The article was short on solutions because the author seemed intelligent, and because there really are no solutions.
In cases like Diablo, smart programmers noticed the cheating, figured out a "solution" and patched the game. Then someone found a new cheat, and the cycle restarted. On a fundamental level, all the game is doing is processing information, and if people are willing to go down to assembly level or network packet level and alter that information, there's really nothing you can do about it. If you make a program immune to all known cheating techniques, the cheaters will just find new cheats.
The same is true of copy protection. The best way to enforce both fair play and copy protection is by using a hardware console where you have no access to the OS, and games on unwriteable media. Like the Playstation. But even then, people come up with ways to cheat (Game Shark?) and way to break the copy protection (mod chips). I know it's a defeatist attitude, but you really can't stop people from cheating.
So am I saying multiplayer gaming is doomed? No. Just like the proliferation of mp3s hasn't stopped people from buying CDs, and the trading of VCD type movies hasn't stopped people from going to movies or buying videos and DVDs.
By nature, the number of "fair gamers" will be greater than the number of cheaters, because otherwise both the cheaters and the fair gamers will lose interest. So the "solution" is:
1. Don't bring money into gaming. When you offer money to the victor of a game, you tempt people to cheat in order to make money, and the effort you would put into identifying and preventing cheating will likely be prohibitive.
2. Try to learn to identify the fair gamers and the cheaters. Most multiplayer games, like Diablo and Age of Empires, are individual games with a set group of people. If you determine one of them is cheating, just go start another game and stay away from that person. Try to build up a group of people you know online who are fair gamers. Make a point of playing with people you know, rather than new strangers every time.
But most importantly, don't attach too much value to winning. Learn to enjoy the games even if you're losing. This way cheaters won't bother you so much, and if more people play for enjoyment of the game itself, rather than using the game as an arena to achieve victory, you'll find less people are driven to cheat.
If you read the article, he pretty much dismisses single player cheating with one sentence. He concludes that if cheating makes you enjoy playing the game by yourself more, then who cares? More power to ya.
----------------------------- It seems to be pretty common amongst/. to pick on people for bad spelling or grammar. So oh the irony that you named yourself "slashdoter." (which should be spelled "slashdotter"
People who still buy high end SGIs? How about these people: FF Movie Info Watch the newest trailer.
Re:Humans get along remarkably well
on
Geek Flavor
·
· Score: 1
And I suppose urinating all over the place to mark it as mine doesn't count as vandalism, but spray-painting a concrete wall with "Kra-zee's turf, stay out!" does.
I would also venture to say humans have a bit more tendency to *create* things that are useful to everyone.
Let me know when the dogs finally settle on a routing protocol to get howls from Dallas to Tibet.
An excellent idea, but I would want it to do more than just ask you at boot up. If it asks you at boot alone, that would protect you from say, the government coming in and seizing your HD after you had shutdown the computer, but if the computer's up and running you don't accomplish anything, because it will decrypt the files for anybody.
What you need is something that works with the user/pw system of your OS (be it Linux or Windows or MacOS or whatever flavor you choose) so that you can set preferences as to when it should query you for a pw, and it should have the option to query you anytime the OS opens a file.
What he's saying is that the record companies aren't actually making any less money, they're just making it through online retailers instead of physical ones, so why are they upset?
This doesn't make what they are doing any more legal.
Nor does it make it any less legal. Napster isn't actually giving out any copyrighted music. You may say it's just a technicality, but law is all about technicality, and I don't think people like Metallica understand this one. When I first heard Lars Ulrich speak about suing Napster, it sounded like he actually believed Napster went out and got Metallica's music with the intent of distributing it for free.
Napster isn't giving out copyrighted music anymore than AOL is. It's just the method of connection being used by pirates. I suspect several Napster users are connected to the Internet through AOL, so why don't you sue them? They're facilitating the copyright violation just like Napster is. Them and all other ISPs. And Computer manufacturers.
This strikes me as a response where you didn't even think about what he said before trying to mock it.
You actually purchased CDs having no idea what was on them?! Do you never listen to the radio? Did you actually look at a prospective purchase and say, "Gee, I've never heard any of these titles, but I'm gonna buy it anyways."
I can't say specifically what he did, but I know I personally bought a CD or two based on a good single only to find out the rest of the album was crap. Also, what do you do about good CDs that don't make it onto the radio? You just ignore them? I think that makes you the moron, not him.
Anybody who buys a DVD after seeing only a movie trailer is a moron. Like somebody who buys a car because the picture on the billboard looked so cool.
That's his point! He's saying it's stupid to buy an album without having heard it all first. Buying an album based on a good single is like buying a movie based on a good preview.
If Napster users buy much less music than they would have otherwise, then it would be in the industry's best economic interest to stop Napster at all costs.
No, actually it wouldn't. If they're fighting Napster in order to make more money, then they shouldn't stop it "at all costs." If the costs of stopping Napster are greater than the losses incurred due to Napster, then it's not in the industry's best economic interest.
People use these stupid cliches and don't even think about what they're saying.
OF COURSE IT MATTERS! You're only allowed to sue someone if you can show they damaged you! Maybe the damage is physical or emotional, but corporations can't be physically or emotionally damaged. The only damage they could show would be economic, so of course it matters, it's the whole point! If they can show they lost money and it's Napster's fault, then they have some kind of case to sue. If not, they're just wasting everyone's fucking time!
I don't buy singles, and I can't understand why anyone would. They cost like 3-4 dollars less than the full album, so why not buy the whole thing?
That said, I rarely, if ever, buy a CD just because I heard one song off it that I liked. This is how it was before mp3s, and this is how it is now.
Now if I hear a song I like, I get the whole album on mp3. If I like it, I buy it. If I don't, I keep the single and delete the rest. I wasn't going to buy it anyway, so the record company hasn't lost anything.
This all comes down to the simple problem that we've decided it's okay to pass laws that are good ideas, even if they undermine freedom.
We (Americans) like to call our country "a free country" and "the free world." We draw this statement from the fact that our Constitution basically says "You can't steal from people, you can't hurt people, but other than that, we, your government, won't tell you what to do." Other countries reserve the right to tell you what you can and can't do or say, so we call ourselves a "free country" as opposed to them.
We've expanded the definition of "hurt people" and "steal from people" with a bunch of more specific laws, like "you can't drive faster than X on road Y, because that results in car crashes, which hurt people" and "You can't copy certain music and distribute it, because that's stealing from the people who make that music."
But in order to remain free, we say that it is only illegal to break the law, not to make a product that helps people break the law. Handguns are used most often to hurt people, but they aren't illegal because it's only that usage, not the tool itself that is against the law. Radar detectors are most often used to avoid traffic cops and break speed limits, but they aren't illegal, because it's only speeding, not the tool that lets you speed, that's against the law.
But some people begin to look at statistics, and they say "with guns being legal, the amount of damage guns do outweighs their benefit, so they should be illegal." And some people say "with radar detectors, there are more people use them to break the law than use them legitimately (what exactly is the legitimate civilian use for radar detectors?) so they should be illegal." And now people say "there are more people use Napster and Scour to pirate copyrighted music than people who use them legitimately, so they should be illegal (or we should get to sue them)."
These are all good ideas, since they seem to result in the elimination of more harm than benefit.
BUT THAT'S NOT HOW THE UNITED STATES IS SUPPOSED TO WORK.
We're not supposed to go outlawing things that make it easier to break existing laws! Maybe freedom of speech allows lots of people to say horrible things, but it's the foundation of this country! Maybe freedom of religion results in evil Satanists and weirdo cult freaks, but it's the foundation of this country!
Next time you see a proposition to make something illegal, don't think about whether it's a good idea. Think about whether it's in the spirit of this country. Maybe we'd be better off without X, but that's not the point. This is a country founded on principles, not on the default feudal assumption of "We'll make it illegal to do things that are not in the best interest of the population as a whole." Without those principles, we're just a collection of people being organized by a miserably inefficient bureaucracy. With them we are "the free world" that we so like to claim we are.
Okay. I'll concede that this does have the possibility to gain them subscribers, in the form of people like me who admire them for doing this. (Not me specifically, I've got cable modem service that I'm satisfied with and that I share with three roommates, so I'm not looking for a new ISP).
However, it's a huge risk. If the government says: "This is the law." and your company says "Screw the law, we won't do it." then odds are pretty good your company won't be around much longer.
Assuming that, as you say, they "kowtow" later, that will be made as big a story as this was, and they'll lose all their new subscribers, plus probably a few more who are pissed at their hypocrisy.
What it comes down to is that standing up to the government is bad business. If you're looking for profits, you just don't say "fuck off" to the FBI. Now Microsoft fought the DOJ, but that's different. They did something bad first, then they claimed they didn't think they were doing anything illegal, then they defended themselves when attacked by DOJ. Earthlink has observed a new law, and directly refused to comply with it.
I would be interested to know more about their ownership and business practices. They are a public company, I wonder if they're going to take a lot of flak from shareholders about this.
Wow. I must say, I'm impressed. Most corporations don't often show much in the way of morality or ethics, and you can't really expect them too. Any publicly held company has to report to their shareholders, and if they start taking moral stands at the risk of stock value, they can get hit with due dilligence lawsuits from their shareholders. Most companies that espouse morals and principles do it as part of a corporate image, which in turn drives profits. (i.e. Microsoft exists to innovate and make computers better, Apple is brought to you by Einstein, because they think different)
So it's very rare the companies have the metaphorical balls to do shit like this. I don't know much about Earthlink, but they have my respect now.
First, as someone has already pointed out, that was way too much ranting about people eating meat based solely on the line "kills and maims animals and humans." Which you will note, includes the phrase "and humans."
It's a pretty well known fact that killing animals is legal in this country. It's also a pretty well known fact that the people must be 18 or older in order to view violent material in this country. Whether you agree with that judgement, it's nothing new. The MPAA hs been around for quite a while.
I would say that a game where you play a character who commits acts of violence is more intense and "worse" than a movie that just shows it to you.
So if you have a problem with this age restriction, don't get all outraged because of Soldier of Fortune. Write your Senator or Congressperson or whoever and try to explain to them why the MPAA is unconstitutional.
It's funny you should mention that. I have an mp3 of William Shatner singing, Ben Folds Five in the background, called In Love. It's one of my treasured mp3s, I think it's great. Not because he has a good voice, you're right, he doesn't. But it's so... weird. and funny.
heh. You'd stop at gas stations not only to fill up your fuel tank, but to plug in your Cat 5 and dl another batch of music.
Better yet of course, is to mount a microwave dish on top of your vehicle attached to a GPS receiver and some servos that keeps it pointed at the companion microwave dish that your ISP uses to feed you data. But the cost on that one might be a tad prohibitive...
I think that if you're using Napster and mp3s in the first place you're enough of a tech-head to implement whatever work-around the more advanced users have developed and distributed for you.
Maybe you just have to install a Winamp plugin that skips the first 30 seconds of each mp3. Maybe the "tech-heads" are stripping the ads off the mp3s and redistributing them, in which case you don't need to do anything.
Whatever the workaround, I suspect it will be done such that anyone smart enough to use Napster will be smart enough to use the workaround.
First, as a few others here have pointed out, the mere presence of a CPO serves only to reassure customers, not to actually guarantee privacy. I suggest you not assume anything you do is private unless you know exactly how it's working.
Second, you'll note that the CPO is only there to preserve the privacy of the customers, not the employees. If you buy something from a corp, maybe they aren't passing that info to other companies, but if you work for them, they're still reading all your email.
Personally, I'm less concerned with the minor privacy issue of building purchase profiles and sharing them (if I'm gonna get ads tossed at me, they might as well be for stuff I might actually wnat) than the major privacy issue of your employer monitoring everything you do on company time.
I agree that 15% of charities failing is a pretty amazing number. But I think it's amazing because it means 85% succeeded, which is impressive.
First of all, not all charities are wonderful legitimate causes. There are quite a few scams out there, and quite a few stupid causes.
Secondly, you shouldn't expect or demand charity from the American public. A big part of the foundation of this country is Capitalism. The idea of earning your own money, then giving it away to people who didn't earn it, is a fundamentally Communistic idea. When you talk about "today's unprecedentedly selfish" people, you sound as if you consider yourself part of yesterday's precedentedly selfless people. Well "yesterday's" people said that the idea of forcing the upper and middle classes to give their money to the lower classes (Communism) wasn't just a bad idea, but it was EVIL and they were quite cruel to anyone who disagreed. So don't get up on high horse and preach to "today's" computing community that we're all selfish bastards. And if you feel the need to be that self-righteous, at least have the balls not to post it anonymously.
Lastly, but most importantly, you have shown up at a major hang-out of the computing community. You're frustrated that said community doesn't do enough for charity. Then you see them saying they want to help charities, they're just looking for the opportunity. This is a perfect chance for you to tell them about all these charities that you think they're bastards for not helping. Instead, you just flame them. Why don't you do something constructive: Answer his question! Tell us what charities you think we should be helping instead of criticizing us for not helping!
I didn't mean to encourage Lars bashing; I wasn't trying to say he's stupid.
I just wonder if he or the rest of Metallica knows much about mp3s and/or the Napster community beyond the obvious "It's a bunch of people stealing our music."
I don't accuse him (or for that matter Valenti) of being a moron, I just think they're testifying on something that isn't exactly their area of expertise.
Slashdot Mirror
The article was short on solutions because the author seemed intelligent, and because there really are no solutions.
In cases like Diablo, smart programmers noticed the cheating, figured out a "solution" and patched the game. Then someone found a new cheat, and the cycle restarted. On a fundamental level, all the game is doing is processing information, and if people are willing to go down to assembly level or network packet level and alter that information, there's really nothing you can do about it. If you make a program immune to all known cheating techniques, the cheaters will just find new cheats.
The same is true of copy protection. The best way to enforce both fair play and copy protection is by using a hardware console where you have no access to the OS, and games on unwriteable media. Like the Playstation. But even then, people come up with ways to cheat (Game Shark?) and way to break the copy protection (mod chips). I know it's a defeatist attitude, but you really can't stop people from cheating.
So am I saying multiplayer gaming is doomed?
No. Just like the proliferation of mp3s hasn't stopped people from buying CDs, and the trading of VCD type movies hasn't stopped people from going to movies or buying videos and DVDs.
By nature, the number of "fair gamers" will be greater than the number of cheaters, because otherwise both the cheaters and the fair gamers will lose interest. So the "solution" is:
1. Don't bring money into gaming.
When you offer money to the victor of a game, you tempt people to cheat in order to make money, and the effort you would put into identifying and preventing cheating will likely be prohibitive.
2. Try to learn to identify the fair gamers and the cheaters. Most multiplayer games, like Diablo and Age of Empires, are individual games with a set group of people. If you determine one of them is cheating, just go start another game and stay away from that person. Try to build up a group of people you know online who are fair gamers. Make a point of playing with people you know, rather than new strangers every time.
But most importantly, don't attach too much value to winning. Learn to enjoy the games even if you're losing. This way cheaters won't bother you so much, and if more people play for enjoyment of the game itself, rather than using the game as an arena to achieve victory, you'll find less people are driven to cheat.
If you read the article, he pretty much dismisses single player cheating with one sentence. He concludes that if cheating makes you enjoy playing the game by yourself more, then who cares? More power to ya.
/. to pick on people for bad spelling or grammar. So oh the irony that you named yourself "slashdoter." (which should be spelled "slashdotter"
-----------------------------
It seems to be pretty common amongst
People who still buy high end SGIs?
How about these people:
FF Movie Info
Watch the newest trailer.
And I suppose urinating all over the place to mark it as mine doesn't count as vandalism, but spray-painting a concrete wall with "Kra-zee's turf, stay out!" does.
I would also venture to say humans have a bit more tendency to *create* things that are useful to everyone.
Let me know when the dogs finally settle on a routing protocol to get howls from Dallas to Tibet.
An excellent idea, but I would want it to do more than just ask you at boot up. If it asks you at boot alone, that would protect you from say, the government coming in and seizing your HD after you had shutdown the computer, but if the computer's up and running you don't accomplish anything, because it will decrypt the files for anybody.
What you need is something that works with the user/pw system of your OS (be it Linux or Windows or MacOS or whatever flavor you choose) so that you can set preferences as to when it should query you for a pw, and it should have the option to query you anytime the OS opens a file.
At least, such is how I would have it.
You aren't paying attention.
What he's saying is that the record companies aren't actually making any less money, they're just making it through online retailers instead of physical ones, so why are they upset?
This doesn't make what they are doing any more legal.
Nor does it make it any less legal. Napster isn't actually giving out any copyrighted music. You may say it's just a technicality, but law is all about technicality, and I don't think people like Metallica understand this one. When I first heard Lars Ulrich speak about suing Napster, it sounded like he actually believed Napster went out and got Metallica's music with the intent of distributing it for free.
Napster isn't giving out copyrighted music anymore than AOL is. It's just the method of connection being used by pirates. I suspect several Napster users are connected to the Internet through AOL, so why don't you sue them? They're facilitating the copyright violation just like Napster is. Them and all other ISPs. And Computer manufacturers.
This strikes me as a response where you didn't even think about what he said before trying to mock it.
You actually purchased CDs having no idea what was on them?! Do you never listen to the radio? Did you actually look at a prospective purchase and say, "Gee, I've never heard any of these titles, but I'm gonna buy it anyways."
I can't say specifically what he did, but I know I personally bought a CD or two based on a good single only to find out the rest of the album was crap. Also, what do you do about good CDs that don't make it onto the radio? You just ignore them? I think that makes you the moron, not him.
Anybody who buys a DVD after seeing only a movie trailer is a moron. Like somebody who buys a car because the picture on the billboard looked so cool.
That's his point! He's saying it's stupid to buy an album without having heard it all first. Buying an album based on a good single is like buying a movie based on a good preview.
If Napster users buy much less music than they would have otherwise, then it would be in the industry's best economic interest to stop Napster at all costs.
No, actually it wouldn't. If they're fighting Napster in order to make more money, then they shouldn't stop it "at all costs." If the costs of stopping Napster are greater than the losses incurred due to Napster, then it's not in the industry's best economic interest.
People use these stupid cliches and don't even think about what they're saying.
OF COURSE IT MATTERS! You're only allowed to sue someone if you can show they damaged you! Maybe the damage is physical or emotional, but corporations can't be physically or emotionally damaged. The only damage they could show would be economic, so of course it matters, it's the whole point! If they can show they lost money and it's Napster's fault, then they have some kind of case to sue. If not, they're just wasting everyone's fucking time!
I don't buy singles, and I can't understand why anyone would. They cost like 3-4 dollars less than the full album, so why not buy the whole thing?
That said, I rarely, if ever, buy a CD just because I heard one song off it that I liked.
This is how it was before mp3s, and this is how it is now.
Now if I hear a song I like, I get the whole album on mp3. If I like it, I buy it. If I don't, I keep the single and delete the rest. I wasn't going to buy it anyway, so the record company hasn't lost anything.
You just know some not particularly moral people.
I use Napster and I buy more music than I would if I didn't.
I don't have any friends who burn CD-Rs from mp3s off Napster, and I have a few friends who use Napster and also buy CDs.
This all comes down to the simple problem that we've decided it's okay to pass laws that are good ideas, even if they undermine freedom.
We (Americans) like to call our country "a free country" and "the free world." We draw this statement from the fact that our Constitution basically says "You can't steal from people, you can't hurt people, but other than that, we, your government, won't tell you what to do." Other countries reserve the right to tell you what you can and can't do or say, so we call ourselves a "free country" as opposed to them.
We've expanded the definition of "hurt people" and "steal from people" with a bunch of more specific laws, like "you can't drive faster than X on road Y, because that results in car crashes, which hurt people" and "You can't copy certain music and distribute it, because that's stealing from the people who make that music."
But in order to remain free, we say that it is only illegal to break the law, not to make a product that helps people break the law. Handguns are used most often to hurt people, but they aren't illegal because it's only that usage, not the tool itself that is against the law. Radar detectors are most often used to avoid traffic cops and break speed limits, but they aren't illegal, because it's only speeding, not the tool that lets you speed, that's against the law.
But some people begin to look at statistics, and they say "with guns being legal, the amount of damage guns do outweighs their benefit, so they should be illegal." And some people say "with radar detectors, there are more people use them to break the law than use them legitimately (what exactly is the legitimate civilian use for radar detectors?) so they should be illegal." And now people say "there are more people use Napster and Scour to pirate copyrighted music than people who use them legitimately, so they should be illegal (or we should get to sue them)."
These are all good ideas, since they seem to result in the elimination of more harm than benefit.
BUT THAT'S NOT HOW THE UNITED STATES IS SUPPOSED TO WORK.
We're not supposed to go outlawing things that make it easier to break existing laws! Maybe freedom of speech allows lots of people to say horrible things, but it's the foundation of this country! Maybe freedom of religion results in evil Satanists and weirdo cult freaks, but it's the foundation of this country!
Next time you see a proposition to make something illegal, don't think about whether it's a good idea. Think about whether it's in the spirit of this country. Maybe we'd be better off without X, but that's not the point. This is a country founded on principles, not on the default feudal assumption of "We'll make it illegal to do things that are not in the best interest of the population as a whole." Without those principles, we're just a collection of people being organized by a miserably inefficient bureaucracy. With them we are "the free world" that we so like to claim we are.
I know.
A friend and I were sitting around one day and a "retro 90's hour" came on the radio. It just seems wrong.
Okay. I'll concede that this does have the possibility to gain them subscribers, in the form of people like me who admire them for doing this. (Not me specifically, I've got cable modem service that I'm satisfied with and that I share with three roommates, so I'm not looking for a new ISP).
However, it's a huge risk. If the government says: "This is the law." and your company says "Screw the law, we won't do it." then odds are pretty good your company won't be around much longer.
Assuming that, as you say, they "kowtow" later, that will be made as big a story as this was, and they'll lose all their new subscribers, plus probably a few more who are pissed at their hypocrisy.
What it comes down to is that standing up to the government is bad business. If you're looking for profits, you just don't say "fuck off" to the FBI. Now Microsoft fought the DOJ, but that's different. They did something bad first, then they claimed they didn't think they were doing anything illegal, then they defended themselves when attacked by DOJ. Earthlink has observed a new law, and directly refused to comply with it.
I would be interested to know more about their ownership and business practices. They are a public company, I wonder if they're going to take a lot of flak from shareholders about this.
Wow.
I must say, I'm impressed.
Most corporations don't often show much in the way of morality or ethics, and you can't really expect them too. Any publicly held company has to report to their shareholders, and if they start taking moral stands at the risk of stock value, they can get hit with due dilligence lawsuits from their shareholders. Most companies that espouse morals and principles do it as part of a corporate image, which in turn drives profits. (i.e. Microsoft exists to innovate and make computers better, Apple is brought to you by Einstein, because they think different)
So it's very rare the companies have the metaphorical balls to do shit like this. I don't know much about Earthlink, but they have my respect now.
I hope they don't get raped by the gov for this.
First, as someone has already pointed out, that was way too much ranting about people eating meat based solely on the line "kills and maims animals and humans." Which you will note, includes the phrase "and humans."
It's a pretty well known fact that killing animals is legal in this country. It's also a pretty well known fact that the people must be 18 or older in order to view violent material in this country. Whether you agree with that judgement, it's nothing new. The MPAA hs been around for quite a while.
I would say that a game where you play a character who commits acts of violence is more intense and "worse" than a movie that just shows it to you.
So if you have a problem with this age restriction, don't get all outraged because of Soldier of Fortune. Write your Senator or Congressperson or whoever and try to explain to them why the MPAA is unconstitutional.
It's funny you should mention that.
I have an mp3 of William Shatner singing, Ben Folds Five in the background, called In Love. It's one of my treasured mp3s, I think it's great. Not because he has a good voice, you're right, he doesn't. But it's so... weird. and funny.
Anyway, I got it off Napster...
heh. You'd stop at gas stations not only to fill up your fuel tank, but to plug in your Cat 5 and dl another batch of music.
Better yet of course, is to mount a microwave dish on top of your vehicle attached to a GPS receiver and some servos that keeps it pointed at the companion microwave dish that your ISP uses to feed you data. But the cost on that one might be a tad prohibitive...
I disagree.
I think that if you're using Napster and mp3s in the first place you're enough of a tech-head to implement whatever work-around the more advanced users have developed and distributed for you.
Maybe you just have to install a Winamp plugin that skips the first 30 seconds of each mp3. Maybe the "tech-heads" are stripping the ads off the mp3s and redistributing them, in which case you don't need to do anything.
Whatever the workaround, I suspect it will be done such that anyone smart enough to use Napster will be smart enough to use the workaround.
The article is about people having erased Archimedes' writings and you mention BBC tapes and complain about "the present generation"?
I think the point to be taken from the article is that this particular behavior is not limited to the "present generation."
and it's RPI, not Rensselaer!
First, as a few others here have pointed out, the mere presence of a CPO serves only to reassure customers, not to actually guarantee privacy. I suggest you not assume anything you do is private unless you know exactly how it's working.
Second, you'll note that the CPO is only there to preserve the privacy of the customers, not the employees. If you buy something from a corp, maybe they aren't passing that info to other companies, but if you work for them, they're still reading all your email.
Personally, I'm less concerned with the minor privacy issue of building purchase profiles and sharing them (if I'm gonna get ads tossed at me, they might as well be for stuff I might actually wnat) than the major privacy issue of your employer monitoring everything you do on company time.
I agree that 15% of charities failing is a pretty amazing number. But I think it's amazing because it means 85% succeeded, which is impressive.
First of all, not all charities are wonderful legitimate causes. There are quite a few scams out there, and quite a few stupid causes.
Secondly, you shouldn't expect or demand charity from the American public. A big part of the foundation of this country is Capitalism. The idea of earning your own money, then giving it away to people who didn't earn it, is a fundamentally Communistic idea. When you talk about "today's unprecedentedly selfish" people, you sound as if you consider yourself part of yesterday's precedentedly selfless people. Well "yesterday's" people said that the idea of forcing the upper and middle classes to give their money to the lower classes (Communism) wasn't just a bad idea, but it was EVIL and they were quite cruel to anyone who disagreed. So don't get up on high horse and preach to "today's" computing community that we're all selfish bastards. And if you feel the need to be that self-righteous, at least have the balls not to post it anonymously.
Lastly, but most importantly, you have shown up at a major hang-out of the computing community. You're frustrated that said community doesn't do enough for charity. Then you see them saying they want to help charities, they're just looking for the opportunity. This is a perfect chance for you to tell them about all these charities that you think they're bastards for not helping. Instead, you just flame them. Why don't you do something constructive: Answer his question! Tell us what charities you think we should be helping instead of criticizing us for not helping!
I didn't mean to encourage Lars bashing; I wasn't trying to say he's stupid.
I just wonder if he or the rest of Metallica knows much about mp3s and/or the Napster community beyond the obvious "It's a bunch of people stealing our music."
I don't accuse him (or for that matter Valenti) of being a moron, I just think they're testifying on something that isn't exactly their area of expertise.