My library has eBooks available to take out. In fact, I just took out Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. (Somehow I never managed to read it and I wanted to rectify this mistake.) I go onto their website, choose the book, take it out (via Amazon), and then load it onto my Kindle. When it is due, it automatically gets removed. (Yes, there's DRM, but this is one place where DRM is appropriate - to enforce the expiration date of the library loan.) In addition, if you live in New York State, you can join the New York Public Library in New York City (you sign up online) and get eBooks from them. (They have a better selection than local libraries.)
The change with the library in the article is that that one doesn't have physical books whereas my library has physical and electronic (and audio) books. I don't see libraries ditching physical books in the near future, but I definitely think more and more electronic books will be in stock in libraries over the next few years. Eventually, we may come to a point where the paper books are looked upon like microfiche is today: Something oddly out of date/A relic from another age.
Personally, I'd respond "give me all of it" even though I have no desire to visit gay sex or drugs websites. First of all, should I decide to visit such sites in the future, I don't want to ask for permission to see them. Secondly, I don't want the government deciding what constitutes "gay sex" or "drugs" websites.
Who is determining this and who is preventing them from abusing their position? (i.e. "You oppose me so your site is suddenly an 'undesirable' site and blocked by default.") Government shouldn't be in the business of blocking websites. If the government feels the need to do anything, they can recommend a few of the many free or pay web blocking programs and provide information on how to install/configure them on your local computers. This should appease the "think of the children" crowd without forcing the rest of us to abide by their definition of "right and wrong."
To tie this to another Slashdot story, this is exactly the reason I fear the Bill Nye-Ken Ham debate. I have no doubt that Bill Nye knows his stuff, but I fear that the creationist will toss a hundred "arguments" out and Bill will only tackle one or two successfully (simply because spreading information/proof takes more time than spreading unfounded assertations). Thus, he will be seen as having "lost" the debate because he "couldn't" counter all of Ken Ham's talking points.
Not all science fiction uses time travel as a dues ex machina. "Off To Be The Wizard" by Scott Meyer has time travel, but it can't solve the main character's problems due to some limitations. He can travel anywhere he wants in the past but can't travel to the future past his "own time." And once he gets into the past, he's limited to some degree in his travels so he winds up not being able to travel to any time but the exact day/time he arrived in the past. (Of course, this isn't a time travel story as much as it is a "the world is run by computer code and some folks discover how to hack it" story. I highly recommend it.)
Or it proves that, in the future, you think of the possibilities of time travel as too cool to waste on something as mundane as meeting your younger self.
Or, you remember not seeing yourself and if you now go back and meet yourself, you risk changing the timeline to such a degree that you won't have access to time travel. Therefore, you continue to not meet yourself.
There are lots of possibilities with time travel.
*steps into a blue box that is bigger on the inside*
As twocows pointed out, it does work on IE11. After double-checking, I can say that it works on IE10 and IE9 as well. I had IE8 in mind when I mentioned "not IE" due to many companies remaining on IE8. Still, the point of responsive design is to make the website automatically reconfigure for tablet and mobile browsers. Nobody is running a smartphone with IE8. Thanks to CSS coding, you can have your website work on desktop-tablet-mobile responsively and still support IE8 on the browser. (There are even JavaScript libraries to help bring CSS3 media query support to IE8, though that might be unneeded.)
It might not be an abuse by a majority of people, but it is an abuse. Hayden specifically stated that there were NO abuses and that the absence of abuses shows that the program should continue. Demonstrating that there WERE abuses (even if they weren't NSA-approved abuses) shows this line of argument to be completely false. (The fact that a program shouldn't be evaluated solely on the basis of "is it being abused right now" is a different conversation, though a relavent one to the overall discussion.)
Wait... is the general trying a Jedi mind trick on us? *waves hand* There have been no NSA abuses of the spying system. *waves hand* You WANT the NSA to spy on everything you do. *waves hand* Give the NSA more money to spy on more people. *waves hand*
I'd certainly call using your "catch the terrorists super-spying" powers to eavesdrop on your girlfriend an abuse of power. Of course, he'd probably just hand wave that away as inconsequential because [super spooky voice]TERRORISTS!!!!!![/super spooky voice]
This is the same company that had upper management trying to ban cameras in the bakery department lest their cakes appear on Cake Wrecks. They tried to argue that their cakes are copyrighted and thus taking photos of them is copyright infringement. http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2012/11/9/ways-to-play-it-safe.html
I'm all for starting manned missions again, but this reeks of a publicity stunt at best and a scam at worst. Even if they do launch people into space, will this actually result in any useful data or will it just air on TV as "Survivor in Space" (minus the surviving)? Just another brainless reality show and this time one where people volunteer to essentially be killed in as entertaining a manner possible.
The NSA has been "weakened" in the same way that law enforcement is "weakened" by having to follow rules about evidence and warrants. It would be so much easier if they could just bust into any home/business whenever they wanted for any reason they could think up, but there are all these pesky rules they need to follow. Of course, the reason for these rules is to prevent abuse, corruption, and protect innocent people's rights.
In other news, my employer is "financially weakening" me by not giving me a $100 million salary!
That's not how the system works. First, you do X covertly. When you're found out, claim that X is done to prevent terrorism and insinuate that any opponents of X support terrorism. Next, you get X legalized because no politician wants to be seen as weak on terrorism. Finally, begin doing Y covertly (where Y is more intrusive/more illegal than X) and begin the cycle all over again.
Makes me wonder what Google did wrong with G+ to get so little popularity
I used Google+ for awhile and my main problems with it were:
- Real Name Policy: I rarely use my real name online. My Slashdot account is one of a few from my earlier days on the Internet when I did. On social media, I use a pseudonym. I'm known by that pseudonym when I blog so why would I want to use my real name on some social networks and my pseudonym on another? They eventually added a "nickname" field but only let people display it in a form like "Jason Levine (Pseudonym)". Why couldn't I give Google my real name but opt to have only my pseudonym show up?
- Pages Following: Google did give a place where you could use your Pseudonym only, but it involved extra steps every time to post there. In addition, you could only follow people on Pages if they followed you first. So I couldn't use that as my main screen, I had to use my real-name area to read G+ posts and then go to my Pseudonym screen to reply (if it let me).
- No third party app access: I believe this has changed, but for awhile there was no third party access to Google+. I couldn't compose a message and send it to both Twitter and Google+. However, I could use one tool to post to both Twitter and Facebook (were I on Facebook). This meant I had to use two tools to essentially post the same thing. I have limited social media time so this contributed to my decision to ax Google+. Like I said, this may have changed, but it turned me off the service at the time. You want to make your new service easy to use, not cumbersome.
True, but I've also seen times when a company's Twitter presence gives some great customer service in a very public manner. I've even had it happen to myself at times. One example: My annual deal with my cable company (Time Warner Cable) was coming due. I called their customer service number and was offered a new "deal": Pay $10 more a month and get slower Internet speeds. Yes, that was the best they could offer. If I wanted to keep what I had, I'd have to have paid about $30 more a month. My wife complained on Twitter (more venting than looking for a reply) as we considered cutting cable. The people behind the TWC Twitter account gave us a number to call and we were offered a much better deal which saved us some money.
Obviously, YMMV. It's not guaranteed that complaining on Twitter will lower your bills, but this turned a potentially bad PR situation (customer's "deal" is to pay more for less service) into a good one (customer happy with new deal) and kept a customer who could have easily just cut out cable entirely. (Not that that's not an option anymore, but they've delayed it for a year or two.)
The other problem is that this person has a lot of time on her hands and the determination to keep at it for years on end. Remember, she thinks she's hearing "the word of god" in her head. So she's highly motivated to continue her attacks. This means that she'll keep contacting people until someone believes her. All it takes is a few people to buy into her nonsense and the story will start to spiral out of control. Meanwhile, the guy she's attacking has to warn everyone he deals with that a call from her is a possibility and that what she's saying is a lie. He must spend the rest of his life on guard while she can relax, safe from legal retaliation.
False Cause - They perceive that 911 happened because we didn't have enough info so their solution is to collect "ALL THE INFO". Appeal to Emotion - You don't want another terrorist attack, now do you? Black or White - Either we collect all of the information on everyone or the terrorists win. Whose side are you on?
Additionally, courts have used Burden of Proof before. Want to prove this is illegal? Well, first you need to have been negatively impacted by this uber-secret program. Since it's an uber-secret program, you aren't allowed evidence that they spied on you. Since you have no evidence, you can't prove anything. Lawsuit tossed out. Next!
Finally, I propose a new Logical Fallacy - the More Information Fallacy. This one presumes that we'd be able to do X if only we had more information or less roadblocks to obtaining information. This is true in a sense. The police could arrest a lot more people if they didn't need to worry about so many rules about evidence. Do you know how many criminals would be behind bars if they didn't get off on a technicality? However, the flip side to this is lowered rules lead to corruption and abuse. Lower rules on evidence handling and you can have cases where evidence is planted or tampered with and innocent people get convicted.
In the case of the NSA, they think that "more information" will help them spot terrorists. In an ideal situation (for them, not us), knowing everything about everyone *would* let them spot and stop terrorist attacks. However 1) this would lead to abuse and mission creep to the point that the program would be used for non-terrorism related crimes or for attacking people the NSA didn't like and 2) the NSA would never be able to parse through that much data in the real world. So the claims that "more information will stop attacks" are just plain false.
The NSA spying on Americans en masse without warrants is a counter-punch to 9/11?
Well, maybe.
Al Qaeda provided the initial punch on 9/11 and now the NSA is delivering a "counter-punch." Only problem is that the American people are the targets of both punches!
While internet trolls are an issue, anyone that has been on the internet for awhile gets used to them.
For most trolls this is true. However, there are the occassional trolls who have nothing better to do that make your life miserable or are so mentally unbalanced that they think they are "doing good" by harassing you. Online, they have limited powers, but if they get a hold of your real-world identity they can cause serious harm. Example, there's a troll (who I won't name for fear she'll find her way here and see *my* real name) who has harassed me in the past. She didn't know my real name (Slashdot is one of the few places I use it) so her power over me was limited. One of her targets, though, used his real name and mentioned where he worked. She called up his job, reporting him for child abuse (he's a teacher), found and contacted all of his family on Facebook, and contacted his local police department to report him for child pornography. None of those charges were true, and luckily he had warned enough people about her that the damage was minimal, but he's still had to endure years of not knowing who she would contact next to spread lies. (In her mind, she's a "prophet of god" and everything she says comes straight from god himself, so obviously there's no way or reasoning with her.) Before anyone asks, police were contacted in this and other cases regarding her but nothing was done. (Her living in another country complicates matters and it's too "small time" for any real traction to get moving.)
Were I forced to use my real name everywhere, she could have done the same to me or the other few dozen people she's harassed (from bloggers to Boy George to the CEO of FireFox). Now imagine a hundred other trolls like her empowered by having access to the real world identities of the people they are harassing. If real-world identities themselves don't scare away commenters, the trolls will.
I think you might need a bigger monument: http://what-if.xkcd.com/65/
Particularly, I'm referencing the drawing of the dot representing the Earth compared with the "average Twitter timeline" line. You can shrink the fonts, but that still won't take it down that much.
At one time Google was able to pull up certain information about me, but that disappeared 10 years ago.
And then there's the problem of having a common name. The Internet might remember bits and pieces of you, but how do you separate "actual you" from "just has the same name as you"? Take me, for example. Go Google "Jason Levine". You'll get some entries from me and a lot of entries from other people named "Jason Levine". Now, I can definitely tell which are from me and which aren't, but - even if we assume all of these are still around in 80 years or so - how would my grandchildren tell the difference?
Of course, if you add PHP into that Google Trends query, you'll see that PHP's total, while declining over the years, is the same as the other four combined in October 2013. That being said, the best tool for the job isn't always the same as the most popular tool. If Ruby is the best tool for the application you are working on, then use that regardless of whether another framework/programming language is the hot new thing.
Slashdot Mirror
My library has eBooks available to take out. In fact, I just took out Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. (Somehow I never managed to read it and I wanted to rectify this mistake.) I go onto their website, choose the book, take it out (via Amazon), and then load it onto my Kindle. When it is due, it automatically gets removed. (Yes, there's DRM, but this is one place where DRM is appropriate - to enforce the expiration date of the library loan.) In addition, if you live in New York State, you can join the New York Public Library in New York City (you sign up online) and get eBooks from them. (They have a better selection than local libraries.)
The change with the library in the article is that that one doesn't have physical books whereas my library has physical and electronic (and audio) books. I don't see libraries ditching physical books in the near future, but I definitely think more and more electronic books will be in stock in libraries over the next few years. Eventually, we may come to a point where the paper books are looked upon like microfiche is today: Something oddly out of date/A relic from another age.
Personally, I'd respond "give me all of it" even though I have no desire to visit gay sex or drugs websites. First of all, should I decide to visit such sites in the future, I don't want to ask for permission to see them. Secondly, I don't want the government deciding what constitutes "gay sex" or "drugs" websites.
Who is determining this and who is preventing them from abusing their position? (i.e. "You oppose me so your site is suddenly an 'undesirable' site and blocked by default.") Government shouldn't be in the business of blocking websites. If the government feels the need to do anything, they can recommend a few of the many free or pay web blocking programs and provide information on how to install/configure them on your local computers. This should appease the "think of the children" crowd without forcing the rest of us to abide by their definition of "right and wrong."
To tie this to another Slashdot story, this is exactly the reason I fear the Bill Nye-Ken Ham debate. I have no doubt that Bill Nye knows his stuff, but I fear that the creationist will toss a hundred "arguments" out and Bill will only tackle one or two successfully (simply because spreading information/proof takes more time than spreading unfounded assertations). Thus, he will be seen as having "lost" the debate because he "couldn't" counter all of Ken Ham's talking points.
"Actually wasn't hungry. Just wanted to photobomb a selfie. Pulled a Jaws right behind her. #BestPhotobombEver"
Not all science fiction uses time travel as a dues ex machina. "Off To Be The Wizard" by Scott Meyer has time travel, but it can't solve the main character's problems due to some limitations. He can travel anywhere he wants in the past but can't travel to the future past his "own time." And once he gets into the past, he's limited to some degree in his travels so he winds up not being able to travel to any time but the exact day/time he arrived in the past. (Of course, this isn't a time travel story as much as it is a "the world is run by computer code and some folks discover how to hack it" story. I highly recommend it.)
Or it proves that, in the future, you think of the possibilities of time travel as too cool to waste on something as mundane as meeting your younger self.
Or, you remember not seeing yourself and if you now go back and meet yourself, you risk changing the timeline to such a degree that you won't have access to time travel. Therefore, you continue to not meet yourself.
There are lots of possibilities with time travel.
*steps into a blue box that is bigger on the inside*
As twocows pointed out, it does work on IE11. After double-checking, I can say that it works on IE10 and IE9 as well. I had IE8 in mind when I mentioned "not IE" due to many companies remaining on IE8. Still, the point of responsive design is to make the website automatically reconfigure for tablet and mobile browsers. Nobody is running a smartphone with IE8. Thanks to CSS coding, you can have your website work on desktop-tablet-mobile responsively and still support IE8 on the browser. (There are even JavaScript libraries to help bring CSS3 media query support to IE8, though that might be unneeded.)
Maybe there's a "Genesis: Special Edition" staring Jesus in the same way that Hayden Christensen appears as Anakin in Return of the Jedi.
It might not be an abuse by a majority of people, but it is an abuse. Hayden specifically stated that there were NO abuses and that the absence of abuses shows that the program should continue. Demonstrating that there WERE abuses (even if they weren't NSA-approved abuses) shows this line of argument to be completely false. (The fact that a program shouldn't be evaluated solely on the basis of "is it being abused right now" is a different conversation, though a relavent one to the overall discussion.)
Wait... is the general trying a Jedi mind trick on us? *waves hand* There have been no NSA abuses of the spying system. *waves hand* You WANT the NSA to spy on everything you do. *waves hand* Give the NSA more money to spy on more people. *waves hand*
"There have been no abuses"
What about LOVEINT?
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/26/20709855-loveint-nsa-letter-discloses-employee-eavesdropping-on-girlfriends-spouses?lite
I'd certainly call using your "catch the terrorists super-spying" powers to eavesdrop on your girlfriend an abuse of power. Of course, he'd probably just hand wave that away as inconsequential because [super spooky voice]TERRORISTS!!!!!![/super spooky voice]
This is the same company that had upper management trying to ban cameras in the bakery department lest their cakes appear on Cake Wrecks. They tried to argue that their cakes are copyrighted and thus taking photos of them is copyright infringement. http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2012/11/9/ways-to-play-it-safe.html
I'm all for starting manned missions again, but this reeks of a publicity stunt at best and a scam at worst. Even if they do launch people into space, will this actually result in any useful data or will it just air on TV as "Survivor in Space" (minus the surviving)? Just another brainless reality show and this time one where people volunteer to essentially be killed in as entertaining a manner possible.
The NSA has been "weakened" in the same way that law enforcement is "weakened" by having to follow rules about evidence and warrants. It would be so much easier if they could just bust into any home/business whenever they wanted for any reason they could think up, but there are all these pesky rules they need to follow. Of course, the reason for these rules is to prevent abuse, corruption, and protect innocent people's rights.
In other news, my employer is "financially weakening" me by not giving me a $100 million salary!
That's not how the system works. First, you do X covertly. When you're found out, claim that X is done to prevent terrorism and insinuate that any opponents of X support terrorism. Next, you get X legalized because no politician wants to be seen as weak on terrorism. Finally, begin doing Y covertly (where Y is more intrusive/more illegal than X) and begin the cycle all over again.
I used Google+ for awhile and my main problems with it were:
- Real Name Policy: I rarely use my real name online. My Slashdot account is one of a few from my earlier days on the Internet when I did. On social media, I use a pseudonym. I'm known by that pseudonym when I blog so why would I want to use my real name on some social networks and my pseudonym on another? They eventually added a "nickname" field but only let people display it in a form like "Jason Levine (Pseudonym)". Why couldn't I give Google my real name but opt to have only my pseudonym show up?
- Pages Following: Google did give a place where you could use your Pseudonym only, but it involved extra steps every time to post there. In addition, you could only follow people on Pages if they followed you first. So I couldn't use that as my main screen, I had to use my real-name area to read G+ posts and then go to my Pseudonym screen to reply (if it let me).
- No third party app access: I believe this has changed, but for awhile there was no third party access to Google+. I couldn't compose a message and send it to both Twitter and Google+. However, I could use one tool to post to both Twitter and Facebook (were I on Facebook). This meant I had to use two tools to essentially post the same thing. I have limited social media time so this contributed to my decision to ax Google+. Like I said, this may have changed, but it turned me off the service at the time. You want to make your new service easy to use, not cumbersome.
True, but I've also seen times when a company's Twitter presence gives some great customer service in a very public manner. I've even had it happen to myself at times. One example: My annual deal with my cable company (Time Warner Cable) was coming due. I called their customer service number and was offered a new "deal": Pay $10 more a month and get slower Internet speeds. Yes, that was the best they could offer. If I wanted to keep what I had, I'd have to have paid about $30 more a month. My wife complained on Twitter (more venting than looking for a reply) as we considered cutting cable. The people behind the TWC Twitter account gave us a number to call and we were offered a much better deal which saved us some money.
Obviously, YMMV. It's not guaranteed that complaining on Twitter will lower your bills, but this turned a potentially bad PR situation (customer's "deal" is to pay more for less service) into a good one (customer happy with new deal) and kept a customer who could have easily just cut out cable entirely. (Not that that's not an option anymore, but they've delayed it for a year or two.)
The other problem is that this person has a lot of time on her hands and the determination to keep at it for years on end. Remember, she thinks she's hearing "the word of god" in her head. So she's highly motivated to continue her attacks. This means that she'll keep contacting people until someone believes her. All it takes is a few people to buy into her nonsense and the story will start to spiral out of control. Meanwhile, the guy she's attacking has to warn everyone he deals with that a call from her is a possibility and that what she's saying is a lie. He must spend the rest of his life on guard while she can relax, safe from legal retaliation.
Which logical fallacies apply to this?
False Cause - They perceive that 911 happened because we didn't have enough info so their solution is to collect "ALL THE INFO".
Appeal to Emotion - You don't want another terrorist attack, now do you?
Black or White - Either we collect all of the information on everyone or the terrorists win. Whose side are you on?
Additionally, courts have used Burden of Proof before. Want to prove this is illegal? Well, first you need to have been negatively impacted by this uber-secret program. Since it's an uber-secret program, you aren't allowed evidence that they spied on you. Since you have no evidence, you can't prove anything. Lawsuit tossed out. Next!
Finally, I propose a new Logical Fallacy - the More Information Fallacy. This one presumes that we'd be able to do X if only we had more information or less roadblocks to obtaining information. This is true in a sense. The police could arrest a lot more people if they didn't need to worry about so many rules about evidence. Do you know how many criminals would be behind bars if they didn't get off on a technicality? However, the flip side to this is lowered rules lead to corruption and abuse. Lower rules on evidence handling and you can have cases where evidence is planted or tampered with and innocent people get convicted.
In the case of the NSA, they think that "more information" will help them spot terrorists. In an ideal situation (for them, not us), knowing everything about everyone *would* let them spot and stop terrorist attacks. However 1) this would lead to abuse and mission creep to the point that the program would be used for non-terrorism related crimes or for attacking people the NSA didn't like and 2) the NSA would never be able to parse through that much data in the real world. So the claims that "more information will stop attacks" are just plain false.
The NSA spying on Americans en masse without warrants is a counter-punch to 9/11?
Well, maybe.
Al Qaeda provided the initial punch on 9/11 and now the NSA is delivering a "counter-punch." Only problem is that the American people are the targets of both punches!
In many ways, politicians are just professional trolls.
For most trolls this is true. However, there are the occassional trolls who have nothing better to do that make your life miserable or are so mentally unbalanced that they think they are "doing good" by harassing you. Online, they have limited powers, but if they get a hold of your real-world identity they can cause serious harm. Example, there's a troll (who I won't name for fear she'll find her way here and see *my* real name) who has harassed me in the past. She didn't know my real name (Slashdot is one of the few places I use it) so her power over me was limited. One of her targets, though, used his real name and mentioned where he worked. She called up his job, reporting him for child abuse (he's a teacher), found and contacted all of his family on Facebook, and contacted his local police department to report him for child pornography. None of those charges were true, and luckily he had warned enough people about her that the damage was minimal, but he's still had to endure years of not knowing who she would contact next to spread lies. (In her mind, she's a "prophet of god" and everything she says comes straight from god himself, so obviously there's no way or reasoning with her.) Before anyone asks, police were contacted in this and other cases regarding her but nothing was done. (Her living in another country complicates matters and it's too "small time" for any real traction to get moving.)
Were I forced to use my real name everywhere, she could have done the same to me or the other few dozen people she's harassed (from bloggers to Boy George to the CEO of FireFox). Now imagine a hundred other trolls like her empowered by having access to the real world identities of the people they are harassing. If real-world identities themselves don't scare away commenters, the trolls will.
I think you might need a bigger monument: http://what-if.xkcd.com/65/
Particularly, I'm referencing the drawing of the dot representing the Earth compared with the "average Twitter timeline" line. You can shrink the fonts, but that still won't take it down that much.
And then there's the problem of having a common name. The Internet might remember bits and pieces of you, but how do you separate "actual you" from "just has the same name as you"? Take me, for example. Go Google "Jason Levine". You'll get some entries from me and a lot of entries from other people named "Jason Levine". Now, I can definitely tell which are from me and which aren't, but - even if we assume all of these are still around in 80 years or so - how would my grandchildren tell the difference?
Of course, if you add PHP into that Google Trends query, you'll see that PHP's total, while declining over the years, is the same as the other four combined in October 2013. That being said, the best tool for the job isn't always the same as the most popular tool. If Ruby is the best tool for the application you are working on, then use that regardless of whether another framework/programming language is the hot new thing.