Perhaps they're told they're given something to help with their alcoholism, and the red pill they're given does nothing. Would that be sufficient science for a double blind trial? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but maybe that's sufficient here for an analysis. The people taking the placebo only need to be told that they're being given some medication that will help with their alcoholism (or given some story to basically account for the placebo effect).
The other alternative I could see is that they're given some other slightly mind-altering substance (like a tylenol 3 or oxycontin or something). The patient then knows he's on something but may not realize it's not acid. This would me more convincing for the patients, but this has problems too - maybe the alternate mind altering substance actually plays a part in reducing alcoholism too.
"Think about this seriously, don't try and play Internet Toughguy and say "Of course I'd do it! Fuck da' police!" Would you really? Or would you act in your own interests?"
This article made me think a little about the whole morality and justice aspect to the purpose of lulzsec / anon / any internet vigilante group. Are they truly doing this thinking they're the robin hood or batman - dispensing justice for others that can't find it themselves? Vigilantes of the internet? Or just troublemakers looking to stir up trouble, but doing this as a way to feel justified.
If it's a crime that benefits yourself (i.e. gathering mob protection money, burglary, blackmail) like in the parent analogy - then I would think there's a higher chance the criminal would work with authorities to benefit himself with a reduced sentence. But what if you truly believe that what you're doing isn't a crime, or that you're truly doing something for the world? For example if you're a captain of a ship and work for greenpeace, and you basically harass fisherman & oil tankers during your daily routine (or something like that) - and you're arrested, interrogated and told you'll be given a reduced sentence if you rat your friends out - would you do it? I would think that this captain is less likely to rat out friends than a criminal, because he thinks he's making the world a better place
So to me, it kind of questions the integrity of the members of these online "movements". Are they doing this because they truly believe they're making a difference in the world and dispensing justice? Or are these the type of people that just like watching shit go down - the kind that would be writing malicious viruses for no profit if these groups didn't exist? Obviously, the actions of one individual aren't representative of the whole movement - but it makes you wonder how much "good" he thought he was doing by running lulzsec if he was willing to compromise his own principles to save his ass.
How did you get modded insightful with that blatant strawman? There's a huge difference between "reporting a crime" and "working with authorities to prosecute people doing the same thing you did". Turning in a meth dealer? Not a big deal. You're a meth dealer and you're squealing on your partner? Well now you're a traitor or backstabber or a betrayer or whatever you want to call it. That's the entire point here.
This wouldn't be news if the story was about so-and-so helps authorities with a bust. What makes it interesting, is that the one doing the snitching is the one that basically ran the organization! You might see Lulzsec or Anon as troublemakers or rabble-rousers, but they seem themselves as providing some sort of justice or balance. Especially the higher ups - they're doing this on principle, they see themselves as the batmans and robin hoods of the internet, causing trouble for a better tomorrow (or whatever). And *THAT* is what makes this interesting, is that one of the top members here would sacrifice his own principles and ideals, and screw his friends (friends?) for personal gain (or rather, to save his own ass). Or that maybe we'd do the same thing given the chance. I'm not sure how you can't see the difference between reporting a crime, and snitching on your partner for committing a crime despite partaking in the exact same crime yourself
"Oh boy!" thought Milton, "A article on football! And not the soccer version, the American football kind!" He could barely contain his troll-citement. He never fully recovered from the traumatizing memories of high school where the sports jocks viciously bullied him, and this was a perfect opportunity to remind the world how stupid the concept of this sport was! He put his fingers together, pondering on what kind of "insightful" comment would get modded up by his fellow neck-beards. A reference to hand-egg and the stupidity of the name? Nah.. been done before.. Perhaps a comment on the overall barbaric nature of the sport and a jab to all the rednecks and jocks that enjoy it? Better.. but maybe...
"Wait a minute..." he thought. "Maybe I should be contributing to the contents of the article? Perhaps I should mention how government funds shouldn't be involved here, but they'll be there anyway due to close ties between football and the military. Maybe something on security theater and a reference to airports and perhaps a lack of any terrorist related activities in football games?" But the thought quickly left his mind, as there was too much bitterness towards those jock types he worked with in marketing (and couldn't stand) and instead posted "HURRR maybe they should up the radiation on the metal detectors so the in-breed hicks that attend the game get sterilized!!"
Maybe they could replace the header with "medical science" - as every example the TFA deals with some issue dealing with human biology. Science is not failing us (as the sensational headline indicates) in physics, or chemistry or even social / behavioral science. And it's not *failing* us in the medical department either really, there's just a lot more complexity when it comes to the human body. And when you throw in some other factors you don't see in other sciences, such as the placebo effect, or realizing that the body heals itself eventually, then maybe trial and error just doesn't work so well.
The story seems to focus on the pharmaceutical industry specifically, maybe that's the problem here and not the scientific method. Most of their money is made by spending billions into R&D, then hoping they get a useable drug out of it they can patent and make money off of. Well maybe the problem here is the corners that are cut and they're essentially racing to get it FDA approved (and with as few side effects as possible). That's bound to bring up some bad science, and questionable or skewed results in the name of profit. That's not "Science failing us" - that's greed and human error causing the problem.
Jesus, how many "thought crime" references does this thread need to have? This man was not arrested for *thinking* about blowing something up, it's because he documented it and wrote it down - which has already been discussed multiple times.
Here's why half this thread is freaking out over the arrest - and why it's littered with references to thought crime & Minority report : Intrusive thoughts . Everyone's had these from time to time - maybe one day you're looking at your wife sleeping and you might think something like 'I could strangle her right now' or something equally perverse, then you wonder why the hell you would even think such a terrible thing. Intrusive thoughts. I'll bet half the slashdotters here have secretly thought to themselves how cool it would be to blow something significant up - maybe a Walmart or Monsanto, Apple, IBM or Microsoft HQ, or a parliamentary building etc.. But the thought only sticks around for a few seconds, before you realize how bad an idea that is and you wouldn't do that in a million years. But the point is, you briefly thought of it for a few seconds. That's why there's such a disdain here for what appears to be *thought crime* - because we all have dirty, perverse thoughts about things very illegal - and that this ruling sets some sort of precedence.
So what do we all do when we have some intrusive thought? Well hopefully if you're smart, you never mention it to anyone ever. What you don't do is download bomb making plans and write a letter saying you have prepared yourself physically and financially for jihad. Hell, he even had a list of prices of some weapons and things, including a motherfucking grenade launcher. That's no longer 'just a bad thought', this is elaborate investigation into killing people.. Simply having bomb-making plans probably wouldn't be enough to justify this an arrest, but the other info (like the list of weapons and prices, and the 'jihad' reference) is more than enough for a conspiracy to commit murder charge. I don't know if that's the actual charge he was arrested under, but it would seem fit.
This man was not arrested for 'thought crime'. This is a clear 'conspiracy' charge.
*Apologies if this is the 2nd post, didn't seem to go through the first time
I choose option B - not getting groped, and I'll take that risk of dying in a fiery inferno. Could you direct me to an airline or airport where this option is available? Oh wait...
Perhaps slightly off topic, but what are the odds this has been done on most of the current representatives in congress? Given the recent news regarding SOPA and whatnot, it seems that the majority of them are clueless on how the internet works (and therefore less likely to have websites registered under their names). Would be some delicious irony if a bunch of them had their own domain names bought up and ended up losing re-election time (possibly as a result of an anti-site being set up).
"It's a stupid waste of time, and so is Facebook."
I'm not surprised that most of the "insightful" comments on this article basically say how pointless and stupid high school reunions / and or facebook is. The majority of the people on/. probably weren't popular in high school and likely got bullied. A lot more chess club members than players on the high school football team. One thing I noticed at my wife' high school reunion was that it was pretty much only the popular people that actually attended so I'm not terribly surprised at the Slashdot reaction here.
Another primary reason why they still exist - gossip and comparison. People want to know what's happened with all those people they knew back then (without re-friending all of them). They're probably only facebook friends with a handful of people they knew 10 years ago (maybe that number is rising now), but with 2 or 3 degrees of friendship, chances are that almost everyone in high school is known by someone at that reunion. And people (maybe women moreso?) really want to know what's happening with all those people they may not be facebook friends with. Bob was a real bully, is he in prison now or something? I hope so. Jenny was a real bitch, I hope she's all washed up now. Dan was a real quiet guy and shy, I hope he's doing good for himself. Kathy was really good at music, did she make it big? Carl and Suzy were really in love, are they still together? Mike seemed gay, I wonder if he really is? These are all questions that people want to know. If you were bullied for example, wouldn't you like to know what happened to that guy, and secretly take pleasure in the fact that your life is better than his now? I may be somewhat ashamed to admit that yes I would, but that's just an aspect of human behavior.
There's a reason that and trashy tabloids and magazines are littered in supermarkets and stores everyone - people like gossip, it's a huge guilty pleasure for a lot of people out there. I don't expect most of the readers here to share the same notion, but you could at least see it from their perspective.
What are you joking? Do you know much overhead would be involved in scanning every message, post & status update for "questionable content"? That's a huge chunk of potential profit right there. Sure, ethics probably aren't a consideration (they probably value the good press for "freedom of speech" over the potential loss of indian FB users or something like that) but implementing some sort of post checker is a logistics nightmare they want nothing to do with.
Also important to note that the US citizens have the highest gun to citizen ratio on the planet - something like 9 guns for every 10 people. Sure, the US military has the biggest defense budget in the world and the tech is a higher level than the citizens, but if there were ever a Syria / Iran / Libya style revolution in the States, the government would topple a lot faster than any of those other countries. Guns vs high tech guns is a much "fairer" fight than Guns vs melee weapons & Molotov cocktails. Part of the reason the Iranian revolution attempt failed a couple of years ago from the election fraud was because the citizens basically had virtually no access to the weapons that the military had (maybe citizens weren't allowed to own them, not sure why exactly).
Even if the US didn't have most of their troops deployed overseas, it's doubtful they would start to fire on their own countrymen here as the parent suggest. If the people in the US want the government out bad enough, there's no way the police & military would be able to stop them
I don't think the purpose of this was to display all 22 during the actual play. You're absolutely correct here - you wouldn't be able to make any of the fine details, like an interception vs catch, or a fumble - if you saw it in the "All 22" view.
The question the article is raising, and the point that it's making - is why is it never displayed at all? Football is not a continuous sport - there's a quick play of 5-20 seconds, and at least that much time will have elapsed by the next play. During this time there's usually a replay with the announcer discussing the details of the play. If you're watching any of the major channels (NBC, FOX, etc) , you'll see that there's a lot of time where the sportscasters are discussing strategies galore, whiteboards with X's and O's representing players, and looking at replays of games. *That* is the point here - why is this view never used for the instant replay, or during the breakdown, or during Chris Berman's show?'
With the exception of a kickoff or punt return (where this view IMO would be more useful, because you could actually see the direction of all the players on the field at the time) - this view wouldn't be used during most plays on TV. This would be used during the breakdown, replays, and strategy discussion. Fans were asked if they wanted to see this, and the answer was yes. A quote right in the article is "Without watching the All22, analyzing football is impossible, says Bill Parcells". It obviously has some value and popularity and it's being used extensively by the coaches,
Your argument there for "As for being a student of the game.." - the point isn't whether there are other opportunities. I had no idea this particular view was deliberately blocked (always assumed the skycam was only used for the zoomed in shots) - and it's interesting to read about this and why it's blocked.
I've seen the Skycam used in a few CFL games - i.e. the overhead view from the middle of the field on a moving camera. But I've never seen a birds eye view of all players on a televised game.
It's the same reason why the U.S. still uses the imperial system, or why we use QWERTY keyboards instead of DVORAK keyboards - we're too used to the current implementation of the system. All of these ideas (including cars that make less noise) are better in the long run, but people are accustomed to hearing vehicles for 100 or so years now. Sure, you can blame it on the pedestrian for needing to pay attention, but it will take some time to get used to hybrids. Slightly more traffic injuries and fatalities will occur - that's the price we have to pay. To some, it's not worth that price, and it's better to continue to produce cars that make noise..
If the ISP chooses to block or throttle, then yes, that's the entire purpose of this petition. Right now your ISP can do that, choose to throttle you maybe if you view a competitor's website, or maybe they decide to block certain sites because of their political affiliation. That's whole purpose of this bill.
Maybe you're confusing this with an entitlement here. If "Your Connection is down" due to an electrical storm or something, no ISP will be held responsible of course. This petition isn't asking for there to be mandatory internet access for everyone at all times, as you seem to imply with your title. But if they're blocking sites for some people and not others, or slowing down the connection for certain sites, then yes, drag em to court.
What happens is the government, or ISPs, or any other entity cannot prevent you from exercising your free speech. No one's required to pay anything or provide some service for this right to exist. Much like the other inherit rights we have (i.e. right to free speech, right to medical care) this doesn't put a burden on anyone else to provide some service.
Perhaps you (and imamac) think there's some entitlement here of some sort. I.e. food security requires some sort of contribution - someone has to pay for food in that case in your analogy. Recognizing "unfiltered Internet access" is nothing of the sort - it's just requiring that if I want to get on the internet, I shouldn't be blocked or throttled (who pays for that internet is irrelevant). Your "access to medical care" is a bit of a fallacious reasoning I think - you already have access to medical care as a basic right (i.e. a doctor cannot decline treatment because of race, gender, etc..). It may not necessarily be paid for (like if you live in the U.S.) but that right still exists.
The summary says that he "run a batch file to access 500 accounts", but there's no mention of that in TFA. According to that article "Webster notified his colleague and contacted Adam Jarrett of Pillar hours later and informed them of the vulnerability and that he had not accessed other accounts or retained customer data."
So which is it? This is a pretty critical part of the story that seems to be missing. The linked article seems to indicate that the researcher simply found the one issue and quickly reported it to them. Summary says "the researcher had run a batch file to access around 500 accounts". Well did he did he do it or not? And how would the company have found out about that anyway? I doubt he'd disclose that information, and his computer wasn't seized.
"Now the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is fighting to block online courses to save jobs."
I think the issue here is that the teachers are fighting to keep their jobs, for the sake of keeping their jobs. There's not much from TFA there to elaborate, but that statement indicates purely self-interest motives from the American Federation of Teachers. It's not fighting to block online courses because online courses are less efficient, or because this teaching method is inferior because of X, Y and Z... It's fighting... "to save jobs". I make no claim that online teaching is an overall net gain or loss, but it seems clear that even if online teaching is deemed superior (by the state? doesn't matter) in terms of cost for the state and education and factoring all variables - they would still fight to keep their jobs, which would be essentially "make work" jobs.
I have a problem with this statement : "Now the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is fighting to block online courses to save jobs."
I would argue that unions are certainly necessary to keep corporations in check and prevent abuses of workers, but not here. The union is simply fighting to keep the jobs of the teachers, whether they actually provide a net gain or not. The real question should be - Are online courses a more cost-efficient solution of delivering education to students? Or perhaps - "Will students still attain the same level of education through online courses and learn the necessary social skills that may not be present in online training?" However, that statement implies that the union will fight to keep the jobs even if online training is deemed more cost-effective . That's the issue with the union here - they're only looking out for the teachers, and fail to see the higher benefit of online education (i.e. not factoring the education cost per child to see if there is a net gain or loss in education).
Imagine a different headline : "Now the BlockBuster and Video Store Employee union is fighting to implement bandwidth caps and seeking legislation to block the online streaming of videos to save BlockBuster jobs". Sound ridiculous? The point is that this may simply be featherbedding - keeping the job around for the sake of those employed, even after the job has become obselete or a more efficient method has been developed since then.
Note that I'm not supporting one method or the other, I'm not qualified enough in Education and online courses to see if there's a net gain or loss. Merely pointing out that the teacher's union will fight to keep the jobs regardless
But there's still some fishy business going on from the owners of the site. If you read some similar articles online, you'll see that the real problem here is the distribution of the money from the site to the owners or shareholders. Furst received 12 million. Lederer received 38 million. Ferguson received 24 million, and so on. Full Tilt's defense in this whole thing is "In a statement in August, Full Tilt acknowledged that it was having problems processing player money and said it lost $115 million to government seizure and $42 million it says was stolen by a third-party payment processor. (Taken from a WSJ article with some more details)
Well that's fine, but what about the other 200 million of player funds - where did that go? If the government did in fact seize over 115 million dollars, then they might have a legitimate excuse here - but only for that portion of the missing money. In this case, they should still have 275 million in the bank at a minimum, to account for 390 million in player funds - correct? If the payment processor actually scammed them out of 42 million, then it shouldn't be coming out the pockets of the player money, it should be returned from the shareholder / owner proceeds. The numbers just don't add up - even if you take the government seizure out of the equation there's still too much unaccounted for.
Maybe this wasn't always intended as a ponzi scheme - the guys that started the site had the intention of setting up a legitimate site. The government started cracking down and seizing money - so maybe the owners decided to grab a big chuck of the player money and siphon it off to themselves before the government got the rest. Maybe the 390 million in player assets include hundreds of millions of the equivalent of counterfeit money - Full Tilt dollars created without any real dollars going into the bank accounts (by the owners, or programmers). Either way, the people getting screwed here aren't getting it as a result of the government, there's a lot of malicious accounting and action taken by Full Tilt here.
Bring on the Sales tax i say. People buy way too much stuff here anyway, the US gobbles up like 1/4 of the products in the world, despite having around 2-3% of the world population. Basic purchases aren't taxed anyway, anything with a sales tax generally isn't a basic necessity. People want more luxury items - cars, iphones, computers, big screen TVs, etc...
The "effective tax rate of 30%" isn't being spent "in order to survive", these are purchases on things they don't really need to survive, but make life easier.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure whether you actually mean that, or whether your comment is a humor attempt based on your user name
Perhaps they're told they're given something to help with their alcoholism, and the red pill they're given does nothing. Would that be sufficient science for a double blind trial? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but maybe that's sufficient here for an analysis. The people taking the placebo only need to be told that they're being given some medication that will help with their alcoholism (or given some story to basically account for the placebo effect).
The other alternative I could see is that they're given some other slightly mind-altering substance (like a tylenol 3 or oxycontin or something). The patient then knows he's on something but may not realize it's not acid. This would me more convincing for the patients, but this has problems too - maybe the alternate mind altering substance actually plays a part in reducing alcoholism too.
"Think about this seriously, don't try and play Internet Toughguy and say "Of course I'd do it! Fuck da' police!" Would you really? Or would you act in your own interests?"
This article made me think a little about the whole morality and justice aspect to the purpose of lulzsec / anon / any internet vigilante group. Are they truly doing this thinking they're the robin hood or batman - dispensing justice for others that can't find it themselves? Vigilantes of the internet? Or just troublemakers looking to stir up trouble, but doing this as a way to feel justified.
If it's a crime that benefits yourself (i.e. gathering mob protection money, burglary, blackmail) like in the parent analogy - then I would think there's a higher chance the criminal would work with authorities to benefit himself with a reduced sentence. But what if you truly believe that what you're doing isn't a crime, or that you're truly doing something for the world? For example if you're a captain of a ship and work for greenpeace, and you basically harass fisherman & oil tankers during your daily routine (or something like that) - and you're arrested, interrogated and told you'll be given a reduced sentence if you rat your friends out - would you do it? I would think that this captain is less likely to rat out friends than a criminal, because he thinks he's making the world a better place
So to me, it kind of questions the integrity of the members of these online "movements". Are they doing this because they truly believe they're making a difference in the world and dispensing justice? Or are these the type of people that just like watching shit go down - the kind that would be writing malicious viruses for no profit if these groups didn't exist? Obviously, the actions of one individual aren't representative of the whole movement - but it makes you wonder how much "good" he thought he was doing by running lulzsec if he was willing to compromise his own principles to save his ass.
How did you get modded insightful with that blatant strawman? There's a huge difference between "reporting a crime" and "working with authorities to prosecute people doing the same thing you did". Turning in a meth dealer? Not a big deal. You're a meth dealer and you're squealing on your partner? Well now you're a traitor or backstabber or a betrayer or whatever you want to call it. That's the entire point here.
This wouldn't be news if the story was about so-and-so helps authorities with a bust. What makes it interesting, is that the one doing the snitching is the one that basically ran the organization! You might see Lulzsec or Anon as troublemakers or rabble-rousers, but they seem themselves as providing some sort of justice or balance. Especially the higher ups - they're doing this on principle, they see themselves as the batmans and robin hoods of the internet, causing trouble for a better tomorrow (or whatever). And *THAT* is what makes this interesting, is that one of the top members here would sacrifice his own principles and ideals, and screw his friends (friends?) for personal gain (or rather, to save his own ass). Or that maybe we'd do the same thing given the chance. I'm not sure how you can't see the difference between reporting a crime, and snitching on your partner for committing a crime despite partaking in the exact same crime yourself
"Oh boy!" thought Milton, "A article on football! And not the soccer version, the American football kind!" He could barely contain his troll-citement. He never fully recovered from the traumatizing memories of high school where the sports jocks viciously bullied him, and this was a perfect opportunity to remind the world how stupid the concept of this sport was! He put his fingers together, pondering on what kind of "insightful" comment would get modded up by his fellow neck-beards. A reference to hand-egg and the stupidity of the name? Nah.. been done before.. Perhaps a comment on the overall barbaric nature of the sport and a jab to all the rednecks and jocks that enjoy it? Better.. but maybe...
"Wait a minute..." he thought. "Maybe I should be contributing to the contents of the article? Perhaps I should mention how government funds shouldn't be involved here, but they'll be there anyway due to close ties between football and the military. Maybe something on security theater and a reference to airports and perhaps a lack of any terrorist related activities in football games?" But the thought quickly left his mind, as there was too much bitterness towards those jock types he worked with in marketing (and couldn't stand) and instead posted "HURRR maybe they should up the radiation on the metal detectors so the in-breed hicks that attend the game get sterilized!!"
Maybe they could replace the header with "medical science" - as every example the TFA deals with some issue dealing with human biology. Science is not failing us (as the sensational headline indicates) in physics, or chemistry or even social / behavioral science. And it's not *failing* us in the medical department either really, there's just a lot more complexity when it comes to the human body. And when you throw in some other factors you don't see in other sciences, such as the placebo effect, or realizing that the body heals itself eventually, then maybe trial and error just doesn't work so well.
The story seems to focus on the pharmaceutical industry specifically, maybe that's the problem here and not the scientific method. Most of their money is made by spending billions into R&D, then hoping they get a useable drug out of it they can patent and make money off of. Well maybe the problem here is the corners that are cut and they're essentially racing to get it FDA approved (and with as few side effects as possible). That's bound to bring up some bad science, and questionable or skewed results in the name of profit. That's not "Science failing us" - that's greed and human error causing the problem.
Jesus, how many "thought crime" references does this thread need to have? This man was not arrested for *thinking* about blowing something up, it's because he documented it and wrote it down - which has already been discussed multiple times.
Here's why half this thread is freaking out over the arrest - and why it's littered with references to thought crime & Minority report : Intrusive thoughts . Everyone's had these from time to time - maybe one day you're looking at your wife sleeping and you might think something like 'I could strangle her right now' or something equally perverse, then you wonder why the hell you would even think such a terrible thing. Intrusive thoughts. I'll bet half the slashdotters here have secretly thought to themselves how cool it would be to blow something significant up - maybe a Walmart or Monsanto, Apple, IBM or Microsoft HQ, or a parliamentary building etc.. But the thought only sticks around for a few seconds, before you realize how bad an idea that is and you wouldn't do that in a million years. But the point is, you briefly thought of it for a few seconds. That's why there's such a disdain here for what appears to be *thought crime* - because we all have dirty, perverse thoughts about things very illegal - and that this ruling sets some sort of precedence.
So what do we all do when we have some intrusive thought? Well hopefully if you're smart, you never mention it to anyone ever. What you don't do is download bomb making plans and write a letter saying you have prepared yourself physically and financially for jihad. Hell, he even had a list of prices of some weapons and things, including a motherfucking grenade launcher. That's no longer 'just a bad thought', this is elaborate investigation into killing people.. Simply having bomb-making plans probably wouldn't be enough to justify this an arrest, but the other info (like the list of weapons and prices, and the 'jihad' reference) is more than enough for a conspiracy to commit murder charge. I don't know if that's the actual charge he was arrested under, but it would seem fit.
This man was not arrested for 'thought crime'. This is a clear 'conspiracy' charge. *Apologies if this is the 2nd post, didn't seem to go through the first time
I choose option B - not getting groped, and I'll take that risk of dying in a fiery inferno. Could you direct me to an airline or airport where this option is available? Oh wait...
but is is for the KIDS. Don't you wanna the kids safely felt up?
FTFY
Farnsworth : "Amy, technology isn't intrinsically good or evil. It's how it's used. Like the Death Ray."
Perhaps slightly off topic, but what are the odds this has been done on most of the current representatives in congress? Given the recent news regarding SOPA and whatnot, it seems that the majority of them are clueless on how the internet works (and therefore less likely to have websites registered under their names). Would be some delicious irony if a bunch of them had their own domain names bought up and ended up losing re-election time (possibly as a result of an anti-site being set up).
"It's a stupid waste of time, and so is Facebook."
/. probably weren't popular in high school and likely got bullied. A lot more chess club members than players on the high school football team. One thing I noticed at my wife' high school reunion was that it was pretty much only the popular people that actually attended so I'm not terribly surprised at the Slashdot reaction here.
I'm not surprised that most of the "insightful" comments on this article basically say how pointless and stupid high school reunions / and or facebook is. The majority of the people on
Another primary reason why they still exist - gossip and comparison. People want to know what's happened with all those people they knew back then (without re-friending all of them). They're probably only facebook friends with a handful of people they knew 10 years ago (maybe that number is rising now), but with 2 or 3 degrees of friendship, chances are that almost everyone in high school is known by someone at that reunion. And people (maybe women moreso?) really want to know what's happening with all those people they may not be facebook friends with. Bob was a real bully, is he in prison now or something? I hope so. Jenny was a real bitch, I hope she's all washed up now. Dan was a real quiet guy and shy, I hope he's doing good for himself. Kathy was really good at music, did she make it big? Carl and Suzy were really in love, are they still together? Mike seemed gay, I wonder if he really is? These are all questions that people want to know. If you were bullied for example, wouldn't you like to know what happened to that guy, and secretly take pleasure in the fact that your life is better than his now? I may be somewhat ashamed to admit that yes I would, but that's just an aspect of human behavior.
There's a reason that and trashy tabloids and magazines are littered in supermarkets and stores everyone - people like gossip, it's a huge guilty pleasure for a lot of people out there. I don't expect most of the readers here to share the same notion, but you could at least see it from their perspective.
What are you joking? Do you know much overhead would be involved in scanning every message, post & status update for "questionable content"? That's a huge chunk of potential profit right there. Sure, ethics probably aren't a consideration (they probably value the good press for "freedom of speech" over the potential loss of indian FB users or something like that) but implementing some sort of post checker is a logistics nightmare they want nothing to do with.
Also important to note that the US citizens have the highest gun to citizen ratio on the planet - something like 9 guns for every 10 people. Sure, the US military has the biggest defense budget in the world and the tech is a higher level than the citizens, but if there were ever a Syria / Iran / Libya style revolution in the States, the government would topple a lot faster than any of those other countries. Guns vs high tech guns is a much "fairer" fight than Guns vs melee weapons & Molotov cocktails. Part of the reason the Iranian revolution attempt failed a couple of years ago from the election fraud was because the citizens basically had virtually no access to the weapons that the military had (maybe citizens weren't allowed to own them, not sure why exactly).
Even if the US didn't have most of their troops deployed overseas, it's doubtful they would start to fire on their own countrymen here as the parent suggest. If the people in the US want the government out bad enough, there's no way the police & military would be able to stop them
I don't think the purpose of this was to display all 22 during the actual play. You're absolutely correct here - you wouldn't be able to make any of the fine details, like an interception vs catch, or a fumble - if you saw it in the "All 22" view.
The question the article is raising, and the point that it's making - is why is it never displayed at all? Football is not a continuous sport - there's a quick play of 5-20 seconds, and at least that much time will have elapsed by the next play. During this time there's usually a replay with the announcer discussing the details of the play. If you're watching any of the major channels (NBC, FOX, etc) , you'll see that there's a lot of time where the sportscasters are discussing strategies galore, whiteboards with X's and O's representing players, and looking at replays of games. *That* is the point here - why is this view never used for the instant replay, or during the breakdown, or during Chris Berman's show?'
With the exception of a kickoff or punt return (where this view IMO would be more useful, because you could actually see the direction of all the players on the field at the time) - this view wouldn't be used during most plays on TV. This would be used during the breakdown, replays, and strategy discussion. Fans were asked if they wanted to see this, and the answer was yes. A quote right in the article is "Without watching the All22, analyzing football is impossible, says Bill Parcells". It obviously has some value and popularity and it's being used extensively by the coaches,
Your argument there for "As for being a student of the game.." - the point isn't whether there are other opportunities. I had no idea this particular view was deliberately blocked (always assumed the skycam was only used for the zoomed in shots) - and it's interesting to read about this and why it's blocked.
I've seen the Skycam used in a few CFL games - i.e. the overhead view from the middle of the field on a moving camera. But I've never seen a birds eye view of all players on a televised game.
I am the 5%.
You're part of the problem! Occupy Pirate Bay!
It's the same reason why the U.S. still uses the imperial system, or why we use QWERTY keyboards instead of DVORAK keyboards - we're too used to the current implementation of the system. All of these ideas (including cars that make less noise) are better in the long run, but people are accustomed to hearing vehicles for 100 or so years now. Sure, you can blame it on the pedestrian for needing to pay attention, but it will take some time to get used to hybrids. Slightly more traffic injuries and fatalities will occur - that's the price we have to pay. To some, it's not worth that price, and it's better to continue to produce cars that make noise..
If the ISP chooses to block or throttle, then yes, that's the entire purpose of this petition. Right now your ISP can do that, choose to throttle you maybe if you view a competitor's website, or maybe they decide to block certain sites because of their political affiliation. That's whole purpose of this bill.
Maybe you're confusing this with an entitlement here. If "Your Connection is down" due to an electrical storm or something, no ISP will be held responsible of course. This petition isn't asking for there to be mandatory internet access for everyone at all times, as you seem to imply with your title. But if they're blocking sites for some people and not others, or slowing down the connection for certain sites, then yes, drag em to court.
What happens is the government, or ISPs, or any other entity cannot prevent you from exercising your free speech. No one's required to pay anything or provide some service for this right to exist. Much like the other inherit rights we have (i.e. right to free speech, right to medical care) this doesn't put a burden on anyone else to provide some service.
Perhaps you (and imamac) think there's some entitlement here of some sort. I.e. food security requires some sort of contribution - someone has to pay for food in that case in your analogy. Recognizing "unfiltered Internet access" is nothing of the sort - it's just requiring that if I want to get on the internet, I shouldn't be blocked or throttled (who pays for that internet is irrelevant). Your "access to medical care" is a bit of a fallacious reasoning I think - you already have access to medical care as a basic right (i.e. a doctor cannot decline treatment because of race, gender, etc..). It may not necessarily be paid for (like if you live in the U.S.) but that right still exists.
The summary says that he "run a batch file to access 500 accounts", but there's no mention of that in TFA. According to that article "Webster notified his colleague and contacted Adam Jarrett of Pillar hours later and informed them of the vulnerability and that he had not accessed other accounts or retained customer data."
So which is it? This is a pretty critical part of the story that seems to be missing. The linked article seems to indicate that the researcher simply found the one issue and quickly reported it to them. Summary says "the researcher had run a batch file to access around 500 accounts". Well did he did he do it or not? And how would the company have found out about that anyway? I doubt he'd disclose that information, and his computer wasn't seized.
"Now the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is fighting to block online courses to save jobs."
I think the issue here is that the teachers are fighting to keep their jobs, for the sake of keeping their jobs. There's not much from TFA there to elaborate, but that statement indicates purely self-interest motives from the American Federation of Teachers. It's not fighting to block online courses because online courses are less efficient, or because this teaching method is inferior because of X, Y and Z... It's fighting... "to save jobs". I make no claim that online teaching is an overall net gain or loss, but it seems clear that even if online teaching is deemed superior (by the state? doesn't matter) in terms of cost for the state and education and factoring all variables - they would still fight to keep their jobs, which would be essentially "make work" jobs.
I have a problem with this statement : "Now the University of California chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is fighting to block online courses to save jobs."
I would argue that unions are certainly necessary to keep corporations in check and prevent abuses of workers, but not here. The union is simply fighting to keep the jobs of the teachers, whether they actually provide a net gain or not. The real question should be - Are online courses a more cost-efficient solution of delivering education to students? Or perhaps - "Will students still attain the same level of education through online courses and learn the necessary social skills that may not be present in online training?" However, that statement implies that the union will fight to keep the jobs even if online training is deemed more cost-effective . That's the issue with the union here - they're only looking out for the teachers, and fail to see the higher benefit of online education (i.e. not factoring the education cost per child to see if there is a net gain or loss in education).
Imagine a different headline : "Now the BlockBuster and Video Store Employee union is fighting to implement bandwidth caps and seeking legislation to block the online streaming of videos to save BlockBuster jobs". Sound ridiculous? The point is that this may simply be featherbedding - keeping the job around for the sake of those employed, even after the job has become obselete or a more efficient method has been developed since then.
Note that I'm not supporting one method or the other, I'm not qualified enough in Education and online courses to see if there's a net gain or loss. Merely pointing out that the teacher's union will fight to keep the jobs regardless
But there's still some fishy business going on from the owners of the site. If you read some similar articles online, you'll see that the real problem here is the distribution of the money from the site to the owners or shareholders. Furst received 12 million. Lederer received 38 million. Ferguson received 24 million, and so on. Full Tilt's defense in this whole thing is "In a statement in August, Full Tilt acknowledged that it was having problems processing player money and said it lost $115 million to government seizure and $42 million it says was stolen by a third-party payment processor. (Taken from a WSJ article with some more details)
Well that's fine, but what about the other 200 million of player funds - where did that go? If the government did in fact seize over 115 million dollars, then they might have a legitimate excuse here - but only for that portion of the missing money. In this case, they should still have 275 million in the bank at a minimum, to account for 390 million in player funds - correct? If the payment processor actually scammed them out of 42 million, then it shouldn't be coming out the pockets of the player money, it should be returned from the shareholder / owner proceeds. The numbers just don't add up - even if you take the government seizure out of the equation there's still too much unaccounted for.
Maybe this wasn't always intended as a ponzi scheme - the guys that started the site had the intention of setting up a legitimate site. The government started cracking down and seizing money - so maybe the owners decided to grab a big chuck of the player money and siphon it off to themselves before the government got the rest. Maybe the 390 million in player assets include hundreds of millions of the equivalent of counterfeit money - Full Tilt dollars created without any real dollars going into the bank accounts (by the owners, or programmers). Either way, the people getting screwed here aren't getting it as a result of the government, there's a lot of malicious accounting and action taken by Full Tilt here.
Bring on the Sales tax i say. People buy way too much stuff here anyway, the US gobbles up like 1/4 of the products in the world, despite having around 2-3% of the world population. Basic purchases aren't taxed anyway, anything with a sales tax generally isn't a basic necessity. People want more luxury items - cars, iphones, computers, big screen TVs, etc... The "effective tax rate of 30%" isn't being spent "in order to survive", these are purchases on things they don't really need to survive, but make life easier.