No, computer sex (between folks married, but not to each other) is of course not adultery.
From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
adultery: voluntary sexual intercourse between a married man and someone other than his wife or between a married woman and someone other than her husband
and
sexual intercourse:
1 : heterosexual intercourse involving penetration of the vagina by the penis : COITUS
2 : intercourse involving genital contact between individuals other than penetration of the vagina by the penis
Now, unless we are talking some weird peripherals and an awfully long willy...computer sex is just not going to meet that definition!
All that said, my having computer sex (with someone other than her) would certainly be a just cause for my wife to separate me from my family jewels.
I know an FBI special agent very well. I talked to him about Carnivore a while back, and he genuinely seemed to be puzzled at my concerns.
He told me all about the hoops agents must leap through to get a wiretap, and how limited it was once obtained. For example, on a phone tap, as soon as it becomes clear a conversation is NOT about the crime being investigated, the agent must turn off the sound and stop taping. He can then periodically spot-check the conversation to see if it is related to the investigation.
He also told me how hard it was to get decent technical people to work for the FBI, especially since as non-manager, non-gun-carrying agents, technical people tend to be second tier employees. He seemed to think that things like Carnivore offered the only way to counteract the advantage suspects could get by using the internet and computers.
As if to prove his own point about technical naivete, he seem puzzled when I asked why the FBI couldn't just subpoena email as needed from ISPs. This would seem analogous to a wiretap, which presumably requires cooperation from the phone company.
I suspect many of the rank and file law enforcement support things like Carnivore just because it makes their job easier. They know they would not abuse the system. And if they did bend the rules a bit, it would be only to catch someone who was really, really bad....
They have no right, however, to contact his employer and jeapordize his job simply because he's exercising his right to free speech. That constitutes harassment and that's illegal.
Could you reference the law that defines this kind of behavior as harassment, and makes it illegal? Is this a federal law, or a state law common to most or all the states? (I am assuming you are talking about law in the USA.) Is it a criminal or civil law?
Don't take this as a flame, but you make a pretty strong statement here, and I would like to see it backed up.
The server could disallow client behavior cleverly based on its game effect, not based on the client knowing secret bit strings in the protocol.
For example, the server could detect ridiculously superhuman aiming in a 3D shooter. I'm thinking about the player who unerringly spins 179 degrees to head-shot the opponent who just rounded the corner. Doesn't the Quake 2 ZBot detection code do something similar, Quake coding experts?
Of course, you could get into an arms race where clients code in "human-emulating" aiming errors, and servers work harder to detect them. But in the end, you will have better servers, because, as has been said (probably in this thread) many times before...
With increasing hardware power, I think a neat evolution of these games would be to have characters be "always on," regardless of whether the real-life person was playing at the time.
Instead of being a wimp and "saving" your character at the Dragon Inn, you would set parameters on his behavior while you are not in control. You might specify what activities he is to pursue while on "autopilot." You might specify how nice or naughty he is to be to other characters. The list is limited only by the imaginations of the server implementors. Choose your offline behavior wisely, and your character prospers...choose foolishly, and find him a ghost when you return!
Alternatively, clients with always-on internet connections could choose to script or program their autopilot behavior client side. Of course, there is the danger of a poorly coded script causing the character to run about the countryside shouting "Natalie Portman eats hot grits!!!" But such unfortunate incidents could be handled by game administrators.
Building up a character while you sleep is not necessarily a bad thing. It merely shifts the value from sitting in front of your terminal for 23 hours a day to choosing your character's activities wisely, both while playing him and while he is on his own.
What other fundamental rights can we marketize? Maybe we can pay off the government's debt by marketizing speech - put a tax or a fee on every letter of the alphabet that we use. Or a market in freedom itself - some people might start off as slaves, but they would have an incentive to invest and become free, and the market would solve the problems.
What is my job but a trading of some of my freedom for money? But it is not slavery, because I can walk away at any time.
A "fundamental right" is not protected at all if one cannot choose when, how, and if to exercise it, or even whether to waive it. If someone wants to waive it for money, what business is that of yours or mine?
Oh and by the way, a government-imposed tax speech would be the very antithesis of the market. Methinks I spy a strawman.
Re:Mild spelling flame: it's TANSTAAFL (nt)
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Juno And Privacy
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· Score: 1
Nah, the original form of the saying is: (T)here (A)in't (N)o (S)uch (T)hing (A)s (A) (F)ree (L)unch.
I too believe there is one absolute right and wrong. Normally, when I speak of ethics or morals, I mean that one set of ethics or morals that conforms to absolute right and wrong.
This section isn't so bad...make a sandwich!
on
Juno And Privacy
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· Score: 1
I think the bigger question instead of "Do Juno users realize what they are agreeing to" is "Is this ethical? And more importantly, is this right?"
My first reaction would be that users realizing what they are agreeing to is central to whether the service agreement is ethical. You have to make a very strong ethical argument to forbid fully informed, adult individuals from agreeing to anything they damn well please. However, one cannot truly agree to something without understanding it. So enforcing an agreement on such a person is not ethical, and borders on fraud.
Offtopic, a bit: Your comment implies a difference between something being "ethical" and beign "right." Could you explain what you mean?
I'm for a person's right to work and everything, but don't you think it would be a bit irresponsible to not work on a way for dangerous jobs to be done without cost of human life? We're talking about people who could die. If they die, it won't matter if they spent generations mining. If they continue to live, they'll have plenty of stories to pass down.
Don't give up too much to the previous poster here. Yes, one has has a right to work (or IMHO do most anything else he pleases, assuming that work does not infringe on someone else's rights). However, this in no way creates an obligation on anyone else to provide useful work for him to do. Nor does it obligate anyone else to refrain from finding better ways to do the work he does, effectively making his current work unneeded.
Be careful when talking about rights...they are slippery beasts. Many people carelessly overstate the rights we actually have.
I know this is going to generate some flame, but the only way to stop these abuses of our fundamental rights to privacy is for the federal government to get involved. We need regulation of these cash-bloated demons who would sell their grandmother's dentures as long as there was a little gold in them. Freedom of speach does NOT mean freedom to market your damn products to my child while he or she is attending class!
Take it up with your local school board. They do not have to use this particular blocking software.
Better yet, take your kids out of the public schools in favor of the private school that most closely shares your views on this and other matters. Or home school your kids, if you prefer.
It sounds to me like the company's practice sucks. But we do not have to be sheep-like consumers whose only hope is to be rescued by regulation from Uncle Sam.
Random noise? Maybe not.
on
The ASCII Cam
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· Score: 1
I would want to see some analysis of this before I trusted it as a randomness source, for seeding, etc. I see a lot of repeated characters in the screen shot ('#', 'V', etc.). It could be that the ascii imaging translation method introduces too much predictability.
Do firefighters on a volunteer department get paid anything more than a token stipend? Was this your father's primary job?
If not, then my response to the suspension would have been a hearty "bite me...fight your own fires."
Computer literacy is NOT a core skill
on
Kids and Computers
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· Score: 1
I think the point Katz failed to point out is one of computer literacy. In the modern world, computer literacy is a core skill required to be a productive part of society. If you don't know how to use a computer, there's not much you can do.
Computer literacy is not a core skill, in the sense of being a foundation for everything else.
If you have never seen a computer, you can still learn to read. But using a computer, other than for games, is damn near useless if you can't read.
If you have never seen a computer, you can still learn mathematics. You might get answers to some math problems with a computer, but if you don't know basic mathematics, you won't be able to understand the answer or be able to check it for reasonableness.
If you have never seen a computer, you can still learn to think clearly. But if you can't think clearly, all the web sites in the world are not going to provide you an ounce of insight.
Computers are important...probably more important to the average slashdotter than the average person. But there are many core life skills fundamentally more important. Once you have those, learning to use a computer, at the level required by someone other than a computer professional, is no big deal.
Sheesh. I hate for my every post about a Katz article to be negative, but...
Computers are not critical to the teaching of (especially young) children!
First, and foremost, as a prerequisite to everything else, including using the net effectively, kids need to learn to read, and read well. No other learning matters, if a child cannot read, write, and comprehend.
To teach kids to read, you need books, paper and pencil, optional black or white boards, and someone to teach them.
Second, and almost as important, kids need to learn basic mathematical concepts. The foundation of this is arithmetic. This needs to be followed up at appropriate ages with algebra, geometry, and probably some trigonometry and calculus. Kids also need to be taught to apply these concepts to real-world problems.
Again, to teach these skills, you need books, pencil and paper, maybe a whiteboard, and someone to teach them.
Third, fourth, fifth, etc., in no particular order, kids need to be taught basic science concepts, some history, some government and civics, and some "social studies."
Again, you need books, paper and pencil, maybe a white board, and someone to teach.
Parallel to all these needs is one that is harder to meet, teaching kids to think clearly. What you need to teach this is guidance from an adult who knows how to think clearly.
These skills are needed to excel in any job other than pure physical labor, if such a job exists. (Even someone who works with his hands most probably needs to read things like work orders.) Everyone needs these basic skills to function generally, from reading street signs, to balancing a checkbook, to deciding how to vote.
Notice that none of this learning requires, or in my opinion for younger children, is even particularly helped by, computer access. Nor is is particularly expensive...that is why it is possible for homeschoolers and private schools to teach rings around the public schools for less money per child.
All this said, access to computers is a good thing, which we should promote. But the child who is taught the basics above can succeed at anything, including using computers. The child who is not taught the basics will have trouble succeeding in general, and specifically not be able to effectively use computers and the net. (He will probably end up signing up for internet access through AOL. *snicker*)
It's my computer, my taxes paid for it and I resent 'the man' telling me where and how I can use it just as much as I would resent him telling me what books are fit to be published.
This exact issue is what is pushing me more toward thinking we shouldn't have internet access in public libraries, or maybe not even have public libraries. Maybe I'm just getting more libertarian (and cranky) as I age, but it seems to me our society has such diverse values that we can't agree on anything but the most basic of public services. This line of thought bothers me, because I like the idea of having public libraries, but I am having trouble ethically justifying forcing others to pay for them.
Why should Mr. Fundamentalist have to pay for my access to a sexy web site, or for that matter, for my access to the book Catcher in the Rye? Why should Mr. Humanist have to fund my access to creationist research?
Some people have kind of a knee-jerk reaction to this whole issue, and oversimplify it to "censorship is bad." Censorship carries connotations of forbidding access to information. I would argue that to decline to fund access to information is not censorship at all. Shut down the internet feed, and give both sides what they are asking for: no blocking software, and no porn.
I'll ignore for now the question of whether simulated child porn should be illegal. But what happens when the 1st person shooters and VR simulations model real-world physics and anatomy so well that a sicko can, as a user, just go in and simulate his own child porn?
Will that simulation software become illegal under the same principle as DeCSS?
For them, cyberspace poses a threat to traditional moral values, since it empowers individuals -- especially younger ones -- to access information that once required approval by educators, religious leaders and parents.
Approving what information my children access is part of my job as a parent. I don't need Dubya to help me do it, but shielding children, especially young children, from some of the more vile stuff on the net is not a bad thing.
My children, who are still in grade school, do not have unsupervised access to the internet. I don't rely on blocking technology to protect them. I rely my supervision and the supervision of those other adults I trust.
Katz also says,
This is the crowd that supported legislation recently enacted by Congress requiring all public institutions that receive federal aid -- mostly schools and libraries -- to install blocking and filtering computer software to protect kids from the dangerous Web.
Again, I don't need government help to protect my kids from the dangerous web, but I see no inherent problem with folks not wanting to subsidize the viewing of material objectionable to them. The First Amendment protects your right to speak and listen. It does not create an obligation for someone else to pay for your net access so you can look at titties.
The solution, at least for public schools, is not to have public schools.
Private schools and homeschoolers are educating rings around the public schools all over the country, and spending less money per child to do it.
Our society has become so diverse that we can't agree on a common set of values to instill in school. (And no, you can't be "value-neutral" in school. It is just not possible.)
The era of the usefulness of public schools is coming to an end.
URL's are somewhat like phone numbers, especially since one can dial a letter string. Yet, we don't see companies suiing each other over 1-800-4-AMAZON or 1-800-PHONE-SEX.
Why not? URLs are more tied to brand image than a phone number is? IP litigation has only now become the rage? Are URLs somehow more legally protected than phone numbers?
I can think of several reasons...
It is annoying to have to dial a letter string. I don't have the letter to number mappings memorized.
Company/organizations often don't naturally map to a fixed length string. In 1-800-4-AMAZON, you still have to remember the 4.
Many phones have a phone book within spitting distance. If not, directory assistance is available. This is DNS for phones, but without fighting over anything other than the real-world name already belonging to the company.
I'm sorry, but you are way off base here. Domain names are EXTREMELY important for any company or organization that needs to be reached over the net.
I don't know about everyone else, but I jump from machine to machine, browser to browser, OS to OS, all the time. I can never count on having bookmarks handy when I want to find information. I use two strategies to find what I want.
First, I remember a few key URLs: www.yahoo.com, www.deja.com, www.google.com, and a few others. (Of course, www.slashdot.org falls into this category.;-)
Second, I guess! Some URLs I have guessed recently are www.dictionary.com, www.bridge.com (Bridge Information Systems), www.xml.com, and www.map.com.
Try remembering the IP address for your favorite Linux site! Then prepare to track it down when they move the site to another IP address.
Offtopic: What URLs should I add to my memorized list? (Hehe...bet no one has any opinions on that!)
Slashdot Mirror
All that said, my having computer sex (with someone other than her) would certainly be a just cause for my wife to separate me from my family jewels.
*chuckle* Which one voted yes?
Sorry, from the context I thought the sarcasm of "really, really bad" would be obvious.
He told me all about the hoops agents must leap through to get a wiretap, and how limited it was once obtained. For example, on a phone tap, as soon as it becomes clear a conversation is NOT about the crime being investigated, the agent must turn off the sound and stop taping. He can then periodically spot-check the conversation to see if it is related to the investigation.
He also told me how hard it was to get decent technical people to work for the FBI, especially since as non-manager, non-gun-carrying agents, technical people tend to be second tier employees. He seemed to think that things like Carnivore offered the only way to counteract the advantage suspects could get by using the internet and computers. As if to prove his own point about technical naivete, he seem puzzled when I asked why the FBI couldn't just subpoena email as needed from ISPs. This would seem analogous to a wiretap, which presumably requires cooperation from the phone company.
I suspect many of the rank and file law enforcement support things like Carnivore just because it makes their job easier. They know they would not abuse the system. And if they did bend the rules a bit, it would be only to catch someone who was really, really bad....
Don't take this as a flame, but you make a pretty strong statement here, and I would like to see it backed up.
For example, the server could detect ridiculously superhuman aiming in a 3D shooter. I'm thinking about the player who unerringly spins 179 degrees to head-shot the opponent who just rounded the corner. Doesn't the Quake 2 ZBot detection code do something similar, Quake coding experts?
Of course, you could get into an arms race where clients code in "human-emulating" aiming errors, and servers work harder to detect them. But in the end, you will have better servers, because, as has been said (probably in this thread) many times before...
"Security by obscurity is not security at all."
Instead of being a wimp and "saving" your character at the Dragon Inn, you would set parameters on his behavior while you are not in control. You might specify what activities he is to pursue while on "autopilot." You might specify how nice or naughty he is to be to other characters. The list is limited only by the imaginations of the server implementors. Choose your offline behavior wisely, and your character prospers...choose foolishly, and find him a ghost when you return!
Alternatively, clients with always-on internet connections could choose to script or program their autopilot behavior client side. Of course, there is the danger of a poorly coded script causing the character to run about the countryside shouting "Natalie Portman eats hot grits!!!" But such unfortunate incidents could be handled by game administrators.
Building up a character while you sleep is not necessarily a bad thing. It merely shifts the value from sitting in front of your terminal for 23 hours a day to choosing your character's activities wisely, both while playing him and while he is on his own.
A "fundamental right" is not protected at all if one cannot choose when, how, and if to exercise it, or even whether to waive it. If someone wants to waive it for money, what business is that of yours or mine?
Oh and by the way, a government-imposed tax speech would be the very antithesis of the market. Methinks I spy a strawman.
Nah, the original form of the saying is: (T)here (A)in't (N)o (S)uch (T)hing (A)s (A) (F)ree (L)unch.
I too believe there is one absolute right and wrong. Normally, when I speak of ethics or morals, I mean that one set of ethics or morals that conforms to absolute right and wrong.
Offtopic, a bit: Your comment implies a difference between something being "ethical" and beign "right." Could you explain what you mean?
Be careful when talking about rights...they are slippery beasts. Many people carelessly overstate the rights we actually have.
Yup, and when I read the earlier reply about WAIS and Veronica, my first thought was "I thought the blonde chick was named Betty, not WAIS!?"
Better yet, take your kids out of the public schools in favor of the private school that most closely shares your views on this and other matters. Or home school your kids, if you prefer.
It sounds to me like the company's practice sucks. But we do not have to be sheep-like consumers whose only hope is to be rescued by regulation from Uncle Sam.
I would want to see some analysis of this before I trusted it as a randomness source, for seeding, etc. I see a lot of repeated characters in the screen shot ('#', 'V', etc.). It could be that the ascii imaging translation method introduces too much predictability.
If not, then my response to the suspension would have been a hearty "bite me...fight your own fires."
If you have never seen a computer, you can still learn to read. But using a computer, other than for games, is damn near useless if you can't read.
If you have never seen a computer, you can still learn mathematics. You might get answers to some math problems with a computer, but if you don't know basic mathematics, you won't be able to understand the answer or be able to check it for reasonableness.
If you have never seen a computer, you can still learn to think clearly. But if you can't think clearly, all the web sites in the world are not going to provide you an ounce of insight.
Computers are important...probably more important to the average slashdotter than the average person. But there are many core life skills fundamentally more important. Once you have those, learning to use a computer, at the level required by someone other than a computer professional, is no big deal.
Computers are not critical to the teaching of (especially young) children!
First, and foremost, as a prerequisite to everything else, including using the net effectively, kids need to learn to read, and read well. No other learning matters, if a child cannot read, write, and comprehend.
To teach kids to read, you need books, paper and pencil, optional black or white boards, and someone to teach them.
Second, and almost as important, kids need to learn basic mathematical concepts. The foundation of this is arithmetic. This needs to be followed up at appropriate ages with algebra, geometry, and probably some trigonometry and calculus. Kids also need to be taught to apply these concepts to real-world problems.
Again, to teach these skills, you need books, pencil and paper, maybe a whiteboard, and someone to teach them.
Third, fourth, fifth, etc., in no particular order, kids need to be taught basic science concepts, some history, some government and civics, and some "social studies."
Again, you need books, paper and pencil, maybe a white board, and someone to teach.
Parallel to all these needs is one that is harder to meet, teaching kids to think clearly. What you need to teach this is guidance from an adult who knows how to think clearly.
These skills are needed to excel in any job other than pure physical labor, if such a job exists. (Even someone who works with his hands most probably needs to read things like work orders.) Everyone needs these basic skills to function generally, from reading street signs, to balancing a checkbook, to deciding how to vote.
Notice that none of this learning requires, or in my opinion for younger children, is even particularly helped by, computer access. Nor is is particularly expensive...that is why it is possible for homeschoolers and private schools to teach rings around the public schools for less money per child.
All this said, access to computers is a good thing, which we should promote. But the child who is taught the basics above can succeed at anything, including using computers. The child who is not taught the basics will have trouble succeeding in general, and specifically not be able to effectively use computers and the net. (He will probably end up signing up for internet access through AOL. *snicker*)
Why should Mr. Fundamentalist have to pay for my access to a sexy web site, or for that matter, for my access to the book Catcher in the Rye? Why should Mr. Humanist have to fund my access to creationist research?
Some people have kind of a knee-jerk reaction to this whole issue, and oversimplify it to "censorship is bad." Censorship carries connotations of forbidding access to information. I would argue that to decline to fund access to information is not censorship at all. Shut down the internet feed, and give both sides what they are asking for: no blocking software, and no porn.
Will that simulation software become illegal under the same principle as DeCSS?
My children, who are still in grade school, do not have unsupervised access to the internet. I don't rely on blocking technology to protect them. I rely my supervision and the supervision of those other adults I trust.
Katz also says,
Again, I don't need government help to protect my kids from the dangerous web, but I see no inherent problem with folks not wanting to subsidize the viewing of material objectionable to them. The First Amendment protects your right to speak and listen. It does not create an obligation for someone else to pay for your net access so you can look at titties.The solution, at least for public schools, is not to have public schools.
Private schools and homeschoolers are educating rings around the public schools all over the country, and spending less money per child to do it.
Our society has become so diverse that we can't agree on a common set of values to instill in school. (And no, you can't be "value-neutral" in school. It is just not possible.)
The era of the usefulness of public schools is coming to an end.
Question: What programming language will engineers use in 20 years?
Answer: I don't know, but they will call it Fortran.
It is annoying to have to dial a letter string. I don't have the letter to number mappings memorized.
Company/organizations often don't naturally map to a fixed length string. In 1-800-4-AMAZON, you still have to remember the 4.
Many phones have a phone book within spitting distance. If not, directory assistance is available. This is DNS for phones, but without fighting over anything other than the real-world name already belonging to the company.
I don't know about everyone else, but I jump from machine to machine, browser to browser, OS to OS, all the time. I can never count on having bookmarks handy when I want to find information. I use two strategies to find what I want.
First, I remember a few key URLs: www.yahoo.com, www.deja.com, www.google.com, and a few others. (Of course, www.slashdot.org falls into this category. ;-)
Second, I guess! Some URLs I have guessed recently are www.dictionary.com, www.bridge.com (Bridge Information Systems), www.xml.com, and www.map.com.
Try remembering the IP address for your favorite Linux site! Then prepare to track it down when they move the site to another IP address.
Offtopic: What URLs should I add to my memorized list? (Hehe...bet no one has any opinions on that!)