I've been reading Slashdot for a few years now and for some reason I'm amazed every time this happens where I see a headline and/or read a summary, then later on when I read the article I find out that the original information was either misleading or completely inaccurate. You'd think I'd have learned by now.
It seems like this technology's usefulness went out the window years ago whenever nearly everyone started carrying cellphones with cameras around with them at work. A notice was posted at my work with the address and directions for where we were having an office party last year, so instead of writing it down I just snapped a picture with my phone. And when I pulled it up later it was easy to read on my phone, and I bet it would have been even easier to read if I had pulled it up on my computer. Anyone that has enough time to copy a document can probably snap a few pictures, getting at least the most important information from it.
I don't really see how you can think we should be to do "whatever we want" with a photo just because the government took it. Can I use photos of former/current presidents taken by government staff and then use them to imply (or even say outright) that those men (and perhaps women in the near future) have used and endorse my product when that's not true?
What McCandless is claiming is something he could sue over even if Dido herself did own the copyright of the photo because he's claiming the use of the photo violates his privacy rights as a citizen, not that she doesn't own it or that he didn't want it to be used outside of NASA purposes. Just because the government took the photo doesn't mean you can do something illegal with it, it just means that it's publicly available and you can use it in any way you could have legally used it if you can taken it yourself and were sole owner.
I want to point out again though, that I'm not in any way on McCandless' side here and don't think his claims are at all legitimate.
From my understand what you're talking about is copyright, which is not what this is about. McCandless is claiming that Dido used his good will and persona as the first astronaut to do an untethered space walk to boost album sales.
If a government photographer takes a picture of someone famous that doesn't mean that anyone can now take that publicly owned and available photo and use it to imply that the celebrity endorses their products, even if the celebrity is a government employee as well. However, this case still seems like a bunch of bull because McCandless is claiming that some people will see the album and either think "Woah, Bruce McCandles endorses this album it must be good" or "I'm totally gonna buy this because it has a picture of Bruce McCandless on the cover"* which seems unlikely.
*For some reason the shoppers seem to have watched way too much Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
You're door example makes absolutely no sense. If you forget to lock your door your house doesn't walk across the street into my house. If you set up a wireless router and don't set any type of encryption then you're broadcasting insecurely into the surrounding area, so don't complain if your information shows up into my house and I end up grabbing some information from you.
Then again, the new hot chick may figure out that she can move on to a hot rich guy and be done with you - so there are risks!
While I do applaud the planning you've put into this (I am always in favor of both helping the environment and making the women around me more attractive), I think the risk you mentioned is a bit unfounded. I mean if you can afford to get your butter face girlfriend/wife a new face, chances are you can afford to keep her around afterwards.
I'd also be curious to know what games he's played. He does (as you quoted) make a comparison to film and I think it's pretty clear some games (Metal Gear Solid 3&4, FFXIII) are moving towards being more interactive movies than other video games (say, Tetris or Counter Strike). How much different is a video game from a choose your own adventure book? Is that considered no longer a book now but a text adventure game?
So I agree with you, when we start defining what something is then we need to re-frame the discussion.
Legalize drugs? You sir must be the devil! The only things that could possibly lead to stopping much of the violent crime surrounding the cartels, cut costs while generating revenue, and allow people the same choice that we've given them with alcohol and tobacco! Won't you think of the children?
Borrowing someone's cell phone is probably the luckiest you'd get with a law like this. What if you are planning to do something dangerous? You're not gonna borrow a cell phone and have them remember asked, you might just kill them. Not to mention that this just creates a huge black market for faked phones/phone faking equipment. It seems like this isn't going to do much but create a more dangerous situation that feeds money to people doing illegal things. If someone is going to get caught because of this system, I'm sure they're stupid enough that they would have been caught anyway.
I do like the idea of a system that would make e-mail an official channel of communication. But a payment system would basically kill anonymity on the internet. If you consider that nearly every account you sign up for asks for an e-mail and that every e-mail would have to be hooked up to a credit/debit card for payments you could more than likely track down anyone online with a bit of effort. Also, it would kill those smaller e-mail services as people might be fine giving Google, MS, or Yahoo their payment information who would do that with a smaller service?
Also, it sounds way more like the big twist on an episode of 24 than a Bond movie. Jack Bauer is able to safely recover the uranium rods, 45 minutes later several dozen 7/11 are held up but the robbers take only cigarettes, one of the clerks killed a robber and we realize that they have the same tattoos are the terrorists. Ticktock ticktock ticktock.
You know, you might be on to something here. Depending on how long it took to that the test and whether or not people were allowed to smoke while taking it (it didn't see information about either in TFA but I just skimmed it), there could be a connection here. Perhaps non-smokers were able to more fully concentrate on the test while those that smoked over a pack a day ended up having a craving before the test was up and thus had a harder time concentrating (and achieved the lowest results).
I don't really understand what Google did besides auto-connect this girl with someone we was already in contact with. I have a gmail account and I had Buzz activated and every single person I've e-mailed from my gmail account was not automatically following me, nor did anyone I had never contacted suddenly appear on my contacts list.
Honestly this is how the article puts it: "In the original public version of Buzz, launched in February, the program compiled a list of the Gmail contacts the users most frequently e-mailed or chatted with and automatically started following those people. Those lists were made public, giving strangers access to the contacts of Buzz users." That doesn't even make any sense, why would your "most frequently e-mailed or chatted with" contacts be strangers? If the people you e-mail/chat with the most are people you have no idea who they are and how dangerous they are, then you have way bigger problems than them having your contacts list.
And it was a sexual user name. It wasn't a sexual predator or registered sex offender. I didn't even see anywhere in the article if they'd looked into who this person was. For all we know it was another 9 year old using sexual language because he's immature and thinks its funny.
The problem here isn't Google, it's parents/lawmakers not understanding what's happening and then reacting to it without real information. Now, I'm not going to pretend that the Google Buzz launch being opt out instead of opt in is okay with me. But this is a problem that capitalism solves itself, without the government. If it upset you that much that your contact list was shared with some people without your permission, stop using gmail/Buzz. If you want to send Google a letter saying you'll still use their services but are disappointed, that's fine too. But don't bring the government into this and don't have them pretend that this 9 year old was somehow put in anymore jeopardy than she (and her parents) had already her by regularly contacting this person.
Parents do need to play an important part in any child's upbringing and teaching them how to deal with problems. But isn't something wrong with a teacher and sees several teenagers assault another teenager in class/hallways and doesn't blink an eye?
Mod this AC up. Girls threw a can of red bull at another girl's head from a moving vehicle. That's not give someone a wedgie and take the lunch money behavior. And when the girl killed herself they showed how they felt about their actions by writing even more bad stuff about her on a memorial page. Normal teenagers can definitely be disposed to cruel behavior and acting without thinking, but they don't act this horrible and reckless towards someone and when their actions have consequences they show deep remorse. Something is wrong with the way these girls were raised.
I'm really confused about that too. The article doesn't mention the boys specifically doing anything mean to her, just that they've had sex with her. It even says that the girls started going after her after she dated a popular guy (I'm assuming he's one of the boys), so it sounds like at least one of them did like her and it made them jealous. I'm just wondering if these boys did anything besides have consensual sex with her and tell their friends. If they contributed to the actual harassment I hope they get the books thrown at the, but if it was just guys telling their friends they scored it would be an awful shame for them to get branded rapists.
I think you've got a great point here. The article I read about this earlier today said that they even wrote horrible things about her on a Facebook memorial page. Now I know that was after she was dead, but for all the people saying the "cyber" part doesn't mean anything think about how many of these students would have had the guts to go to an physical memorial service and shout demeaning things about a dead student.
There were clearly serious problems with the physical bullying (someone threw a red bull can at her out of a car, which could cause serious injury), but there's a definite mental component when you go home to check your e-mail or whatever else and you have a ton of messages saying that you're a whore and everyone hates you.
I can understand what you're trying to say, but the teachers saw kids hit the girl in the hallways. It doesn't matter if it's constant bullying or a one time incident, how does that go on without any sort of reprimand?
Slashdot Mirror
I've been reading Slashdot for a few years now and for some reason I'm amazed every time this happens where I see a headline and/or read a summary, then later on when I read the article I find out that the original information was either misleading or completely inaccurate. You'd think I'd have learned by now.
It seems like this technology's usefulness went out the window years ago whenever nearly everyone started carrying cellphones with cameras around with them at work. A notice was posted at my work with the address and directions for where we were having an office party last year, so instead of writing it down I just snapped a picture with my phone. And when I pulled it up later it was easy to read on my phone, and I bet it would have been even easier to read if I had pulled it up on my computer. Anyone that has enough time to copy a document can probably snap a few pictures, getting at least the most important information from it.
I don't really see how you can think we should be to do "whatever we want" with a photo just because the government took it. Can I use photos of former/current presidents taken by government staff and then use them to imply (or even say outright) that those men (and perhaps women in the near future) have used and endorse my product when that's not true?
What McCandless is claiming is something he could sue over even if Dido herself did own the copyright of the photo because he's claiming the use of the photo violates his privacy rights as a citizen, not that she doesn't own it or that he didn't want it to be used outside of NASA purposes. Just because the government took the photo doesn't mean you can do something illegal with it, it just means that it's publicly available and you can use it in any way you could have legally used it if you can taken it yourself and were sole owner.
I want to point out again though, that I'm not in any way on McCandless' side here and don't think his claims are at all legitimate.
From my understand what you're talking about is copyright, which is not what this is about. McCandless is claiming that Dido used his good will and persona as the first astronaut to do an untethered space walk to boost album sales.
If a government photographer takes a picture of someone famous that doesn't mean that anyone can now take that publicly owned and available photo and use it to imply that the celebrity endorses their products, even if the celebrity is a government employee as well. However, this case still seems like a bunch of bull because McCandless is claiming that some people will see the album and either think "Woah, Bruce McCandles endorses this album it must be good" or "I'm totally gonna buy this because it has a picture of Bruce McCandless on the cover"* which seems unlikely.
*For some reason the shoppers seem to have watched way too much Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
It also didn't hurt Sony that the PS3 was a blu-ray player.
You're door example makes absolutely no sense. If you forget to lock your door your house doesn't walk across the street into my house. If you set up a wireless router and don't set any type of encryption then you're broadcasting insecurely into the surrounding area, so don't complain if your information shows up into my house and I end up grabbing some information from you.
Then again, the new hot chick may figure out that she can move on to a hot rich guy and be done with you - so there are risks!
While I do applaud the planning you've put into this (I am always in favor of both helping the environment and making the women around me more attractive), I think the risk you mentioned is a bit unfounded. I mean if you can afford to get your butter face girlfriend/wife a new face, chances are you can afford to keep her around afterwards.
I'd also be curious to know what games he's played. He does (as you quoted) make a comparison to film and I think it's pretty clear some games (Metal Gear Solid 3&4, FFXIII) are moving towards being more interactive movies than other video games (say, Tetris or Counter Strike). How much different is a video game from a choose your own adventure book? Is that considered no longer a book now but a text adventure game?
So I agree with you, when we start defining what something is then we need to re-frame the discussion.
But we didn't wirk togehter you isnensitive cold!!
I bet you're not the type of person that overacts to things.
Legalize drugs? You sir must be the devil! The only things that could possibly lead to stopping much of the violent crime surrounding the cartels, cut costs while generating revenue, and allow people the same choice that we've given them with alcohol and tobacco! Won't you think of the children?
Borrowing someone's cell phone is probably the luckiest you'd get with a law like this. What if you are planning to do something dangerous? You're not gonna borrow a cell phone and have them remember asked, you might just kill them. Not to mention that this just creates a huge black market for faked phones/phone faking equipment. It seems like this isn't going to do much but create a more dangerous situation that feeds money to people doing illegal things. If someone is going to get caught because of this system, I'm sure they're stupid enough that they would have been caught anyway.
Theory = Awesome
Actuality = Horribly Consequences
I do like the idea of a system that would make e-mail an official channel of communication. But a payment system would basically kill anonymity on the internet. If you consider that nearly every account you sign up for asks for an e-mail and that every e-mail would have to be hooked up to a credit/debit card for payments you could more than likely track down anyone online with a bit of effort. Also, it would kill those smaller e-mail services as people might be fine giving Google, MS, or Yahoo their payment information who would do that with a smaller service?
Hot Tub Time Machine?
Um, I think it was a joke.
Also, it sounds way more like the big twist on an episode of 24 than a Bond movie. Jack Bauer is able to safely recover the uranium rods, 45 minutes later several dozen 7/11 are held up but the robbers take only cigarettes, one of the clerks killed a robber and we realize that they have the same tattoos are the terrorists. Ticktock ticktock ticktock.
You know, you might be on to something here. Depending on how long it took to that the test and whether or not people were allowed to smoke while taking it (it didn't see information about either in TFA but I just skimmed it), there could be a connection here. Perhaps non-smokers were able to more fully concentrate on the test while those that smoked over a pack a day ended up having a craving before the test was up and thus had a harder time concentrating (and achieved the lowest results).
Hell, the detonation of an elevator in space could do that.
I don't really understand what Google did besides auto-connect this girl with someone we was already in contact with. I have a gmail account and I had Buzz activated and every single person I've e-mailed from my gmail account was not automatically following me, nor did anyone I had never contacted suddenly appear on my contacts list.
Honestly this is how the article puts it: "In the original public version of Buzz, launched in February, the program compiled a list of the Gmail contacts the users most frequently e-mailed or chatted with and automatically started following those people. Those lists were made public, giving strangers access to the contacts of Buzz users." That doesn't even make any sense, why would your "most frequently e-mailed or chatted with" contacts be strangers? If the people you e-mail/chat with the most are people you have no idea who they are and how dangerous they are, then you have way bigger problems than them having your contacts list.
And it was a sexual user name. It wasn't a sexual predator or registered sex offender. I didn't even see anywhere in the article if they'd looked into who this person was. For all we know it was another 9 year old using sexual language because he's immature and thinks its funny.
The problem here isn't Google, it's parents/lawmakers not understanding what's happening and then reacting to it without real information. Now, I'm not going to pretend that the Google Buzz launch being opt out instead of opt in is okay with me. But this is a problem that capitalism solves itself, without the government. If it upset you that much that your contact list was shared with some people without your permission, stop using gmail/Buzz. If you want to send Google a letter saying you'll still use their services but are disappointed, that's fine too. But don't bring the government into this and don't have them pretend that this 9 year old was somehow put in anymore jeopardy than she (and her parents) had already her by regularly contacting this person.
Thank you! I'm sick of all these people saying my children are somehow my responsibility.
That is fantastic!
Parents do need to play an important part in any child's upbringing and teaching them how to deal with problems. But isn't something wrong with a teacher and sees several teenagers assault another teenager in class/hallways and doesn't blink an eye?
Mod this AC up. Girls threw a can of red bull at another girl's head from a moving vehicle. That's not give someone a wedgie and take the lunch money behavior. And when the girl killed herself they showed how they felt about their actions by writing even more bad stuff about her on a memorial page. Normal teenagers can definitely be disposed to cruel behavior and acting without thinking, but they don't act this horrible and reckless towards someone and when their actions have consequences they show deep remorse. Something is wrong with the way these girls were raised.
I'm really confused about that too. The article doesn't mention the boys specifically doing anything mean to her, just that they've had sex with her. It even says that the girls started going after her after she dated a popular guy (I'm assuming he's one of the boys), so it sounds like at least one of them did like her and it made them jealous. I'm just wondering if these boys did anything besides have consensual sex with her and tell their friends. If they contributed to the actual harassment I hope they get the books thrown at the, but if it was just guys telling their friends they scored it would be an awful shame for them to get branded rapists.
I think you've got a great point here. The article I read about this earlier today said that they even wrote horrible things about her on a Facebook memorial page. Now I know that was after she was dead, but for all the people saying the "cyber" part doesn't mean anything think about how many of these students would have had the guts to go to an physical memorial service and shout demeaning things about a dead student.
There were clearly serious problems with the physical bullying (someone threw a red bull can at her out of a car, which could cause serious injury), but there's a definite mental component when you go home to check your e-mail or whatever else and you have a ton of messages saying that you're a whore and everyone hates you.
I can understand what you're trying to say, but the teachers saw kids hit the girl in the hallways. It doesn't matter if it's constant bullying or a one time incident, how does that go on without any sort of reprimand?