Indeed, but since when was the average person educated enough about science and statistics to understand the importance of what you are saying, or to competently criticize the methods used and claims made by the copyright interests?
And just because you work for an organization or company does not mean you won't be prosecuted for crimes you commit on the job.
Yeah, I'm down with that. I just don't understand how Sarah Palin can get away with her crimes committed while in office, by quitting said office. I mean, the crimes were committed, why isn't there an investigation, even after she left? It's not like I can quit my job to get away with anything.
its too easy to have sex with your 17 year old gf when you're 18 and end up as a sex offender.
Bah. Sex doesn't even have to be involved. "It's too easy to take a leak on a long deserted stretch of highway, and end up on the sex offender's list."
I actually witnessed some idiot pissing on the side of North Station get arrested by two officers who just happened to walk by at the wrong time. Don't know if he got on the list, though.
Not so long ago, they've enacted the law that using any concealed audio or video recording or transmitting device while dealing with a government official is a crime (which can be punishable by up to 3 years in jail). Notices to that effect adorn doors of many offices of higher-profile officials - I've seen a bunch myself.
Wow. Interesting to hear about, as I've long considered that the only way we will reduce corruption in the US is to have 24/7 surveillance of our elected officials, available for anyone to view (like a YouTube CSPAN).
Of course, they're the ones passing the laws, so they'll never allow something like that, was also my thinking.
But this is a further step -- passing a law actively against that model. The Russians are creative.
Yeah, that makes some sense, but a counter-argument using a different profession: all clergy are in cahoots with each other (regardless of the religion). The goal? To deprive the feeble-minded of their resources.
And, for Catholics, a side goal is to increase their sheep's birth rate higher than the surrounding population, thus ensuring (in the long run) overwhelming numbers, if not victory. (Additionally, this way there are that many more tiny assholes for the scumbag priests to violate as well.)
Seriously: I want to hire you. I'm working on a donation-driven site, where the donations are "gifted" toward a campaign that will repeal a law on the books. The site will have many such campaigns (which users can create), each directed at a different law (or set of laws, if they're related).
The problem is, we need lawyers to help us fight this fight. And, we need "standing", in other words, members who will risk jail time by violating the laws that they intend to fight, in order to be able to fight them. (This ties in with your thinking regarding laws being crafted so insidiously that only lawyers can interpret them: if "just anyone" could challenge e.g. a law that says you give up a testicle for looking at the legislators the wrong way, then the law would go away quickly; but, if the only people who could challenge that law were people who had already lost a testicle to said law, then you'd find much averting of the eyes when cross-dressing fucks walked about town.)
I think the first one should be "something ridiculous", like "bees aren't allowed to fly less than 6' above the city streets" -- a municipal "zoning law", for which getting actual zoning approval was too much effort, so they passed that law instead; the goal was to drive a beekeeper out of town, and they succeeded, but the law is still on the books to this day. So now, our legislative "source code" is filled with this type of cruft, and I am making it my mission to remove the cruft.
The first one will be something "throwaway", to get recognition.
The second one will be an amendment to the Constitution, fairly simple in wording but significant in effect: passing a law will take 90% vote; repealing a law will take 50% vote.
At that point, my campaign will start in fucking earnest.
The idea of anyone, much less everyone, knowing all law is a cruel joke these days, thus leaving pretty much everyone open to attack by vengeful authorities, hostile businesses, litigious lunatics etc. It also allows for the law to be "interpreted" (aided by the other insanity that is "case" law) pretty much arbitrarily.
Segue to my favorite insightful quote on this matter, from longer ago than I am alive:
"You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up
against -- then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful
gestures. We're after power and we mean it. Your fellows were pikers, but
we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to
rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack
down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes
them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible
for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding
citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws
that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted --
and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt.
Now that's the system...that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll
be easier to deal with."
A worse problem is the fact that people use the same password for everything - bank account, hotmail, gmail, work, etc. One of them gets compromised by someone and all of a sudden their whole life is exposed.
At the risk of exposing too much of my personal heuristic (hey! This article is a phishing expedition!), I use the same password for all sites. Well, that is, the same password scheme.
It's generally my birthday, followed by the site in 1337-speak (i.e., "yahoo" is "y4h00", etc), followed by my birthday.
Any site I sign up at, I don't need to record my password unless it's like a bank or something and I want a "stronger" password.
If someone guesses the password at one site, it won't work at other sites. If they guess (or read...) the algorithm, well then all bets are off.
And: no, for some reason I decided that Slashdot was something like a bank, and anyway I was born on February 30th, so good luck!
The question should be asked: *How* did that former coworker get the password? From a sticky note on someone's computer because they kept forgetting their latest password, perhaps?
From an over-the-shoulder attack. Do you always turn and stare at your coworker before you type your password, letting them know through body language that they should be looking away? (Or do you make it even more obvious by saying "don't look while I type my fucking password, jerk!"?) My previous post shows my method of mitigating over-the-shoulder attacks, without having to resort to that. (Additionally, I always look away when I'm over someone else's shoulder, but sadly, that doesn't seem to educate very well -- mostly, because they tend to be looking at their keyboard, touch typing being a dying art...)
Of course, camera me typing my password and play it slow, and I've lost. (Or keylog, etc...)
Do what I do: my password consists entirely of the home row. Well, now it also includes a capital A, because "must have any three of: lowercase, uppercase, number, punctuation", and my right pinky is over the ";" so I don't need a number. One benefit is that my fingers only travel up and down when typing my password (except for the "A"); this makes over-the-shoulder spying more difficult. Another benefit is I can make it arbitrarily long (i.e., just double or triple it; more complex could be each "repeat" is different, but I haven't had any issues with the current approach). Sometimes I "pattern match", i.e., fingers numbered 1-4, it goes L1 R1 L2 R2 L3 R3 L4 R4 "A"; and sometimes they're mis-matched, like L1 R2 L2 R1 L3 R4 L4 R3 "A". And sometimes I put the "A" at the front.
Oh, and my mother's maiden name is "insecuremothersmaidenname".
The Apple your ilk fantasize about, so far as I can tell, never really existed, as the Apple of Spindler, et al.
Yeah, I hear that he even went so far as to make a checklist of features he would kill the product for, if it didn't include them; they jokingly called it Spindler's List.
Child pornography (that is, pictures of actual children engaging in sexual acts) is illegal not because the content is objectionable, but rather because its very existence requires a crime to be committed.
Yes, and "bank heist fetishists" require a crime to be committed, perhaps involving murder, in order to get their rocks off.
Yet, we do not criminalize the possession of bank robbery crime scene footage, now do we?
Or more accurately, even if viewing child porn causes not additional harm to the child depicted if people in a position to create child porn are aware there is a demand for it - which they are if people are downloading material from web sites they control - then it's much more likely that they will invest the time and resources to set up a camera and get a child to act in front of it. In many cases, the child is far from a willing participant.
So, yes, it is possible to view child pornography and not hurt anyone. However, in aggregate, the viewing of child pornography creates a demand for new images, and the filling of this demand results in child abuse.
Okay, a car analogy:
Or more accurately, even if viewing car crash footage causes not additional harm to the drivers depicted if people in a position to create car crash footage are aware there is a demand for it - which they are if people are downloading material from web sites they control - then it's much more likely that they will invest the time and resources to set up a camera and get a car to crash in front of it. In many cases, the car is far from a willing participant.
So, yes, it is possible to view car crash footage and not hurt anyone. However, in aggregate, the viewing of car crash footage creates a demand for new images, and the filling of this demand results in automobile abuse.
Make more sense now? These are images. These images are evidence that a crime was committed. It should never be criminal to have photographic evidence that a crime was committed.
Blue laws also shouldn't exist. Here in MA we "fixed" the alcohol selling blue laws, or at least I thought we did, a few years ago; however, I just learned that you still can't buy beer before noon on Sunday. What the fuck? There is no state-sponsored religion, so why do we have religion-sponsored laws? God damn. Well, there, I just vented and it's after noon now, I'll be right back.
The Bible, the most authoritative source on the subject, clearly points out that knowledge is the root of all evil.
Yes, I understand that your post was a complete joke. But, it did make me think: Sunday School teaches children about religion. Teaching, is sharing knowledge.
Therefore, the people promoting the religion are actively working against its teachings.
If you could call them teachings, that is; if they adhered to your statement of their statements, then they obviously would prefer to call them "dumbing-down sessions" in order to avoid being inconsistent. And, calling them that would also match my experience, growing up.
Project much? I responded to your "I am a honeypot for grammar Nazis" comment, and you think I'm correcting? No, I'm honestly wishing you luck, because you will need it if you bait people like that, on-line or off. And I'm sorry but I did not understand the pun.
We can, safe behind our computers, armchair-quarterback the decisions made on the ground until the cows come home [...]
For a second, I thought this might segue into mention of Pat Tillman, celebrity football player who stupidly (bravely?) enlisted, and was then killed by friendly fire, with questionable circumstances.
But I'm in complete agreement with you that notwithstanding how hard a road it is to walk, and no matter how bad it might look to an uniformed eye, it is ALWAYS better to admit your own mistakes than to try and hide them, as the act of trying to hide them looks like culpability.
Absolutely agree. In fact, so does our legal system!
Martha Stewart did time, not for an illegal investment act -- but for covering up what she thought might be.
She did nothing wrong, initially; her punishment was for attempting to cover it up.
Do you think that it's at all possible (me: no) that our legal system will give our military the same treatment?
Slashdot Mirror
Since before "No Child Left Behind"?
So, he thinks "Choose-your-own-adventure" books aren't art, either? LOLfail.
Yeah, I'm down with that. I just don't understand how Sarah Palin can get away with her crimes committed while in office, by quitting said office. I mean, the crimes were committed, why isn't there an investigation, even after she left? It's not like I can quit my job to get away with anything.
Bah. Sex doesn't even have to be involved. "It's too easy to take a leak on a long deserted stretch of highway, and end up on the sex offender's list."
I actually witnessed some idiot pissing on the side of North Station get arrested by two officers who just happened to walk by at the wrong time. Don't know if he got on the list, though.
Wow. Interesting to hear about, as I've long considered that the only way we will reduce corruption in the US is to have 24/7 surveillance of our elected officials, available for anyone to view (like a YouTube CSPAN).
Of course, they're the ones passing the laws, so they'll never allow something like that, was also my thinking.
But this is a further step -- passing a law actively against that model. The Russians are creative.
Yeah, that makes some sense, but a counter-argument using a different profession: all clergy are in cahoots with each other (regardless of the religion). The goal? To deprive the feeble-minded of their resources.
And, for Catholics, a side goal is to increase their sheep's birth rate higher than the surrounding population, thus ensuring (in the long run) overwhelming numbers, if not victory. (Additionally, this way there are that many more tiny assholes for the scumbag priests to violate as well.)
Seriously: I want to hire you. I'm working on a donation-driven site, where the donations are "gifted" toward a campaign that will repeal a law on the books. The site will have many such campaigns (which users can create), each directed at a different law (or set of laws, if they're related).
The problem is, we need lawyers to help us fight this fight. And, we need "standing", in other words, members who will risk jail time by violating the laws that they intend to fight, in order to be able to fight them. (This ties in with your thinking regarding laws being crafted so insidiously that only lawyers can interpret them: if "just anyone" could challenge e.g. a law that says you give up a testicle for looking at the legislators the wrong way, then the law would go away quickly; but, if the only people who could challenge that law were people who had already lost a testicle to said law, then you'd find much averting of the eyes when cross-dressing fucks walked about town.)
I think the first one should be "something ridiculous", like "bees aren't allowed to fly less than 6' above the city streets" -- a municipal "zoning law", for which getting actual zoning approval was too much effort, so they passed that law instead; the goal was to drive a beekeeper out of town, and they succeeded, but the law is still on the books to this day. So now, our legislative "source code" is filled with this type of cruft, and I am making it my mission to remove the cruft.
The first one will be something "throwaway", to get recognition.
The second one will be an amendment to the Constitution, fairly simple in wording but significant in effect: passing a law will take 90% vote; repealing a law will take 50% vote.
At that point, my campaign will start in fucking earnest.
And, my pigs can fly.
Segue to my favorite insightful quote on this matter, from longer ago than I am alive:
You should have left off the "for".
At the risk of exposing too much of my personal heuristic (hey! This article is a phishing expedition!), I use the same password for all sites. Well, that is, the same password scheme.
It's generally my birthday, followed by the site in 1337-speak (i.e., "yahoo" is "y4h00", etc), followed by my birthday.
Any site I sign up at, I don't need to record my password unless it's like a bank or something and I want a "stronger" password.
If someone guesses the password at one site, it won't work at other sites. If they guess (or read...) the algorithm, well then all bets are off.
And: no, for some reason I decided that Slashdot was something like a bank, and anyway I was born on February 30th, so good luck!
From an over-the-shoulder attack. Do you always turn and stare at your coworker before you type your password, letting them know through body language that they should be looking away? (Or do you make it even more obvious by saying "don't look while I type my fucking password, jerk!"?) My previous post shows my method of mitigating over-the-shoulder attacks, without having to resort to that. (Additionally, I always look away when I'm over someone else's shoulder, but sadly, that doesn't seem to educate very well -- mostly, because they tend to be looking at their keyboard, touch typing being a dying art...)
Of course, camera me typing my password and play it slow, and I've lost. (Or keylog, etc...)
Do what I do: my password consists entirely of the home row. Well, now it also includes a capital A, because "must have any three of: lowercase, uppercase, number, punctuation", and my right pinky is over the ";" so I don't need a number. One benefit is that my fingers only travel up and down when typing my password (except for the "A"); this makes over-the-shoulder spying more difficult. Another benefit is I can make it arbitrarily long (i.e., just double or triple it; more complex could be each "repeat" is different, but I haven't had any issues with the current approach). Sometimes I "pattern match", i.e., fingers numbered 1-4, it goes L1 R1 L2 R2 L3 R3 L4 R4 "A"; and sometimes they're mis-matched, like L1 R2 L2 R1 L3 R4 L4 R3 "A". And sometimes I put the "A" at the front.
Oh, and my mother's maiden name is "insecuremothersmaidenname".
You should try a young one, perhaps? Just not too young, please don't think of the children.
Thank you. I submit today's fortune for your consideration: "Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there. -- Sydney J. Harris"
In a nutshell, Catholics are asshole-raping self-protecting scumbags.
Yeah, I hear that he even went so far as to make a checklist of features he would kill the product for, if it didn't include them; they jokingly called it Spindler's List.
Yes, and "bank heist fetishists" require a crime to be committed, perhaps involving murder, in order to get their rocks off.
Yet, we do not criminalize the possession of bank robbery crime scene footage, now do we?
There is a disconnect here.
In the US, the age of consent is as low as 14 in some states: http://ageofconsent.com/
Okay, a car analogy:
Make more sense now? These are images. These images are evidence that a crime was committed. It should never be criminal to have photographic evidence that a crime was committed.
Blue laws also shouldn't exist. Here in MA we "fixed" the alcohol selling blue laws, or at least I thought we did, a few years ago; however, I just learned that you still can't buy beer before noon on Sunday. What the fuck? There is no state-sponsored religion, so why do we have religion-sponsored laws? God damn. Well, there, I just vented and it's after noon now, I'll be right back.
That's in the advanced class, too.
I really liked my sex ed class in college. Especially the oral exam.
Yes, I understand that your post was a complete joke. But, it did make me think: Sunday School teaches children about religion. Teaching, is sharing knowledge.
Therefore, the people promoting the religion are actively working against its teachings.
If you could call them teachings, that is; if they adhered to your statement of their statements, then they obviously would prefer to call them "dumbing-down sessions" in order to avoid being inconsistent. And, calling them that would also match my experience, growing up.
Project much? I responded to your "I am a honeypot for grammar Nazis" comment, and you think I'm correcting? No, I'm honestly wishing you luck, because you will need it if you bait people like that, on-line or off. And I'm sorry but I did not understand the pun.
Hopefully not around school children!
"You changed the outcome of the race by observing it!"
For a second, I thought this might segue into mention of Pat Tillman, celebrity football player who stupidly (bravely?) enlisted, and was then killed by friendly fire, with questionable circumstances.
Absolutely agree. In fact, so does our legal system!
Martha Stewart did time, not for an illegal investment act -- but for covering up what she thought might be.
She did nothing wrong, initially; her punishment was for attempting to cover it up.
Do you think that it's at all possible (me: no) that our legal system will give our military the same treatment?