Honestly, the only reason Chanukah is such a big deal for Jews is that Christmas is around the same time and Jewish kids wanted to get presents also. So the "8 days of presents" was invented. You're not really supposed to give gifts on Chanukah. Actually, our gift giving holiday is Purim (around March) where we dress in costumes, give gifts, and are religiously commanded to get drunk.
Forget a Legend of Zelda movie. How about an animated Legend of Zelda series on Netflix? Have the story arc planned out and start Link from plucky farm boy "chosen one" to his quest to save Zelda. You can flesh the story out and take your time with it more than a movie ever could. (I'm thinking something like the current Voltron reboot on Netflix.)
I grew up watching the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. My boys recently found it on Netflix and loved it. I, meanwhile, cringed at how corny it was. Some things you should just let stay as nice memories and not revisit as an adult.
Also, Luigi gets shortchanged as usual. In the introduction, the plumbers are sucked down the pipe into Mushroom Land. There, they roll up to Bowser and his Koopas. Luigi is the one who knocks out all of the guards. (Bowser jumps off a cliff to escape.) However, Mario gets all the credit. Sure, it was by accident, but Luigi was the one who took out the guards, not Mario.
Yes, and with much less effort than previous "average citizens support X" propaganda efforts pre-Internet. One person, behind a keyboard, can not only pretend to be an average citizen of any country, they can pretend to be multiple average citizens. Pay a person to be on social media all day and they can run a dozen "average citizen" accounts, each amplifying the others. Have a team of ten people and you can have a hundred "average citizens." Target this well enough and it will seem as if there's a growing movement to support X even if, sans propaganda, people would be overwhelmingly against X. Then, it's just a matter of waiting for the real citizens who jump on the hottest bandwagon to promote your cause and spread the propaganda. Soon, there really might be a push for the cause, but it was all based on propaganda by a few people with Internet connections and plenty of time on their hands.
For better or worse, a lot of people care. You can set up a real-looking website with a completely phony story and, with a few targeted social media posts, make a large swath of people think it's true. Do this in the right way and you can influence an entire country right from behind your keyboard.
The Internet can definitely be used for good as well as for bad purposes. It's just a tool. There's nothing inherently good or bad about it. It's people who use the tool that make it either raise people up or sow chaos.
The difference is that the Internet makes it much easier to make the propaganda seem to originate from within a country. Back in the Cold War, if the Russians wanted people to think there was a big movement for/against some policy, they would need actual people embedded in the US. Those people would risk being exposed and arrested. Nowadays, they can either pay some people within Russia or run some bots to post on Facebook/Twitter/etc from "totally American" accounts. Instead of a handful of agents risking arrest, they can have thousands of "agents" operating from the safety of their computers in Russia. If an "agent" gets outed, that account can be closed down and another one set up right away. (In fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't have a bunch of accounts lying around waiting to be called into service as needed.)
Ah, Zipdrives. Iomega's attempt to "take over" from the floppy drive. I went to PC Expo back when these were out and there was a big crowd around their booth. All of the people were just rummaging through bins to get various buttons that they were giving away. I still have them hanging on my wall. ("Because I have the biggest light sabre" -- yes, spelled that way, "I gotta get a life", "I've got chills, they're multiplying", "It's my music, I promise", etc.)
This past year I've been focused on writing books instead of reading them. (I'd like to do both but time constraints kept me from that.) I'm working on the sequel to my first book Defenders of Shadow and Light: Ghost Thief.
Not to self-promote... well, actually, forget that, YES to self-promote, but my novel - Defenders of Shadow and Light: Ghost Thief - has no gratuitous sex or violence. There's actually no sex, but decent amounts of violence. I read it to my then-9 year old son as I was writing it. I'm working on the sequel now.
The big draw to Google Docs for me is the availability no matter where I am. I wrote my first novel (and am writing my second) in Google Docs. No matter where I am, I can bring the document up on my phone and bang out a few hundred words. When the novel's done, I'll export it into LibreOffice for more intensive editing and publishing preparations, but the on the fly editing capabilities are invaluable.
Awhile back I had an idea for a YouTube Whitelist application. The parent would choose which YouTube channels were appropriate for their kids. The kids, then, could watch any of the videos on these channels. I came up with this after my kids - who love watching videos of people playing video games - stumbled upon some videos that weren't appropriate. (Nothing too horrible, luckily. Just foul language that I didn't want them imitating.) Unfortunately, I never got the chance to work on this. If someone else wants to take the idea and run with it, go for it.
Honestly, it wasn't a full year of actively trying to fix the issue. It was a few days of actual work followed by a year of her pressing "remind me in 4 hours" to delay reboots and me occasionally searching Google for additional options that I hadn't tried yet.
I actually wish I could upgrade my wife's laptop to Windows 10 (as weird as that sounds). For over a year now, she's had a problem where her computer says it needs to reboot to finish installing a Windows update. If we reboot, it reports that it needs to reboot to finish installing a Windows update. Nowhere does it say which update this is and no amount of reboots clear this up. I can't even manually run Windows Update because that - surprise, surprise - tells me to reboot to finish an installation before it will move on.
At this point, my best guess is that her laptop tried to install Windows 10, failed, and she was stuck with a broken Windows installation. I don't want to wipe her system, but a year of searching hasn't uncovered any way to fix this issue. If I could upgrade her to Windows 10, maybe it would break her computer out of the endless reboot cycle.
They were also the storehouse for much of the world's scientific and mathematical knowledge while Europe was going through the Dark Age. Without the Islamic areas preserving (and building on) science/philosophy/math, we'd probably have been set back hundreds of years once science caught back on in Europe.
To be fair, there are many people who do things without considering the consequences. If a police officer is going to shoot an unarmed man simply because the man is black and the officer is going on a power trip, he's not likely the kind of guy who's going to think long term about his actions.
It can also help the police against charges of police brutality. If a suspect is shot and there's no video, it's easy for a "he was unarmed and shot" narrative to spread regardless of the truth. With bodycam video, you can get quick evidence out to the public that the shooting was justified. On the flip side, if the police claim it was justified and the bodycam shows it wasn't, it can help the truth to come out despite police claims to the contrary. It's more about proof of how incidents went down to the courts and to the public than changing the behavior of the police or suspects.
I chose "birth control" as a somewhat non-controversial topic. (I doubt many on Slashdot want to ban all forms of birth control.) Feel free to substitute "birth control" with any other topic that should be legal to read about but which politicians might want the public ignorant about.
It's true that you should listen to multiple sources from multiple viewpoints, but you also need to keep in mind that not all subjects have a "both sides." If Media Outlet A had a report saying "Many scientific studies show evolution is real" and Media Outlet B had "Scientists Wrong; World Created 5,000 Years Ago", there wouldn't be a comparison. You couldn't simply say "well, that's a difference of opinion and both are equally valid." One has mounds of scientific evidence on their side and the other is based off of adding ages in a very old book that some claim was written by a deity.
So listen to multiple sources, but also weight the evidence on each side. And if a source constantly gives patently false information (not talking opinions you disagree with, but something provably false), cut it out and find another to read (keeping the balance as much as possible to prevent the echo chamber effect).
Going back to the pre-computer days, you'd get a warrant, raid the person's place of business, and seize their paper files. Those would give you the information you needed to convict. They could "encrypt" the paper files using code words and the like, but that could be broken pretty easily.
The government is trying to tie this model to computer searches. Most times, it will work. You raid someone's home/office, seize the computers, and sift through them for evidence. Without encryption, this can still work. The government gets the evidence it needs to put criminals behind bars.
Enter encryption.
With encryption, only the person who encrypted the files can know what they are. If Google encrypts the files, Google might be able to decrypt them, but what if Google structures their service such that the user is the one who encrypts them? This means that Google physically can't decrypt the files. The government can order, beg, and plead all they want, but Google would be unable to do anything. The government would need to get the user to decrypt his own files - which could be seen as self-incrimination and thus get the evidence tossed out in court. Plus, this means the government needs to deal with each user in an effort to get the files decrypted instead of dealing with one company, e.g. Google.
The solution for the government is a backdoor that only they can access. They want to push this so that, with a warrant, they can just decrypt all the files they need without needing to deal with dozens of users. This is good for the government, but bad for everyone else. A backdoor, no matter how well designed, would be a point where anyone could break in. This could include random hackers as well as other government agents. And this doesn't just target criminals. Law abiding citizens trying to keep their communications private could find themselves compromised because Country X's security agencies cracked the backdoor code.
Even if you accept that encryption would have backdoors, you can't simply ban encryption without backdoors. Open source code for strong, no-backdoor encryption already exists and is freely available. Even if you wiped it out from all US-based servers, it would be available on servers in other countries. Law abiding citizens might use the government-approved weaker encryption, but criminals could use the existing strong encryption. After all, what's another crime on top of the other ones they are committing? This would mean that law abiding users would be compromised while the criminals would be secure, leaving the government still unable to view their files.
The only solution to this is to accept that there might be some things that the government wouldn't be able to see (for better or worse). This might hinder some investigations, but there are a lot of restrictions on police that hinder them in the name of protecting innocent civilians.
Slashdot Mirror
Honestly, the only reason Chanukah is such a big deal for Jews is that Christmas is around the same time and Jewish kids wanted to get presents also. So the "8 days of presents" was invented. You're not really supposed to give gifts on Chanukah. Actually, our gift giving holiday is Purim (around March) where we dress in costumes, give gifts, and are religiously commanded to get drunk.
Then there was that one Magi who said "Hey, can I sign my name on the card and say that myrrh is from me too?"
Forget a Legend of Zelda movie. How about an animated Legend of Zelda series on Netflix? Have the story arc planned out and start Link from plucky farm boy "chosen one" to his quest to save Zelda. You can flesh the story out and take your time with it more than a movie ever could. (I'm thinking something like the current Voltron reboot on Netflix.)
I grew up watching the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. My boys recently found it on Netflix and loved it. I, meanwhile, cringed at how corny it was. Some things you should just let stay as nice memories and not revisit as an adult.
Also, Luigi gets shortchanged as usual. In the introduction, the plumbers are sucked down the pipe into Mushroom Land. There, they roll up to Bowser and his Koopas. Luigi is the one who knocks out all of the guards. (Bowser jumps off a cliff to escape.) However, Mario gets all the credit. Sure, it was by accident, but Luigi was the one who took out the guards, not Mario.
Yes, and with much less effort than previous "average citizens support X" propaganda efforts pre-Internet. One person, behind a keyboard, can not only pretend to be an average citizen of any country, they can pretend to be multiple average citizens. Pay a person to be on social media all day and they can run a dozen "average citizen" accounts, each amplifying the others. Have a team of ten people and you can have a hundred "average citizens." Target this well enough and it will seem as if there's a growing movement to support X even if, sans propaganda, people would be overwhelmingly against X. Then, it's just a matter of waiting for the real citizens who jump on the hottest bandwagon to promote your cause and spread the propaganda. Soon, there really might be a push for the cause, but it was all based on propaganda by a few people with Internet connections and plenty of time on their hands.
For better or worse, a lot of people care. You can set up a real-looking website with a completely phony story and, with a few targeted social media posts, make a large swath of people think it's true. Do this in the right way and you can influence an entire country right from behind your keyboard.
The Internet can definitely be used for good as well as for bad purposes. It's just a tool. There's nothing inherently good or bad about it. It's people who use the tool that make it either raise people up or sow chaos.
The difference is that the Internet makes it much easier to make the propaganda seem to originate from within a country. Back in the Cold War, if the Russians wanted people to think there was a big movement for/against some policy, they would need actual people embedded in the US. Those people would risk being exposed and arrested. Nowadays, they can either pay some people within Russia or run some bots to post on Facebook/Twitter/etc from "totally American" accounts. Instead of a handful of agents risking arrest, they can have thousands of "agents" operating from the safety of their computers in Russia. If an "agent" gets outed, that account can be closed down and another one set up right away. (In fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't have a bunch of accounts lying around waiting to be called into service as needed.)
Ah, Zipdrives. Iomega's attempt to "take over" from the floppy drive. I went to PC Expo back when these were out and there was a big crowd around their booth. All of the people were just rummaging through bins to get various buttons that they were giving away. I still have them hanging on my wall. ("Because I have the biggest light sabre" -- yes, spelled that way, "I gotta get a life", "I've got chills, they're multiplying", "It's my music, I promise", etc.)
This past year I've been focused on writing books instead of reading them. (I'd like to do both but time constraints kept me from that.) I'm working on the sequel to my first book Defenders of Shadow and Light: Ghost Thief.
Not to self-promote... well, actually, forget that, YES to self-promote, but my novel - Defenders of Shadow and Light: Ghost Thief - has no gratuitous sex or violence. There's actually no sex, but decent amounts of violence. I read it to my then-9 year old son as I was writing it. I'm working on the sequel now.
The big draw to Google Docs for me is the availability no matter where I am. I wrote my first novel (and am writing my second) in Google Docs. No matter where I am, I can bring the document up on my phone and bang out a few hundred words. When the novel's done, I'll export it into LibreOffice for more intensive editing and publishing preparations, but the on the fly editing capabilities are invaluable.
Awhile back I had an idea for a YouTube Whitelist application. The parent would choose which YouTube channels were appropriate for their kids. The kids, then, could watch any of the videos on these channels. I came up with this after my kids - who love watching videos of people playing video games - stumbled upon some videos that weren't appropriate. (Nothing too horrible, luckily. Just foul language that I didn't want them imitating.) Unfortunately, I never got the chance to work on this. If someone else wants to take the idea and run with it, go for it.
Thanks. I'll give this a try.
Thanks. I'll give it a try.
Honestly, it wasn't a full year of actively trying to fix the issue. It was a few days of actual work followed by a year of her pressing "remind me in 4 hours" to delay reboots and me occasionally searching Google for additional options that I hadn't tried yet.
I actually wish I could upgrade my wife's laptop to Windows 10 (as weird as that sounds). For over a year now, she's had a problem where her computer says it needs to reboot to finish installing a Windows update. If we reboot, it reports that it needs to reboot to finish installing a Windows update. Nowhere does it say which update this is and no amount of reboots clear this up. I can't even manually run Windows Update because that - surprise, surprise - tells me to reboot to finish an installation before it will move on.
At this point, my best guess is that her laptop tried to install Windows 10, failed, and she was stuck with a broken Windows installation. I don't want to wipe her system, but a year of searching hasn't uncovered any way to fix this issue. If I could upgrade her to Windows 10, maybe it would break her computer out of the endless reboot cycle.
They were also the storehouse for much of the world's scientific and mathematical knowledge while Europe was going through the Dark Age. Without the Islamic areas preserving (and building on) science/philosophy/math, we'd probably have been set back hundreds of years once science caught back on in Europe.
If that's a freelance rate, then I feel better about my rate. I keep thinking I'm under-charging.
If that's a full time job hourly rate, then I'm probably being massively underpaid.
To be fair, there are many people who do things without considering the consequences. If a police officer is going to shoot an unarmed man simply because the man is black and the officer is going on a power trip, he's not likely the kind of guy who's going to think long term about his actions.
It can also help the police against charges of police brutality. If a suspect is shot and there's no video, it's easy for a "he was unarmed and shot" narrative to spread regardless of the truth. With bodycam video, you can get quick evidence out to the public that the shooting was justified. On the flip side, if the police claim it was justified and the bodycam shows it wasn't, it can help the truth to come out despite police claims to the contrary. It's more about proof of how incidents went down to the courts and to the public than changing the behavior of the police or suspects.
I see what you did they're.
I chose "birth control" as a somewhat non-controversial topic. (I doubt many on Slashdot want to ban all forms of birth control.) Feel free to substitute "birth control" with any other topic that should be legal to read about but which politicians might want the public ignorant about.
It's true that you should listen to multiple sources from multiple viewpoints, but you also need to keep in mind that not all subjects have a "both sides." If Media Outlet A had a report saying "Many scientific studies show evolution is real" and Media Outlet B had "Scientists Wrong; World Created 5,000 Years Ago", there wouldn't be a comparison. You couldn't simply say "well, that's a difference of opinion and both are equally valid." One has mounds of scientific evidence on their side and the other is based off of adding ages in a very old book that some claim was written by a deity.
So listen to multiple sources, but also weight the evidence on each side. And if a source constantly gives patently false information (not talking opinions you disagree with, but something provably false), cut it out and find another to read (keeping the balance as much as possible to prevent the echo chamber effect).
Going back to the pre-computer days, you'd get a warrant, raid the person's place of business, and seize their paper files. Those would give you the information you needed to convict. They could "encrypt" the paper files using code words and the like, but that could be broken pretty easily.
The government is trying to tie this model to computer searches. Most times, it will work. You raid someone's home/office, seize the computers, and sift through them for evidence. Without encryption, this can still work. The government gets the evidence it needs to put criminals behind bars.
Enter encryption.
With encryption, only the person who encrypted the files can know what they are. If Google encrypts the files, Google might be able to decrypt them, but what if Google structures their service such that the user is the one who encrypts them? This means that Google physically can't decrypt the files. The government can order, beg, and plead all they want, but Google would be unable to do anything. The government would need to get the user to decrypt his own files - which could be seen as self-incrimination and thus get the evidence tossed out in court. Plus, this means the government needs to deal with each user in an effort to get the files decrypted instead of dealing with one company, e.g. Google.
The solution for the government is a backdoor that only they can access. They want to push this so that, with a warrant, they can just decrypt all the files they need without needing to deal with dozens of users. This is good for the government, but bad for everyone else. A backdoor, no matter how well designed, would be a point where anyone could break in. This could include random hackers as well as other government agents. And this doesn't just target criminals. Law abiding citizens trying to keep their communications private could find themselves compromised because Country X's security agencies cracked the backdoor code.
Even if you accept that encryption would have backdoors, you can't simply ban encryption without backdoors. Open source code for strong, no-backdoor encryption already exists and is freely available. Even if you wiped it out from all US-based servers, it would be available on servers in other countries. Law abiding citizens might use the government-approved weaker encryption, but criminals could use the existing strong encryption. After all, what's another crime on top of the other ones they are committing? This would mean that law abiding users would be compromised while the criminals would be secure, leaving the government still unable to view their files.
The only solution to this is to accept that there might be some things that the government wouldn't be able to see (for better or worse). This might hinder some investigations, but there are a lot of restrictions on police that hinder them in the name of protecting innocent civilians.