so they have no legitimate interest in spying on me.
And they don't, so sleep soundly...
"do this thing, or we'll kill you/your wife/your kids/your pets"
Dealing with this sort of blackmail is easier, because you don't have to be embarrassed. Threatening to force you out of the closet, or to disclose your affair (or some other moral shortcoming) is likely to be more effective, because you'll hesitate to ask authorities for help.
The bomb the investigators could have built would not have caused widespread damage or even high-level contamination. But it still could have had serious consequences, particularly economic ones, in any city where it was set off.
We always complain about government making lives (and business) harder for no reason. Well, getting "interviewed" by the commission, or having to submit pictures of the office and the list of employees to obtain such insignificant quantity of radioactive material could well be argued to be unduly burdensome.
Note, that the "serious consequences" are acknowledged by the article to be largely "economic" ones. Well, having to verify every such application would, likely, have much more of an economic impact. The article laments, that the bogus receiver of the license "had no offices, Internet site or employees. Its only asset was a postal box." So? Do we really want "having an office" to become a requirement for anything?..
I, however, am not a government employee. I'm a student and employee at a large company.
First of all, you have not been blackmailed by the FBI either.
Second, your large company could be a government contractor. It could also be in charge of an important piece of infrastructure (power-plant, phone company). You could also be blackmailed into helping the crooks commit crimes, which FBI is supposed to investigate — money-laundering (if you work for a bank or insurance company), or even a large-scale spam or some other Internet-only attack — if you work for an ISP, or an anti-virus company, for example.
There is nothing in TFA, that would imply, FBI is doing anything illegal — all of the (empty) accusations come from the Slashdot write-up and the bombastic postings, such as the one calling DHS "Gestapo".
Once I commit a crime, they have an interest in investigating me and my activities. Until then, the should just leave me the hell alone.
You are left alone. There are no strange men following you around, and no black helicopter is buzzing over your house.
Ha! At least, those robots — as well as military hardware, BTW — are created for the purpose. iPhone is not. It could've worked for years, and made someone rather happy...
Still, there were news-stories about soldiers getting emotionally attached to their minesweeping robots... And they aren't any more "sick", than people in love with their pets — including K-9 policemen.
The iPhone itself is an innocent piece of electronics. It can not be blamed for the hype...
Should a beauty-pageant contestant be killed/maimed/raped, so that someone somewhere gets relieved of the hype over Miss YourRegionHere?
Yes, the iPhone is "just a thing", not a human being, but the desire to destroy it, the anger felt towards it (justified by "the hype") are not entirely dissimilar...
Fun? I was, actually, rather revolted... It always saddens me, when things break irreparably. I once felt depressed for a week after accidentally dropping an old hard-drive on the floor — it worked before, but broke due to my sloppiness...
To do this sort of thing on purpose, with a shiny, new (and beautiful!) piece of high-tech electronics is a sin. To enjoy watching it is perverse, in my humble opinion...
Whether there exists an actionable violation of the license or not is a moot point. My complaint was about Slashdot announcing it as an open-source program, when no source is, in fact, being distributed...
The submitter goofed and the editor failed the "due diligence" — again...
History may be unfolding again here, with the exception that having the Chinese government as an ally has huge additional benefits.
There was a saying — in the beginning of our Republic — that a good idea can stand on its own, while a bad one needs government help. I can't find the founding father's quote at the moment...
Although recent generations have abandoned that concept (witness Social Security, and Municipal WiFi for examples), to rely on the help of Chinese government is a new low...
Alexander Ratushnyak's open-sourced GPL program is called paq8hp12 [rar file].
Well, if it is GPLed, it is in violation of the license, because the source is nowhere to be found — the RAR-file contains the Windows executable and two dictionary files — where is the source code?
The divide between the haves and have-nots will only become deeper, when this new iPhone is released. A struggling coffee-shop owner will not be able to afford the $600 gadget, and so will have to settle for the limited functionality of the cheaper one.
All the while, the leaching MAFIAA shills prosper suing the single (grand-)mothers for copyright infringment, which is not even theft.
it's an interesting question about leaving open the possibility for some sort of illegal activity in the interests of social progress.
Whenever you see the law-and-order types argue with the no-big-brother types, this is the question they should be discussing. They usually don't realize it, and the discussions lead to off-topic accusations, and meaningless fireworks...
Personally, I gravitate towards the law-and-order and favor the proper law-enforcement — as long as it includes catching crooked politicians, and voting fraud. And yes, I also include the "petty offenses" — if the punishment for something like jaywalking is too severe, the best way to alleviate that is to have every jaywalker (off-duty cops, selectmen, and judges included) prosecuted.
In other words, if there happens to be a bad law, the best way against it is to apply to everyone, rather than allow most to violate it. Selective enforcement is worse...
Over and over again, the correct question to ponder is whether the 100% successful law-enforcement is a desirable goal.
Or whether, perhaps, the possibility must be left out for the "subversives" to change the system at some point...
So, do we want to properly punish all of drug-dealing, bribery, copyright infringement, murder, jaywalking, rape, speeding, arson, fire-hydrant parking, terrorism, tax-evasion, etc.?
So some guy playing old Beatles songs for free at the local coffee shop is the same as the guy sending me 100 emails a day for vi4gra?
The similarity is in the fact, that you are not really devastated by those e-mails. You are simply worse off. All the nasty things, that you rightly wish upon the spammer, do not compare with the inconvenience of having to press Delete even 100 times.
Similarly, each individual infringement by a small coffee shop does not cause the songwriters any "devastation", as the sarcastic "frosty pisser" was saying. It just makes them worse off...
The RIAA "guesses" what songs you would have played, and pays the songwritters according to these guesses. The system is far from exact.
I think, you wanted to contradict the GP, but failed to do so... A system, that's "far from exact" in paying the song-writers, is still better than one, where the author is not paid at all...
All of these sarcastic comments are non-arguments. The owners of the content want to be paid for its use — that's fair. No, they are not devastated by the leaching. Just a little bit worse off.
For another example of same, consider the spammers' plight. Are you really devastated by having to press 'Delete' even 5 times a day?
But a web address often has a 1-to-1 corespondence with its contents.
Often is the key word here. You ignore it in one of your examples (regular mail), but stress it in the other (web addresses). You would not be mailing to Bin Laden often — not any more often, than you would connect to a jihadist web-site to post "terrorists are swine" on it.
Speed cameras used as revenue generators - placed in areas which obviously don't need them but there is likely to be a strong temptation to speed.
Having a policeman there — on occasion — is only worse. The camera, that tickets everyone, leaves a chance, that enough people, who go to town hall meetings and otherwise affect the law-making, will get bitten and revise the speed limit eventually.
To succeed so well at something that is so incredibly difficult is high praise in itself.
NASA has managed the nation's (and the world's) expectations spectacularly. Have they said, we expect these machines to be function for a year, we would've been complaining, after one of the wheels died on one of them.
But by starting with the lowest bearable duration (90 days), and by continuing to remind us of it, they collect nothing but praise. Nobody is asking, why was the "designed for period" so low? — because it is grossly exceeded by now, so what's to complain about? Right? And if anything happened earlier, the excuse is obvious: "Well, we only designed them to last 90 days".
Very nice hedge, NASA...
All of us should keep that in mind, when asked to do anything.
At this stage of development of an AI I can trust the computer only to show a letter 'a' on the screen when I press the 'a' key.
You can also trust the computer to not get more aggravated because the suspect is of a wrong race. You can also trust it to not engage in selective enforcement — the machine will either prosecute no one or every suspect (as much as the time allows).
The taser-ing may be too much for the current state of the Art of Computer Programming, but issuing speeding tickets ought to be automatic, for example. When everyone on the toll highway, who got from entrance to the exit with the average speed above the legal speed-limit, gets a ticket at the exit, we will see the speed-limit climb up to reasonable levels very quickly, and the real cops will suddenly have less work to do, and less opportunities for harassment too.
Opening up MS code is not the goal of GPLv3. Preventing code whose authors chose to license it under GPL3 from being used in proprietary software is the goal of GPL3, nothing more. And it will do that.
The backwardness of your (already insightful!) thinking, reminded me of an old, sad, Soviet joke...
October 1917 in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). A grand-daughter of one of the Decembrists is woken up by the shouting and shootings outside. She asks her maid, what's the ruckus about. "It is the Revolution, madam, to make sure, there are no rich." — "How strange," — replies the lady: "My grandfather died for there being no poor."
The goal of GPL (any version) is to make sure, whoever uses the GPLed code, releases their own code under the same license... It may mean, that whoever does not want to do that, can not use GPL code. But that's not the intention...
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Library specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option [emphasis mine -mi] of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Library does not specify a license version number, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
Slashdot Mirror
And they don't, so sleep soundly...
Dealing with this sort of blackmail is easier, because you don't have to be embarrassed. Threatening to force you out of the closet, or to disclose your affair (or some other moral shortcoming) is likely to be more effective, because you'll hesitate to ask authorities for help.
Slashdot editor has not:
We always complain about government making lives (and business) harder for no reason. Well, getting "interviewed" by the commission, or having to submit pictures of the office and the list of employees to obtain such insignificant quantity of radioactive material could well be argued to be unduly burdensome.
Note, that the "serious consequences" are acknowledged by the article to be largely "economic" ones. Well, having to verify every such application would, likely, have much more of an economic impact. The article laments, that the bogus receiver of the license "had no offices, Internet site or employees. Its only asset was a postal box." So? Do we really want "having an office" to become a requirement for anything?..
First of all, you have not been blackmailed by the FBI either.
Second, your large company could be a government contractor. It could also be in charge of an important piece of infrastructure (power-plant, phone company). You could also be blackmailed into helping the crooks commit crimes, which FBI is supposed to investigate — money-laundering (if you work for a bank or insurance company), or even a large-scale spam or some other Internet-only attack — if you work for an ISP, or an anti-virus company, for example.
There is nothing in TFA, that would imply, FBI is doing anything illegal — all of the (empty) accusations come from the Slashdot write-up and the bombastic postings, such as the one calling DHS "Gestapo".
You are left alone. There are no strange men following you around, and no black helicopter is buzzing over your house.
Ha! At least, those robots — as well as military hardware, BTW — are created for the purpose. iPhone is not. It could've worked for years, and made someone rather happy...
Still, there were news-stories about soldiers getting emotionally attached to their minesweeping robots... And they aren't any more "sick", than people in love with their pets — including K-9 policemen.
The iPhone itself is an innocent piece of electronics. It can not be blamed for the hype...
Should a beauty-pageant contestant be killed/maimed/raped, so that someone somewhere gets relieved of the hype over Miss YourRegionHere?
Yes, the iPhone is "just a thing", not a human being, but the desire to destroy it, the anger felt towards it (justified by "the hype") are not entirely dissimilar...
Fun? I was, actually, rather revolted... It always saddens me, when things break irreparably. I once felt depressed for a week after accidentally dropping an old hard-drive on the floor — it worked before, but broke due to my sloppiness...
To do this sort of thing on purpose, with a shiny, new (and beautiful!) piece of high-tech electronics is a sin. To enjoy watching it is perverse, in my humble opinion...
Whether there exists an actionable violation of the license or not is a moot point. My complaint was about Slashdot announcing it as an open-source program, when no source is, in fact, being distributed...
The submitter goofed and the editor failed the "due diligence" — again...
There was a saying — in the beginning of our Republic — that a good idea can stand on its own, while a bad one needs government help. I can't find the founding father's quote at the moment...
Although recent generations have abandoned that concept (witness Social Security, and Municipal WiFi for examples), to rely on the help of Chinese government is a new low...
Somehow, the "good alternatives" failed to win... Struggling with Linux was more difficult, than overcoming the anti-piracy measures, I guess?
Well, if it is GPLed, it is in violation of the license, because the source is nowhere to be found — the RAR-file contains the Windows executable and two dictionary files — where is the source code?
The readme.txt in the directory does not mention the sources either...
The divide between the haves and have-nots will only become deeper, when this new iPhone is released. A struggling coffee-shop owner will not be able to afford the $600 gadget, and so will have to settle for the limited functionality of the cheaper one.
All the while, the leaching MAFIAA shills prosper suing the single (grand-)mothers for copyright infringment, which is not even theft.
Or something...
Whenever you see the law-and-order types argue with the no-big-brother types, this is the question they should be discussing. They usually don't realize it, and the discussions lead to off-topic accusations, and meaningless fireworks...
Personally, I gravitate towards the law-and-order and favor the proper law-enforcement — as long as it includes catching crooked politicians, and voting fraud. And yes, I also include the "petty offenses" — if the punishment for something like jaywalking is too severe, the best way to alleviate that is to have every jaywalker (off-duty cops, selectmen, and judges included) prosecuted.
In other words, if there happens to be a bad law, the best way against it is to apply to everyone, rather than allow most to violate it. Selective enforcement is worse...
Over and over again, the correct question to ponder is whether the 100% successful law-enforcement is a desirable goal.
Or whether, perhaps, the possibility must be left out for the "subversives" to change the system at some point...
So, do we want to properly punish all of drug-dealing, bribery, copyright infringement, murder, jaywalking, rape, speeding, arson, fire-hydrant parking, terrorism, tax-evasion, etc.?
The program must be GPL if it includes GPL source code or it is linked with a GPL library. That's the essense of the license.
The similarity is in the fact, that you are not really devastated by those e-mails. You are simply worse off. All the nasty things, that you rightly wish upon the spammer, do not compare with the inconvenience of having to press Delete even 100 times.
Similarly, each individual infringement by a small coffee shop does not cause the songwriters any "devastation", as the sarcastic "frosty pisser" was saying. It just makes them worse off...
I think, you wanted to contradict the GP, but failed to do so... A system, that's "far from exact" in paying the song-writers, is still better than one, where the author is not paid at all...
All of these sarcastic comments are non-arguments. The owners of the content want to be paid for its use — that's fair. No, they are not devastated by the leaching. Just a little bit worse off.
For another example of same, consider the spammers' plight. Are you really devastated by having to press 'Delete' even 5 times a day?
Often is the key word here. You ignore it in one of your examples (regular mail), but stress it in the other (web addresses). You would not be mailing to Bin Laden often — not any more often, than you would connect to a jihadist web-site to post "terrorists are swine" on it.
I think, the judge is right...
Having a policeman there — on occasion — is only worse. The camera, that tickets everyone, leaves a chance, that enough people, who go to town hall meetings and otherwise affect the law-making, will get bitten and revise the speed limit eventually.
Otherwise the speed-trap will be perpetual.
NASA has managed the nation's (and the world's) expectations spectacularly. Have they said, we expect these machines to be function for a year, we would've been complaining, after one of the wheels died on one of them.
But by starting with the lowest bearable duration (90 days), and by continuing to remind us of it, they collect nothing but praise. Nobody is asking, why was the "designed for period" so low? — because it is grossly exceeded by now, so what's to complain about? Right? And if anything happened earlier, the excuse is obvious: "Well, we only designed them to last 90 days".
Very nice hedge, NASA...
All of us should keep that in mind, when asked to do anything.
You can also trust the computer to not get more aggravated because the suspect is of a wrong race. You can also trust it to not engage in selective enforcement — the machine will either prosecute no one or every suspect (as much as the time allows).
The taser-ing may be too much for the current state of the Art of Computer Programming, but issuing speeding tickets ought to be automatic, for example. When everyone on the toll highway, who got from entrance to the exit with the average speed above the legal speed-limit, gets a ticket at the exit, we will see the speed-limit climb up to reasonable levels very quickly, and the real cops will suddenly have less work to do, and less opportunities for harassment too.
But Consumerist is. In fact, they are calling the act theft... As in "caught stealing ".
And because it is not theft, there is nothing wrong with it, right?
So, that's the only problem you see, right?
Does not information want to be free? It is not stealing, is it? Therefor it must be Ok.
Or are we all despicable **AA shills now?
Or do we hate Best Buy more, than we hate **AA?
The backwardness of your (already insightful!) thinking, reminded me of an old, sad, Soviet joke...
October 1917 in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). A grand-daughter of one of the Decembrists is woken up by the shouting and shootings outside. She asks her maid, what's the ruckus about. "It is the Revolution, madam, to make sure, there are no rich." — "How strange," — replies the lady: "My grandfather died for there being no poor."
The goal of GPL (any version) is to make sure, whoever uses the GPLed code, releases their own code under the same license... It may mean, that whoever does not want to do that, can not use GPL code. But that's not the intention...
Quoting from GPL itself: