I did that on my first project in the CS intro class in college. I got a special note on my code saying that the grader had never, ever seen anything so atrocious as that style of indenting. I switched to a more common style in order to conform.
And for the record, I don't understand the problem with using
} else {
The "if... else" construct is like a compound sentence. The else goes on the same line as the end of the if, because it's a continuation of the same thought, like using a comma or semicolon when writing sentences. In other cases, it's more clear to split them out with a blank line, but I usually don't bother, and if someone put in needless blank lines all the time, that would be annoying.
There are actually two differences: Apple is less successful, that's true; but the bigger difference is that Apple makes products that are above the threshold of usability. Some of them are Great, some of them are Good, and some of them are mediocre, but almost all of them are usable. Microsoft, on the other hand, has made maybe a half-dozen usable products in their history: a keyboard or two, a mouse or two, Excel, Explorer 5 Mac Version... uh... I can't think of any others, but there might be a couple more.
Please point me to the $100 commodity laptop which does all the things a MacBook does (except for OS X), because I think that would be a great deal, and would buy one.
(Furthermore, $1000 for the prerogative of using Mac OS instead of Windows seems about fair. I probably wouldn't pay much more than $2000. But, if it were actually that expensive for Mac OS, I'd probably use Linux. Anything but Windows!)
Then why abide by the constitution at all? If the rules set forth are "impractical", why not amend it to grant more power to the legislative branch? Two wrongs don't make a right. Half a dozen wrongs certainly do not.
Dude, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just saying that's the way it is; and that's nothing new, we've been selectively ignoring the Constitution since the beginning.
To directly answer your question: Then why abide by the constitution at all?; the answer is because it's a system that seems to work. We respect the parts that are the most important (in our historical opinion) and ignore the parts that are inconvenient and difficult to amend. Luckily, that means we have retained most of the Bill of Rights. It's not so lucky if you have a penchant for, say, the delegated powers clause.
Technically, everything our government does is "constitutional" according to the Supreme Court, even though in some cases that's obviously false. That brings us back around to the subject at hand, where Congress has passed an obviously unconstitutional law (allowing surveillance without a warrant) and the law may or may not eventually be found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Yeah, dude, that's a cute theory, but we've been doing end-runs around the Constitution for 200 years, precisely because it's so difficult to amend. Ever heard of the Federal Bank? Ever heard of social security, medicare, or welfare? Ever heard of the New Deal? Almost everything the Federal government has done since 1790 has been technically unconstitutional.
We can argue about whether all those things are good or bad, or whether we should have gone thru the arduous process of amendment for each one of them, and hundreds of others... or we could take the practical path, as we did. It was a series of judgment calls.
Huh. I always thought the cause of terrorist attacks was the people who commit the terrorist attacks. That's an interesting theory, though, taking the bad behavior of some people and attributing it to some other people.
Yes, that would make all the difference. If you specify your source, you absolve responsibility for the claim. If you phrase the claim as a declarative, then you yourself take on the responsibility for its veracity. I haven't read any of the stories, so I don't know how they phrased it in this case.
Well, being brutalized by other prisoners in jail is not cruel and unusual punishment because it isn't punishment, it's just a terrible event. The punishment is the jail time. If he were sentenced to torture, or if the torture came at the hands of the guards (which sometimes it does), or if the torture were inescapable reality for inmates (it isn't, although it is common), then that would be punishment. But if we send you to jail, and try to protect you from other prisoners (which, believe me, we do), and yet the other prisoners still get to you and beat you up -- well that isn't punishment for your crime, that's an unfortunate social interaction.
But, if the justice system "handed you over to the mob to string you up and teach you a lesson", then that would be cruel 'punishment'.
There is a sliding scale and a fine line here. I'm not sure where the line is, but having another prisoner smack you around (or rape you) isn't punishment, so it can't be cruel and unusual punishment.
If you live in a democracy, it is unreasonable for you to absolve yourself of responsibility for the law. It is not your fault alone, but you share it.
Then again, this particular case is a very strange one, a border case to be sure. From time to time, there are bound to be morally outrageous acts which slip thru the cracks in the law. I don't think we all need to be ashamed for not having the foresight to prevent this trajedy. It would probably be difficult to write a law that makes "psychological harassment" a crime without making "teasing" a crime. Imagine the outrage on Slashdot if the 'nanny state' make 'teasing' a crime.
Well, there is a difference, which is fraud. With regular bullying, the bully bullies as the bully. In this case, the bully fraudulently represented herself as another person. Furthermore, she utilized a computer as a tool in the fraud. That's a crime.
But, that isn't to say that the fraud is a compelling difference; or that her computer fraud warrants jail time. Perhaps fraudulent bullying is no worse than regular bullying; and perhaps computer fraud's classification as a crime is unreasonable.
No, Kirth said "of course, it's entirely illegal to demand google to turn over the records of non-US viewers". That statement is totally backwards, which belies Kirth's understanding of the law: it is not at all illegal for a judge to demand that Google turn over the records of non-US viewers. Then, when Kirth attaches "of course" to the offending statement, that makes it laughable.
That's all I'm saying.
I do hate to disagree with people who have a lower ID than me (Kirth is in the three digits!).
Ah, yes yes. When I say the user should "win" these conflicts, I mean inside their own machine: your computer should behave exactly the way you want it to with no (arbitrary) exceptions (only technical limitations). So for instance, if I have a media file, my computer should play it if it can; it shouldn't do DRM checks and tell me it won't do something that it could do.
As for receiving web content, look, if web producers want to find a way to block me when I use AdBlock, then I would deal with that. I certainly wouldn't be aggrieved about it -- it's their content, after all. But, I'm not going to help them by telling them that I'm blocking their ads.
If they choose to use HTML as a format to distribute their content, then they don't have control over what I do with it once it's on my computer. I can read it backwards, invert the colors, or filter out parts of the page if I want to.
If a producer wants to offer content inseparable from ads, then that producer should choose a different medium, because HTML doesn't have that feature. Incidentally, TV mostly doesn't have that feature anymore, either. Newspapers and other printed media still mostly have that feature, although I suppose I could pay someone to go thru and cut out all the ads first (or invert the colors or whatever).
Furthermore, packet filtering is a problem not so much because they are stopping me from downloading copyrighted material (which, in fact, they are); rather it's a problem because it violates the premise of a common carrier. A "common carrier" is protected from nefarious deeds done on the carrier's network (be it an airplane or bus network, a telephone network, or a computer network) because they are presumed unable to detect and deter the behavior. If the carrier knows of the deeds, then they are obligated to take action against the crimes; but if they don't know and can't know, then their "common carrier" status protects them from liability. So, computer network common carriers can't have it both ways: either they don't know what I'm downloading (which in fact they don't, I could be downloading torrents of legal content) and are protected as common carriers; or they do know what I'm downloading (committing illegal acts in the process) and are obligated to stop it (or face the legal liability in the form of lawsuits from the MPAA). What they CAN'T do is arbitrarily choose what packets are more special than others and give them priority. Well, I guess they can do that, and do, but it's legally dubious.
Yes, that's pretty much what I'm talking about. Did you see in my post where I mentioned Fingerworks? I have that exact keyboard you linked to, and it's pretty great, but it could be better, and besides it's not even produced anymore (and hasn't been in years).
That keyboard is extremely awesome at doing every type of computer input... except for typing. I know that sounds dumb, but doing things like window management, mousing, giving commands: all that stuff is easy and natural with that keyboard. But typing is a lot easier with real keys/buttons.
So, really what I want is a split-key keyboard with keys in columns and a mouse area in between the keys -- and with a symbol-shift key, too. Got a link to something like that?
You have good ideas, and you're on the right track, but carefully consider the side effects of some of your requests.
Disabling the back button is an effective restriction on pages that charge your credit card.
Sometimes a pop-up isn't a pop-up, and is really a standalone page that you wouldn't want to close with the original page.
Lots of add-ons download things like public config files (like adblock lists).
Also, I think Firefox does a good job of some of the things you ask for, such as showing your add-ons and allowing you to disable them; blocking pop-ups; downloading ads but not displaying them (thus fooling the website).
I do totally agree, though, that if there is a tension between the wants of the user and the wants of the site, the user should win every time, no question. (For that, a simple way to overrule restrictions is a good way to go. Like, what, the site blocks the back button? Well let me overrule that, thank you very much, and I'll take my chances with the consequences.)
Slashdot Mirror
I think you overstated your case.
Huh. Interesting. I wonder if perhaps that's because PayPal is a money transmission business, not a depository institution?
Do you deposit money in PayPal? I don't. I transmit money thru it. I deposit my money in banks, or strippers' bras.
I did that on my first project in the CS intro class in college. I got a special note on my code saying that the grader had never, ever seen anything so atrocious as that style of indenting. I switched to a more common style in order to conform.
And for the record, I don't understand the problem with using
} else {
The "if ... else" construct is like a compound sentence. The else goes on the same line as the end of the if, because it's a continuation of the same thought, like using a comma or semicolon when writing sentences. In other cases, it's more clear to split them out with a blank line, but I usually don't bother, and if someone put in needless blank lines all the time, that would be annoying.
And the stupid management goes along w/ these primadonna's.
Ha.
There are actually two differences: Apple is less successful, that's true; but the bigger difference is that Apple makes products that are above the threshold of usability. Some of them are Great, some of them are Good, and some of them are mediocre, but almost all of them are usable. Microsoft, on the other hand, has made maybe a half-dozen usable products in their history: a keyboard or two, a mouse or two, Excel, Explorer 5 Mac Version... uh... I can't think of any others, but there might be a couple more.
A MacBook starts at $1100.
Please point me to the $100 commodity laptop which does all the things a MacBook does (except for OS X), because I think that would be a great deal, and would buy one.
(Furthermore, $1000 for the prerogative of using Mac OS instead of Windows seems about fair. I probably wouldn't pay much more than $2000. But, if it were actually that expensive for Mac OS, I'd probably use Linux. Anything but Windows!)
WHY would they list on eBay instead of their own websites anyway?
Because there are people who shop on eBay who don't visit Buy.com; thus, by listing on both sites, Buy.com will reach more customers.
I think you could have come up with that explanation yourself, if you'd tried. It's pretty obvious.
Then why abide by the constitution at all? If the rules set forth are "impractical", why not amend it to grant more power to the legislative branch? Two wrongs don't make a right. Half a dozen wrongs certainly do not.
Dude, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just saying that's the way it is; and that's nothing new, we've been selectively ignoring the Constitution since the beginning.
To directly answer your question: Then why abide by the constitution at all?; the answer is because it's a system that seems to work. We respect the parts that are the most important (in our historical opinion) and ignore the parts that are inconvenient and difficult to amend. Luckily, that means we have retained most of the Bill of Rights. It's not so lucky if you have a penchant for, say, the delegated powers clause.
Technically, everything our government does is "constitutional" according to the Supreme Court, even though in some cases that's obviously false. That brings us back around to the subject at hand, where Congress has passed an obviously unconstitutional law (allowing surveillance without a warrant) and the law may or may not eventually be found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Yeah, dude, that's a cute theory, but we've been doing end-runs around the Constitution for 200 years, precisely because it's so difficult to amend. Ever heard of the Federal Bank? Ever heard of social security, medicare, or welfare? Ever heard of the New Deal? Almost everything the Federal government has done since 1790 has been technically unconstitutional.
We can argue about whether all those things are good or bad, or whether we should have gone thru the arduous process of amendment for each one of them, and hundreds of others... or we could take the practical path, as we did. It was a series of judgment calls.
Huh. I always thought the cause of terrorist attacks was the people who commit the terrorist attacks. That's an interesting theory, though, taking the bad behavior of some people and attributing it to some other people.
Yes, that would make all the difference. If you specify your source, you absolve responsibility for the claim. If you phrase the claim as a declarative, then you yourself take on the responsibility for its veracity. I haven't read any of the stories, so I don't know how they phrased it in this case.
You incorrectly imply that there was a time when broadcasters didn't treat their customers as imbeciles. That has never been the case.
Well, being brutalized by other prisoners in jail is not cruel and unusual punishment because it isn't punishment, it's just a terrible event. The punishment is the jail time. If he were sentenced to torture, or if the torture came at the hands of the guards (which sometimes it does), or if the torture were inescapable reality for inmates (it isn't, although it is common), then that would be punishment. But if we send you to jail, and try to protect you from other prisoners (which, believe me, we do), and yet the other prisoners still get to you and beat you up -- well that isn't punishment for your crime, that's an unfortunate social interaction.
But, if the justice system "handed you over to the mob to string you up and teach you a lesson", then that would be cruel 'punishment'.
There is a sliding scale and a fine line here. I'm not sure where the line is, but having another prisoner smack you around (or rape you) isn't punishment, so it can't be cruel and unusual punishment.
If you live in a democracy, it is unreasonable for you to absolve yourself of responsibility for the law. It is not your fault alone, but you share it.
Then again, this particular case is a very strange one, a border case to be sure. From time to time, there are bound to be morally outrageous acts which slip thru the cracks in the law. I don't think we all need to be ashamed for not having the foresight to prevent this trajedy. It would probably be difficult to write a law that makes "psychological harassment" a crime without making "teasing" a crime. Imagine the outrage on Slashdot if the 'nanny state' make 'teasing' a crime.
Well, there is a difference, which is fraud. With regular bullying, the bully bullies as the bully. In this case, the bully fraudulently represented herself as another person. Furthermore, she utilized a computer as a tool in the fraud. That's a crime.
But, that isn't to say that the fraud is a compelling difference; or that her computer fraud warrants jail time. Perhaps fraudulent bullying is no worse than regular bullying; and perhaps computer fraud's classification as a crime is unreasonable.
No, Kirth said "of course, it's entirely illegal to demand google to turn over the records of non-US viewers". That statement is totally backwards, which belies Kirth's understanding of the law: it is not at all illegal for a judge to demand that Google turn over the records of non-US viewers. Then, when Kirth attaches "of course" to the offending statement, that makes it laughable.
That's all I'm saying.
I do hate to disagree with people who have a lower ID than me (Kirth is in the three digits!).
Okay, you may be creeped out, but you aren't surprised are you?
Of course they keep that data; that's obvious.
Every company keeps logs of your behavior. With that in mind, do you want to revise your statement?
of course, it's entirely illegal to demand google to turn over the records of non-US viewers
It is glaringly obvious that you have neither legal training nor even an armchair-lawyer's understanding of the law.
if your calling someone a defendant
See sig.
Using YouTube is not tantamount to not caring about privacy, as you claim it is. That is a straw man argument.
You may or may not be correct in your conclusion, but your reasoning is wrong at best, and shitarded at worst.
Ah, yes yes. When I say the user should "win" these conflicts, I mean inside their own machine: your computer should behave exactly the way you want it to with no (arbitrary) exceptions (only technical limitations). So for instance, if I have a media file, my computer should play it if it can; it shouldn't do DRM checks and tell me it won't do something that it could do.
As for receiving web content, look, if web producers want to find a way to block me when I use AdBlock, then I would deal with that. I certainly wouldn't be aggrieved about it -- it's their content, after all. But, I'm not going to help them by telling them that I'm blocking their ads.
If they choose to use HTML as a format to distribute their content, then they don't have control over what I do with it once it's on my computer. I can read it backwards, invert the colors, or filter out parts of the page if I want to.
If a producer wants to offer content inseparable from ads, then that producer should choose a different medium, because HTML doesn't have that feature. Incidentally, TV mostly doesn't have that feature anymore, either. Newspapers and other printed media still mostly have that feature, although I suppose I could pay someone to go thru and cut out all the ads first (or invert the colors or whatever).
Furthermore, packet filtering is a problem not so much because they are stopping me from downloading copyrighted material (which, in fact, they are); rather it's a problem because it violates the premise of a common carrier. A "common carrier" is protected from nefarious deeds done on the carrier's network (be it an airplane or bus network, a telephone network, or a computer network) because they are presumed unable to detect and deter the behavior. If the carrier knows of the deeds, then they are obligated to take action against the crimes; but if they don't know and can't know, then their "common carrier" status protects them from liability. So, computer network common carriers can't have it both ways: either they don't know what I'm downloading (which in fact they don't, I could be downloading torrents of legal content) and are protected as common carriers; or they do know what I'm downloading (committing illegal acts in the process) and are obligated to stop it (or face the legal liability in the form of lawsuits from the MPAA). What they CAN'T do is arbitrarily choose what packets are more special than others and give them priority. Well, I guess they can do that, and do, but it's legally dubious.
Yes, that's pretty much what I'm talking about. Did you see in my post where I mentioned Fingerworks? I have that exact keyboard you linked to, and it's pretty great, but it could be better, and besides it's not even produced anymore (and hasn't been in years).
That keyboard is extremely awesome at doing every type of computer input... except for typing. I know that sounds dumb, but doing things like window management, mousing, giving commands: all that stuff is easy and natural with that keyboard. But typing is a lot easier with real keys/buttons.
So, really what I want is a split-key keyboard with keys in columns and a mouse area in between the keys -- and with a symbol-shift key, too. Got a link to something like that?
And what is wrong w/ IT and Hemp Desk type jobs?
If you have any openings at the Hemp Desk, I'd like to apply.
You have good ideas, and you're on the right track, but carefully consider the side effects of some of your requests.
Disabling the back button is an effective restriction on pages that charge your credit card.
Sometimes a pop-up isn't a pop-up, and is really a standalone page that you wouldn't want to close with the original page.
Lots of add-ons download things like public config files (like adblock lists).
Also, I think Firefox does a good job of some of the things you ask for, such as showing your add-ons and allowing you to disable them; blocking pop-ups; downloading ads but not displaying them (thus fooling the website).
I do totally agree, though, that if there is a tension between the wants of the user and the wants of the site, the user should win every time, no question. (For that, a simple way to overrule restrictions is a good way to go. Like, what, the site blocks the back button? Well let me overrule that, thank you very much, and I'll take my chances with the consequences.)