There's nothing wrong with my math skills, it's the article which contradicts itself. They say a pack a day at one point, but if you plug in 20 months, yes, it works out to 2 packs a day.
Look, I'm just explaining the government's supposed rationale. I don't necessarily agree with it either.
One striking difference between smoking and exercising, though, is that you don't hurt anybody else by exercising. Unless you run someone over while jogging, I guess.
How about doing the damn job your employer is paying you for? Is that far out or what?
Some people have a hard time doing work if their environment sucks. Thus the fixation on ergonomics. Think of cube decorations as "mental ergonomics" if you want.
Hey, did you ever hear back from that guy? He makes such a big deal out of bad science it would be ridiculous if he failed to even respond to you.
Thanks for correcting both him and me. I guess I shouldn't believe everything I read online, but I thought at least this site would be safe since a lot of his other explanations are right on...
It's taxation masquerading as the Gov't helping people quit smoking, and generating revenue at the same time.
No, it's not just another way for the government to jerk money out of you. Cigarette smokers cost society big bucks. Killing themselves may be their choice, but we're all forced to pay when they end up on Medicare in the hospital dying of lung cancer. The tobacco tax is ostensibly to offset the cost to society of treating these people, as well as the people they affect through their secondhand smoke.
The guy in the article ended up owing $2500. That money could help treat him when he inevitably ends up in a hospital.
let the smoking masses get back to systematically killing themselves.
I would agree, if their irresponsible behavior only impacted themselves. Unfortunately, it doesn't. So they pay.
I say this is an ex-smoker. Don't think I'm trying to demonize these people, but they must be made to pay for their negative impacts on society.
4. Don't give the government more power then it's already trying to take.
GAAAAAH. Please excuse my profanity for a moment: where the FUCK did I mention the government? Where did I mention a law? Where did I ever indicate that this should be anything other than a safety feature, enabled by default, which could be disabled by the user if they want?
Do you have a problem with safeties on guns? Those are MANDATED by law. This wouldn't be.
Oh, and don't even TRY the argument that you shouldn't be forced to turn off a setting if you don't want to -- if you use Windows you ALREADY have to do a ton of shit just to make the system secure. This is one little tiny thing you would have to disable if you are one of those very rare people who needs emergency dialing ability.
What if you had a remote heart monitor that was supposed to call 911 without your intervention and the OS/Modem software then didn't allow it?
If you're running a remote heart monitor on a platform which is susceptible to viruses, you already have significant problems.
Your desire is not thought out at all and that sort of knee jerk "it shouldn't be allowed to do that" reaction is what is taking us down OS/application/ISP regulation rules hell.
For I think the fourth time now, I NEVER said this should be a law or required by regulation. It's just common sense. If you require your computer to be able to dial the emergency response number for whatever reason, you could just disable the interlock. Which is all this is -- a safety interlock.
If you think I'm advocating regulation, you're hallucinating.
Wow, I don't know what part of the country you live in, but around here you could potentially go to JAIL for abusing the 911 service like that. Unless there is immediate, serious risk of harm to people, you should use the local police phone number to report bad drivers, not the emergency service.
A couple years ago I saw a drunk driver slam into a curb and jump his car about 5 feet in the air at around 2:00 AM. I called the local police and had absolutely no trouble getting through to dispatch. It was not a 911 kind of situation.
In fact, after following the police and giving them my account of the incident I was actually scolded by one of the officers for not pulling over first before calling on my cell phone.
I dont think so. First of all, 911 is not an emergency number everywhere in the world.
Thus my use of the term "emergency response number" instead of "911" in the very sentence you quoted. Why are people so quick to criticize when they haven't even read my statement carefully?
And ofcourse ppl might want to use the computer as an emergency service (Not with MS Win though;)) , like dial 911 if the microphones in your yard detect a shotgun going off
Then, of course, it could be disabled. I never, anywhere, suggested that this should be legally mandatory. It is precisely the same concept as a safety on a gun (except than gun safeties, I think, ARE mandated by law).
Honestly, I don't see why everyone is so riled about my comment. They are reading into it what they want to see, not what I actually meant.
A phone shouldn't be allowed to call any number it's dialled to call? Does that sounds a little big-brother-ish?
Don't unfairly truncate my statement. I said without explicit authorization. And I never mentioned the word "law" anywhere, nor had I even imagined making this a law. That came from YOUR mind.
What if I bring my computer over to the UK, where the emergency number isn't 911?
In that case you would presumably be running the UK version of Windows which would be programmed with the appropriate emergency number.
I know it's not the universal number. Obviously the thing would have to be programmed with whatever the local emergency response number is.
And I should clarify that I am not advocating a law here, just saying it would be nice if OS makers would voluntarily add this sort of safety feature. As I said to the other person who responded to my comment, this is no different than a safety on a gun. It doesn't restrict your use, it simply helps prevent accidents.
Imagine if there was a radio signal you could emit that would cause all handguns in the vicinity to fire -- that's essentially what this virus did. How is it unreasonable to put a safety system in place?
Something funny comes to mind, where a modem could be DOSed by a virus that tells the OS that ALL numbers are emergency.
It's a tradeoff. It seems preferable to DoS people's modems than the emergency response service.
You mean like printers should not be allowed to print images of money?
That's not what I said. I said it should require explicit authorization from the user. For example, a dialog box which says "Your modem is attempting to dial 911 -- do you wish to allow this operation?"
It's no different than having a safety on a gun. The printer comparison is just a strawman.
This shouldn't even be possible. The operating system should not allow a modem to dial an emergency response number without explicit authorization from the user.
This isn't a dig at Microsoft... Linux doesn't prevent it either. But perhaps such a safety feature should be incorporated directly into all modems.
Of course, some people use their modem as a voice dialer and talk on the phone using a mic (I don't understand why, but they do). In that case, they would have to be able to dial 911 quickly in case of an emergency.
I'm not sure what the correct solution is, but what is certain is that this kind of thing just shouldn't be possible.
I'm all for individual rights, but in my opinion, if you aren't willing to completely blend yourselves into a single "composite person" with joint rights and responsibility over each others' lives, you should not be getting married.
It is legal to hire a private investigator to follow your spouse around, why should it not also be legal for a wife to keep track of her husband's activities herself? If you do not want to give up your rights as an individual to your spouse, don't get married.
if the images in GTA or Manhunt don't offend you, you've already been desensitized to a dangerous level.
First, I never said the images were not offensive. I simply don't believe that they are capable of spontaneously corrupting my morals. Second, if you believe that people who play these games are dangerously desensitized, you had better run for the hills because you are literally surrounded by millions of people playing these games.
I agree with the previous poster I think that escapism and fantasy are fine, but socially deviant fantasies are a clear sign that you need help.
Something which millions of people indulge in cannot by any definition be "socially deviant."
What is funny and makes you 100% wrong is that, it wasn't you! To justify something because of your personal experience is valid only for you.
Apparently you are incapable of comprehending simple logic. If in one case event X is followed by event Y, and in another case event X is not followed by event Y, we cannot logically conclude that event X, on its own, causes event Y.
What we CAN conclude is that violent people commit violent acts.
Hi, Is it just me, or does somebody at Slashdot have a personal vendeta against The Society for Correct Spelling?
It wasn't a spelling error. The person who typed "T-Moblile" didn't do so because they didn't know how to spell it. It was a typo. An error, but of a different kind.
What you should be talking about is The Society for Correct Editing.
Have you even read my post? Those old songs still get pirated to this day! As I have written, they are still on P2P today.
That proves nothing other than the weird tendency of people to hoard stuff, even stuff that sucks.
My little kid wanted to eat, can you imagine? So that was the end of our dream. Now I always say: fuck dreams.
Newsflash: the world is against you. You want to succeed? Work hard. Get a second job. Do two gigs a night. You wanted to feed your kid based on a dream? You're an irresponsible parent if that's the case.
I say all this as a person who hasn't downloaded an MP3 in years. I think it's a wrong thing to do. But your indignation at P2P is stupid. This "revolution" is inevitable whether you like it or not. So you can choose to work for your dreams or you can give up and be a whiny bitch. I see you've chosen the latter.
Essentially, Windows Media DRM can require a digitally signed audio driver which accepts encrypted input. It simply won't talk to an "untrusted" driver (such as TotalRecorder).
The data STILL has to be decrypted before it hits the sound card hardware. If it's decrypted in memory somewhere, it can be saved to disk.
I could imagine an actual sound card that only accepted encrypted input, but what's stopping somebody from opening up the ROM which contains the decryption key in exactly the same manner than DeCSS was broken?
The entire exercise is stupid and pointless. You can't allow people to use information without, well, decrypting it somewhere.
While I agree the situation is not ideal, it's more important to incarcerate violent criminals than nonviolent ones. Putting this person away for 5 years, for instance, would tie up a jail cell for 5 years that could instead have been used to incarcerate a violent offender.
Building larger prisons isn't necessarily the solution. At least in the United States, that tends to lead to those new cells being filled by nonviolent drug offenders and minorities.
'What has happened in Alabama is that four companies participated in the training of Devin... to kill three men,'
I can't believe he can seriously make this argument. I've played the same game and seen the same things in that game as this kid did. I have no desire to commit violent acts because of that.
What happened here is that an individual who was predisposed to violent behavior saw some other violent behavior and (perhaps) modeled it.
According to this guy's sick logic, we should not report crimes in the newspapers or on television because the details of those crimes will motivate other people to commit them. While it is true that people do copycat crimes, they do them because they are criminals, not because of what they saw.
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There's nothing wrong with my math skills, it's the article which contradicts itself. They say a pack a day at one point, but if you plug in 20 months, yes, it works out to 2 packs a day.
One striking difference between smoking and exercising, though, is that you don't hurt anybody else by exercising. Unless you run someone over while jogging, I guess.
Some people have a hard time doing work if their environment sucks. Thus the fixation on ergonomics. Think of cube decorations as "mental ergonomics" if you want.
Thanks for correcting both him and me. I guess I shouldn't believe everything I read online, but I thought at least this site would be safe since a lot of his other explanations are right on...
No, it's not just another way for the government to jerk money out of you. Cigarette smokers cost society big bucks. Killing themselves may be their choice, but we're all forced to pay when they end up on Medicare in the hospital dying of lung cancer. The tobacco tax is ostensibly to offset the cost to society of treating these people, as well as the people they affect through their secondhand smoke.
The guy in the article ended up owing $2500. That money could help treat him when he inevitably ends up in a hospital.
let the smoking masses get back to systematically killing themselves.
I would agree, if their irresponsible behavior only impacted themselves. Unfortunately, it doesn't. So they pay.
I say this is an ex-smoker. Don't think I'm trying to demonize these people, but they must be made to pay for their negative impacts on society.
The tax was $2 a pack. $2500 / $2/pack / 365 days/yr / 1 pack/day = 3.4 years of smoking.
Take care of themselves in what way? What option do I have now to prevent my computer from dialing 911?
Thanks for the apology, it's a rare thing on Slashdot.
GAAAAAH. Please excuse my profanity for a moment: where the FUCK did I mention the government? Where did I mention a law? Where did I ever indicate that this should be anything other than a safety feature, enabled by default, which could be disabled by the user if they want?
Do you have a problem with safeties on guns? Those are MANDATED by law. This wouldn't be.
Oh, and don't even TRY the argument that you shouldn't be forced to turn off a setting if you don't want to -- if you use Windows you ALREADY have to do a ton of shit just to make the system secure. This is one little tiny thing you would have to disable if you are one of those very rare people who needs emergency dialing ability.
If you're running a remote heart monitor on a platform which is susceptible to viruses, you already have significant problems.
Your desire is not thought out at all and that sort of knee jerk "it shouldn't be allowed to do that" reaction is what is taking us down OS/application/ISP regulation rules hell.
For I think the fourth time now, I NEVER said this should be a law or required by regulation. It's just common sense. If you require your computer to be able to dial the emergency response number for whatever reason, you could just disable the interlock. Which is all this is -- a safety interlock.
If you think I'm advocating regulation, you're hallucinating.
A couple years ago I saw a drunk driver slam into a curb and jump his car about 5 feet in the air at around 2:00 AM. I called the local police and had absolutely no trouble getting through to dispatch. It was not a 911 kind of situation.
In fact, after following the police and giving them my account of the incident I was actually scolded by one of the officers for not pulling over first before calling on my cell phone.
Thus my use of the term "emergency response number" instead of "911" in the very sentence you quoted. Why are people so quick to criticize when they haven't even read my statement carefully?
And ofcourse ppl might want to use the computer as an emergency service (Not with MS Win though ;)) , like dial 911 if the microphones in your yard detect a shotgun going off
Then, of course, it could be disabled. I never, anywhere, suggested that this should be legally mandatory. It is precisely the same concept as a safety on a gun (except than gun safeties, I think, ARE mandated by law).
Honestly, I don't see why everyone is so riled about my comment. They are reading into it what they want to see, not what I actually meant.
Don't unfairly truncate my statement. I said without explicit authorization. And I never mentioned the word "law" anywhere, nor had I even imagined making this a law. That came from YOUR mind.
What if I bring my computer over to the UK, where the emergency number isn't 911?
In that case you would presumably be running the UK version of Windows which would be programmed with the appropriate emergency number.
And I should clarify that I am not advocating a law here, just saying it would be nice if OS makers would voluntarily add this sort of safety feature. As I said to the other person who responded to my comment, this is no different than a safety on a gun. It doesn't restrict your use, it simply helps prevent accidents.
Imagine if there was a radio signal you could emit that would cause all handguns in the vicinity to fire -- that's essentially what this virus did. How is it unreasonable to put a safety system in place?
Something funny comes to mind, where a modem could be DOSed by a virus that tells the OS that ALL numbers are emergency.
It's a tradeoff. It seems preferable to DoS people's modems than the emergency response service.
That's not what I said. I said it should require explicit authorization from the user. For example, a dialog box which says "Your modem is attempting to dial 911 -- do you wish to allow this operation?"
It's no different than having a safety on a gun. The printer comparison is just a strawman.
This isn't a dig at Microsoft... Linux doesn't prevent it either. But perhaps such a safety feature should be incorporated directly into all modems.
Of course, some people use their modem as a voice dialer and talk on the phone using a mic (I don't understand why, but they do). In that case, they would have to be able to dial 911 quickly in case of an emergency.
I'm not sure what the correct solution is, but what is certain is that this kind of thing just shouldn't be possible.
It is legal to hire a private investigator to follow your spouse around, why should it not also be legal for a wife to keep track of her husband's activities herself? If you do not want to give up your rights as an individual to your spouse, don't get married.
First, I never said the images were not offensive. I simply don't believe that they are capable of spontaneously corrupting my morals. Second, if you believe that people who play these games are dangerously desensitized, you had better run for the hills because you are literally surrounded by millions of people playing these games.
I agree with the previous poster I think that escapism and fantasy are fine, but socially deviant fantasies are a clear sign that you need help.
Something which millions of people indulge in cannot by any definition be "socially deviant."
Apparently you are incapable of comprehending simple logic. If in one case event X is followed by event Y, and in another case event X is not followed by event Y, we cannot logically conclude that event X, on its own, causes event Y.
What we CAN conclude is that violent people commit violent acts.
If you can even pretend to do the things that go on it that game you should be concerned about your mental health and morality.
If you feel your morality is threatened by images then maybe you should be concerned about your control over your mind. I.e., your sanity.
It wasn't a spelling error. The person who typed "T-Moblile" didn't do so because they didn't know how to spell it. It was a typo. An error, but of a different kind.
What you should be talking about is The Society for Correct Editing.
That proves nothing other than the weird tendency of people to hoard stuff, even stuff that sucks.
My little kid wanted to eat, can you imagine? So that was the end of our dream. Now I always say: fuck dreams.
Newsflash: the world is against you. You want to succeed? Work hard. Get a second job. Do two gigs a night. You wanted to feed your kid based on a dream? You're an irresponsible parent if that's the case.
I say all this as a person who hasn't downloaded an MP3 in years. I think it's a wrong thing to do. But your indignation at P2P is stupid. This "revolution" is inevitable whether you like it or not. So you can choose to work for your dreams or you can give up and be a whiny bitch. I see you've chosen the latter.
I bet in 10 years it'll be illegal to own a microphone -- at least, any microphone capable of producing a high-quality recording.
The data STILL has to be decrypted before it hits the sound card hardware. If it's decrypted in memory somewhere, it can be saved to disk.
I could imagine an actual sound card that only accepted encrypted input, but what's stopping somebody from opening up the ROM which contains the decryption key in exactly the same manner than DeCSS was broken?
The entire exercise is stupid and pointless. You can't allow people to use information without, well, decrypting it somewhere.
Building larger prisons isn't necessarily the solution. At least in the United States, that tends to lead to those new cells being filled by nonviolent drug offenders and minorities.
I can't believe he can seriously make this argument. I've played the same game and seen the same things in that game as this kid did. I have no desire to commit violent acts because of that.
What happened here is that an individual who was predisposed to violent behavior saw some other violent behavior and (perhaps) modeled it.
According to this guy's sick logic, we should not report crimes in the newspapers or on television because the details of those crimes will motivate other people to commit them. While it is true that people do copycat crimes, they do them because they are criminals, not because of what they saw.