Back when my grandmother was alive, every time I spoke with her, she would ask if I got a promotion. In my company, being "promoted" would have meant working as a manager. However, being a manager would mean having to handle - well, managing people. I'd need to deal with company politics and firing people and lots of other things that I have no interest in. Coding (specifically, web development), though, is something I love doing. Why should I stop coding just because I'm 38? I should stop doing what I love doing and do something I don't like simply because of my age?
Of course, for every Rob Ford, there's a dozen other politicians whose scandals destroy their political career. If you're a politician and know you have something that's best not divulged (a partner on the side, drug use, visiting prostitutes, etc), you aren't going to want to take the chance that you can survive the scandal. Especially if the scandal involves something you've declared evil in the past. (Insert any of the very conservative Republicans who railed about how "the gays" were destroying America only to be found cheating on their spouses with someone of the same-sex.) If you were able to know exactly what shady things each of these politicians was up to (even if it wasn't illegal, but just embarrassing given past political stances), you might be able to control how they vote on some issues.
True, but what Rob Ford only admitted to it because a video was obtained of him doing it. Before that, he denied everything. I'm not an expert on Canadian politics, but depending on the political climate, he might weather the storm and keep his job. Or not. Still, I'm sure he'd much rather this all stayed quiet. An NSA that listens to everyone all the time (even if not actively but storing data for future possible analysis) can - either for the purposes of the NSA retaining their power or for other political purposes - look up information on anyone and leak or threaten to leak information on people who don't sit down and keep quiet. The mere threat of doing this will be enough to silence some critics who would have something to lose (wives, children, family, jobs, etc.).
Not to mention that many people have something they'd like to hide. Perhaps nothing illegal, but something that would be embarrassing were it to become public knowledge. An agency that spies on everyone is one political move away from threatening to reveal these secrets if you don't tow the line.
Unfortunately, the people most likely to go to jail for this are the people who are letting us know about these abuses of power instead of the people abusing power. The latter will simply cry "TERRORISTS!" at the next Congressional hearing and get (at worst) a sternly worded speech directed at them.
Not to mention that "close physical interaction" might be with people who don't share your interests. Online, you can get together with people based on mutual interests and not just "we happen to live near each other."
I meant "my life would be much, much smaller and poorer" in a few ways. The obvious use of "poorer" is that I wouldn't have the job I have now. No need for a web developer if the web didn't exist! (Yes, I'd be doing something else. Likely with computers, but who knows if I'd enjoy it as much as I enjoy web development.)
Also, my world would literally be smaller. I'd know my tiny circle of "In Real Life" friends/co-workers/family and that would be it. Given the small geographic area that all of us occupy, our life experiences are somewhat the same. Yes, there are variations, but nothing too radical. Online, however, I converse with people from across the United States, Canada, Australia, etc. If I'm discussing an issue, I can get viewpoints from people who have much different life experiences and who live in many different situations. This also means that we can compare reportings of world events. If TV news reports here say that X happened, reports in France say that Y happened, and reports from Japan say Z happened, we can all get together to try to figure out the truth. (Or at least cut through some of the spin that news programs love to add.) All of this inter-connectedness adds richness to my life, so my life would be poorer were the Internet to disappear.
Finally, the Internet has enabled me to connect with people based on interests instead of based on geographic location. Growing up, I knew only one other person who liked science fiction even remotely as much as I did. I can't even begin to count the number of people I've met online who share my interests. What's more, the Internet has enabled me to pursue new interests. I wanted to try making a fez for a Doctor Who costume so I looked up some tutorials, found a blog with detailed templates/photos/descriptions, and made my own fez. It came out so good that my Whovian kids wanted their own. I even connected with the blog's author to thank her. Without the Internet, I wouldn't have known how to do this at all. At best, I might have found a magazine article with some limited instructions... after much searching... if my library felt the need to stock that particular issue of that particular magazine.
Then there's the fact that I communicate a whole lot better online than face-to-face. (Asperger's Syndrome + social pressure to say the right thing at just the right moment = poor face-to-face conversation skills. Constantly working on it, but I'm much better communicating via writing.) Actually, in many ways, communicating with people online has helped me communicate better with people face-to-face since I can remember how I responded to something online and draw upon that in a face-to-face discussion.
The Internet is a big part of my life in many different ways and I wouldn't want to go back to life without it.
I met my wife online (in a Yahoo chat room), work online as a web developer, socialize online with people around the world on a daily basis, use it for reference (ala Wikipedia) and entertainment (e.g. Netflix). Without the web, my life would be much, much smaller and poorer.
Bah. I say you engrave the ones and zeros directly on stone tablets. If you engrave each one/zero at around 12 point size, then each one/zero would be about 4.5 millimeters tall. Add another millimeter and a half on the bottom for spacing between lines, so 6 millimeters per line. At about 80 characters per line, we would need 9 trillion lines. So we just need a stone tablet 54 million kilometers tall which is coincidentally about as close as the Earth and Mars are at their closest.
Here in upstate NY, I pay for 15mbps but actually get closer to 8mbps. Since there's no FIOS or other high speed Internet service where I live, Time Warner Cable has no incentive to upgrade their network by me. They might eventually get around to it, but they'll take their time. (I'm not in a rural area so they don't even have that excuse.)
There's a difference between trying to get people to protect themselves and blaming the victim. Telling users "you need to run an anti-virus" is giving advice. Telling users "you were hacked because you're an idiot that runs Microsoft software" is victim blaming. To take this away from the computer world, telling women "you could take a self-defense class or carry Mace with you" is advice. Telling a woman "you were raped because of the way you were dressed - that's just asking for it!" is victim blaming.
There's an important distinction between the two. Even if the incident in question could have been avoided if the victim had taken protective measures, don't try to assign blame to a victim who is hurting from the incident. That's just going to cause ill will and won't lead to the person listening to you in the future. It is possibly to blame the perpetrator for the crime committed while still offering to help make sure incidents like these don't happen in the future,
These aren't fees that the government says "You must charge each user $X." These are taxes that the government charges to the company. The company then passes it on to the customer. This is to be expected, of course, but such taxes and fees are costs of doing business. If they want to break it out, fine. Include a portion of the bill showing just why the base monthly fee is a certain amount - including all of the costs imposed by government taxes. However, advertising a $30 service and then charging $50 because of below the time "taxes/fees" is deceptive at best.
Exactly. Here in NY, the tax rate is 8.25%. If a cell phone carrier was advertising $100 a month for their plans, I could easily add in taxes and come up with a $108.25 real cost. I'd have no problem if this was the only "below the line" fee that they added in. However, they add in a ton of other things that are basically costs of doing business. By the time I need to multiply in the 8.25% tax, we're talking $130 instead of $100. Somehow, Amazon and other major retailers are able to sell items nationwide without saying "This doodad will cost $25 plus $1.25 server maintenance fee plus $3.27 web app programming fee plus $2 executive hot tub installation fee...." Why can't the phone companies? (Besides the obvious answer of "Hiding these extra 'fees' makes them money.")
First class example is that evolutionary criticism is completely forbidden in US schools
Or maybe Evolution is just supported by so much overwhelming evidence that 99%+ of scientists accept it as the best theory. Most of the scientific discussions around Evolution are centered around how we dot the i's and cross the t's, not whether Evolution is a better theory than "last Tuesday God said 'abracadabra' and the Universe was formed as is with its 'history' as an illusion."
In a school's science class, students should learn what the prevailing scientific theories are. They should learn why those theories are the prevailing ones. However, school is not the place for students - who are just learning the material and who will have a highly incomplete knowledge of the subject - to make a determination of which theory is the "right" one.
Whenever someone says "we need to teach the weaknesses of Evolution", what they really mean is "I would like schools to teach Creationism, but that was struck down by the Supreme Court... as was Intelligent Design... so maybe if we sow enough doubt about Evolution in the students, they'll grow up believing that God created it all 10,000 years ago."
I'm not a fan of Facebook by any stretch of the imagination. (I still refuse to open an account despite many people I know being on there.) However, if your entire nation can be "destroyed" by Facebook, then perhaps your nation isn't as stable as you think it is and maybe there are deeper issues than people sharing selfies so their friends can "like" them.
And they'll continue to proliferate until they saturate the market and some other version takes off. Just like, at one time, the "punch the monkey" style of banner ad was all the rage and could be found virtually everywhere.
When people talk about evolution, they're not just talking about species adapting and changing over time. I think most people believe that.
Most? Perhaps, but just barely. "Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years." http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx
I don't purposefully take photos of other people, but if someone happens to be in the background of a shot I take of my children I'm not going to delete the photo. I also wouldn't expect someone else to delete a photo of their kid just because my kid happens to be in the background.
Thanks. Now I can't take a photo of my kid in public (for example, playing in a neighborhood playground) because I might get someone else in the background and I don't have their consent. One photo with my cell camera to show my wife and I'll be a criminal. Forget it if I try sharing the photo on social media. I might as well just turn myself over to the local authorities right now and save time.
I think you've found the one definition of DRM that I'm in favor of. If you're wearing clothing, it's a definite sign that you don't want people to see you naked at this moment. So someone finding an odd angle that happens to reveal more of you (your underwear which most of us at least attempt to hide from view) is circumventing this "protection."
However, while I would be in favor of circumventing DRM of a piece of media/software that you own for your own personal use, circumventing the "clothing DRM" of someone else for your own purposes is completely different. You have no right to just decide that you have the right to circumvent this person's "clothing DRM" because you say so. Unless that person consents to it, of course, in which case find a private place and circumvent each other's DRM all night long.
Suppose I take a photograph of a busy street corner. Do I need to get the permission of every person in that photo before I publish it? If a photo is of a specific person, then it is always best to get a model release. However, if the person is in the middle of a public area, they have no expectation of privacy and can't regulate what I do and do not take photos of.
That being said, I try not to take photos of people I don't know. Especially since I'm usually taking photos of my kids and "guy with a camera taking photos of kids" too often becomes "guy questioned by police because someone reported him as being a sicko taking pics of kids."
Wait. This actually makes sense. Only instead of coding perfectly legible code, legislators are the kind of coders that craft spaghetti code which has tons of bugs, unforeseen glitches, hidden functions to give their friends back doors through the system, and which can't be read by another human being without them going cross-eyed.
Slashdot Mirror
Back when my grandmother was alive, every time I spoke with her, she would ask if I got a promotion. In my company, being "promoted" would have meant working as a manager. However, being a manager would mean having to handle - well, managing people. I'd need to deal with company politics and firing people and lots of other things that I have no interest in. Coding (specifically, web development), though, is something I love doing. Why should I stop coding just because I'm 38? I should stop doing what I love doing and do something I don't like simply because of my age?
Of course, for every Rob Ford, there's a dozen other politicians whose scandals destroy their political career. If you're a politician and know you have something that's best not divulged (a partner on the side, drug use, visiting prostitutes, etc), you aren't going to want to take the chance that you can survive the scandal. Especially if the scandal involves something you've declared evil in the past. (Insert any of the very conservative Republicans who railed about how "the gays" were destroying America only to be found cheating on their spouses with someone of the same-sex.) If you were able to know exactly what shady things each of these politicians was up to (even if it wasn't illegal, but just embarrassing given past political stances), you might be able to control how they vote on some issues.
True, but what Rob Ford only admitted to it because a video was obtained of him doing it. Before that, he denied everything. I'm not an expert on Canadian politics, but depending on the political climate, he might weather the storm and keep his job. Or not. Still, I'm sure he'd much rather this all stayed quiet. An NSA that listens to everyone all the time (even if not actively but storing data for future possible analysis) can - either for the purposes of the NSA retaining their power or for other political purposes - look up information on anyone and leak or threaten to leak information on people who don't sit down and keep quiet. The mere threat of doing this will be enough to silence some critics who would have something to lose (wives, children, family, jobs, etc.).
Dough!
I mean...
Do'h!
Not to mention that many people have something they'd like to hide. Perhaps nothing illegal, but something that would be embarrassing were it to become public knowledge. An agency that spies on everyone is one political move away from threatening to reveal these secrets if you don't tow the line.
Unfortunately, the people most likely to go to jail for this are the people who are letting us know about these abuses of power instead of the people abusing power. The latter will simply cry "TERRORISTS!" at the next Congressional hearing and get (at worst) a sternly worded speech directed at them.
Not to mention that "close physical interaction" might be with people who don't share your interests. Online, you can get together with people based on mutual interests and not just "we happen to live near each other."
I meant "my life would be much, much smaller and poorer" in a few ways. The obvious use of "poorer" is that I wouldn't have the job I have now. No need for a web developer if the web didn't exist! (Yes, I'd be doing something else. Likely with computers, but who knows if I'd enjoy it as much as I enjoy web development.)
Also, my world would literally be smaller. I'd know my tiny circle of "In Real Life" friends/co-workers/family and that would be it. Given the small geographic area that all of us occupy, our life experiences are somewhat the same. Yes, there are variations, but nothing too radical. Online, however, I converse with people from across the United States, Canada, Australia, etc. If I'm discussing an issue, I can get viewpoints from people who have much different life experiences and who live in many different situations. This also means that we can compare reportings of world events. If TV news reports here say that X happened, reports in France say that Y happened, and reports from Japan say Z happened, we can all get together to try to figure out the truth. (Or at least cut through some of the spin that news programs love to add.) All of this inter-connectedness adds richness to my life, so my life would be poorer were the Internet to disappear.
Finally, the Internet has enabled me to connect with people based on interests instead of based on geographic location. Growing up, I knew only one other person who liked science fiction even remotely as much as I did. I can't even begin to count the number of people I've met online who share my interests. What's more, the Internet has enabled me to pursue new interests. I wanted to try making a fez for a Doctor Who costume so I looked up some tutorials, found a blog with detailed templates/photos/descriptions, and made my own fez. It came out so good that my Whovian kids wanted their own. I even connected with the blog's author to thank her. Without the Internet, I wouldn't have known how to do this at all. At best, I might have found a magazine article with some limited instructions... after much searching... if my library felt the need to stock that particular issue of that particular magazine.
Then there's the fact that I communicate a whole lot better online than face-to-face. (Asperger's Syndrome + social pressure to say the right thing at just the right moment = poor face-to-face conversation skills. Constantly working on it, but I'm much better communicating via writing.) Actually, in many ways, communicating with people online has helped me communicate better with people face-to-face since I can remember how I responded to something online and draw upon that in a face-to-face discussion.
The Internet is a big part of my life in many different ways and I wouldn't want to go back to life without it.
I met my wife online (in a Yahoo chat room), work online as a web developer, socialize online with people around the world on a daily basis, use it for reference (ala Wikipedia) and entertainment (e.g. Netflix). Without the web, my life would be much, much smaller and poorer.
Bah. I say you engrave the ones and zeros directly on stone tablets. If you engrave each one/zero at around 12 point size, then each one/zero would be about 4.5 millimeters tall. Add another millimeter and a half on the bottom for spacing between lines, so 6 millimeters per line. At about 80 characters per line, we would need 9 trillion lines. So we just need a stone tablet 54 million kilometers tall which is coincidentally about as close as the Earth and Mars are at their closest.
Here in upstate NY, I pay for 15mbps but actually get closer to 8mbps. Since there's no FIOS or other high speed Internet service where I live, Time Warner Cable has no incentive to upgrade their network by me. They might eventually get around to it, but they'll take their time. (I'm not in a rural area so they don't even have that excuse.)
The Anti-Monitor!
There's a difference between trying to get people to protect themselves and blaming the victim. Telling users "you need to run an anti-virus" is giving advice. Telling users "you were hacked because you're an idiot that runs Microsoft software" is victim blaming. To take this away from the computer world, telling women "you could take a self-defense class or carry Mace with you" is advice. Telling a woman "you were raped because of the way you were dressed - that's just asking for it!" is victim blaming.
There's an important distinction between the two. Even if the incident in question could have been avoided if the victim had taken protective measures, don't try to assign blame to a victim who is hurting from the incident. That's just going to cause ill will and won't lead to the person listening to you in the future. It is possibly to blame the perpetrator for the crime committed while still offering to help make sure incidents like these don't happen in the future,
These aren't fees that the government says "You must charge each user $X." These are taxes that the government charges to the company. The company then passes it on to the customer. This is to be expected, of course, but such taxes and fees are costs of doing business. If they want to break it out, fine. Include a portion of the bill showing just why the base monthly fee is a certain amount - including all of the costs imposed by government taxes. However, advertising a $30 service and then charging $50 because of below the time "taxes/fees" is deceptive at best.
Exactly. Here in NY, the tax rate is 8.25%. If a cell phone carrier was advertising $100 a month for their plans, I could easily add in taxes and come up with a $108.25 real cost. I'd have no problem if this was the only "below the line" fee that they added in. However, they add in a ton of other things that are basically costs of doing business. By the time I need to multiply in the 8.25% tax, we're talking $130 instead of $100. Somehow, Amazon and other major retailers are able to sell items nationwide without saying "This doodad will cost $25 plus $1.25 server maintenance fee plus $3.27 web app programming fee plus $2 executive hot tub installation fee...." Why can't the phone companies? (Besides the obvious answer of "Hiding these extra 'fees' makes them money.")
Bypass button? Real hackers don't need a bypass button. They guess the real password in three attempts. (Of course, the first two are just for show.)
Watch, I'll hack Slashdot right now. *types "12345" as the Password* And to prove I'm in, I'll make a dupe story appear sometime in the next month.
Or maybe Evolution is just supported by so much overwhelming evidence that 99%+ of scientists accept it as the best theory. Most of the scientific discussions around Evolution are centered around how we dot the i's and cross the t's, not whether Evolution is a better theory than "last Tuesday God said 'abracadabra' and the Universe was formed as is with its 'history' as an illusion."
In a school's science class, students should learn what the prevailing scientific theories are. They should learn why those theories are the prevailing ones. However, school is not the place for students - who are just learning the material and who will have a highly incomplete knowledge of the subject - to make a determination of which theory is the "right" one.
Whenever someone says "we need to teach the weaknesses of Evolution", what they really mean is "I would like schools to teach Creationism, but that was struck down by the Supreme Court... as was Intelligent Design... so maybe if we sow enough doubt about Evolution in the students, they'll grow up believing that God created it all 10,000 years ago."
I'm not a fan of Facebook by any stretch of the imagination. (I still refuse to open an account despite many people I know being on there.) However, if your entire nation can be "destroyed" by Facebook, then perhaps your nation isn't as stable as you think it is and maybe there are deeper issues than people sharing selfies so their friends can "like" them.
And they'll continue to proliferate until they saturate the market and some other version takes off. Just like, at one time, the "punch the monkey" style of banner ad was all the rage and could be found virtually everywhere.
Most? Perhaps, but just barely. "Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years." http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx
I don't purposefully take photos of other people, but if someone happens to be in the background of a shot I take of my children I'm not going to delete the photo. I also wouldn't expect someone else to delete a photo of their kid just because my kid happens to be in the background.
Thanks. Now I can't take a photo of my kid in public (for example, playing in a neighborhood playground) because I might get someone else in the background and I don't have their consent. One photo with my cell camera to show my wife and I'll be a criminal. Forget it if I try sharing the photo on social media. I might as well just turn myself over to the local authorities right now and save time.
I think you've found the one definition of DRM that I'm in favor of. If you're wearing clothing, it's a definite sign that you don't want people to see you naked at this moment. So someone finding an odd angle that happens to reveal more of you (your underwear which most of us at least attempt to hide from view) is circumventing this "protection."
However, while I would be in favor of circumventing DRM of a piece of media/software that you own for your own personal use, circumventing the "clothing DRM" of someone else for your own purposes is completely different. You have no right to just decide that you have the right to circumvent this person's "clothing DRM" because you say so. Unless that person consents to it, of course, in which case find a private place and circumvent each other's DRM all night long.
I'd take exception to B.
Suppose I take a photograph of a busy street corner. Do I need to get the permission of every person in that photo before I publish it? If a photo is of a specific person, then it is always best to get a model release. However, if the person is in the middle of a public area, they have no expectation of privacy and can't regulate what I do and do not take photos of.
That being said, I try not to take photos of people I don't know. Especially since I'm usually taking photos of my kids and "guy with a camera taking photos of kids" too often becomes "guy questioned by police because someone reported him as being a sicko taking pics of kids."
Wait. This actually makes sense. Only instead of coding perfectly legible code, legislators are the kind of coders that craft spaghetti code which has tons of bugs, unforeseen glitches, hidden functions to give their friends back doors through the system, and which can't be read by another human being without them going cross-eyed.