But I *do* believe it perfectly likely that Perl will be so used.
Infact I'm sure of it. I've seen dozens of examples of it myself.
The law is stupid -- as written it basically bans all software. Certainly all developer-software. (but there's been plenty of attacks carried out by say MS-Word too.)
It's not about "being sexy", but about succesfully reproducing (and having that offspring succesfully reproduce).
For most of human existence, that has meant, basically, surviving. It's only in the last perhaps 1000 years or so that 90% of the humans born *haven't* died before reaching maturity.
Today it's sorta different, but still not about being sexy. It may be sexy to be a popstar, but I'm still not so sure the average (atleast female) postar has more kids than the average soccer-mom.
Okay, so for males it matters more, assuming they take advantage of their sexyness.
I agree this is an absolutely horrible idea. But even if it was really done, it'd still have no effect whatsoever, for two reasons:
First, for anyone carrying secret information more valuable than whatever punishment is attached to not handing over your private keys, it's best to just not hand the keys over and take your chanses.
Secondly, there's this concept called plausible denyability. It's not new, it is atleast a decade or two old. An example of how this is done in TrueCrypt (an GPLed encryption-utility for Windows and Unix that encrypts whole partitions or just filesystem-image-files that can then be mounted only by knowing the secret key)
It works like this: Say you've got a 100GB partition with an encrypted filesystem on it. The filesystem stored on this partition currently has 60GB in it, mostly lewd videos of your girlfriend.
What the government doesn't know, and *cannot* prove is that the 40GB of *unused* space contain a second encrypted filesystem, encrypted with a different key that you *didn't* tell the government about.
TrueCrypt works so that empty space is always filled with random noise. And the encryption used is such that unless you know the key, the encrypted filesystem is indistinguishable from random noise.
What are they gonna do ? Imprison you for not handing over the keys to a filesystem that may not even be there ? And for which they have no indication whatsoever that it exists ? (if you want to create a second "inner volume" in the free space or not is optional, and the default is not to do it.) Even the precense of TrueCryprt is perfectly well explained in this case: You need it to access the "outer" encrypted volume, the one you *DID* hand over the keys to. The one holding moderately embarassing but not really important stuff.
The definition said "often" with a political, religious or ideological objective
I agree the definition would be marginally better if it removed that word, atleast standard muggings would no longer qualify. A definiton of terrorism which leads to all violent crimes being terrorism is useless. (unless you want to justify anything and everything as "war against terror")
No they can't. What would be the rationale for this ?
If I buy a new house, then repaint the bedroom green, then half a year later it turns out that one of the windows in the bedroom has a leak, the original builder will have to replace the window. But I don't see what rationaly you'd have for claiming that the builder could then, if he so choose, also repaint your bedroom to the original color.
Modifying things you own is ALLOWED. Not only that -- but it's perfectly common, and when it comes to anything besides electronics the very idea that it could ever be otherwise is pretty ridicolous.
Can your car-dealer remove your custom paint-job when you come in with the car after 4 months complaining about a broken clutsch ? No ? If not, why do you think MS should be allowed to do the same when warranty-repairing an Xbox 360 ?
Especially for consumers in countries with non-silly consumer-protection laws this is irrelevant.
In Scandinawia for example, there is a (by law) 2 years of indemnifications from defects in materials or craftmanships on all items marketed to consumers. And even 5 years on items meant to last significantly longer than 2 years.
Now, this doesn't cover normal wear and tear. Nor does it cover consumer misuse (like say dropping the console from 6 feet), but neither does Microsofts "warranty".
If you do mod your console, this affects your rigths under law not at all. The only exception being, offcourse, if you break the console by doing the mod. That is, offcourse, not Microsofts fault.
But if you say mod your console by soldering in a new BIOS, and then half a year later the DVD-drive breaks, MS will have to replace it at their cost, unless they can show that it's likely the DVD-drive broke because of the soldering-in of the new BIOS.
Americans buy expensive "extended warranties" to get what people in other countries have by default. (not that it stops companies from trying to push "extended warranties" here too, it's just even more pointless here.
It's worse than that. The skeletal anatomy is only going to give you a very vague idea, if that. There's just too many variables that are unaccounted for, a short list of examples:
Where did the person grow up.
What dialect did the people he spoke most to speak (parents, friends, teachers, relatives, neighbours etc)
What where his vocal-chords, tongue, lips and mouth like ? (for example, skeletal analysis will not tell you if someone has been smoking for 30 years or not)
Was he allergic to anything ? Nose open ? Size and shape of nose in general ?
What was his weight ?
I'm fairly certain the unknowns add up sufficiently to make the entire exercise pointless. My guess is that given ten people with different voices, all raised in the same area, this method would not be capable of analysing their bone-structure and then correspond voice to person. (other than the relatively trivial job of getting the sex of the person correct, most women sound noticeably different from most men.)
according to the Dept. of Defense terroism is "the unlawful use of -- or threatened use of -- force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives."
But that "definition" is useless. If you use that then pretty much all violent crime is "terrorism". If I threaten to hit you on the nose unless you hand over your wallet, I'm clearly trying to coerce you by threathening use of unlawful force.
That's not congruent with the common use of the word. That definition of "terrorism" migth be convenient to the dept of defence, because it means that they can label pretty much anyone who oppose them a "terrorist".
I would argue that a necesary condition for labeling something terrorism, is that the action is intended to and suitable for inducing terror in groups of people. Dumping plutonium in the water-supply qualifies. Crashing a jet into a skyscraper qualifies. Smuggling a nuke into the superbowl qualifies.
Threathening to hit you on the nose, however, does qualify as a mugging. But not as terrorism.
Possibly, but the sentence as it stands is still patently (pun intended) false.
Patent law unambiguously grants owners of intellectual property the same rights as regular property holders, including the right to exclude others from using their property.
Patent law definitely does not grant "the same rights" as those granted to "regular" property-holders.
For example, patent-law says that patents *expires* at which point your patent becomes public domain, free for anyone to use as they wish. "regular" property-holders do not have to hand over their property to the public after the property "expires".
There's a million other differences too, claiming that a patent gives you the same rigths over a technique as those a owner has to a regular property is a lie. It'd be confusion, but it's inconceivable that a writer for the *legal* section of a magazine is unaware of any of these differences, so the only explanation is a deliberate lie.
Why they lie is anybodys guess. *MY* guess is that they *wish* it where more like they *claim* it is. If you can manage to convince the public that something is already law, that public is likely to protest less when it becomes more and more true.
In reality, they make investments (on the behalf of the account owner) - and pay a fixed and predictable sum on a liquid balance.
No they don't.
Pray tell, how much *value* *will* the bank give me 35 years from now if I put $10.000 in the bank ?
First, interest-rate over that period is pretty hard to predict, and fixed interest over those timespans are rarely offered.
Second, even if the interest *WAS* fixed, that still wouldn't answer my question, because what interest me is what *value* I get out, not how many dollars. So if the interest was fixed at 3% pro year, I'd get out $28.138, but how much I'd be able to *buy* for that money (i.e. what is the *value* of it) is anybodys guess.
Third, not even that certanity exist, there's no telling how taxes will change over the 35 years, so I don't even, with a fixed interest, know how much *money* I'll end up getting, nevermind how much value.
The return on investments on the other hand is unpredictable, and may even be negative.
As is anything else, including, but not limited to, buying gold or putting the money in the bank.
Functionally, there are multiple difference between investments and savings
There are differences, yes.
But it's differences of *degree* more than it fundamental differences. Fundamentally they're the same, they differ in the details, along a continum. Some investments are more liquid than others, some have higher risk than others, some have higher expected return than others. Different investment-scenarios mean different strategies make sense. We all agree on this.
We just don't agree that there exists some magical barrier separating "savings" from "investments", rather those are points along a continous function.
You're rigth in principle, in practice though the difference between saved and invested is smaller the longer the perspective is. (and for a girl aged 22, saving for retirement is very long-term)
What would be "saved" in your book ? Bank-account ? What if the bank goes bankrupt, or the dollar falls sufficiently that the money loose substantial value, or inflation goes higher than interest ? Gold ? What if the purchasing-power of gold falls by 75% over the next 3 decades ?
There's absolutely no way to make 100% certain that a certain value is "saved". Yes, there's more risky and there's less risky ways. But in general, putting say 25K in *diverse* funds investing in all the major world markets and simply letting them sit there the next 30 years is very very VERY likely to give a nice boost to your pension.
First, frequent enough position-fixes is equivalent to constantly knowing which direction you're headed. A ships course isn't *that* erratic. If GPS can tell you that you've moved 300 m directly west since one minute ago, it's not a very hard task to keep the course steady enough that odds are in another minute you'll have moved another 300m west (plus minus a few degrees). You do *not* need more data to be sure you're moving west.
You may, or may not be *facing* west, it's quite possible you're facing south-west but you are in a northbound current. But you generally care about which way you're moving more than which way you're facing. If your target is west of you you want to *move* west, if that means *facing* south-west, then that's perfectly fine.
Secondly, using the stars to tell what way you're *facing* is trivial, even with no timepiece. There's these things named the polar star and the south cross
I sort of doubt it. I don't think there's a limit in either direction, it's fundamentally about the distribution of resources.
If you live in a mud-hut and have only poor-tasting plants and on lucky days some fruit to eat, you'll feel poor relatively to the family which have an able hunter and are able to eat meat 2 times a month.
If you live in a 75 square meter well-insualted apartment with running hot and cold water, a 28" TV, radio, and enoough money to buy varied food in sufficient amounts to never need go hungry, you'll still feel poor if 95% of the rest of the population has a mansion, a nice car, a high-speed internet-connection and go on vacation to Bermuda.
You're complaining that the poor don't get to live in nice apartments and have a hard time affording gas, running water, electricity, internet service, phone service, cell phone service, and gasoline? Poor means not being able to afford all those things? Poor used to mean starving to death in the gutter.
You're pointing out that poverty is a relative thing. This is true. But so what ?
Are you saying if society is, on the average, 10 times richer, but the poorest are only twice as rich as they used to be, then this is no indication of a breakdown in redistribution-mechanisms or an increasing gulf between poor and rich ?
The difference between rich and poor is growing rapidly in the US (and in most of the western world really). This *is* a problem, even though you're correct that on static terms being "poor" is still better than it used to be.
Suppose we were able to thoroughly brainwash the next generation, turning them all into ferociously liberty-minded independent thinkers, completely dedicated to the idea that all people can think and act according to the dictates of their own consciences (subject to not harming others, of course). How much freedom do you think there would be in the resulting society?
Dunno, I think that's a contradiction in terms. I don't think you can indoctrinate people to be independent thinkers. And I *do* think that any requirement to do a certain ritual, no matter the content of the ritual is more likely to condition kids to going trough certain rituals because authority-figures wishes it, without really wanting to do so yourself.
Being accustomed to automatically do what authority-figures wish you to do is not compatible to being a free thinker.
There's another practical advantage too: A cops role ain't (or shouldn't be) only to force people to comply by direct or implied threat ov violence. Bringing a weapon into a conflict is, in a certain essence escalating the conflict, if you can solve the situation without having to do that, it's better.
In Norway landlords will typically demand a deposit, equal to 3 months pay, paid to a special closed deposit-account. If you stop paying, they only lose out if they can not manage to get you evicted within 3 months. (they typically can't, so they do take on some risk.)
Lots of people here too buy cars on payments. I don't, and never would, so I guess if you're that kind of person you'd care sligthly more about credit-rating.
You don't need to *have* and *show* overwhelming force on your side, it's enough that the other side is sufficiently certain that you *could* have it, at moments notice.
Norwegian police generally work unarmed. This tends to work out quite well. Thing is, most people are aware that though this particular pair of cops is unarmed, that place will be swarming with *armed* cops in a minute if you pick a figth with these two.
There are some situation where that implicit threat ain't enough. But in the vast majority of police-work it suffices.
Even that would be wrong. Freedom includes the freedom to think whatever the hell you want, and to be loyal to whatever the hell you want. Even, in principle, to wish for a society without liberty.
Ironically, requiring kids to pledge allegiance to the ideal of liberty, would give the kids less liberty.
Your reply has too many syllables, the eyes of the majority glaze over before you're halfway. Not to mention even if they listened to the entire sentence, they'd fail to understand what you mean by "basic checks and balances".
Storage-capacity grows *faster* than the number of calls made/year grows, thus the data-storage will be easier and easier to satisfy, despite growing larger and larger.
It's quite possible people make twice as many phone-calls 10 years from now as they do today. However, 10 years from now you'll probably get 100 times the storage for the same price, thus the price for storing all those calldata will fall by a factor of 50, depsite the fact that the data is twice as large.
Credit reports. For some reason, this matters hugely in the US, even if you're *not* planning to buy a house or anything. I've not had anyone check my credit-record even once in the last decade, so it wouldn't matter much to me whats on there. (it's green anyway, but that's not the point) (I know this because in Norway, by law, you get a copy of the report and notice about who requested it if anyone does. This is so to give you a chanse to correct errors)
Mothers maiden names. This has to be the stupidest idea for "security" ever devised. I've lost count of the US institutions who seem to think that knowing this trivial piece of information is a good proof of identity. It's not. It never was.
SSNs. These are possibly even dumber than the maiden-name thing. Giving everyone a single unique identifier is one thing, but confusing identity with identification is inexcusable. It's as if knowing the username was what was required to log on a computer, really mindbogglingly stupid. There's SSNs in a few european countries too, but I'm not aware of even a single one where it's considered "secret" and knowing it is considered proof of identity.
Protecting the children. Stopping the terrorists. These seem to be "trump" cards that the government can play, and justify anything, no matter how intrusive. I never understood this. The entire *reason* it's worth defending civilization from terrorism is that that civilization is worth keeping. Turn into a police-state to defend against "terrorists" and you migth just aswell move to Iran.
That's the way of things. 95% of all "inventions" turn out not to be such a big deal, or to have practical problems that prevent them from mattering.
There's no alternative though, you gotta fund the 19 sucky inventions to find the one thats gonna work.
I agree it sucks that frequently the publich funds the 20 investors, and shoulders the loss on the 19 non-working ones, only to see the remaining successful invention benefit some corporation that hires the prof (or that the prof starts) rather than those that paid for the ground-research (i.e. the public)
I never stated, and never meant to state, that publicising this page from the Apple manual falls in under any of my two exceptions.
My comment was a general one, in reply to the direct parent. He seemed to be protesting limitations on usability of information in *general*, and I wanted to point out that there's some situations where, I think, limitations are warranted.
I never said, or meant to say, that this particular situation is such an example.
I thougth about this too. I'm pretty sure the single page in question would not be covered by copyrigth at all in Norway (dunno about the US).
It needs to be a creative expression embodying some minimum amount of creativity and/or originality. The picture and text are both fairly straigthforward, illustrative, functional. There's not an awful lot of originality in either.
If I asked you to: "Make a page containing instructions to apply 2-3 cc of thermal-grease on each of the three points, and make a picture that illustrates"
Odds are your finished page would look very much like the apple one. There's just not that much creativity and/or originality involved.
Slashdot Mirror
Infact I'm sure of it. I've seen dozens of examples of it myself.
The law is stupid -- as written it basically bans all software. Certainly all developer-software. (but there's been plenty of attacks carried out by say MS-Word too.)
For most of human existence, that has meant, basically, surviving. It's only in the last perhaps 1000 years or so that 90% of the humans born *haven't* died before reaching maturity.
Today it's sorta different, but still not about being sexy. It may be sexy to be a popstar, but I'm still not so sure the average (atleast female) postar has more kids than the average soccer-mom.
Okay, so for males it matters more, assuming they take advantage of their sexyness.
First, for anyone carrying secret information more valuable than whatever punishment is attached to not handing over your private keys, it's best to just not hand the keys over and take your chanses.
Secondly, there's this concept called plausible denyability. It's not new, it is atleast a decade or two old. An example of how this is done in TrueCrypt (an GPLed encryption-utility for Windows and Unix that encrypts whole partitions or just filesystem-image-files that can then be mounted only by knowing the secret key)
It works like this: Say you've got a 100GB partition with an encrypted filesystem on it. The filesystem stored on this partition currently has 60GB in it, mostly lewd videos of your girlfriend.
What the government doesn't know, and *cannot* prove is that the 40GB of *unused* space contain a second encrypted filesystem, encrypted with a different key that you *didn't* tell the government about.
TrueCrypt works so that empty space is always filled with random noise. And the encryption used is such that unless you know the key, the encrypted filesystem is indistinguishable from random noise.
What are they gonna do ? Imprison you for not handing over the keys to a filesystem that may not even be there ? And for which they have no indication whatsoever that it exists ? (if you want to create a second "inner volume" in the free space or not is optional, and the default is not to do it.) Even the precense of TrueCryprt is perfectly well explained in this case: You need it to access the "outer" encrypted volume, the one you *DID* hand over the keys to. The one holding moderately embarassing but not really important stuff.
I agree the definition would be marginally better if it removed that word, atleast standard muggings would no longer qualify. A definiton of terrorism which leads to all violent crimes being terrorism is useless. (unless you want to justify anything and everything as "war against terror")
If I buy a new house, then repaint the bedroom green, then half a year later it turns out that one of the windows in the bedroom has a leak, the original builder will have to replace the window. But I don't see what rationaly you'd have for claiming that the builder could then, if he so choose, also repaint your bedroom to the original color.
Modifying things you own is ALLOWED. Not only that -- but it's perfectly common, and when it comes to anything besides electronics the very idea that it could ever be otherwise is pretty ridicolous.
Can your car-dealer remove your custom paint-job when you come in with the car after 4 months complaining about a broken clutsch ? No ? If not, why do you think MS should be allowed to do the same when warranty-repairing an Xbox 360 ?
In Scandinawia for example, there is a (by law) 2 years of indemnifications from defects in materials or craftmanships on all items marketed to consumers. And even 5 years on items meant to last significantly longer than 2 years.
Now, this doesn't cover normal wear and tear. Nor does it cover consumer misuse (like say dropping the console from 6 feet), but neither does Microsofts "warranty".
If you do mod your console, this affects your rigths under law not at all. The only exception being, offcourse, if you break the console by doing the mod. That is, offcourse, not Microsofts fault.
But if you say mod your console by soldering in a new BIOS, and then half a year later the DVD-drive breaks, MS will have to replace it at their cost, unless they can show that it's likely the DVD-drive broke because of the soldering-in of the new BIOS.
Americans buy expensive "extended warranties" to get what people in other countries have by default. (not that it stops companies from trying to push "extended warranties" here too, it's just even more pointless here.
I'm fairly certain the unknowns add up sufficiently to make the entire exercise pointless. My guess is that given ten people with different voices, all raised in the same area, this method would not be capable of analysing their bone-structure and then correspond voice to person. (other than the relatively trivial job of getting the sex of the person correct, most women sound noticeably different from most men.)
But that "definition" is useless. If you use that then pretty much all violent crime is "terrorism". If I threaten to hit you on the nose unless you hand over your wallet, I'm clearly trying to coerce you by threathening use of unlawful force.
That's not congruent with the common use of the word. That definition of "terrorism" migth be convenient to the dept of defence, because it means that they can label pretty much anyone who oppose them a "terrorist".
I would argue that a necesary condition for labeling something terrorism, is that the action is intended to and suitable for inducing terror in groups of people. Dumping plutonium in the water-supply qualifies. Crashing a jet into a skyscraper qualifies. Smuggling a nuke into the superbowl qualifies.
Threathening to hit you on the nose, however, does qualify as a mugging. But not as terrorism.
Patent law unambiguously grants owners of intellectual property the same rights as regular property holders, including the right to exclude others from using their property.
Patent law definitely does not grant "the same rights" as those granted to "regular" property-holders.
For example, patent-law says that patents *expires* at which point your patent becomes public domain, free for anyone to use as they wish. "regular" property-holders do not have to hand over their property to the public after the property "expires".
There's a million other differences too, claiming that a patent gives you the same rigths over a technique as those a owner has to a regular property is a lie. It'd be confusion, but it's inconceivable that a writer for the *legal* section of a magazine is unaware of any of these differences, so the only explanation is a deliberate lie.
Why they lie is anybodys guess. *MY* guess is that they *wish* it where more like they *claim* it is. If you can manage to convince the public that something is already law, that public is likely to protest less when it becomes more and more true.
No they don't. Pray tell, how much *value* *will* the bank give me 35 years from now if I put $10.000 in the bank ?
First, interest-rate over that period is pretty hard to predict, and fixed interest over those timespans are rarely offered.
Second, even if the interest *WAS* fixed, that still wouldn't answer my question, because what interest me is what *value* I get out, not how many dollars. So if the interest was fixed at 3% pro year, I'd get out $28.138, but how much I'd be able to *buy* for that money (i.e. what is the *value* of it) is anybodys guess.
Third, not even that certanity exist, there's no telling how taxes will change over the 35 years, so I don't even, with a fixed interest, know how much *money* I'll end up getting, nevermind how much value.
The return on investments on the other hand is unpredictable, and may even be negative.
As is anything else, including, but not limited to, buying gold or putting the money in the bank.
Functionally, there are multiple difference between investments and savings
There are differences, yes.
But it's differences of *degree* more than it fundamental differences. Fundamentally they're the same, they differ in the details, along a continum. Some investments are more liquid than others, some have higher risk than others, some have higher expected return than others. Different investment-scenarios mean different strategies make sense. We all agree on this.
We just don't agree that there exists some magical barrier separating "savings" from "investments", rather those are points along a continous function.
What would be "saved" in your book ? Bank-account ? What if the bank goes bankrupt, or the dollar falls sufficiently that the money loose substantial value, or inflation goes higher than interest ? Gold ? What if the purchasing-power of gold falls by 75% over the next 3 decades ?
There's absolutely no way to make 100% certain that a certain value is "saved". Yes, there's more risky and there's less risky ways. But in general, putting say 25K in *diverse* funds investing in all the major world markets and simply letting them sit there the next 30 years is very very VERY likely to give a nice boost to your pension.
You may, or may not be *facing* west, it's quite possible you're facing south-west but you are in a northbound current. But you generally care about which way you're moving more than which way you're facing. If your target is west of you you want to *move* west, if that means *facing* south-west, then that's perfectly fine.
Secondly, using the stars to tell what way you're *facing* is trivial, even with no timepiece. There's these things named the polar star and the south cross
If you live in a mud-hut and have only poor-tasting plants and on lucky days some fruit to eat, you'll feel poor relatively to the family which have an able hunter and are able to eat meat 2 times a month.
If you live in a 75 square meter well-insualted apartment with running hot and cold water, a 28" TV, radio, and enoough money to buy varied food in sufficient amounts to never need go hungry, you'll still feel poor if 95% of the rest of the population has a mansion, a nice car, a high-speed internet-connection and go on vacation to Bermuda.
You're pointing out that poverty is a relative thing. This is true. But so what ?
Are you saying if society is, on the average, 10 times richer, but the poorest are only twice as rich as they used to be, then this is no indication of a breakdown in redistribution-mechanisms or an increasing gulf between poor and rich ?
The difference between rich and poor is growing rapidly in the US (and in most of the western world really). This *is* a problem, even though you're correct that on static terms being "poor" is still better than it used to be.
Dunno, I think that's a contradiction in terms. I don't think you can indoctrinate people to be independent thinkers. And I *do* think that any requirement to do a certain ritual, no matter the content of the ritual is more likely to condition kids to going trough certain rituals because authority-figures wishes it, without really wanting to do so yourself.
Being accustomed to automatically do what authority-figures wish you to do is not compatible to being a free thinker.
There's another practical advantage too: A cops role ain't (or shouldn't be) only to force people to comply by direct or implied threat ov violence. Bringing a weapon into a conflict is, in a certain essence escalating the conflict, if you can solve the situation without having to do that, it's better.
Lots of people here too buy cars on payments. I don't, and never would, so I guess if you're that kind of person you'd care sligthly more about credit-rating.
You don't need to *have* and *show* overwhelming force on your side, it's enough that the other side is sufficiently certain that you *could* have it, at moments notice.
Norwegian police generally work unarmed. This tends to work out quite well. Thing is, most people are aware that though this particular pair of cops is unarmed, that place will be swarming with *armed* cops in a minute if you pick a figth with these two.
There are some situation where that implicit threat ain't enough. But in the vast majority of police-work it suffices.
Ironically, requiring kids to pledge allegiance to the ideal of liberty, would give the kids less liberty.
Sorry, it's the truth.
Storage-capacity grows *faster* than the number of calls made/year grows, thus the data-storage will be easier and easier to satisfy, despite growing larger and larger.
It's quite possible people make twice as many phone-calls 10 years from now as they do today. However, 10 years from now you'll probably get 100 times the storage for the same price, thus the price for storing all those calldata will fall by a factor of 50, depsite the fact that the data is twice as large.
Credit reports. For some reason, this matters hugely in the US, even if you're *not* planning to buy a house or anything. I've not had anyone check my credit-record even once in the last decade, so it wouldn't matter much to me whats on there. (it's green anyway, but that's not the point) (I know this because in Norway, by law, you get a copy of the report and notice about who requested it if anyone does. This is so to give you a chanse to correct errors)
Mothers maiden names. This has to be the stupidest idea for "security" ever devised. I've lost count of the US institutions who seem to think that knowing this trivial piece of information is a good proof of identity. It's not. It never was.
SSNs. These are possibly even dumber than the maiden-name thing. Giving everyone a single unique identifier is one thing, but confusing identity with identification is inexcusable. It's as if knowing the username was what was required to log on a computer, really mindbogglingly stupid. There's SSNs in a few european countries too, but I'm not aware of even a single one where it's considered "secret" and knowing it is considered proof of identity.
Protecting the children. Stopping the terrorists. These seem to be "trump" cards that the government can play, and justify anything, no matter how intrusive. I never understood this. The entire *reason* it's worth defending civilization from terrorism is that that civilization is worth keeping. Turn into a police-state to defend against "terrorists" and you migth just aswell move to Iran.
There's no alternative though, you gotta fund the 19 sucky inventions to find the one thats gonna work.
I agree it sucks that frequently the publich funds the 20 investors, and shoulders the loss on the 19 non-working ones, only to see the remaining successful invention benefit some corporation that hires the prof (or that the prof starts) rather than those that paid for the ground-research (i.e. the public)
I never stated, and never meant to state, that publicising this page from the Apple manual falls in under any of my two exceptions.
My comment was a general one, in reply to the direct parent. He seemed to be protesting limitations on usability of information in *general*, and I wanted to point out that there's some situations where, I think, limitations are warranted.
I never said, or meant to say, that this particular situation is such an example.
It needs to be a creative expression embodying some minimum amount of creativity and/or originality. The picture and text are both fairly straigthforward, illustrative, functional. There's not an awful lot of originality in either.
If I asked you to: "Make a page containing instructions to apply 2-3 cc of thermal-grease on each of the three points, and make a picture that illustrates"
Odds are your finished page would look very much like the apple one. There's just not that much creativity and/or originality involved.