well yeah, I'm aware that the GG CAN exert power and I'll completely agree we all want to see Harper and the deceptiCons get theirs for some of the shit they've pulled. But like you said, it's a one shot thing and incredibly unlikely to ever happen for the reason of we LIKE the Queen. She's a classy dame and all that. Plus, we're the only good kid England has left. They kicked Australia out, the USA ran away to start a band and India just sat in its room refusing to eat until mom let him leave. I mean, sure, we may have married that french woman who's always going on about a divorce at all the family gatherings but we're still the good kid. The GG isn't likely ever going to USE that one shot any more than the Queen is to refuse to let a PM resign or accept a new one.
I'd consider it a pretty minor office. The job of the GG is mostly ceremonial. It's lip service to the monarchy for the sake of tradition. If he or she ever actually said no to the PM on any of his requests there'd be a public uproar that s/he was overstepping their duties.
First off, that's a terrible analogy. ME putting pictures of MYSELF doing illegal (in the case of the bong) things and then my boss seeing them and firing me (which I'm pretty sure led to a bunch of "you can't fire me for what I do in my spare time" laws anyways) has nothing to do with Google gathering private data to use internally. I'd say it's like comparing apples and oranges but those are actually very similar things unlike you example and the issue being discussed which are such dissonant concepts that besides they both caused huge moral outrage by the pro-privacy people which I consider unfounded they're all but unrelated.
To address your actual point you think I missed though
Anytime there is a decently large-scale violation of either freedom, privacy, or both, there are always legions of useful idiots who will make excuses and justifications for it. It's a necessary component of any such violation. It gives the illusion that there is legitimate debate about the ethics of deploying clever and/or novel ways to conduct surveillance on people.
I have no problem with people getting data which I am publicly displaying or broadcasting and I see no ethical violation in anyone collecting it. Therefore, there is a legitimate debate. The fact that you are on the opposite side of the debate does not nullify the existence of legitimacy of mine.
It's a convincing illusion for the rather unenlightened who believe that privacy is about convenience and not about fundamental rights.
I don't believe privacy is as fundamental of a right as you do. I believe that if you actively try to hide something because it doesn't harm anyone but embarrasses you you should have the right to that information not getting out, but when you broadcast unencrypted data or, to work in your facebook example, put information about yourself on a public website which exists for the sole purpose of showing other people information about yourself your privacy rights are rendered null and void.
Don't stand naked in front of your window and then complain when someone looks through the window and sees your unmentionables. Either stay away from the window or wear pants.
did it ever occur to you that some people just don't care about the privacy of an unsecured network and honestly don't think it's a big deal? Because I have a friend who doesn't even broadcast and SSID and refuses to use facebook. Me? I have my full name and address various places on the internet and I don't care because I'm confidant that nobody is going to do anything with it.
it's not that I'm a Google fanboy. It's just that I don't consider personal data being in the hands of a corporation to be that big of a deal? What are they going to do with it that will negatively effect me? Target ads at me with the fury of 1000 suns?
The problem with your analogy is that that's an entirely valid thing to say. If someone is starving and I don't go get him food, or I DO go to get him food but don't get back fast enough I failed to keep him alive but sure as hell didn't kill him.
The more successful a company, the more resources it possesses, the more talent it has hired, the more difficult it becomes to believe that they'd make trivial mistakes that most Slashdotters, acting alone with an infinitessimal fraction of the same resources, would have easily avoided. Good long-term strategy looks a lot like things just happening to work out a certain way as a product of chance. It's possible someone at Google could have made the incredibly trivial mistake that caused this chain of events. What's unlikely is that among all of the managers, designers, and programmers involved in this project, not one person noticed such a mistake.
Which is why giant companies like microsoft never have any bugs or errors in their code. oh wait...
A pagan religion? So, ignoring the fact that it wasn't a religion at all, if they were so pagan why did their belt buckles all say "God With Us" (in German of course) was that part of some pagan religion? I am aware the swastika was a good luck symbol but that just means that hitler was superstitious, not Hindu. Also, if they were pagans, why did the Vatican support them? And yes, many of the Germans who opposed Hitler were Catholic. Because most of the people who were German were Catholic. Because Germany was a very Catholic country.
And saying pakistan isn't in the middle east is like saying that someone from Russia is "Asian". It's technically true but common usage means it's effectively not.
And finally, death toll doesn't have anything to do with anything because, as I stated in my OP, this isn't about "blarg religion is bad" or "blarg atheism is bad" it's about "Blarg. Violent murderous extremism is bad"
Oh man, I once went two years talking to this girl a couple times a week. And not like, small talk. We'd have 30 minute and up conversations.
So one day, I bring one of my friends to the place we hang out and I have to introduce them. Let me tell you, there is nothing more awkward than trying to explain to one of your friends that you don't know their name (first, last, nick or otherwise) after hanging out for over 2 years because "it never came up."
I hate to bring this up because it's off topic. But Hitler was Catholic. He went to church, was backed by the Vatican and mentions doing Gods work in Mein Kampf. You can't disown him from your belief system because he was a cunt.
All of which is beside the point because this article isn't about "religion is bad" it's about "murderous extremists are bad". The current culture of the middle east just happens to foster a religious culture predisposed to extremism.
I was saying "you can play games" in response to "what could you do with a hacked PS3?". I was not saying that hacking a PS3 was currently possible. I was actually saying that you can't really do it in any effective of guaranteed way.
And yet, somehow we've recently seen lots of indie games on shoestring budges with excellent graphics and writing that were massively successful. Also, there was obviously something good about narbacular, otherwise Valve wouldn't have hired on the team.
Yes. The gameplay was good. I said that. But Narbacular drop was not an amazing game. It was an INTERESTING game with a lot of potential.
And could you list all these amazing free games you're talking about? Because last I checked indie games still cost money. Which means they're still relying on the whole "people buying their product" model.
Sure they can. It's called holding a full time job and working on your pet project in your spare time. LOTS of teams have produced great games and mods like that.
Again. Can I get a list? Counterstrike comes to mind but really, beyond that... Flash games? Maybe? I'm pretty sure all of my favourite games were made by companies trying to make a living off selling video games
Have you heard of this great new film called Avatar? I've heard it's got some pretty interesting CG tech. You might want to check it out.
It didn't use JUST cgi. The CG was one step above photomanipulation, not pure rendering. They had actors do everything models do everything and then they went over it all with CG. You can, at best, replace the extras with that and that's making some pretty heavy assumptions about the degree technology will drop in price. Might I point out they had a MAKEUP DEPARTMENT. And scroll down the list of 3D artists they needed for that. I won't wait though, it'll take you too long. It's a VERY LONG LIST. No matter how advanced you make the technology you still need a crapton of people. The more art you have the more artists you need.
They were amazing. It was like a Harrison Ford twincest fanfic meets the big screen. Half naked natives with terribly aimed blasters as far as the eye can see.
I am aware of narbacular drop (the original game). However the fact that not many other people do kind of shows my point. It isn't well known and it wasn't nearly as good because while the mechanics were similar and engaging, the graphics and writing was meh. Before the portal project Valve hired 2 (or 3, I forget) writers and basically let them do whatever the hell they wanted for a while until the portal project started and they decided to work on it. That's one of Valve's strengths. They let people do whatever they want. You want to spend 10 years making a game? You can! That's how valve time happens. They don't force deadlines because they're so far in the black they don't have to. A smaller company can't do that sort of thing because they need a product on the market before they all starve to death.
Valve can afford to hire people they don't even need yet because they think they might be useful later. Their Cabal system of game development requires ridiculous amounts of time and money to implement properly but it makes games like HL, HL2, TF2 and Portal.
But enough of my flagrant Valve Fanboying.
Yes special effects will get cheaper, but a movie is more than special effects. You need costumes, you need sets, you need film equipment and most importantly, you need actors. no matter how cheap equipment gets, people don't. Extras, crew, actors etc. For a full scale movie you're probably going to need a significant financial investment. Plus marketing costs (viral will only get you so far) food for the actors your already paying if you need to travel anywhere. Travel costs etc. You can't use JUST cgi. Lucas tried that. It was terrible.
Think in terms of gaming though. Portal wasn't cheap to make and a small team without much funding couldn't have done it as well, same with team fortress 2 and HL2. They spent 10 years on that thing. that isn't cheap and the finished products are some of the best games ever made. Valve can't live on donations. And neither can Blizzard, Nintendo (well ok at this point Nintendo could pay YOU to take their games and still be in the black, but still)
As for movies. Does the huge budget make the movie better? not necessarily. But there's some amazing comedy troupes on youtube, beyond that though, Shaun of the Dead, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Terminator 2 and the Original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy? Those weren't cheap to make, and small time people won't put stuff like that on Youtube. Trust me. They'll sue them if you try.
yes, the two guys who make homestar runner or the one guy who makes a comic can make a living for himself and his family off it. But an entire corporation or game company can't "rely on the kindness of strangers" as a certain streetcar might say and expect to stay in business.
you can play bootleg versions of PS3 games without paying for them. Which is basically what everyone I know who cracks their systems uses it for. Playing free games for that system on that system.
So unless you're going to claim that there are no games anyone wants to play on the PS3 (which is a bad joke at best and a played out attempt at trolling at worst. So don't bother.) there is motivation to hack it.
They have succeeded in making a very difficult to crack system or a system where the potential benefit is outweighed by the potential loss if you want to go the "it's expensive if it breaks" route. Either way, they pulled it off pretty well.
I'm saying that whatever proprietary software they require the mac for (which is the only way to justify a mac only policy) won't be available to them at home what with their not having a mac. So the only way they can do homework would be to do it over lunch or stay at the school late.
If there's nothing they can't do on a normal computer then why can't the girl with the Dell use that? Clearly, for them to be able to justify this, there's some software or information that will only be available to these computers/macbooks in general.
1: The ubiquity of windows in a work/real world setting makes forcing students to learn how to use it logical. OSX, less so.
2: An equivalent windows laptop usually doesn't cost $900 (hence why you can't ignore the price issue)
3: This is the first time I've ever heard of any school district forcing students to buy laptops at all let alone a specific made model and brand. I was required to have a computer for COLLEGE that ran windows but I fully free to pick the one I wanted. And laptops, while helpful, were not required if you didn't mind carrying a flash drive to move files from the lab to your home.
You can't say "the 900 dollar mandatory price tag aside" and then say there's no issue. Putting a statement that you want to ignore the major issue in your post doesn't make it go away.
Yes. Completely voluntary. Until the first homework assignment comes around and the kids who don't participate have to stay late and work through lunch.
Slashdot Mirror
well yeah, I'm aware that the GG CAN exert power and I'll completely agree we all want to see Harper and the deceptiCons get theirs for some of the shit they've pulled. But like you said, it's a one shot thing and incredibly unlikely to ever happen for the reason of we LIKE the Queen. She's a classy dame and all that. Plus, we're the only good kid England has left. They kicked Australia out, the USA ran away to start a band and India just sat in its room refusing to eat until mom let him leave. I mean, sure, we may have married that french woman who's always going on about a divorce at all the family gatherings but we're still the good kid. The GG isn't likely ever going to USE that one shot any more than the Queen is to refuse to let a PM resign or accept a new one.
I'd consider it a pretty minor office. The job of the GG is mostly ceremonial. It's lip service to the monarchy for the sake of tradition. If he or she ever actually said no to the PM on any of his requests there'd be a public uproar that s/he was overstepping their duties.
wait, what do YOU think trivial means?
To address your actual point you think I missed though
Anytime there is a decently large-scale violation of either freedom, privacy, or both, there are always legions of useful idiots who will make excuses and justifications for it. It's a necessary component of any such violation. It gives the illusion that there is legitimate debate about the ethics of deploying clever and/or novel ways to conduct surveillance on people.
I have no problem with people getting data which I am publicly displaying or broadcasting and I see no ethical violation in anyone collecting it. Therefore, there is a legitimate debate. The fact that you are on the opposite side of the debate does not nullify the existence of legitimacy of mine.
It's a convincing illusion for the rather unenlightened who believe that privacy is about convenience and not about fundamental rights.
I don't believe privacy is as fundamental of a right as you do. I believe that if you actively try to hide something because it doesn't harm anyone but embarrasses you you should have the right to that information not getting out, but when you broadcast unencrypted data or, to work in your facebook example, put information about yourself on a public website which exists for the sole purpose of showing other people information about yourself your privacy rights are rendered null and void.
Don't stand naked in front of your window and then complain when someone looks through the window and sees your unmentionables. Either stay away from the window or wear pants.
did it ever occur to you that some people just don't care about the privacy of an unsecured network and honestly don't think it's a big deal? Because I have a friend who doesn't even broadcast and SSID and refuses to use facebook. Me? I have my full name and address various places on the internet and I don't care because I'm confidant that nobody is going to do anything with it.
it's not that I'm a Google fanboy. It's just that I don't consider personal data being in the hands of a corporation to be that big of a deal? What are they going to do with it that will negatively effect me? Target ads at me with the fury of 1000 suns?
The problem with your analogy is that that's an entirely valid thing to say. If someone is starving and I don't go get him food, or I DO go to get him food but don't get back fast enough I failed to keep him alive but sure as hell didn't kill him.
The more successful a company, the more resources it possesses, the more talent it has hired, the more difficult it becomes to believe that they'd make trivial mistakes that most Slashdotters, acting alone with an infinitessimal fraction of the same resources, would have easily avoided. Good long-term strategy looks a lot like things just happening to work out a certain way as a product of chance. It's possible someone at Google could have made the incredibly trivial mistake that caused this chain of events. What's unlikely is that among all of the managers, designers, and programmers involved in this project, not one person noticed such a mistake.
Which is why giant companies like microsoft never have any bugs or errors in their code. oh wait...
A pagan religion? So, ignoring the fact that it wasn't a religion at all, if they were so pagan why did their belt buckles all say "God With Us" (in German of course) was that part of some pagan religion? I am aware the swastika was a good luck symbol but that just means that hitler was superstitious, not Hindu. Also, if they were pagans, why did the Vatican support them? And yes, many of the Germans who opposed Hitler were Catholic. Because most of the people who were German were Catholic. Because Germany was a very Catholic country.
And saying pakistan isn't in the middle east is like saying that someone from Russia is "Asian". It's technically true but common usage means it's effectively not.
And finally, death toll doesn't have anything to do with anything because, as I stated in my OP, this isn't about "blarg religion is bad" or "blarg atheism is bad" it's about "Blarg. Violent murderous extremism is bad"
Oh man, I once went two years talking to this girl a couple times a week. And not like, small talk. We'd have 30 minute and up conversations.
So one day, I bring one of my friends to the place we hang out and I have to introduce them. Let me tell you, there is nothing more awkward than trying to explain to one of your friends that you don't know their name (first, last, nick or otherwise) after hanging out for over 2 years because "it never came up."
I hate to bring this up because it's off topic. But Hitler was Catholic. He went to church, was backed by the Vatican and mentions doing Gods work in Mein Kampf. You can't disown him from your belief system because he was a cunt.
All of which is beside the point because this article isn't about "religion is bad" it's about "murderous extremists are bad". The current culture of the middle east just happens to foster a religious culture predisposed to extremism.
I was saying "you can play games" in response to "what could you do with a hacked PS3?". I was not saying that hacking a PS3 was currently possible. I was actually saying that you can't really do it in any effective of guaranteed way.
And yet, somehow we've recently seen lots of indie games on shoestring budges with excellent graphics and writing that were massively successful. Also, there was obviously something good about narbacular, otherwise Valve wouldn't have hired on the team.
Yes. The gameplay was good. I said that. But Narbacular drop was not an amazing game. It was an INTERESTING game with a lot of potential. And could you list all these amazing free games you're talking about? Because last I checked indie games still cost money. Which means they're still relying on the whole "people buying their product" model.
Sure they can. It's called holding a full time job and working on your pet project in your spare time. LOTS of teams have produced great games and mods like that.
Again. Can I get a list? Counterstrike comes to mind but really, beyond that... Flash games? Maybe? I'm pretty sure all of my favourite games were made by companies trying to make a living off selling video games
Have you heard of this great new film called Avatar? I've heard it's got some pretty interesting CG tech. You might want to check it out.
It didn't use JUST cgi. The CG was one step above photomanipulation, not pure rendering. They had actors do everything models do everything and then they went over it all with CG. You can, at best, replace the extras with that and that's making some pretty heavy assumptions about the degree technology will drop in price. Might I point out they had a MAKEUP DEPARTMENT. And scroll down the list of 3D artists they needed for that. I won't wait though, it'll take you too long. It's a VERY LONG LIST. No matter how advanced you make the technology you still need a crapton of people. The more art you have the more artists you need.
They were amazing. It was like a Harrison Ford twincest fanfic meets the big screen. Half naked natives with terribly aimed blasters as far as the eye can see.
I am aware of narbacular drop (the original game). However the fact that not many other people do kind of shows my point. It isn't well known and it wasn't nearly as good because while the mechanics were similar and engaging, the graphics and writing was meh. Before the portal project Valve hired 2 (or 3, I forget) writers and basically let them do whatever the hell they wanted for a while until the portal project started and they decided to work on it. That's one of Valve's strengths. They let people do whatever they want. You want to spend 10 years making a game? You can! That's how valve time happens. They don't force deadlines because they're so far in the black they don't have to. A smaller company can't do that sort of thing because they need a product on the market before they all starve to death.
Valve can afford to hire people they don't even need yet because they think they might be useful later. Their Cabal system of game development requires ridiculous amounts of time and money to implement properly but it makes games like HL, HL2, TF2 and Portal.
But enough of my flagrant Valve Fanboying.
Yes special effects will get cheaper, but a movie is more than special effects. You need costumes, you need sets, you need film equipment and most importantly, you need actors. no matter how cheap equipment gets, people don't. Extras, crew, actors etc. For a full scale movie you're probably going to need a significant financial investment. Plus marketing costs (viral will only get you so far) food for the actors your already paying if you need to travel anywhere. Travel costs etc. You can't use JUST cgi. Lucas tried that. It was terrible.
Think in terms of gaming though. Portal wasn't cheap to make and a small team without much funding couldn't have done it as well, same with team fortress 2 and HL2. They spent 10 years on that thing. that isn't cheap and the finished products are some of the best games ever made. Valve can't live on donations. And neither can Blizzard, Nintendo (well ok at this point Nintendo could pay YOU to take their games and still be in the black, but still)
As for movies. Does the huge budget make the movie better? not necessarily. But there's some amazing comedy troupes on youtube, beyond that though, Shaun of the Dead, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Terminator 2 and the Original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy? Those weren't cheap to make, and small time people won't put stuff like that on Youtube. Trust me. They'll sue them if you try.
yes, the two guys who make homestar runner or the one guy who makes a comic can make a living for himself and his family off it. But an entire corporation or game company can't "rely on the kindness of strangers" as a certain streetcar might say and expect to stay in business.
you can play bootleg versions of PS3 games without paying for them. Which is basically what everyone I know who cracks their systems uses it for. Playing free games for that system on that system. So unless you're going to claim that there are no games anyone wants to play on the PS3 (which is a bad joke at best and a played out attempt at trolling at worst. So don't bother.) there is motivation to hack it.
They have succeeded in making a very difficult to crack system or a system where the potential benefit is outweighed by the potential loss if you want to go the "it's expensive if it breaks" route. Either way, they pulled it off pretty well.
I could have sworn I clicked the option to have ads on /. not show up.
I'm saying that whatever proprietary software they require the mac for (which is the only way to justify a mac only policy) won't be available to them at home what with their not having a mac. So the only way they can do homework would be to do it over lunch or stay at the school late.
If there's nothing they can't do on a normal computer then why can't the girl with the Dell use that? Clearly, for them to be able to justify this, there's some software or information that will only be available to these computers/macbooks in general.
Differences
1: The ubiquity of windows in a work/real world setting makes forcing students to learn how to use it logical. OSX, less so.
2: An equivalent windows laptop usually doesn't cost $900 (hence why you can't ignore the price issue)
3: This is the first time I've ever heard of any school district forcing students to buy laptops at all let alone a specific made model and brand. I was required to have a computer for COLLEGE that ran windows but I fully free to pick the one I wanted. And laptops, while helpful, were not required if you didn't mind carrying a flash drive to move files from the lab to your home.
So just like the real world. :-)
*blink* *blink*
oh
my
god
You're right. And they'll probably browse slashdot during class too.
It is an exact simulation of my current work day! This school district is brilliant at this.
You can't say "the 900 dollar mandatory price tag aside" and then say there's no issue. Putting a statement that you want to ignore the major issue in your post doesn't make it go away.
Yes. Completely voluntary. Until the first homework assignment comes around and the kids who don't participate have to stay late and work through lunch.
I believe it works like this. First there was no law about it.
They then criminalized it.
At that point it was illegal.
Now they are thinking of repealing the law they made which criminalized it, thus, legalizing it.
make sense?