[i]Think about it: who regulates the Internet right now? The ISPs. You may have your complaints about the ISPs, but you can switch to another one if you don't like the one you're on.[/i]
I was with you until here. I have almost no choices on ISP and I suspect most people are the same. I can either choose comcast, at&t and perhaps one small time DSL company in the area. It wouldn't be hard for Comcast and AT&T to form a conglomerate and nip out the little ISPs if they perceive them as a threat. ISPs have effectively created localized monopolies already.
I don't know how else to take it, but literal when Li claims you can have super powers. What else does, you can become immortal, fly through walls and read other peoples minds mean? Maybe it's, because I'm not prepared to realize that I can have super powers, but just because other fanatics in the world make the same outlandish claims, does not legitimize it. There might be a grain of truth in some of these exercises IE Meditation helps reduce stress, but compared to the realization of immortality, that is one grain in a wheat field.
Fine, call it a legit religion. In the same nature, you have to call Scientology a legit religion as well.
I don't believe this claim about it being free. How do you get the books, the classes and the instructions. I'm sure youtube videos only take you so far. I know when Li started, he had a club, not a church in which you pay to practice his "religion".
I aware that all religions dwell a bit into the supernatural, but Falun Gong dwells so far into the supernatural it's not even a comparison. Claiming to offer immortality, invisibility, super strength and everything associated with a marvel comic makes it far more susceptible than being a creationist.
Do your own research. The truth is really in between. Falun Gong is not a satanic cult, but they are also not a "legit" religion either. The best comparison is with the Church of Scientology. On the surface, it appears innocent, but as you dwell deeper into their teachings, you'll see several flags pop up such as super natural powers and immortality. Much like the "E-level" of Scientology, you have to devote time and money to achieve this level of super naturalness. The society even created a "Science Institute" who's sole purpose is to use conventional science to prove the legitimacy of the exercises and how it could give you powers.
The Chinese government does not tolerate religions with a central authoritative figure, so when Mr. Li pretty much claimed himself as "God", well you know how the rest went.
I'm not amazed that this would come out of the dailymail, but I am amazed so many slashdotters are falling for it. I see the term slavery being thrown out there like Foxconn is raiding villages and making chain gangs.
The people who work in these factories are often young migrants, leaving their homes to find better wages. They would seek out overtime hours so they can earn more money to send home or for their dream savings. They know it's tough work, but it's a much better wage than what they would otherwise get. Some people can't handle the stress from being away from home and working a tough factory shift.
China is in that era of an industrial revolution. Family farms are becoming non-sustainable and the next generation is moving into the city to find work. Unskilled labor tend to end up in factories and the rapid life style change along with the isolation puts a lot of stress on these kids. I'm not saying Foxconn shouldn't relax their work policies, but the we're avoiding the true problem here.
I don't know where you got the idea pandas lived in an isolated habitat. The historical range of giant pandas covers more than half of China. They only exist in isolated mountain valleys today, because it is difficult for people to develop in those areas. Despite their evolutionary short comings, they survived quite well before human interference.
Pandas are the perfect example of something we should save. The low breeding ratio for pandas is an evolutionary trait that's beneficial in its natural environment. A panda is a giant cow with teeth and claws. It has no natural predators once it reaches adult size. If pandas were to breed on the level of rabbits it would destroy the plant ecosystem in Asia. The truth is if it were not for deforestation by humans, the pandas would be prolific. We need to balance our effect on the environment.
Examples of animals not worth saving would be the endangered freshwater mollusk colony in north Florida that was at risk due to low water levels caused by prolonged drought.
People who think this is stupid need to get real. This guy won't get caught. The cops aren't out on main street screening for his face. Unless he leaves his full name, birthday and SSN, the police aren't going to act on anything else. Burglary is just so low on the pecking order that they're basically ignored. Even the detectives "assigned" to this case probably have 5-6 other cases to work on.
Only geeks support this, because we've been playing with a computer since birth so it wouldn't be a hassle to keep a computer clean. The rest of the world won't be receptive of a blacklist law.
Punishing the victim has never been popular. See how popular TSA is? Whatever the problem is, you start with the criminal. We are far from exhausting all options against spammers. This is purely a zero-cost (to the law makers) law made to fill a resume for re-election. Off the top of my head I can think of all sorts of punishments more effective at stopping spammers and botters.
Let's start lightly.
1) Removal of constitutional rights. 2) Banned use of government facilities. (roads, post office) 3) RIAA style fines automatically garnished from their bank accounts. (Want to access a computer or get food?) 4) Public Beating 5) Private Beating 6) Private Execution 7) Public Execution 8) Predator strikes on their house
The system is flawed. Your jury of peers are full of the most easily manipulated people. People who are malleable and submissive, often the un-educated. This is how wrongful convictions occur, by an imbalance in skill level of the opposing attorneys.
The ideal jury would be those with good reasoning ability and highly educated. Those who can see past the bias of the presentation of evidence and testimony to form their own opinions of the case. These are the people who can form a neutral opinion. Therefore, I believe it a duty for those who are in the latter category to TRY to get on the jury, because someones livelihood is at stake.
If you're any good with reasoning and logic. Try to serve on a jury. TRY! Give them the answers they want. I've been through the jury selection process and see who they pick as your "peers". God forbid if you ever have to be trialed and all the reasonable jurors made up excuses to get out of jury duty.
I would like to make the request that we stop with the Harry Potter references. Can we not go through one legitimate discussion of this topic without mentioning that buffoon?
I don't insert "Hackers" movie quotes into articles about network security. You shouldn't trivialize actual science with little boys playing fairies. (Yes, it really is that annoying.)
I don't understand the random finger pointing. The point of the OP was that the US and Israel have the most obvious "will, motive and means" to do this. No other country in the world wants to see another nuclear nation, especially one as aggressive as Iran. However, only a few select countries have a resolve to actively prevent Iran from doing so.
Why go through every possible event no matter how improbable? Are we going to reduce this conversation to conspiracy theories? If we are, I'd like to throw Antarctic penguins into the ball game. Think about it, no one would suspect them. What exactly do they do every winter when they huddle en mass in the middle of an iceberg for 2 months? Perhaps shielding a laptop and satellite link under the guise of a ridiculous mating ritual? They could be plotting a global take over and this is a test of our civilizations defenses. They first target weakly guarded nuclear facilities and control simple equipment as a proof of concept for a larger scale attack. You can't rule them out, or are you saying you speak penguin and understand the motive of every faction in the penguin community?
I got a better idea. Why don't we get volunteers from people on death row to participate in a real life first person shooter game? We implant muscle control chips in their brain so that a user can completely control what they do remotely. Then we arm them and setup the matches in a warehouse at a prison facility. The incentive will be that if they survive 10 matches, they get to be released back into society!
Military spending drives high tech industries. The US DoD spends purely to create useful, novel technologies to make our armed forces more efficient, more powerful and safer. A commercial company spends SOLELY to make a profit. Few companies are willing to spend billions of dollars on far fetched technologies with a high failure rate and may perhaps pay itself off in a few decades. However, the success of just a handful of these far fetched ideas can completely change the world we live in. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_invention)
Lastly. Our troops deserve the best equipment available. There is no currency available to repay someone for risking their lives on your behalf. The best we can do is ensure that they have every advantage possible to reduce their risk.
We can use an oak tree, with gold injected into it's leaves, a high power UV light generator to induce a reddish glow and a variable CO2 generator to adjust brightness.
Could it possibly be that students who use drugs and have sex are more inclined to use Facebook/Texting and not the other way around? I mean how else do they contact their drug distributors and pimps?
The whole point of patents is to encourage companies to share their inventions and methods with an ensured monopoly for a period of time and then EVERYONE else can benefit from it. If you keep a trade secret, you are not entitled to any form of protection. If an employee steals Cokes formula then someone else can make Coke. That's the whole point of trade secret vs patent. There should be NO leeway or any special consideration given to those not wanting to reveal trade secrets.
Oh, like this doesn't go both ways. At least they didn't start bribing/kidnapping our scientists to make "Dooms Day" devices in a hidden lair in the desert, like we did with the Germans in the Manhattan project.
Also that Washington Times article is way out of date. The proceedings of the Wen Hoo Lee trial (accused of stealing the W88 warhead for China) embarrassed public officials to the point where Bill Clinton had to issue an apology and the US government had to pay an undisclosed settlement to Lee. The fact was US military research bases had slack handling protocols for classified documents. This was glaringly obvious as the cause of all the leaked secrets. However, to save their careers, the managers made Lee a scapegoat. Turns out it was common practice to take classified documents to work on at home. The only reason Lee was singled out for it was, because he was Asian.
The US has had a major war for every generation of citizens since it's founding.
War of 1812-1814 Mexican American War 1846-1848 Spanish American War 1898-1898 World War 1 1917-1921 World War 2 1942-1947 Korea 1950-1953 Vietnam 1964-1975 Gulf War 1990-1991 Afghanistan 2001-Present
I'm sure you can find a country with a more violent history (Ghana or someplace), but we sure aren't a peaceful population.
I am in favor of compulsory military service for every adult citizen in the US. Many modern nations enforce it: Germany, Norway, China and even Canada. It's not just for small third world nations.
Even without it, we should have had a draft a long time ago. People are on their 4th and 5th tour of Afghanistan. I know they voluntarily signed up for service, but we are down right abusing their situation. The standing army isn't meant to support all wars by themselves. They are there for day to day security enforcement and as the first line of defense when "poo" hits the fan. When was the last time the US military had to endure a war this long without a draft?
This has happened to me once. I got a virus and a couple hours later, my internet was off. I called the service desk and I was told that my computer was infected and get this, I need to download a patch to fix it. "How do I download a patch when my internet is off, I asked." "Bring your computer to the service center when we open on Monday." I instantly canceled my service. I was a college student at that time. Some tasks required the internet. In fact the only way to turn in my physics homework was to upload it to the server by 2am on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I don't need to be worrying about my internet shutting off at random times and having to make a midnight dash to campus to use the library computer.
I try to keep my computer clean. I run firewalls and I have virus scanners, but if you haven't been infected with a virus before then you haven't been on the internet long enough. Sooner or later you'll get infected and god forbid if you rely on the internet. IE VoIP or server hosting. Why do I get punished for what other people do? Should car manufacturers be able to remotely turn off your car when your car starts to leak oil or freon?
Slashdot Mirror
[i]Think about it: who regulates the Internet right now? The ISPs. You may have your complaints about the ISPs, but you can switch to another one if you don't like the one you're on.[/i]
I was with you until here. I have almost no choices on ISP and I suspect most people are the same. I can either choose comcast, at&t and perhaps one small time DSL company in the area. It wouldn't be hard for Comcast and AT&T to form a conglomerate and nip out the little ISPs if they perceive them as a threat. ISPs have effectively created localized monopolies already.
LOL. Will she display signs at the picket with her iPad?
I don't know how else to take it, but literal when Li claims you can have super powers. What else does, you can become immortal, fly through walls and read other peoples minds mean? Maybe it's, because I'm not prepared to realize that I can have super powers, but just because other fanatics in the world make the same outlandish claims, does not legitimize it. There might be a grain of truth in some of these exercises IE Meditation helps reduce stress, but compared to the realization of immortality, that is one grain in a wheat field.
Fine, call it a legit religion. In the same nature, you have to call Scientology a legit religion as well.
I don't believe this claim about it being free. How do you get the books, the classes and the instructions. I'm sure youtube videos only take you so far. I know when Li started, he had a club, not a church in which you pay to practice his "religion".
I aware that all religions dwell a bit into the supernatural, but Falun Gong dwells so far into the supernatural it's not even a comparison. Claiming to offer immortality, invisibility, super strength and everything associated with a marvel comic makes it far more susceptible than being a creationist.
Do your own research. The truth is really in between. Falun Gong is not a satanic cult, but they are also not a "legit" religion either. The best comparison is with the Church of Scientology. On the surface, it appears innocent, but as you dwell deeper into their teachings, you'll see several flags pop up such as super natural powers and immortality. Much like the "E-level" of Scientology, you have to devote time and money to achieve this level of super naturalness. The society even created a "Science Institute" who's sole purpose is to use conventional science to prove the legitimacy of the exercises and how it could give you powers.
The Chinese government does not tolerate religions with a central authoritative figure, so when Mr. Li pretty much claimed himself as "God", well you know how the rest went.
I'm not amazed that this would come out of the dailymail, but I am amazed so many slashdotters are falling for it.
I see the term slavery being thrown out there like Foxconn is raiding villages and making chain gangs.
The people who work in these factories are often young migrants, leaving their homes to find better wages. They would seek out overtime hours so they can earn more money to send home or for their dream savings. They know it's tough work, but it's a much better wage than what they would otherwise get. Some people can't handle the stress from being away from home and working a tough factory shift.
China is in that era of an industrial revolution. Family farms are becoming non-sustainable and the next generation is moving into the city to find work. Unskilled labor tend to end up in factories and the rapid life style change along with the isolation puts a lot of stress on these kids. I'm not saying Foxconn shouldn't relax their work policies, but the we're avoiding the true problem here.
I don't know where you got the idea pandas lived in an isolated habitat. The historical range of giant pandas covers more than half of China. They only exist in isolated mountain valleys today, because it is difficult for people to develop in those areas. Despite their evolutionary short comings, they survived quite well before human interference.
Pandas are the perfect example of something we should save. The low breeding ratio for pandas is an evolutionary trait that's beneficial in its natural environment. A panda is a giant cow with teeth and claws. It has no natural predators once it reaches adult size. If pandas were to breed on the level of rabbits it would destroy the plant ecosystem in Asia. The truth is if it were not for deforestation by humans, the pandas would be prolific. We need to balance our effect on the environment.
Examples of animals not worth saving would be the endangered freshwater mollusk colony in north Florida that was at risk due to low water levels caused by prolonged drought.
People who think this is stupid need to get real. This guy won't get caught. The cops aren't out on main street screening for his face. Unless he leaves his full name, birthday and SSN, the police aren't going to act on anything else. Burglary is just so low on the pecking order that they're basically ignored. Even the detectives "assigned" to this case probably have 5-6 other cases to work on.
Only geeks support this, because we've been playing with a computer since birth so it wouldn't be a hassle to keep a computer clean. The rest of the world won't be receptive of a blacklist law.
Punishing the victim has never been popular. See how popular TSA is? Whatever the problem is, you start with the criminal. We are far from exhausting all options against spammers. This is purely a zero-cost (to the law makers) law made to fill a resume for re-election. Off the top of my head I can think of all sorts of punishments more effective at stopping spammers and botters.
Let's start lightly.
1) Removal of constitutional rights.
2) Banned use of government facilities. (roads, post office)
3) RIAA style fines automatically garnished from their bank accounts. (Want to access a computer or get food?)
4) Public Beating
5) Private Beating
6) Private Execution
7) Public Execution
8) Predator strikes on their house
The system is flawed. Your jury of peers are full of the most easily manipulated people. People who are malleable and submissive, often the un-educated. This is how wrongful convictions occur, by an imbalance in skill level of the opposing attorneys.
The ideal jury would be those with good reasoning ability and highly educated. Those who can see past the bias of the presentation of evidence and testimony to form their own opinions of the case. These are the people who can form a neutral opinion. Therefore, I believe it a duty for those who are in the latter category to TRY to get on the jury, because someones livelihood is at stake.
If you're any good with reasoning and logic. Try to serve on a jury. TRY! Give them the answers they want. I've been through the jury selection process and see who they pick as your "peers". God forbid if you ever have to be trialed and all the reasonable jurors made up excuses to get out of jury duty.
I would like to make the request that we stop with the Harry Potter references. Can we not go through one legitimate discussion of this topic without mentioning that buffoon?
I don't insert "Hackers" movie quotes into articles about network security. You shouldn't trivialize actual science with little boys playing fairies. (Yes, it really is that annoying.)
Just a bunch of windows network protocol questions. Apparently us hardware engineers are equivalent to pom pom wielding cheerleaders.
I don't understand the random finger pointing. The point of the OP was that the US and Israel have the most obvious "will, motive and means" to do this. No other country in the world wants to see another nuclear nation, especially one as aggressive as Iran. However, only a few select countries have a resolve to actively prevent Iran from doing so.
Why go through every possible event no matter how improbable? Are we going to reduce this conversation to conspiracy theories? If we are, I'd like to throw Antarctic penguins into the ball game. Think about it, no one would suspect them. What exactly do they do every winter when they huddle en mass in the middle of an iceberg for 2 months? Perhaps shielding a laptop and satellite link under the guise of a ridiculous mating ritual? They could be plotting a global take over and this is a test of our civilizations defenses. They first target weakly guarded nuclear facilities and control simple equipment as a proof of concept for a larger scale attack. You can't rule them out, or are you saying you speak penguin and understand the motive of every faction in the penguin community?
I got a better idea. Why don't we get volunteers from people on death row to participate in a real life first person shooter game? We implant muscle control chips in their brain so that a user can completely control what they do remotely. Then we arm them and setup the matches in a warehouse at a prison facility. The incentive will be that if they survive 10 matches, they get to be released back into society!
Military spending drives high tech industries. The US DoD spends purely to create useful, novel technologies to make our armed forces more efficient, more powerful and safer. A commercial company spends SOLELY to make a profit. Few companies are willing to spend billions of dollars on far fetched technologies with a high failure rate and may perhaps pay itself off in a few decades. However, the success of just a handful of these far fetched ideas can completely change the world we live in. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_invention)
Lastly. Our troops deserve the best equipment available. There is no currency available to repay someone for risking their lives on your behalf. The best we can do is ensure that they have every advantage possible to reduce their risk.
We can use an oak tree, with gold injected into it's leaves, a high power UV light generator to induce a reddish glow and a variable CO2 generator to adjust brightness.
To say correlation does not equate causation?
Could it possibly be that students who use drugs and have sex are more inclined to use Facebook/Texting and not the other way around? I mean how else do they contact their drug distributors and pimps?
The whole point of patents is to encourage companies to share their inventions and methods with an ensured monopoly for a period of time and then EVERYONE else can benefit from it. If you keep a trade secret, you are not entitled to any form of protection. If an employee steals Cokes formula then someone else can make Coke. That's the whole point of trade secret vs patent. There should be NO leeway or any special consideration given to those not wanting to reveal trade secrets.
Oh, like this doesn't go both ways. At least they didn't start bribing/kidnapping our scientists to make "Dooms Day" devices in a hidden lair in the desert, like we did with the Germans in the Manhattan project.
Also that Washington Times article is way out of date. The proceedings of the Wen Hoo Lee trial (accused of stealing the W88 warhead for China) embarrassed public officials to the point where Bill Clinton had to issue an apology and the US government had to pay an undisclosed settlement to Lee.
The fact was US military research bases had slack handling protocols for classified documents. This was glaringly obvious as the cause of all the leaked secrets. However, to save their careers, the managers made Lee a scapegoat. Turns out it was common practice to take classified documents to work on at home. The only reason Lee was singled out for it was, because he was Asian.
The US has had a major war for every generation of citizens since it's founding.
War of 1812-1814
Mexican American War 1846-1848
Spanish American War 1898-1898
World War 1 1917-1921
World War 2 1942-1947
Korea 1950-1953
Vietnam 1964-1975
Gulf War 1990-1991
Afghanistan 2001-Present
I'm sure you can find a country with a more violent history (Ghana or someplace), but we sure aren't a peaceful population.
I am in favor of compulsory military service for every adult citizen in the US. Many modern nations enforce it: Germany, Norway, China and even Canada. It's not just for small third world nations.
Even without it, we should have had a draft a long time ago. People are on their 4th and 5th tour of Afghanistan. I know they voluntarily signed up for service, but we are down right abusing their situation. The standing army isn't meant to support all wars by themselves. They are there for day to day security enforcement and as the first line of defense when "poo" hits the fan. When was the last time the US military had to endure a war this long without a draft?
This has happened to me once. I got a virus and a couple hours later, my internet was off. I called the service desk and I was told that my computer was infected and get this, I need to download a patch to fix it. "How do I download a patch when my internet is off, I asked." "Bring your computer to the service center when we open on Monday." I instantly canceled my service. I was a college student at that time. Some tasks required the internet. In fact the only way to turn in my physics homework was to upload it to the server by 2am on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I don't need to be worrying about my internet shutting off at random times and having to make a midnight dash to campus to use the library computer.
I try to keep my computer clean. I run firewalls and I have virus scanners, but if you haven't been infected with a virus before then you haven't been on the internet long enough. Sooner or later you'll get infected and god forbid if you rely on the internet. IE VoIP or server hosting. Why do I get punished for what other people do? Should car manufacturers be able to remotely turn off your car when your car starts to leak oil or freon?
Don't underestimate the cup, I wear one all the time when asking women if I can put my face in their bra.