. Who cares what you think? You've already given us all your personal data, what does it matter?
He never said that rounded corners were distinctive. He said that they were a part of a distinctive design, which gets at a fundamental principle of design patents that you seem to not understand.
I think he understands perfectly: Here's the 5 page filing for the patent. The only thing that separates it in terms of appearance is that it has rounded corners. But I mean, seriously, if what you've done is glued a computer to a touchscreen panel, how many design options are there? Round corners. Square corners. It's still a fucking rectangle, because that's how every touchscreen in mass-production today is shaped. There's only a select few form-factors that make sense when the primary (indeed, only) human interface is a touch-screen display.
So no, he's not knee-jerking: It was widely panned by popular media as being a patent for rounded edges. That was the substantive issue in the German lawsuit with Samsung v. Apple, where their Galaxy looked "too similar" to the Apple device. What you're defending, sir, is not an innovation in techology, but a company with the largest market capitalization on the planet attempting to remove all the other players from the market by patenting the only practical form-factor for this type of device. There is no innovation. It's totally business. As to the reason you're defending it, I suspect religious beliefs, caused in large part by marketing and having no actual basis in reality.
To put it a bit differently, Coca-Cola has a design patent covering their iconic bottle shape, yet no one is suggesting that Coca-Cola has a patent on all curved bottles just because their design patent includes curves as one of its claims.
Umm, you're kidding, right? You've just cited the quintessential example of design patents. I mean, of all the ones you could have chosen, you've chosen the single most cited-example found in graphics design. You couldn't have derped your argument in a more epic fashion if you'd done it while screaming naked in the street.
To infringe, you'd have to include not just curves in your bottle design, but curves that matched the other claims and diagrams presented in their design patent before you'd be infringing on their patent.
See above. The curves in the bottle design was the sole thing patented.
Similarly, Apple's infamous iPhone patent that included rounded corners as one of its claims also included a number of other claims as well...
Except it didn't, see above.
For infringement to take place, ALL of those claims would be considered together, rather than just the uniform rounded corners claim.
ALL [emphasis yours] actually equals ONE [emphasis mine] in this case. No really. It is totally just that. I'm sorry if you weren't paying attention, but I mean, who can when you're so busy fanboying that you fail at your argument so spectacularly we should build a monument to your derp.
Slashdot Mirror
Only one of these is ethical.
I'm guessing you meant theft. If you're starving to death, stealing a loaf of bread is something few people would say is unethical. As for the other three... well, they all involve money, and as we know, money is the root of all evil.
1. Have a special asic rig that is custom made for mining bitcoins.
A technology unavailable to the average person, thus effectively ensuring that this fiat currency is only produced by corporations. In other words, those who control the ASICs will be the OPEC of the digital currency world.
2. Have a botnet that you put to work mining bitcoins using other peoples electricity.
Which, legalities aside, will quickly make the production of bitcoins more expensive than any currency ever developed; And it's designed to continue to use resources up like a cancer. The Native Americans once said "Only after the white man has killed every buffalo, and cut down every tree. Only then, will the white man learn he cannot eat money." They probably didn't realize at the time that the siren call of 'digital' currency would result in the creation of a cancerous monetary system that attaches itself directly to the nervous system of society: Our energy grid.
3. Speculate in bitcoins and bet that they will go up or down in value.
We've already seen where speculation leads: Every major economic collapse has been based on investing on the guesswork of what other people will invest in... instead of investing in actual goods and services. Every. Last. One. Bitcoin will not be the thing that changes the historical record.
4. Hack someone else that has bitcoins.
Already quite popular, but this at least is something that can realistically be solved... through more corporate control. Yup, you heard me: By centralizing the "decentralized" currency, you can provide effective security. Which defeats the main reason why bitcoins were created in the first place: Anonymity.
So what I see is basically the next Paypal of the internet, except instead of having one corporation fucking us all over, we'll have dozens. And once the corporations are in control, then the governments will move in to attach strings and turn them into marionettes. And after that... it becomes a political power struggle to control the new de facto currency of the internet.
And we all know how well government control of the internet has been working out for us so far... now we're going to marry a cancerous monetary system that depends on exponentially increasing our energy consumption to government oversight, corporate profiteering, and then blobbing our global communications infrastructure and global economies together.
Operation This Will Most Likely End Badly is a go.
Did they secure the rights and pay the royalties on this recording? Someone call the RIAA. I smell a copyright lawsuit!
The original recording has no copyright. The recording of the recording, does, since the original had no copyright. Copyright is like a parasite... it attaches itself to everything.
Oh... and color-coordinate your cabling. Power cables black, ethernet internal grey, ethernet to the 'outside world', red... whatever, just make sure it's consistent and have bins of replacements nearby of the appropriate color. Staging areas become a morass of cabling very quickly -- color coding everything will make plugging things in right easier, and faster. You may also want to color-code the actual tables... blue for assembly, green for testing, orange for staging, etc., so that a quick eyeball can provide an estimate of what's being done, and take inventory.
It sounds like what you're trying to build is what we call a "rollout room".
Well, there's a few things -- first, you need to think vertical. Even just a couple people in a space that small can start to feel cramped. You want overhead space to run cables, power, hang lights, and have it open so equipment can be staged there and left in-place. You'll want KVMs, port duplicators, etc., with an eye on minimizing the number of peripherals in the room. The only thing that should be in the staging area besides the "box" is a power cable. I also suggest overhead for staging because it's less likely to be bumped or shoved off the end of a table, thus damaging the (yet unused!) equipment.
Second, you want aisles that can easily allow someone carrying equipment past someone who's standing. There also needs to be plenty of elbow room between workstations. Some engineers are thin. Others, are sorta round. You may at some point hire someone who has a wheelchair. Think of these things now, and try to maximize the amount of available walking/moving/standing space in the room. This ties in with "think vertical!" above.
A personal note -- Engineers are very picky about their own tools -- have heavy-duty rail-mounted drawers (or a small tool chest) with individual keys. They don't have to be big, and can be put at the table-ends. Even though you're creating a communal working area, tools are not communal, tools are private. Second, air conditioning, as much as you can put in there, but more importantly is air ventilation and sound-proofing on the walls, etc. Staging areas are loud. Loud enough you could be edging into OSHA territory and requiring ear protection. Also... a lot of computer people neglect personal hygiene. It's not a problem when they're living in a cube... but it's going to take your quality of life index way down when Joe shows up and smells like he hasn't showered in a week. Good ventilation goes a long way towards limiting the man-stench of a dozen dudes crammed into a confined space.
Lastly, lighting. I'm sure you'll be stuck with fluorescent lighting like every other corporate environment on the planet, but try to choose 'natural light' bulbs if you can swing it. Believe it or not, the color 'warmth' of a bulb can have a significant psychological impact on a workspace. And consider something other than pure white on the walls. Obviously, don't go retarded and throw pastels up... but go to a hospital and see how they paint their hallways and stuff; Use that as inspiration for creating your own open space. And lastly, on the topic of lighting -- you will want swing-arm spot-lights wherever equipment assembly will take place.
One more thing: If there's carpeting in the room, take it out. You need to eliminate static discharge. Everything should be grounded and there should be multiple signs indicating where to connect grounding straps, etc. Also, that elbow-room comment I made above? There's a practical reason for it too -- if someone bumps you while working on equipment, they can inadvertently transfer a static discharge onto the other person, and from there, onto the device.
OH! And make sure you have plenty of circuit breakers and UPS in the room -- new equipment has a much higher failure rate than equipment that's been in the field for a short time... and the most common thing to blow is a power supply. Isolate assembly and testing areas from staging areas (where imaging, etc., takes place) electrically. You will short things out.. don't let one device ruin your night.
At the end of the day, it became a backdoor to huge separate systems that shouldn't be online anyway.
Well, duh. There's about a million tons worth of devices that shouldn't be on the internet, but they are. Rather than bemoan something we've known since the internet was first turned into a public network... why not ask ourselves some more probing questions, like why they're on the internet?
I'll give you a hint: Because auto-configuration (DHCP!) and gateways that allow anything hitting them from the inside to freely traverse are the norm. And it's easier to fix a single gateway than a hundred devices.
The information you can read via NFC isn't very useful. Same as the chip interface.
You can read it and then replay it for a POS transaction a few minutes later. Since the data is a binary blob, you could have one person wandering a busy mall, and another person appearing to browse at an electronics store. Beep! And a minute later someone's standing in line ready to purchase a giant flat panel on your credit card.
So... you were saying something about how it "isn't very useful"?
ha, don't take any offense... all political discourse (esp. on /. ) is trolling.
It's just that the moderation quality in general has gone down on the site since it was bought out. The very knowledgable 'elite' that would guide and direct the conversation in a constructive and educational way has given way to rhetoric by wanna-be bloggers and pundits. So now when you have, say an apple fanboy or a linux fanboy post something, they're moderated based on whether the moderator agrees or disagrees with their religious preference rather than the strength of their commentary.
In a few more months, I'll probably just stop logging in to post and start looking for alternatives to Slashdot. It's been with us for so long though... it's tough letting go.
Hmm. Amusingly, it appears the slashmods went full retard again: Suggesting that our elected officials are incompetent? Something about 80% of americans believe, is apparently "trolling". And firing them so that more competent people can be moved into those positions and actually fix the problem? Trolling.
Yeah. I'm really losing respect for this website... ever since it was bought out, it's become a craven hole of repugnant hipsters.
U.S. Democrats and Republicans spent the day using the FAA's statement as political fodder rather than working on resolving sequestration.
The Republicans got what they wanted: Spending cuts. Who gives a flying fark through a rolling doughnut how badly it was implimented? Now we all have to suffer because a bunch of fat bastards in suits can't behave any better than children. A better idea would have been to pass a law saying that if they couldn't agree on a budget they'd all be fired.
The older crowd will share info with people they trust, and the millenials when they can turn a buck. I don't see the difference, really -- the only variable is the currency. Trust relationships are also based on a give-take, but it's implicit. In the latter case, the relationship is an explicit give-take. So what this comes down to is exaggerating the differences between two groups -- and gee, go figure... news agencies thrive on creating differences where none exist in order to generate a story.
Has online journalism/tech news fallen so low that this qualifies as worth a front-page mention?
The editors on Slashdot were outsourced to 7 line perl scripts. This story had all of the right keywords, so it was posted. It's your fault, really. If you'd thrown more money at the site before this had happened, the site's editors could have been replaced by a 12 line perl script...
Careful now, this withchunt could still happen on Slashdot too but in several days and with hot grits.
(steps forward) I VOLUNTEER! I have tons of experience in being hunted as a witch. I can provide professional references. Also, my epic amounts of snark will at least make the attempt amusing for all participants.
This is a discussion about the UK.
Oh, I'm sorry? Is the UK not part of the rest of the planet? Does the UK have its own internet that nobody else outside the UK can access? Is there no such thing as international laws? Assumptions are the mother of all fuckups -- and PARDON ME for not wanting to just blindly assume. I'd rather know exactly what we're talking about, than guessing and later discovering that we were talking about two totally different things.
Details. They fucking matter.
Not if you've been here for 13 years...
Yeah. The editors used to be a pair of 7 line perl scripts, but now that Slashdot is under new management, they've had to cut back... now it's just one 7 line perl script.
Try using google like everyone else instead of expecting other people to do your research.
I googled "They". It came back with 7.7 billion results, none of which were very helpful (yes, I read all 7.7 billion pages, because I'm like, God and shit).
Out of kindness I will help you by telling you that the act is called "Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act".
Ah. Well now, that's much more specific. And British. I suppose I am expected to keep up with all the laws of not just my own country (whose laws are so numerous that even my own government cannot provide an exact count), but all the laws of the other 173 countries (give or take a dozen) as well. I feel like such a failure as a human being for not being able to memorize several libraries of congress' worth of legal documentation and intuitively know which, exact, legal document you were referring to based on the word "They". Thank goodness you didn't mean "Them" though, or I'd be really screwed... there's a lot more of Them than They. Incidentally, They was a terrible movie. I know, off topic, but I thought I'd share.
Now, out of kindness to others, look after yourself.
Well, I do try, but sometimes despite my bestest of intentions, I just can't keep up with all of the internet pundits. It's a personal failing I am working very hard at.
That was my point, since the same is true with Apple's design patents (though I'll readily agree that some of them are rather vague/broad, including the one you've cited).
I won't disagree with any of the other statements you've made, because frankly, it's a defensible position. It's not the best one, in my opinion, but a reasonable person can lay claim to it. But this statement you've made right here goes to the very heart of the matter: If it's vague and overly broad, then the patent shouldn't have been granted. And the patent Apple was granted was vague, and it was overly broad, and as a result it's been dragged through our court system (and that of many other countries), costing you, me, and every other taxpayer in many different countries.
Which just underscores that this isn't a clear-cut issue; You can't say Apple's in the clear, anymore than you can say Apple doesn't have a leg to stand on. If the patent had been more narrowly-defined and was about a unique and easily-recognizable design, none of this would have happened. We wouldn't be having this conversation. We wouldn't have to disagree, because it would have been the optimal case.
I've already addressed that point, and if you look through some of the various iPhone design patents, you can see that the same arguments I've made already would apply to them as well.
Which is fine, but irrelevant. We're talking about the so-called "rounded edges" patent/design. The argument you're making may very well be valid in those cases, but that's not the case we're talking about.
Long story short, you seem to have accused me of derping on one point and automatically being wrong, then dismissed everything after that as being wrong as well, even though you never said why I was wrong in the first place. I'd actually be very eager to hear why you thought I was wrong about Coke.
At the time Coca-Cola applied for the patent, bottles just didn't look like that; The bottle in the patent is nothing like the coke bottles used today, which still have curves, but subdued considerably from the original design. That made the design unique, and it wasn't directly connected to its function, which was the storage and transport of a beverage. As such, the design wasn't purely functional. In the Apple case, the very design itself is functional -- it's a giant LCD panel with a rear plate, and in between is the computer. It's about the only form factor that makes any sense for a device that is designed to be (a) portable and (b) interacted with only by touch screen. Apple didn't take more than maybe a half-step away from the "purely functional" aspect of the device; Anyone who designed something similar would arrive at a device that looked more or less like the one Apple did. There's nothing unique, special, or distinctive, about Apple's design. Which is why it is very different from the quintessential example of the coke bottle.
Do the ISP's simply get together and say 'get stuffed'?
Depends on how much you like that pretty face of yours. "One Does Not Simply... tell the government to get stuffed." -- Boromir
Isn't it about time for corporations that support open communications to stand up to a government behaving like a 6 year old wanting a new toy?
Corporations that support open communications are in the same bucket as unicorns and flying pigs. So short answer: No.
If the top 10 major ISP's got together and said 'screw you, shut us down!' do you think the government would push their luck?
Better question: How do you feel about corporations being so powerful they can dictate terms to your government?
Why is it always the little guy who has to stand up to the overzealous government hoping to get a 'new toy' to frighten the public into reaction?
Because the little guy typically has nothing to lose.
ren't corporations moral entities upholding personal responsibility?
Great, you just made me blow mountain dew out of my nose. Well, this keyboard's dead...
What will they do when their snooping forces a large percentage of the people to use Tor or a VPN?
It's already happening. Typically, this is solved by doing the same thing that law enforcement's been doing since the days of Sherlock Holmes: You watch the suspect. Today, it's easier than having to use the old Mark 1 Eyeball -- we have a large variety of electronic surveillance devices to choose from, but the fundamentals of investigation haven't changed.
On the other hand, if your only lead starts at a Tor exit node, well... sucks to be you. Now you're going to have to work for your doughnut.
They can already lock you up for 2 years for failing to divulge encryption keys or passwords.
Citation needed. "They" is a bit non-specific.
When I look at the definition of terrorists and then at my government I really dont see much difference these days.
Well, I do. The government is better funded, they wear sharp uniforms, and are atleast partially accountable to the people my peers voted into office. Terrorists, on the other hand, want to make you part of their latest political statement... and unlike with the government, you aren't likely to survive the process.
They immediately find you have an association with a Russian criminal gang. Suddenly you are Prime Suspect! That's what's wrong with it. Stupider things have happened, to me!
Well, were you associated with a Russian criminal gang? Because if you were, and that criminal gang had a history of (or a direct link to!) the crime they were investigating, then you have some explaining to do. If you don't, well then, you've met the criterion for "reasonable suspicion", which merits someone interviewing you, but doesn't ordinarily rise to the standard of being sufficient for a search warrant.
A lot of times, what the police do is inconvenient, but it isn't "stupid". Investigators focus on people with a criminal past or criminal connections because those are the people that, statistically, are the most likely in a pool of suspects to be the actual criminal. And if you're going to be a successful investigator, you'd better play by the numbers.
... and of not telling their customers what they are up to.
Well yeah. Their customers don't show up at their doorstep with shotguns and take whatever they feel like when they aren't told certain things. The government does. And every government I'm aware of tells businesses not to tell their customers when they show up that they showed up. That whole "ongoing investigation" business.
So let the privacy groups whine until the cows come home, that will never change no matter where you live. On the other hand, if you want to go after dragnets and mass-storage of everyone's data, which is then trolled through by law enforcement without a warrant or similar, well then I'm all ears and then some. The mere storage of data that can then be searched, in the future, with a properly-executed warrant, is a non-issue. The transitory nature of the internet means that without audit logs such as this, you'd never catch anyone. For anything. "Well, I'm sorry Mr. President, but we weren't able to catch that terrorist who gave us a specific and credible threat, because we didn't know ahead of time he was going to do it. Sorry about all those dead civilians, but you know, we gotta respect people's privacy and all that," said no law enforcement officer ever.
Privacy groups making unreasonable demands like this I put in the same category as scumbag politicians who want to remove judicial protections like probable cause before invading someone's privacy. It doesn't matter which you are to me, you're both extremists.
This is not a troll. These are factual statements. You do not get to moderate -1 "disagree". Suck it up, cupcakes, and deal with the fact that Apple is a business, not a religion.
Go ahead, mod me down. I got karma to burn and an army of you fanboys can't silence me.
This is not a troll. These are factual statements. You do not get to moderate -1 "disagree". Suck it up, cupcakes, and deal with the fact that Apple is a business, not a religion.
I also think that there could be a better authentication system at FB.
We'll think about this while taking our fourth shower of wealth in our gold-plated bathtub. In the meantime, did you know you can promote a customer service inquiry by paying only an additional $3.99?
Seriously dude, you're the product, not the customer. Who cares what you think? You've already given us all your personal data, what does it matter?
He never said that rounded corners were distinctive. He said that they were a part of a distinctive design, which gets at a fundamental principle of design patents that you seem to not understand.
I think he understands perfectly: Here's the 5 page filing for the patent. The only thing that separates it in terms of appearance is that it has rounded corners. But I mean, seriously, if what you've done is glued a computer to a touchscreen panel, how many design options are there? Round corners. Square corners. It's still a fucking rectangle, because that's how every touchscreen in mass-production today is shaped. There's only a select few form-factors that make sense when the primary (indeed, only) human interface is a touch-screen display.
So no, he's not knee-jerking: It was widely panned by popular media as being a patent for rounded edges. That was the substantive issue in the German lawsuit with Samsung v. Apple, where their Galaxy looked "too similar" to the Apple device. What you're defending, sir, is not an innovation in techology, but a company with the largest market capitalization on the planet attempting to remove all the other players from the market by patenting the only practical form-factor for this type of device. There is no innovation. It's totally business. As to the reason you're defending it, I suspect religious beliefs, caused in large part by marketing and having no actual basis in reality.
To put it a bit differently, Coca-Cola has a design patent covering their iconic bottle shape, yet no one is suggesting that Coca-Cola has a patent on all curved bottles just because their design patent includes curves as one of its claims.
Umm, you're kidding, right? You've just cited the quintessential example of design patents. I mean, of all the ones you could have chosen, you've chosen the single most cited-example found in graphics design. You couldn't have derped your argument in a more epic fashion if you'd done it while screaming naked in the street.
To infringe, you'd have to include not just curves in your bottle design, but curves that matched the other claims and diagrams presented in their design patent before you'd be infringing on their patent.
See above. The curves in the bottle design was the sole thing patented.
Similarly, Apple's infamous iPhone patent that included rounded corners as one of its claims also included a number of other claims as well ...
Except it didn't, see above.
For infringement to take place, ALL of those claims would be considered together, rather than just the uniform rounded corners claim.
ALL [emphasis yours] actually equals ONE [emphasis mine] in this case. No really. It is totally just that. I'm sorry if you weren't paying attention, but I mean, who can when you're so busy fanboying that you fail at your argument so spectacularly we should build a monument to your derp.