how about the fact that from the top down, there is no accountability for anything until shit meets fan? I'm in a similiar position in a government job where I routinely point out flaws in our SOP and demonstrate exactly how shit will meet fan unless we make simple changes. Those changes never happen, because it would cause the top to work. I usually get the response, "it's not broke, so we won't fix it". Would I go so far as to publicly document the flaws?? hells no. That's suicidal.
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for men of good conscience to remain silent." -- Thomas Jefferson
I was certain he was referring to Reagan/Bush selling missiles to Iran, funding the Contras, paying terrorists to hold Marines hostage, setting up the original Al Qaeda training camps, and so on, and so forth.
Selling missiles to Iran. Hindsight is 20/20.
Never seen someone blow off high treason so casually... well, aside from the people committing it.
you do know what treason is, right?
Paying terrorists to hold Marines hostage? I call bullshit.
October Surprise. Google it.
Setting up the original Al Qaeda training camps. Serious bullshit here.
Not a student of recent history, are we?
There is a difference between the "Western Alliance" and Al Qaeda/Taliban. Know the difference.
I do; the question is, considering your previous ignorance of historical events, do you?
Not everyone in Afghanistan is Al Qaeda. Or do you not think you can be brown and not a racist?
I've seen some pretty blatant race-baiting in my life, and this one ranks up there. Where do you get the idea that everyone in Afghanistan is "brown?" Since when is "brown" a race? They're Arabs, and Persians, and Kurds, and about a dozen other races, you bigot.
A very simple alternate meatspace analogy is trespass.
No; trespassing is a criminal matter, not a civil one (unless we're talking trespass to chattels, which you are not). "Analogy" implies a commonality.
A real meatspace analogy would be if you offered me access to your property in writing, then at some point changed the contract to revoke my access.
The difference is, with a written (paper) contract between two individuals, changing the terms requires the physical signature of both parties; in terms of service, one party can unilaterally change their policy, with minimal notification to the other party, and so long as the original party offers some sort of notification (i.e., Sony 'allowing' consumers to opt-out of their "no-sue" clause by forcing them to snail-mail a written rejection within 14 days), it's all considered perfectly legal.
In summation, the system is fucked, and it's going to stay that way until someone like Sony or facebook step on the wrong toes.
This gets into sticky areas like "How many near-simultaneous "requests" for my PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE SERVICE constitutes "popular" versus a denial-of-service attack?" In effect, the slashdot effect could be deemed a federal felony offense if the law stands. SCOTUS will likely have to take it up.
In other words, the fate of our technological freedom is in the hands of 9 dinosaurs who are of the generation that honestly believes the internet is made up of physically interconnected tubes?
One could argue, for example, that perhaps facebook wouldn't exist if they didn't think this was possible, and facebook is so awesome it outweighs the cost. I wouldn't argue that, but someone could.
You and I both.
Besides, yea, one could attempt to make that argument, but it's obvious bullshit; the Zuckerburgs of the world don't give two shits about being able to incarcerate their customers for ToS violations, so long as people keep signing up and the skrilla keeps flowing in.
Lower courts have held that violating a (basically TOS) is a crime?
Not just a crime, a felony crime. Which means being convicted of ToS violations not only takes away your physical freedom, but also damages your ability to find a job upon release, makes it impossible to own a gun, removes your right to vote (although some states restore that right after a prescribed period of time), and all the other wonderful disadvantages that come with being a convicted felon.
I think it's hard to tell whether this is good for consumers (because we have the freedom to do what we want with our programs, etc), or bad for consumers (because it makes things less safe for companies). Either way, I'm happy for now, I guess.
It's not hard to tell at all: being able to throw consumers in jail for ToS violations is most definitely, unquestionably, bad for consumers.
I feel the same way about Congressional "bi-partisanship;" it seems the only time we can get these mortal enemies to agree on anything is when it is something that totally screws Americans. For examples, see:
PATRIOT Act SOPA FISA STOCK Act (which doesn't actually ban insider trading by politicians, but rather requires them to report the profit they earned from insider trading within 30 days of earning said profit) et. al.
"Bi-partisan" is congresscritter code for "fuck the people over."
As always, be familiar with the laws about recording telephone calls in your jurisdiction. If unsure, don't.;)
Good advice; Fortunately, I live in a "one-party consent" state, meaning that so long as at least 1 person in the call knows it's being recorded, everything is legal beagle:D
If I'm not mistaken (which I could be, as it's been some time since I researched this), Motorola actually locks the call stream access functionality out of their devices at the hardware level, meaning that no matter what, an app cannot access the inbound call stream.
Why they would do this to their customers is beyond me.
Since when is it my responsibility, as the customer, to spend my money and time making devices that save the power company money?
Well since a large part of what they charge you is down to their costs you are in fact helping yourself. Seriously, you can't see that?
Your local utility must be far more altruistic than mine; around these parts, rate hikes happen regularly, across the board, with no explanation greater than "we felt like it." In fact, if more consumers moved their usage to off-peak hours, the utility (which is technically a 'public' utility, even though the local government allows them to run it as though it were a private business) would just start charging more for those hours to make up for the lost profits.
Seriously. The mafia would run a more fair utility than the people in charge of it now.
For the record, I mean no disrespect for those who are able to make the changes necessary to move their power consumption to 'off-peak' times; I was merely pointing out the futility of utilities 'encouraging' people to adopt new living patterns that are completely unfeasible for the vast majority of the population.
If the company I'm working for would allow me to work from home (which they should, as no aspect of my current employment demands a physical presence), I too would be shifting a lot of my usage to off-peak hours, if only by virtue of the fact I would actually be at my residence during said hours.
On the other hand, you can't bitch about it when you're charged more for usage that costs the power company more money.
Or did you think that it was the responsibility of the people who use cheap, off-peak power to subsidize your lifestyle?
... Was your response to
How am I or anyone else supposed to "shift energy use to non-peak hours" when our working schedules are determined by our employers? Surely the people running these utilities (who, consequently, tend to work 8-5 jobs as well) aren't so dumb as to think that's a viable strategy, are they?
Yup, and not a single report I saw stated "Obama/Sarkozy's assisting Al-queda take over Libya," as purported by OP.
You can blah blah blah all you want, but reality appears to be in opposition, and unless you can provide a citation to prove otherwise, then all your words are merely heresay.
If I didn't have a standing, lifetime boycott of the Communist Republic of California, I might take that bet; although, I can do one better:
By all appearances, I'm a white dude. I have driven down the streets of East St. Louis (which makes Compton look like Beverly Hills, for those who don't know), at night, in a pimpin' old-school Buick, lost as hell. This has happened to me several times (on the 270 loop, if you forget which exit to take you end up crossing the river before you know it). Not once have I been accosted, raped, robbed, or even so much as threatened as I traversed this poor, lower-class, majority black neighborhood. Never. In fact, if not for the kindness of the locals, I might have never found my way back to STL proper.
Here's the thing: If you go around any group of people acting like some sort of prey animal, then you're damn right a predator is going to pick up on that and take advantage. Race has nothing to do with it - you being a total chickenshit and making it obvious to the world does.
Personally, I didn't find it all that racist... that is, until I reached bullet point No. 10. From there, it's like watching a train wreck as the author goes deeper and deeper into xenophobic psychosis, pulling out every poorly done study and stereotyping mechanism he can muster to create an image that blacks are inferior to whites somehow.
Seriously, it was like watching a Charles Manson parole review; He starts off semi-intelligent, thoughtful even, then quickly degrades to the psychotic circus act we've all come to know and love (the fact that he's never getting out).
It takes one person to stereotype and another to take it badly, without either of those, there's no conflict.
Why in the hell is it required that someone "take it badly?"
Hypothetical situation:
Coach has been coaching college hoops for 30+ years. In that time, he has kept a log of the statistics of all his players, including their race. After 30+ years, the data indicates that black athletes perform 60x better than athletes of other races. Coach off-handedly remarks one day, "If my teams were made up of nothing but black students, we'd never lose!"
There's your stereotype: black people are good at basketball. And, at least in our hypothetical situation, the empirical data backs the stereotype.
So long as Al Sharpton and all the other people who make their living out of promoting racial disharmony don't find out, there will be no conflict.
This concept is easier to understand as the axiom, "it takes 2 to tango."
Slashdot Mirror
how about the fact that from the top down, there is no accountability for anything until shit meets fan? I'm in a similiar position in a government job where I routinely point out flaws in our SOP and demonstrate exactly how shit will meet fan unless we make simple changes. Those changes never happen, because it would cause the top to work. I usually get the response, "it's not broke, so we won't fix it". Would I go so far as to publicly document the flaws?? hells no. That's suicidal.
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for men of good conscience to remain silent." -- Thomas Jefferson
I was certain he was referring to Reagan/Bush selling missiles to Iran, funding the Contras, paying terrorists to hold Marines hostage, setting up the original Al Qaeda training camps, and so on, and so forth.
Selling missiles to Iran. Hindsight is 20/20.
Never seen someone blow off high treason so casually... well, aside from the people committing it.
you do know what treason is, right?
Paying terrorists to hold Marines hostage? I call bullshit.
October Surprise. Google it.
Setting up the original Al Qaeda training camps. Serious bullshit here.
Not a student of recent history, are we?
There is a difference between the "Western Alliance" and Al Qaeda/Taliban. Know the difference.
I do; the question is, considering your previous ignorance of historical events, do you?
Not everyone in Afghanistan is Al Qaeda. Or do you not think you can be brown and not a racist?
I've seen some pretty blatant race-baiting in my life, and this one ranks up there. Where do you get the idea that everyone in Afghanistan is "brown?" Since when is "brown" a race? They're Arabs, and Persians, and Kurds, and about a dozen other races, you bigot.
"Know the difference."
A very simple alternate meatspace analogy is trespass.
No; trespassing is a criminal matter, not a civil one (unless we're talking trespass to chattels, which you are not). "Analogy" implies a commonality.
A real meatspace analogy would be if you offered me access to your property in writing, then at some point changed the contract to revoke my access.
The difference is, with a written (paper) contract between two individuals, changing the terms requires the physical signature of both parties; in terms of service, one party can unilaterally change their policy, with minimal notification to the other party, and so long as the original party offers some sort of notification (i.e., Sony 'allowing' consumers to opt-out of their "no-sue" clause by forcing them to snail-mail a written rejection within 14 days), it's all considered perfectly legal.
In summation, the system is fucked, and it's going to stay that way until someone like Sony or facebook step on the wrong toes.
This gets into sticky areas like "How many near-simultaneous "requests" for my PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE SERVICE constitutes "popular" versus a denial-of-service attack?" In effect, the slashdot effect could be deemed a federal felony offense if the law stands. SCOTUS will likely have to take it up.
In other words, the fate of our technological freedom is in the hands of 9 dinosaurs who are of the generation that honestly believes the internet is made up of physically interconnected tubes?
$diety help us, we are FUCKED.
One could argue, for example, that perhaps facebook wouldn't exist if they didn't think this was possible, and facebook is so awesome it outweighs the cost. I wouldn't argue that, but someone could.
You and I both.
Besides, yea, one could attempt to make that argument, but it's obvious bullshit; the Zuckerburgs of the world don't give two shits about being able to incarcerate their customers for ToS violations, so long as people keep signing up and the skrilla keeps flowing in.
They will probably just try to make "Ignorantia juris non excusat" apply to the TOS as well and be like "You didn't read the updated TOS? Your fault".
Which is, as we all know, complete bullshit.
"Ignorantia juris non excusat" is only legitimate when applied across the board, without exceptions, and we all know that's not the case.
Lower courts have held that violating a (basically TOS) is a crime?
Not just a crime, a felony crime. Which means being convicted of ToS violations not only takes away your physical freedom, but also damages your ability to find a job upon release, makes it impossible to own a gun, removes your right to vote (although some states restore that right after a prescribed period of time), and all the other wonderful disadvantages that come with being a convicted felon.
Land of the Free, my enslaved ass.
I think it's hard to tell whether this is good for consumers (because we have the freedom to do what we want with our programs, etc), or bad for consumers (because it makes things less safe for companies). Either way, I'm happy for now, I guess.
It's not hard to tell at all: being able to throw consumers in jail for ToS violations is most definitely, unquestionably, bad for consumers.
18 months to merge?
CREATE TABLE BLOCKED_CELLPHONES ( IMEI TYPE ANY )
There, hurry up and move this into production today.
Hmm... logical... efficient... reasonable...
You're fired.
Sincerely,
US cell carriers
I feel the same way about Congressional "bi-partisanship;" it seems the only time we can get these mortal enemies to agree on anything is when it is something that totally screws Americans. For examples, see:
PATRIOT Act
SOPA
FISA
STOCK Act (which doesn't actually ban insider trading by politicians, but rather requires them to report the profit they earned from insider trading within 30 days of earning said profit)
et. al.
"Bi-partisan" is congresscritter code for "fuck the people over."
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
-- Thomas Jefferson
I guess Bush was right when he said "Internets".
Yes, that was technically correct; the best kind of correct.
As always, be familiar with the laws about recording telephone calls in your jurisdiction. If unsure, don't. ;)
Good advice; Fortunately, I live in a "one-party consent" state, meaning that so long as at least 1 person in the call knows it's being recorded, everything is legal beagle :D
Samsung S2 != Motorola DX
If I'm not mistaken (which I could be, as it's been some time since I researched this), Motorola actually locks the call stream access functionality out of their devices at the hardware level, meaning that no matter what, an app cannot access the inbound call stream.
Why they would do this to their customers is beyond me.
Since when is it my responsibility, as the customer, to spend my money and time making devices that save the power company money?
Well since a large part of what they charge you is down to their costs you are in fact helping yourself. Seriously, you can't see that?
Your local utility must be far more altruistic than mine; around these parts, rate hikes happen regularly, across the board, with no explanation greater than "we felt like it." In fact, if more consumers moved their usage to off-peak hours, the utility (which is technically a 'public' utility, even though the local government allows them to run it as though it were a private business) would just start charging more for those hours to make up for the lost profits.
Seriously. The mafia would run a more fair utility than the people in charge of it now.
No problem, man, really just trying to help (although I readily admit I do have a tendency to be a royal dick about it; sorry, that's just my nature).
I appreciate your admission and candor, and would welcome debate with you anytime.
For the record, I mean no disrespect for those who are able to make the changes necessary to move their power consumption to 'off-peak' times; I was merely pointing out the futility of utilities 'encouraging' people to adopt new living patterns that are completely unfeasible for the vast majority of the population.
If the company I'm working for would allow me to work from home (which they should, as no aspect of my current employment demands a physical presence), I too would be shifting a lot of my usage to off-peak hours, if only by virtue of the fact I would actually be at my residence during said hours.
While hyperbole might make for good TV and Slashdot posts, it's not really appropriate for someone whose job is to report factual information.
Again, for good measure:
While hyperbole might make for good TV and Slashdot posts, it's not really appropriate for someone whose job is to report factual information.
One more time, to make sure you've got it:
While hyperbole might make for good TV and Slashdot posts, it's not really appropriate for someone whose job is to report factual information.
Also, this should help you avoid future misunderstandings: http://www.rhlschool.com/reading.htm
On the other hand, you can't bitch about it when you're charged more for usage that costs the power company more money.
Or did you think that it was the responsibility of the people who use cheap, off-peak power to subsidize your lifestyle?
... Was your response to
How am I or anyone else supposed to "shift energy use to non-peak hours" when our working schedules are determined by our employers? Surely the people running these utilities (who, consequently, tend to work 8-5 jobs as well) aren't so dumb as to think that's a viable strategy, are they?
Here, this should help you: http://academic.cuesta.edu/acasupp/as/309.HTM
You're welcome.
Do you get CNN on your planet?
Yup, and not a single report I saw stated "Obama/Sarkozy's assisting Al-queda take over Libya," as purported by OP.
You can blah blah blah all you want, but reality appears to be in opposition, and unless you can provide a citation to prove otherwise, then all your words are merely heresay.
The Libertarians seem to be gathering a good amount of steam...
If not for their overly simplistic view of economics, I would say they have a real shot at becoming the party to beat.
No apology needed; I rather like it with the typo, sounds about right.
If I didn't have a standing, lifetime boycott of the Communist Republic of California, I might take that bet; although, I can do one better:
By all appearances, I'm a white dude. I have driven down the streets of East St. Louis (which makes Compton look like Beverly Hills, for those who don't know), at night, in a pimpin' old-school Buick, lost as hell. This has happened to me several times (on the 270 loop, if you forget which exit to take you end up crossing the river before you know it). Not once have I been accosted, raped, robbed, or even so much as threatened as I traversed this poor, lower-class, majority black neighborhood. Never. In fact, if not for the kindness of the locals, I might have never found my way back to STL proper.
Here's the thing: If you go around any group of people acting like some sort of prey animal, then you're damn right a predator is going to pick up on that and take advantage. Race has nothing to do with it - you being a total chickenshit and making it obvious to the world does.
Personally, I didn't find it all that racist... that is, until I reached bullet point No. 10. From there, it's like watching a train wreck as the author goes deeper and deeper into xenophobic psychosis, pulling out every poorly done study and stereotyping mechanism he can muster to create an image that blacks are inferior to whites somehow.
Seriously, it was like watching a Charles Manson parole review; He starts off semi-intelligent, thoughtful even, then quickly degrades to the psychotic circus act we've all come to know and love (the fact that he's never getting out).
It takes one person to stereotype and another to take it badly, without either of those, there's no conflict.
Why in the hell is it required that someone "take it badly?"
Hypothetical situation:
Coach has been coaching college hoops for 30+ years. In that time, he has kept a log of the statistics of all his players, including their race. After 30+ years, the data indicates that black athletes perform 60x better than athletes of other races. Coach off-handedly remarks one day, "If my teams were made up of nothing but black students, we'd never lose!"
There's your stereotype: black people are good at basketball. And, at least in our hypothetical situation, the empirical data backs the stereotype.
So long as Al Sharpton and all the other people who make their living out of promoting racial disharmony don't find out, there will be no conflict.
This concept is easier to understand as the axiom, "it takes 2 to tango."