Imagine if there were *no* laws against copying someone else's work - say anyone could legally copy a studio's movie print and show it in their own theater, or copy DVDs, CDs, or books and sell them in a retail store along side the "official" copies, etc.
Is that what's happening? Do you see pirated DVDs and CDs on the shelves at Best Buy? Can you tell me which theaters are showing pirated films?
Why do the apologists for the ridiculous "intellectual property" laws always have to go to imaginary scenarios to try to make their case?
In the real world, can you provide proof that artists are making less money because of illegal copies than they would have if there had been no illegal copies? Because I can show you the opposite. Yes, I can show you instances of artists who would have made much less money if their work had not been passed around on torrent sites.
Hell, there are artists who got their start by distributing their work on bittorrent sites. Without that "illegal copying" those artists would never have gotten a record contract.
So, if you can lay out some evidence that the violation of copyright is actually lessening artists' incomes, then we can talk. Until then, I maintain that the current "intellectual property" laws do more harm than good - for customers and artists alike.
Talk about "whoosh". GP said that this is what would happen if there were no IP laws, not that it is what is happening today.
Both Ron Paul and his son Rand Paul have been very vocal opponents of the TSA (I'm pretty sure Ron Paul is running on a platform to completely dissolve the TSA as well as a number of other agencies and departments of the federal government -- although that depends on where he's speaking and to whom).
It doesn't depend on who he's speaking to, the guy's one of the more consistent politicians ever in Washington. Here's the plan you're talking about documented in writing: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/national-defense/ You may not like his ideas, but he doesn't flip flop on them.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, and then each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
So basically Apple has moved factories to china where it can exploit the fact that the population is so poor they have to live at work to have a "decent" job. A job where you can be awakened in the middle of the night and forced to work long shifts with only a biscuit and tea in order to meet the quota.
Brilliant.
Need slave labor? It's cool, bro - China's got you covered like a jimmy hat.
As long as the government is able to shut your business down BEFORE going to trial, every business should worry. Especially businesses in the same industry as megaupload.
As a Dreamhost customer, I watched this unfold in real time. Apparently the passwords were hashed, and there's no indication that they were compromised, other than the fact that it was technically possible. So they changed the passwords because it's cheaper, PR-wise, than being wrong.
There's a big warning up on the panel, which has a password stored in a different, non-compromised DB. Between the panel and the email, I doubt anybody's confused as to what's going on.
In other words, it's really not that big of a deal. The database shouldn't have been compromised, and I'll expect a full postmortem of how they screwed that up, but in terms of damage (or even inconvenience), there really isn't any to speak of.
It's good to see they took the matter seriously, even with the circumstances you describe. Bad that it happened in the first place, but it sounds like the situation was nicely handled.
Suburban NYC-area where people are getting firebombed these days by people who say what that WiFi SSID said are not in a carefully crafted bubble. They're in the real world, where those kinds of statements are part of the violence.
It's you in your Slashdot posting pod who is in a carefully crafted bubble.
Those kinds of statements, along with any other kind of statement are not part of violence, they're statements (as you stated). They're also protected by the U.S. Constitution, and the UN Declaration of Human rights. I know, I know.. lots of folks these days only believe in free speech when they agree with what is being said... C'est la vie.
Slashdot could really use a +1 Insightful but Unnecessarily Dickish mod.
What is wrong with this picture?
Moderation categories already encompass both categories mentioned, and are an improvement on a simple "like" or "dislike". Adding multiple combinations of moderation (e.g. Insightful + Flamebait or Informative + Troll or any of the other 90 combinations you would needlessly add to the slashdot moderation system) is only slightly less stupid than allowing the herd of cats that is the slashdot moderator community to just create arbitrary moderation categories out of thin air any time they feel like it. There ARE TWO WHOLE FUCKING CATEGORIES OF MODERATION already dedicated to "Insightful but Unnecessarily Dickish", namely Insightful and Flamebait. The general idea is that on average the +1 from the Insightful and the -1 from the Flamebait cancel each other out, and people checking the moderations on their comments over time will come to realize they should be less of a dick but retain their level of insight.
But noooo, ignorant people such as yourself, would rather recommend slashdot implement the most arbitrary and poorly architected moderation system in the world just so you can get the +5 insiiiiiiiiightful. (And even if you would argue that Dickish!=Flamebait you are proposing a new 11th moderation category for "insightful but Unecessarily Dickish" worth a +1, which would result in the sizable misanthropic subset of slashdot users who would actually TRY to get their posts moderated as your wondrous new moderation category, thinking it is an improvement over plain old insightful.)
Were you deliberately trying to make GP's case, or was that an accident?
The last time I checked the 1st amendment didn't contain an exemption for asshattery. How is this any different from the KKK arranging a public protest and shouting the word "nigger" at the top of their lungs? The former is protected free speech but an offensive wi-fi network name is investigated as a crime? Seriously? From TFA, the mother of all overreactions:
“I was shocked, hurt. I felt harassed."
“This should not be tolerated in this town. They should see jail time for it," the mom of two said.
Really? They should go to jail because you felt "harassed" over an offensive SSID that popped up on your iPhone?
That lady is going to be totally fucked when she leaves her carefully crafted bubble and enters into the real world someday. She'll likely fall apart completely right there on the sidewalk somewhere and require years of therapy.
I think it was a waste of time. DOJ, RIAA, and universal music group are not internet based businesses. Other than a slight embarrassment, and annoyance at having to recover the site I don't see how this would be that big off a deal to the attacked. It's not like the attacks would have had any significant effect on the day to day operations on the targets that were named.
It probably didn't even cost them any money, since the IT guys recovering the sites are likely on salary.
The problem with mandatory foreign language is (at least in the US), they don't start until high school. They should start in at least 3rd or 4th grade? Probably in Kindergarten. Waiting until high school is just pointless.
I've got kids in elementary and middle school. 1Y foreign language is a minimum requirement to be promoted to high school (grade9) and is optional from Grade6. In the grades below 6 they're still trying to get the basics down for English/Math, and more importantly the basics of how to be a student in general.
Personally, I wish they'd give some better choices for foreign languages. Spanish is the de facto standard, and French is the only other option I saw. Why not Chinese, or Japanese, or Gaelic, or whatever else you can think of? That way my kids could communicate with their Chinese overlords in a few years.
Anyone could see those years and dates to begin with. They were always there.
According to the complaint in TFA, that is not quite true.
EPIC described Facebook’s launch by saying the social networking giant is posting “archived user information” so as to make “old posts available under Facebook’s current downgraded privacy settings” all “without user consent.” Furthermore, the group noted “users have just a week to clean up their history before Timeline goes live.”
So if you do nothing and the feature goes live, information that would have previously been not displayed due to your privacy settings will now be displayed.
This, and TSA appearing at bus terminals to pat down children is just the current administration's way of slowly inuring you to the "your papers please" gestapo tactics they seek to impose on the american public.
With congress rolling over and approving every dime in the TSA budget there seems no likelihood this will stop any time soon.
Pedophiles need jobs too, and the TSA was hiring that day.
"There has been a tonne of hype about Big Data and specifically Hadoop in recent years. But until today, Hadoop was not a 1.0 release product. Does it matter? Not really
Wasn't there a slogan about "news for nerds, stuff that matters" around here somewhere?
I find it ironic that the institutions that aggressively market themselves, seem to be highly susceptible to the marketing of like institutions.
My theory there is that they believe the shit they are feeding customers. Since in their minds they aren't lying, they don't think other companies are either.
Check your math. Your own link lists 18 dead, and 529 people "in space", for some strange value of "in space". Plenty of "astronaut" job title holders don't technically get in space, or don't get a mission assigned at all.
That's not even a tenth as dangerous as being a German U boat sailor in WWII.
Loggers "score" 55 deaths per 100K workers per year on the job, as of 2009. However that's a pretty broad category, including picker crane operators whos main danger is hypothermia from sitting around all day, the truck loader guys who mainly have to worry about getting run over; for the guys actually waving chainsaws in the air on a regular basis, the number is about 10 times higher.
I'd say that further research indicates I was wrong, overall an astronaut is "about" as likely to die on the job as a logger. However, note there are a couple orders of magnitude more wounds and permanent non-fatal maiming accidents that deaths in logging, and astronauts pretty much either don't get a scratch or they die, so assuming the only danger is death, and only death, skews the results quite a bit. If your criteria for dangerous is "any permanent severe career limiting damage" then I believe I was originally correct, logging is way more dangerous.
About a third of Mt Everest climbers die enroute. Now that, is dangerous.
Slashdot Mirror
Is that what's happening? Do you see pirated DVDs and CDs on the shelves at Best Buy? Can you tell me which theaters are showing pirated films?
Why do the apologists for the ridiculous "intellectual property" laws always have to go to imaginary scenarios to try to make their case?
In the real world, can you provide proof that artists are making less money because of illegal copies than they would have if there had been no illegal copies? Because I can show you the opposite. Yes, I can show you instances of artists who would have made much less money if their work had not been passed around on torrent sites.
Hell, there are artists who got their start by distributing their work on bittorrent sites. Without that "illegal copying" those artists would never have gotten a record contract.
So, if you can lay out some evidence that the violation of copyright is actually lessening artists' incomes, then we can talk. Until then, I maintain that the current "intellectual property" laws do more harm than good - for customers and artists alike.
Talk about "whoosh". GP said that this is what would happen if there were no IP laws, not that it is what is happening today.
Perhaps new ways of committing old crimes. "With a computer" isn't a new kind of crime, it's just a new way of accomplishing it.
"With a computer that has rounded corners"
There, now it's new.
Both Ron Paul and his son Rand Paul have been very vocal opponents of the TSA (I'm pretty sure Ron Paul is running on a platform to completely dissolve the TSA as well as a number of other agencies and departments of the federal government -- although that depends on where he's speaking and to whom).
It doesn't depend on who he's speaking to, the guy's one of the more consistent politicians ever in Washington. Here's the plan you're talking about documented in writing: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/national-defense/
You may not like his ideas, but he doesn't flip flop on them.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, and then each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
So basically Apple has moved factories to china where it can exploit the fact that the population is so poor they have to live at work to have a "decent" job. A job where you can be awakened in the middle of the night and forced to work long shifts with only a biscuit and tea in order to meet the quota.
Brilliant.
Need slave labor? It's cool, bro - China's got you covered like a jimmy hat.
As long as the government is able to shut your business down BEFORE going to trial, every business should worry. Especially businesses in the same industry as megaupload.
As a Dreamhost customer, I watched this unfold in real time. Apparently the passwords were hashed, and there's no indication that they were compromised, other than the fact that it was technically possible. So they changed the passwords because it's cheaper, PR-wise, than being wrong.
There's a big warning up on the panel, which has a password stored in a different, non-compromised DB. Between the panel and the email, I doubt anybody's confused as to what's going on.
In other words, it's really not that big of a deal. The database shouldn't have been compromised, and I'll expect a full postmortem of how they screwed that up, but in terms of damage (or even inconvenience), there really isn't any to speak of.
It's good to see they took the matter seriously, even with the circumstances you describe. Bad that it happened in the first place, but it sounds like the situation was nicely handled.
Now hurry up and clean up your desk or you can't go out for recess.
What do you have a hidden camera somewhere around here? I've got tape over the one built into my lapotp... DAMNIT!
Suburban NYC-area where people are getting firebombed these days by people who say what that WiFi SSID said are not in a carefully crafted bubble. They're in the real world, where those kinds of statements are part of the violence.
It's you in your Slashdot posting pod who is in a carefully crafted bubble.
Those kinds of statements, along with any other kind of statement are not part of violence, they're statements (as you stated). They're also protected by the U.S. Constitution, and the UN Declaration of Human rights. I know, I know.. lots of folks these days only believe in free speech when they agree with what is being said... C'est la vie.
What is wrong with this picture?
Moderation categories already encompass both categories mentioned, and are an improvement on a simple "like" or "dislike". Adding multiple combinations of moderation (e.g. Insightful + Flamebait or Informative + Troll or any of the other 90 combinations you would needlessly add to the slashdot moderation system) is only slightly less stupid than allowing the herd of cats that is the slashdot moderator community to just create arbitrary moderation categories out of thin air any time they feel like it. There ARE TWO WHOLE FUCKING CATEGORIES OF MODERATION already dedicated to "Insightful but Unnecessarily Dickish", namely Insightful and Flamebait. The general idea is that on average the +1 from the Insightful and the -1 from the Flamebait cancel each other out, and people checking the moderations on their comments over time will come to realize they should be less of a dick but retain their level of insight.
But noooo, ignorant people such as yourself, would rather recommend slashdot implement the most arbitrary and poorly architected moderation system in the world just so you can get the +5 insiiiiiiiiightful. (And even if you would argue that Dickish!=Flamebait you are proposing a new 11th moderation category for "insightful but Unecessarily Dickish" worth a +1, which would result in the sizable misanthropic subset of slashdot users who would actually TRY to get their posts moderated as your wondrous new moderation category, thinking it is an improvement over plain old insightful.)
Were you deliberately trying to make GP's case, or was that an accident?
The last time I checked the 1st amendment didn't contain an exemption for asshattery. How is this any different from the KKK arranging a public protest and shouting the word "nigger" at the top of their lungs? The former is protected free speech but an offensive wi-fi network name is investigated as a crime? Seriously? From TFA, the mother of all overreactions:
“I was shocked, hurt. I felt harassed."
“This should not be tolerated in this town. They should see jail time for it," the mom of two said.
Really? They should go to jail because you felt "harassed" over an offensive SSID that popped up on your iPhone?
That lady is going to be totally fucked when she leaves her carefully crafted bubble and enters into the real world someday. She'll likely fall apart completely right there on the sidewalk somewhere and require years of therapy.
Man, I wish I'd not posted so I could mod you up. You're 100% right. These attacks are completely irrelevant.
I think it was a waste of time. DOJ, RIAA, and universal music group are not internet based businesses. Other than a slight embarrassment, and annoyance at having to recover the site I don't see how this would be that big off a deal to the attacked. It's not like the attacks would have had any significant effect on the day to day operations on the targets that were named.
It probably didn't even cost them any money, since the IT guys recovering the sites are likely on salary.
I'm pretty sure that a Subaru would fit all of those requirements... outside of being a Toyota. No one really wants a Toyota, though.
Nor a Subaru.
Slashdotter-customized LED Panels - http://www.ecogroled.com/ Awesome Geek Toys - http://www.thinkgeek.com/
I had to laugh... dope growing light kits are "Slashdotter-customized"?
That's hilarious!
The problem with mandatory foreign language is (at least in the US), they don't start until high school. They should start in at least 3rd or 4th grade? Probably in Kindergarten. Waiting until high school is just pointless.
I've got kids in elementary and middle school. 1Y foreign language is a minimum requirement to be promoted to high school (grade9) and is optional from Grade6. In the grades below 6 they're still trying to get the basics down for English/Math, and more importantly the basics of how to be a student in general.
Personally, I wish they'd give some better choices for foreign languages. Spanish is the de facto standard, and French is the only other option I saw. Why not Chinese, or Japanese, or Gaelic, or whatever else you can think of? That way my kids could communicate with their Chinese overlords in a few years.
Anyone could see those years and dates to begin with. They were always there.
According to the complaint in TFA, that is not quite true.
EPIC described Facebook’s launch by saying the social networking giant is posting “archived user information” so as to make “old posts available under Facebook’s current downgraded privacy settings” all “without user consent.” Furthermore, the group noted “users have just a week to clean up their history before Timeline goes live.”
So if you do nothing and the feature goes live, information that would have previously been not displayed due to your privacy settings will now be displayed.
Exactly.
This, and TSA appearing at bus terminals to pat down children is just the current administration's way of slowly inuring you to the "your papers please" gestapo tactics they seek to impose on the american public.
With congress rolling over and approving every dime in the TSA budget there seems no likelihood this will stop any time soon.
Pedophiles need jobs too, and the TSA was hiring that day.
"There has been a tonne of hype about Big Data and specifically Hadoop in recent years. But until today, Hadoop was not a 1.0 release product. Does it matter? Not really
Wasn't there a slogan about "news for nerds, stuff that matters" around here somewhere?
Think of all the potheads we'd have roaming the streets! It would be chaos, I tell you!
Just because you know enough about a system to exploit it's weaknesses does not mean that the exploit is a "feature".
Anonymity is not a feature inherent in e-mail.
Again. Oracle. What did they REALLY expect? Maybe the administrators should have gone to a better school.
It sounds to me like they expected Oracle to honor the contract or pay damages for violating it.
I find it ironic that the institutions that aggressively market themselves, seem to be highly susceptible to the marketing of like institutions.
My theory there is that they believe the shit they are feeding customers. Since in their minds they aren't lying, they don't think other companies are either.
It sounds like a damn good idea to me. Where do I lay claim to these videos?
Check your math. Your own link lists 18 dead, and 529 people "in space", for some strange value of "in space". Plenty of "astronaut" job title holders don't technically get in space, or don't get a mission assigned at all.
That's not even a tenth as dangerous as being a German U boat sailor in WWII.
Loggers "score" 55 deaths per 100K workers per year on the job, as of 2009. However that's a pretty broad category, including picker crane operators whos main danger is hypothermia from sitting around all day, the truck loader guys who mainly have to worry about getting run over; for the guys actually waving chainsaws in the air on a regular basis, the number is about 10 times higher.
I'd say that further research indicates I was wrong, overall an astronaut is "about" as likely to die on the job as a logger. However, note there are a couple orders of magnitude more wounds and permanent non-fatal maiming accidents that deaths in logging, and astronauts pretty much either don't get a scratch or they die, so assuming the only danger is death, and only death, skews the results quite a bit. If your criteria for dangerous is "any permanent severe career limiting damage" then I believe I was originally correct, logging is way more dangerous.
About a third of Mt Everest climbers die enroute. Now that, is dangerous.
Pardon my error, you are correct. It's only 3.4%