That's not my dad - it's your mother, but it's easy to understand why you wouldn't recognize her. I mean - she was probably dimly lit under that streetlamp on the corner, wearing a sequined halter-top and spandex pants last time you saw her.
Waste of time? No. It's an important semantic distinction. Mistake is the term that anti-war people use to soften their language so they don't have to run around saying "crime against humanity" and politicians use to cover up failures.
If you gloss over the deaths of thousands of people as a mistake, then you're playing right into the hands of those who see war as just another political tool to be used wherever and whenever. It's might makes right on a larger scale, but is that how we really want our world to be?
I think you and i are actually on the same side of the overall argument, but your dismissive attitude certainly isn't winning me over. However, if that's the way you would rather play out this conversation...
Go Google for "arrogant" and "prick" and stop wasting everyone's time.
I am a Jew, and while i think anyone with that nick is likely to be a bigotted asshole, there is no crime in having it. I'm also an American, and i believe in freedom of speech even when that speech is racist, hateful, and just plain stupid. I'd rather convince them that they're wrong than silence them and encourage violent behavior to replace wrongheaded speech.
This reply to my comment should be modded at least as high as my comment was. It is relevant, provides new information and is from a primary source - three things that are far too often missing in Slashdot discussions.
Thanks for filling us in on a little more of the picture.
I agree that this is a stupid idea, but looking at it from the other side...
The government of Oregon has told people that they need more money to pay for public services such as upkeep on roads. They repeatedly offered a fair and balanced gas tax to help make up the difference, but the greedy, short-sighted, freeloading citizens rejected it and yet continued to complain about the state of the roads and other services. This forced the government to come up with crazy, lame-brained schemes that would serve the same purpose in an obfuscated way.
Taxes are what we pay for public service. Don't complain about the lack of services and cheer the tax cuts. (Unless you sincerely believe the money is being spent inefficiently, in which case you have a whole other problem.)
What self-respecting geek could pass up the chance to call it a "Light Side/Dark Side" bit! This "Steve Bellovin" sounds like a lightweight luser to me!
Anyway, how much evil can one bit do anyway? Perhaps it's only a quasi-evil bit.
When i no longer have hope that things can be fixed, then that's when i'll know it's time to leave. I'm discouraged now, but not yet ready to give up. I think that far too many Americans love "America", but don't really hold to heart the ideals upon which this nation was founded. If only they could understand . . . then their patriotism would be more than callous tribalism.
I just got back from a trip to NYC. I went to Liberty Island and remembered that it was recently-reviled France who gave us our most-cherished monument. I have never felt so patriotic as i did while visiting Ellis Island. To see the many different faces, stories, and cultures that are integral to America, that was inspiring. They came not because they loved the material America - the plains and mountains, rivers and forests. Though they saw possibilities there, they came because they loved the idea of America.
That idea has been lost to so many - those who love what they have - the comforts and artifacts of their lives. They want to preserve these things and try to keep them just as they are, not realizing that unless America is constantly growing and adapting in response to the ever-growing and ever-changing world, it is dying.
I do not love the flag. I do not love the President. I do not love the power we wield. I love America - its ideals, its dreams and hopes for itself, and the promise of what it could be.
I've never put an access-granting back door into an app, but i can certainly see the benefit of having them in certain situations. Most of the time i'd rather have to tell the client they are fucked and they need to reinstall rather than leave a potential security hole, but then the stuff i write is never that mission-critical.
(I have put in a semi-secret kill switch so that i can shut down an app rather than waiting for a sysadmin to do it for me. The sysadmins got pissed the first time i told them i had shut down the app, so now i just tell them it caught an error and shut down on its own to preserve data integrity. They never actually check the log to see if it's true for the same reason that they don't give me a prompt shutdown when i ask for it - they don't care about my app or my work because my immediate boss isn't their immediate boss. They just don't want anyone doing something that is supposed to be their self-given right as root.)
Re:Alex should have just waited
on
Half Mast
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· Score: 2, Insightful
It's not Karma. Pretending that a base desire for revenge is cosmically due is just an excuse. Sure, some people treated us like shit when we were young and geeky and powerless, but treating anyone - even those same jerks - like shit now that we're older and geeky and not so powerless just compounds the problem.
Ask yourself if your actions are making the net quality of life on Earth better or worse.
Dave - I keep hearing people complain about "privacy issues" when they talk about the internet. Since you're an Expert, i thought i'd ask you about it. What are these "privacy issues" and should we be worried about them?
I also wanted to ask about SPAM, since you are an Expert. I got lots of neat offers for goods and services every day, from sexually adventurous women (and men, and women and men, and animals, and women and animals, and men and animals, and women and men and animals, and turnips, and - you get the picture) to desperate Nigerians who need help moving their family fortunes out of their war-torn country. But i've never received any SPAM. What is SPAM (besides a tasty treat) and why is everyone always complaining about it?
One final question. You are an Expert who is in a band and has been involved with movies. Are the RIAA and MPAA really a bunch of soul-sucking ghouls whose Machiavellian business practices enslave artists and consumers alike just so that the top executives can buy new multi-million-dollar penises (penisii?) - i mean - homes and cars, or are they a bunch of fun-loving nuts who just want people to enjoy high-quality art (like the sci-fi thriller, "Jason X", and the equally astounding, "Britney Spears' Breasts") at a reasonable price, so they can devote their much-deserved income to feeding the hungry, and promoting liberty and justice for all?
Shameless (yet really totally sincere) brown nosing: DAVE BARRY RULEZ!
Gotta say his Song of Ice and Fire series ("A Game of Thrones" "A Storm of Swords" "A Clash of Kings" soon: "A Feast for Crows") is some of the best epic fantasy i've read in a long time.
Adjectives i'd use to describe it: Gritty, Realistic, Gripping, Brutal, Amazing, Character-Driven, Spooky
Good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people, and sometimes the bad people don't seem so bad and the good people don't seem so good. No punches are pulled. His low-magic fantasy seems more real than most historical fiction, and thus when he pulls out the hocus-pocus it really grabs you and sends chills down your spine. The characters are realistic and compelling, with clear and believable motivations - even the so-called bad-guys.
"A Game of Thrones" is out in paperback. Do yourself a favor and go pick it up.
I think using money as a significant metric of success is shallow and short-sighted, but if that's what curls your toes then here's your answer:
What about the amount of money that has been saved by companies and individuals who are using this? Would anyone care to guess at how much that would add up to? Thousands of dollars? Hundreds of thousands of dollars? Maybe even one meeellion dolars?
Everyone here needs to re-read the article and take a look at the website there.com. They are charging real money for the things you do and buy in game.
Want a new set of clothes? 2000 therebucks. Hoverboard? 1000 therebucks. Admission to an event? 500 therebucks. The exchange rate of therebucks to realbucks isn't set yet (and is probably subject to change depending on the popularity of the "game"), but the current rate for the reviewer was somewhere around 1600 therebucks for $1.
The "game" keeps track of what you spend and at the end of the month your credit card is charged. In essence, the micro-payments are stored up and charged on a monthly basis - something you can get away with easily in a closed environment like this, but which is much harder on the open web.
Speculation: There will probably be a minimum charge, and if the game isn't free then you'll no doubt be given a starting fund that is more or less equivalent to the amount you spent on the game.
Look at the developer section of the website. They keep control over the system. They have approval rights on everything you make and you essentially have to pay them a fee for each item you create. You can recoup that fee by selling the item to other therepeople, but it still fits into the overall economic system.
Speculation: there will never be an unlimited usage fee as one person suggested. Reason: it would flood the market. If i have unlimited funds then why wouldn't i buy 1000 hoverboards and give them away like candy? I suspect the game will always be you get what you pay for - no less and very little more.
Speculation: I'll bet the exchange rate will always be hundreds of therebucks to the dollar to make the money seem less real and more extravagant. If it's hard to do the conversion in your head and therebucks seem cheap, people will be more likely to buy and buy without keeping a running total of what it's actually costing them. On the other hand, if you're spending 1000 therebucks like it's a few cents (which it is) then it makes you feel like a high-roller. (Unless you think about what you're actually getting for the money, which is nothing really.)
Still, sounds interesting. You don't have to worry about peeing, working, studying, etc. - unlike life and most other mmorpgs. It's pay for play pure and simple, but with lots of possibility for different styles of play. I'll definitely give it another glance when I can.
It's a shame . . .
on
Earth as Art
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· Score: 2, Insightful
It's a shame that you have to get so far away to appreciate the beauty, what with all the intolerance, hatred and war getting in the way up close.
Their circular is very much copyrightable, but the prices in it are not. Kind of like how a history book is copyrightable, but the dates and names inside it are not.
I just reread my own post: I did not explicitly say they should continue the research in that post - that was a different post under the same article. Bad theghost! Bad! Bad!
Apparently the humor in the JP reference was not obvious to you. Next time i'll spell it out more clearly. (In case that was intentional rather than a mistake: constructing a straw man argument out of a throwaway movie reference might make you feel really smart, but it doesn't contribute much to the meaningful conversation and makes you seem like a pedantic troll.)
Worrying about it in 50 years when "Joe Terrorist" can do it is way too late, because by that time "Joe CIA" will have deployed the technology, and n "Joe Scientists" will have duplicated it in every tech-savvy country, some of whom may not be very friendly towards the others, and may even give or sell the tech to even less pleasant nations or groups. (Gasp! Shock! Outrage! No Way!)
Read the post again. I said they should continue with the research but they should keep in mind the potential problems.
"Expect the worst, train for the worst, and over-engineer everything..." And exactly how (or why) would we do that if we're not scheduled to worry about anything going wrong for another 50 years? To paraphrase the nonsense: "Don't worry, but prepare for the worst."
Which is more effective: the nuclear bomb, or the radiation shielding. To put your faith in the ability of defensive measures to catch up with the development of offensive ones is a potentially disastrous, irresponsible attitude.
I'm saying we should be thinking about (if not working on) the defensive measures right from the start, as part and parcel of the research. (Ideally we'd also make those defenses available to the entire world but that's a bit overly-optimistic too.)
It seems like you and i agree in general, but we differ in the magnitude of our concern.
That's a good point. We shouldn't stop research, but bringing up these ethical questions is vital and is what helps to make sure the Really Bad Thing doesn't happen.
We cannot let scientists (or anyone else) think that they work in a vacuum - that what they are doing is okay because they personally wouldn't dream of doing Really Bad Things with the knowledge they uncover. They should be thinking long and hard about the "what ifs".
I'd feel a whole lot better if schools taught as much about Einstein's political and ethical beliefs as they do about his academic pursuits. Same thing for Henry Ford and his beliefs vs. his technical innovations.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not my dad - it's your mother, but it's easy to understand why you wouldn't recognize her. I mean - she was probably dimly lit under that streetlamp on the corner, wearing a sequined halter-top and spandex pants last time you saw her.
Excellent. I know the picture i have of you there is not the most flattering, but it's all i could get on short notice.
(This is getting fun!)
Waste of time? No. It's an important semantic distinction. Mistake is the term that anti-war people use to soften their language so they don't have to run around saying "crime against humanity" and politicians use to cover up failures.
If you gloss over the deaths of thousands of people as a mistake, then you're playing right into the hands of those who see war as just another political tool to be used wherever and whenever. It's might makes right on a larger scale, but is that how we really want our world to be?
I think you and i are actually on the same side of the overall argument, but your dismissive attitude certainly isn't winning me over. However, if that's the way you would rather play out this conversation...
Go Google for "arrogant" and "prick" and stop wasting everyone's time.
War is usually a bad idea, but it's not a mistake. You can kill a few people with a mistake, but you have to work at war.
I am a Jew, and while i think anyone with that nick is likely to be a bigotted asshole, there is no crime in having it. I'm also an American, and i believe in freedom of speech even when that speech is racist, hateful, and just plain stupid. I'd rather convince them that they're wrong than silence them and encourage violent behavior to replace wrongheaded speech.
This reply to my comment should be modded at least as high as my comment was. It is relevant, provides new information and is from a primary source - three things that are far too often missing in Slashdot discussions.
Thanks for filling us in on a little more of the picture.
I agree that this is a stupid idea, but looking at it from the other side...
The government of Oregon has told people that they need more money to pay for public services such as upkeep on roads. They repeatedly offered a fair and balanced gas tax to help make up the difference, but the greedy, short-sighted, freeloading citizens rejected it and yet continued to complain about the state of the roads and other services. This forced the government to come up with crazy, lame-brained schemes that would serve the same purpose in an obfuscated way.
Taxes are what we pay for public service. Don't complain about the lack of services and cheer the tax cuts. (Unless you sincerely believe the money is being spent inefficiently, in which case you have a whole other problem.)
I wonder if Bioware is pissed? It's not the same as NWN, but it ain't that far.
What self-respecting geek could pass up the chance to call it a "Light Side/Dark Side" bit! This "Steve Bellovin" sounds like a lightweight luser to me!
Anyway, how much evil can one bit do anyway? Perhaps it's only a quasi-evil bit.
Of course, this still doesn't explain the lack of flying cars ...
We'll never see flying cars!
(There you go - we should be seeing them any day now.)
When i no longer have hope that things can be fixed, then that's when i'll know it's time to leave. I'm discouraged now, but not yet ready to give up. I think that far too many Americans love "America", but don't really hold to heart the ideals upon which this nation was founded. If only they could understand . . . then their patriotism would be more than callous tribalism.
I just got back from a trip to NYC. I went to Liberty Island and remembered that it was recently-reviled France who gave us our most-cherished monument. I have never felt so patriotic as i did while visiting Ellis Island. To see the many different faces, stories, and cultures that are integral to America, that was inspiring. They came not because they loved the material America - the plains and mountains, rivers and forests. Though they saw possibilities there, they came because they loved the idea of America.
That idea has been lost to so many - those who love what they have - the comforts and artifacts of their lives. They want to preserve these things and try to keep them just as they are, not realizing that unless America is constantly growing and adapting in response to the ever-growing and ever-changing world, it is dying.
I do not love the flag. I do not love the President. I do not love the power we wield. I love America - its ideals, its dreams and hopes for itself, and the promise of what it could be.
Maybe i'll move to Japan when things get too ugly under the Ashcroft regime! Guess i'd better learn Japanese just in case - time to watch more anime!
I've never put an access-granting back door into an app, but i can certainly see the benefit of having them in certain situations. Most of the time i'd rather have to tell the client they are fucked and they need to reinstall rather than leave a potential security hole, but then the stuff i write is never that mission-critical.
(I have put in a semi-secret kill switch so that i can shut down an app rather than waiting for a sysadmin to do it for me. The sysadmins got pissed the first time i told them i had shut down the app, so now i just tell them it caught an error and shut down on its own to preserve data integrity.
They never actually check the log to see if it's true for the same reason that they don't give me a prompt shutdown when i ask for it - they don't care about my app or my work because my immediate boss isn't their immediate boss. They just don't want anyone doing something that is supposed to be their self-given right as root.)
It's not Karma. Pretending that a base desire for revenge is cosmically due is just an excuse. Sure, some people treated us like shit when we were young and geeky and powerless, but treating anyone - even those same jerks - like shit now that we're older and geeky and not so powerless just compounds the problem.
Ask yourself if your actions are making the net quality of life on Earth better or worse.
Yes, i know, "one question per post." You can either pick your favorite or you can just assume that this is my real question:
Dave - I think you're pretty funny and i think i'm pretty funny. This is me trying to be funny. Would you please try to be funny in response to this?
Dave - I keep hearing people complain about "privacy issues" when they talk about the internet. Since you're an Expert, i thought i'd ask you about it. What are these "privacy issues" and should we be worried about them?
I also wanted to ask about SPAM, since you are an Expert. I got lots of neat offers for goods and services every day, from sexually adventurous women (and men, and women and men, and animals, and women and animals, and men and animals, and women and men and animals, and turnips, and - you get the picture) to desperate Nigerians who need help moving their family fortunes out of their war-torn country. But i've never received any SPAM. What is SPAM (besides a tasty treat) and why is everyone always complaining about it?
One final question. You are an Expert who is in a band and has been involved with movies. Are the RIAA and MPAA really a bunch of soul-sucking ghouls whose Machiavellian business practices enslave artists and consumers alike just so that the top executives can buy new multi-million-dollar penises (penisii?) - i mean - homes and cars, or are they a bunch of fun-loving nuts who just want people to enjoy high-quality art (like the sci-fi thriller, "Jason X", and the equally astounding, "Britney Spears' Breasts") at a reasonable price, so they can devote their much-deserved income to feeding the hungry, and promoting liberty and justice for all?
Shameless (yet really totally sincere) brown nosing: DAVE BARRY RULEZ!
Gotta say his Song of Ice and Fire series ("A Game of Thrones" "A Storm of Swords" "A Clash of Kings" soon: "A Feast for Crows") is some of the best epic fantasy i've read in a long time.
Adjectives i'd use to describe it:
Gritty, Realistic, Gripping, Brutal, Amazing, Character-Driven, Spooky
Good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people, and sometimes the bad people don't seem so bad and the good people don't seem so good. No punches are pulled. His low-magic fantasy seems more real than most historical fiction, and thus when he pulls out the hocus-pocus it really grabs you and sends chills down your spine. The characters are realistic and compelling, with clear and believable motivations - even the so-called bad-guys.
"A Game of Thrones" is out in paperback. Do yourself a favor and go pick it up.
I think using money as a significant metric of success is shallow and short-sighted, but if that's what curls your toes then here's your answer:
What about the amount of money that has been saved by companies and individuals who are using this? Would anyone care to guess at how much that would add up to? Thousands of dollars? Hundreds of thousands of dollars? Maybe even one meeellion dolars?
CNN Article
"I'm a karmawhore, and I'm okay.
I sleep all night and I work all day."
Everyone here needs to re-read the article and take a look at the website there.com. They are charging real money for the things you do and buy in game.
Want a new set of clothes? 2000 therebucks. Hoverboard? 1000 therebucks. Admission to an event? 500 therebucks. The exchange rate of therebucks to realbucks isn't set yet (and is probably subject to change depending on the popularity of the "game"), but the current rate for the reviewer was somewhere around 1600 therebucks for $1.
The "game" keeps track of what you spend and at the end of the month your credit card is charged. In essence, the micro-payments are stored up and charged on a monthly basis - something you can get away with easily in a closed environment like this, but which is much harder on the open web.
Speculation: There will probably be a minimum charge, and if the game isn't free then you'll no doubt be given a starting fund that is more or less equivalent to the amount you spent on the game.
Look at the developer section of the website. They keep control over the system. They have approval rights on everything you make and you essentially have to pay them a fee for each item you create. You can recoup that fee by selling the item to other therepeople, but it still fits into the overall economic system.
Speculation: there will never be an unlimited usage fee as one person suggested. Reason: it would flood the market. If i have unlimited funds then why wouldn't i buy 1000 hoverboards and give them away like candy? I suspect the game will always be you get what you pay for - no less and very little more.
Speculation: I'll bet the exchange rate will always be hundreds of therebucks to the dollar to make the money seem less real and more extravagant. If it's hard to do the conversion in your head and therebucks seem cheap, people will be more likely to buy and buy without keeping a running total of what it's actually costing them. On the other hand, if you're spending 1000 therebucks like it's a few cents (which it is) then it makes you feel like a high-roller. (Unless you think about what you're actually getting for the money, which is nothing really.)
Still, sounds interesting. You don't have to worry about peeing, working, studying, etc. - unlike life and most other mmorpgs. It's pay for play pure and simple, but with lots of possibility for different styles of play. I'll definitely give it another glance when I can.
It's a shame that you have to get so far away to appreciate the beauty, what with all the intolerance, hatred and war getting in the way up close.
Their circular is very much copyrightable, but the prices in it are not. Kind of like how a history book is copyrightable, but the dates and names inside it are not.
I just reread my own post: I did not explicitly say they should continue the research in that post - that was a different post under the same article. Bad theghost! Bad! Bad!
Apparently the humor in the JP reference was not obvious to you. Next time i'll spell it out more clearly. (In case that was intentional rather than a mistake: constructing a straw man argument out of a throwaway movie reference might make you feel really smart, but it doesn't contribute much to the meaningful conversation and makes you seem like a pedantic troll.)
Worrying about it in 50 years when "Joe Terrorist" can do it is way too late, because by that time "Joe CIA" will have deployed the technology, and n "Joe Scientists" will have duplicated it in every tech-savvy country, some of whom may not be very friendly towards the others, and may even give or sell the tech to even less pleasant nations or groups. (Gasp! Shock! Outrage! No Way!)
Read the post again. I said they should continue with the research but they should keep in mind the potential problems.
"Expect the worst, train for the worst, and over-engineer everything..."
And exactly how (or why) would we do that if we're not scheduled to worry about anything going wrong for another 50 years? To paraphrase the nonsense: "Don't worry, but prepare for the worst."
Which is more effective: the nuclear bomb, or the radiation shielding. To put your faith in the ability of defensive measures to catch up with the development of offensive ones is a potentially disastrous, irresponsible attitude.
I'm saying we should be thinking about (if not working on) the defensive measures right from the start, as part and parcel of the research. (Ideally we'd also make those defenses available to the entire world but that's a bit overly-optimistic too.)
It seems like you and i agree in general, but we differ in the magnitude of our concern.
That's a good point. We shouldn't stop research, but bringing up these ethical questions is vital and is what helps to make sure the Really Bad Thing doesn't happen.
We cannot let scientists (or anyone else) think that they work in a vacuum - that what they are doing is okay because they personally wouldn't dream of doing Really Bad Things with the knowledge they uncover. They should be thinking long and hard about the "what ifs".
I'd feel a whole lot better if schools taught as much about Einstein's political and ethical beliefs as they do about his academic pursuits. Same thing for Henry Ford and his beliefs vs. his technical innovations.