The proper solution, however, is that nobody should be able to trade off of insdier information. Because insider information inherently creates an unfair trading environment.
Still, if you allow some people to make trades based on inside information, you should, in justice, allow everyone to do so.
Perhaps. I haven't heard of that particular instance. It's not the only such event, however. If you dared you could to one about many police departments, including the FBI.
N.B.: In every case that I'm aware of, most of the police thought of themselves as just, upright, and honorable. But they didn't do anything to stop the thugs.
I cannot accept that unquestioning stance WRT laws. Not all laws benefit society, and some laws are so bad that those who break them are positively social benefactors. I will agree with you that in the particular case of Martha Stewart, the law was a valid law, but I have *strong* doubts that it is beinf enforced equally on all those who break it, and therefore I doubt that it should be considered a valid law. It *ought* to be a valid law, and I may be wrong. Perhaps it is equally enforced...but the evidence, such as it is, is strongly against that interpretation. (It's also not very convincing, however.)
If a police officer testifies that he believes your intent was one thing, and you say something else, he's likely to believe the police officer, even if he can't rule that way.
You'ld have been better off it you just hadn't said anything.
Remember Nixon and Clinton testifying to congress, and be very ready to doubt your memory in public. Also your visual and audio accuity.
Got your own lawyer, do you. OK. You're probably wealthy enough that you aren't a suspect.
You mean the public defender? They often work hand-in-glove with the police. And justice isn't what they are after. They are after appearing to follow the forms.
To be fair, a personal lawyer isn't after justice either. That OUGHT to be the job of the judge, but it doesn't seem that that's usually the case either.
The US legal system is a wierd cross between the triumph of bureaucracy and "might makes right". Justice has a very minor role. They've even stopped calling it the criminal justice system, most of the time.
Well, if I used FaceBook, this would inspire me to use adblock and block every ad they carry. Normally I just avoid sites that are too ad-heavy...this would inspire me, however.
The problem with "loser pays" is that if they are "bringing cases of questionable merit against people without the resources to defend themselves effectivelly", and they have a strong legal department, they will likely be able to outlast the party they are attacking, and thus win by default. So you will be required to pay their expenses.
IOW, it's not a solution. A solution might be to limit the amount each side can pay to a mutually agreed limit...but I can't imagine the corporations agreeing to that, as some people would choose to be their own lawyer...and nobody (just about nobody?) works for a corporation for free.
Actually, not permitting root logins via SSH was one of the points he repeated several times. He also said, explicitly, "There's no safety in high port numbers anymore.". Perhaps he's wrong, but he did consider your point.
Personally, I don't feel very exposed, so I'm not willing to do much more than that, plus picking a secure password. I may have set things up so that no SSH logins are possible in any way, but I'd need to check again to find out. (I'm not much of an administrator, and my system isn't internet facing, but as I never use SSH except in a browser, there's no reason to allow it.)
But did you notice that not all of the attacks were attempts to log into root? (I don't know why anyone would replace root with admin, but apparently enough people do that that was a secondary target. If I changed the root account's name it would be to something like "doofus" or "notHere". (I.e., easy to remember and short, but not easily predictable. So you'd need a "dictionary attack" on the account name as well as the password.) I don't feel threatened enough, however, to bother with that.
Are you asserting that the laws are actually enforced fairly?
I'm sorry, but we don't have a government of laws. We have a government where laws are found to use when there is political will, which is a much different thing.
No. Because. e.g., the mathematical lines have zero width. The mathematical abstractions of geometric figures are more perfect than any actual figures ever are. Because of this you can prove some things are possible that aren't (because they aren't actually perfect enough to do the implied rotations, e.g.). Also because of this you can't prove some things that you can actually do (within the limits of error of real figures). The example I previously mentioned was tri-secting an angle. You can actually do it, within the limits of error, but you can't prove it because the mathematical figures don't have limits of error.
But, to get back to the original argument, the real problem is that this reasoning about "geometric figures" is done using verbal symbols, so it doesn't solve the problem of those who can't easily mainipulate such symbols.
P.S.: Note that this was even true among the classical Greeks. Archimedes had several proofs depending, in essence, on infinitesimals, which you can't show in a drawn figure. (Several people have said that he was on the track of the invention of the Calculus. I'm not sure, but he certainly used pieces that were later turned into the theory of limits.)
Have you TAKEN classical geometry? Yes, it's taught, or it used to be taught. It's a series of statements, logical processes, and permitted rules of inference ABOUT squares, triangles, etc. You are not permitted to actually use the figures in the proof, they are only to allow you to visualize what the proof is about. (Yes, you need to draw construction lines, etc., but those aren't actually a part of the proof. They are just aides to visualization.)
N.B.: If this weren't true, then it would, indeed, be possible to trisect and angle via classical geometric methods. Because you CAN get close enough tha the width of the line hides the error.
Safe investments are rather limited. If it's actually safe, the return will be less than inflation...unless you are depending on inside information. And wrapping your life around it.
The system is broken and sick. It's not (or wasn't a few years ago) extremely broken, to the point where some minor adjustments wouldn't fix it. But the people in charge have made changes in the opposite direction.
OTOH, a violent revolution rarely makes things better, even eventually. It tends to bring violently psychotic sociopaths to the top rather then the rather bland sociopaths that the US currently has. Answer? I keep hoping for a technological fix, because I sure don't see how to implement a political one. (And the technological fix is going to require a lot of luck as several key points that are years to decades in the future. It could be a robot judge that actually enfoces equality before the law. Or something unforeseen. But it could just as easily, or even easier, be robot (or obedient) soldiers that wouldn't hesitate to kill whoever they are told to kill, even their friends and relatives. Which would solve it in a very different and unpleasant way.
P.S.: Have you noticed how much effort the US is putting into robotic soldiers? (I know that they aren't really robots, but their controllers can be kept under strict watch to ensure that they remain obedient, so it's similar.)
I see you trust the courts more than I do. Courts routinely grant frivolous warrants with little or no consideration of due adherence to constitutional guarantees.
That said, I would have obeyed a warrant, not because I think it was properly issued, but because I'm a coward. But if you're talking about "principled", principled would require that I believe the warrant was properly issued.
OTOH, expecting a better outcome depends on expecting the courts to honor justice over process and "good fellowship among equals". I don't expect that. This was a case of "might makes right", for certain definitions of right.
No. It's a noise level problem. MOST conspiracy theories are wrong. There are thousands of conspiracies happening at all times, and still most conspiracy theories are wrong. And it's not because the existing conspiracies are successfully remaining unpostulated.
So. MOST conspiracy theories are wrong. Possibly as many as 95% of them. But many of them are correct. How can you identify the correct ones? Did Castro arrange to have Kennedy shot? How do you know? Was 9/11 and inside job? How do you know?
So it's basically a noise-level problem. But there's the additional level of "people are reluctant to believe things that make them more uncomfortable if they believe them than if they deny them". It's not just cognitive dissonance, it's wider than that. So if you want to convince people you need more than a minimal level of proof. And if you're judging any particular conspiracy theory, you need to pay attention to how uncomfortable it would make you feel to believe it, and use that to adjust the weighing in favor of the conspiracy being true (or, if you want to believe it, of it being false).
If there's an answer, I don't know it. But I'm quite skeptical of official "explanations". Also of videos I've seen on TV. (I've been at a few events that TV covered. The coverage has always been "processed for entertainment value"[usually horror].)
There are many similarities, but not specifying DRM may be more like refusing to include a definition of mugging. I'm not sure. I *could* be a valid argument.
I think you need to either do a bit of systems analysis, or a bit of history reading. Either should serve to alter your viewpoint.
We vote out the Republicans, so we get Obama. McCain would probably have been worse, but there's no way to prove that. Third parties in a plurality based system don't stand a chance. We got the current parties when one of two prior parties was so thorougly trounced, that it died. Then the surviving party split in two. (I think they used to be called the Democratic-Republicans, but it's been a long time, so I'm not sure about that.)
Well, to be accurate it was to control and restrain the FEDERAL government, not all the governments. State governments were suppose to be nearly independent. That argument was lost during the Civil War which only incidentally freed the slaves, despite what history books tend to report. (The South was AFRAID that Lincoln would free the slaves...he didn't actually even try to do that until well into the war.)
That depends on what you think of as "society as a whole". On the whole I rather approve of internet anonymity. But I'm clearly aware that it has some disreputable aspects.
If you feel that a society is defined by the amount of control it exerts over people being impolite, then internet anonymity is a definite minus. And I know people who consider it VERY important that nobody ever swear or use foul language where they (or their kids) could encounter it. I tend to think of them as crazy, but they aren't rare.
If you feel that a society is defined by the amount of non-violent dissent it tolerates, then you get a very different answer.
Put it this way: Yes, it's bad for the government to collect detailed individual histories on each of it's citizens. But if it's going to do that anyway it would be nice to get some benefit from it.
When both choices are a mistake, what should you do?
Plurality voting ensures that only two parties have a reasonable chance of electing candidates. It needs to be replaced by some form of majority voting. Instant Runoff Voting is the easiest to explain, and for that reason alone is probably the best choice, even though I prefer Condorcet Voting.
Within the current system there doesn't seem to be any viable solution. (Yeah, there are LOTS of proposals. Some even get tried. But none solve the basic problem...when you only have two candidates, it's possible to buy them both before the election.)
Slashdot Mirror
The proper solution, however, is that nobody should be able to trade off of insdier information. Because insider information inherently creates an unfair trading environment.
Still, if you allow some people to make trades based on inside information, you should, in justice, allow everyone to do so.
Perhaps. I haven't heard of that particular instance. It's not the only such event, however. If you dared you could to one about many police departments, including the FBI.
N.B.: In every case that I'm aware of, most of the police thought of themselves as just, upright, and honorable. But they didn't do anything to stop the thugs.
I cannot accept that unquestioning stance WRT laws. Not all laws benefit society, and some laws are so bad that those who break them are positively social benefactors. I will agree with you that in the particular case of Martha Stewart, the law was a valid law, but I have *strong* doubts that it is beinf enforced equally on all those who break it, and therefore I doubt that it should be considered a valid law. It *ought* to be a valid law, and I may be wrong. Perhaps it is equally enforced...but the evidence, such as it is, is strongly against that interpretation. (It's also not very convincing, however.)
How do you prove innocent intent? You can't.
If a police officer testifies that he believes your intent was one thing, and you say something else, he's likely to believe the police officer, even if he can't rule that way.
You'ld have been better off it you just hadn't said anything.
Remember Nixon and Clinton testifying to congress, and be very ready to doubt your memory in public. Also your visual and audio accuity.
Remember the Army, and NEVER VOLUNTEER.
Got your own lawyer, do you. OK. You're probably wealthy enough that you aren't a suspect.
You mean the public defender? They often work hand-in-glove with the police. And justice isn't what they are after. They are after appearing to follow the forms.
To be fair, a personal lawyer isn't after justice either. That OUGHT to be the job of the judge, but it doesn't seem that that's usually the case either.
The US legal system is a wierd cross between the triumph of bureaucracy and "might makes right". Justice has a very minor role. They've even stopped calling it the criminal justice system, most of the time.
Who advertises on FaceBook? Send it to them. And tell them why.
Caution: This may not be effective. Some companies believe that any publicity is good publicity.
Well, if I used FaceBook, this would inspire me to use adblock and block every ad they carry. Normally I just avoid sites that are too ad-heavy...this would inspire me, however.
The problem with "loser pays" is that if they are "bringing cases of questionable merit against people without the resources to defend themselves effectivelly", and they have a strong legal department, they will likely be able to outlast the party they are attacking, and thus win by default. So you will be required to pay their expenses.
IOW, it's not a solution. A solution might be to limit the amount each side can pay to a mutually agreed limit...but I can't imagine the corporations agreeing to that, as some people would choose to be their own lawyer...and nobody (just about nobody?) works for a corporation for free.
Now that's not true. Yet.
Actually, not permitting root logins via SSH was one of the points he repeated several times. He also said, explicitly, "There's no safety in high port numbers anymore.". Perhaps he's wrong, but he did consider your point.
Personally, I don't feel very exposed, so I'm not willing to do much more than that, plus picking a secure password. I may have set things up so that no SSH logins are possible in any way, but I'd need to check again to find out. (I'm not much of an administrator, and my system isn't internet facing, but as I never use SSH except in a browser, there's no reason to allow it.)
But did you notice that not all of the attacks were attempts to log into root? (I don't know why anyone would replace root with admin, but apparently enough people do that that was a secondary target. If I changed the root account's name it would be to something like "doofus" or "notHere". (I.e., easy to remember and short, but not easily predictable. So you'd need a "dictionary attack" on the account name as well as the password.) I don't feel threatened enough, however, to bother with that.
Are you asserting that the laws are actually enforced fairly?
I'm sorry, but we don't have a government of laws. We have a government where laws are found to use when there is political will, which is a much different thing.
And I'm still an Nvidia fanboy.
Why?
That's how much you should trust MIT. What else is there to say?
No. Because. e.g., the mathematical lines have zero width. The mathematical abstractions of geometric figures are more perfect than any actual figures ever are. Because of this you can prove some things are possible that aren't (because they aren't actually perfect enough to do the implied rotations, e.g.). Also because of this you can't prove some things that you can actually do (within the limits of error of real figures). The example I previously mentioned was tri-secting an angle. You can actually do it, within the limits of error, but you can't prove it because the mathematical figures don't have limits of error.
But, to get back to the original argument, the real problem is that this reasoning about "geometric figures" is done using verbal symbols, so it doesn't solve the problem of those who can't easily mainipulate such symbols.
P.S.: Note that this was even true among the classical Greeks. Archimedes had several proofs depending, in essence, on infinitesimals, which you can't show in a drawn figure. (Several people have said that he was on the track of the invention of the Calculus. I'm not sure, but he certainly used pieces that were later turned into the theory of limits.)
Licensing the patent.
Have you TAKEN classical geometry? Yes, it's taught, or it used to be taught. It's a series of statements, logical processes, and permitted rules of inference ABOUT squares, triangles, etc. You are not permitted to actually use the figures in the proof, they are only to allow you to visualize what the proof is about. (Yes, you need to draw construction lines, etc., but those aren't actually a part of the proof. They are just aides to visualization.)
N.B.: If this weren't true, then it would, indeed, be possible to trisect and angle via classical geometric methods. Because you CAN get close enough tha the width of the line hides the error.
Safe investments are rather limited. If it's actually safe, the return will be less than inflation...unless you are depending on inside information. And wrapping your life around it.
The system is broken and sick. It's not (or wasn't a few years ago) extremely broken, to the point where some minor adjustments wouldn't fix it. But the people in charge have made changes in the opposite direction.
OTOH, a violent revolution rarely makes things better, even eventually. It tends to bring violently psychotic sociopaths to the top rather then the rather bland sociopaths that the US currently has. Answer? I keep hoping for a technological fix, because I sure don't see how to implement a political one. (And the technological fix is going to require a lot of luck as several key points that are years to decades in the future. It could be a robot judge that actually enfoces equality before the law. Or something unforeseen. But it could just as easily, or even easier, be robot (or obedient) soldiers that wouldn't hesitate to kill whoever they are told to kill, even their friends and relatives. Which would solve it in a very different and unpleasant way.
P.S.: Have you noticed how much effort the US is putting into robotic soldiers? (I know that they aren't really robots, but their controllers can be kept under strict watch to ensure that they remain obedient, so it's similar.)
I see you trust the courts more than I do. Courts routinely grant frivolous warrants with little or no consideration of due adherence to constitutional guarantees.
That said, I would have obeyed a warrant, not because I think it was properly issued, but because I'm a coward. But if you're talking about "principled", principled would require that I believe the warrant was properly issued.
OTOH, expecting a better outcome depends on expecting the courts to honor justice over process and "good fellowship among equals". I don't expect that. This was a case of "might makes right", for certain definitions of right.
No. It's a noise level problem. MOST conspiracy theories are wrong. There are thousands of conspiracies happening at all times, and still most conspiracy theories are wrong. And it's not because the existing conspiracies are successfully remaining unpostulated.
So. MOST conspiracy theories are wrong. Possibly as many as 95% of them. But many of them are correct. How can you identify the correct ones? Did Castro arrange to have Kennedy shot? How do you know? Was 9/11 and inside job? How do you know?
So it's basically a noise-level problem. But there's the additional level of "people are reluctant to believe things that make them more uncomfortable if they believe them than if they deny them". It's not just cognitive dissonance, it's wider than that. So if you want to convince people you need more than a minimal level of proof. And if you're judging any particular conspiracy theory, you need to pay attention to how uncomfortable it would make you feel to believe it, and use that to adjust the weighing in favor of the conspiracy being true (or, if you want to believe it, of it being false).
If there's an answer, I don't know it. But I'm quite skeptical of official "explanations". Also of videos I've seen on TV. (I've been at a few events that TV covered. The coverage has always been "processed for entertainment value"[usually horror].)
There are many similarities, but not specifying DRM may be more like refusing to include a definition of mugging. I'm not sure. I *could* be a valid argument.
I think you need to either do a bit of systems analysis, or a bit of history reading. Either should serve to alter your viewpoint.
We vote out the Republicans, so we get Obama. McCain would probably have been worse, but there's no way to prove that. Third parties in a plurality based system don't stand a chance. We got the current parties when one of two prior parties was so thorougly trounced, that it died. Then the surviving party split in two. (I think they used to be called the Democratic-Republicans, but it's been a long time, so I'm not sure about that.)
Well, to be accurate it was to control and restrain the FEDERAL government, not all the governments. State governments were suppose to be nearly independent. That argument was lost during the Civil War which only incidentally freed the slaves, despite what history books tend to report. (The South was AFRAID that Lincoln would free the slaves...he didn't actually even try to do that until well into the war.)
That depends on what you think of as "society as a whole". On the whole I rather approve of internet anonymity. But I'm clearly aware that it has some disreputable aspects.
If you feel that a society is defined by the amount of control it exerts over people being impolite, then internet anonymity is a definite minus. And I know people who consider it VERY important that nobody ever swear or use foul language where they (or their kids) could encounter it. I tend to think of them as crazy, but they aren't rare.
If you feel that a society is defined by the amount of non-violent dissent it tolerates, then you get a very different answer.
Put it this way:
Yes, it's bad for the government to collect detailed individual histories on each of it's citizens. But if it's going to do that anyway it would be nice to get some benefit from it.
When both choices are a mistake, what should you do?
Plurality voting ensures that only two parties have a reasonable chance of electing candidates. It needs to be replaced by some form of majority voting. Instant Runoff Voting is the easiest to explain, and for that reason alone is probably the best choice, even though I prefer Condorcet Voting.
Within the current system there doesn't seem to be any viable solution. (Yeah, there are LOTS of proposals. Some even get tried. But none solve the basic problem...when you only have two candidates, it's possible to buy them both before the election.)