And you sound like some geek who just got his A+ and is still excited about finding his first HDD controller failure. Just because you know how to service a computer yourself doesn't mean it's a good idea. I'd rather pay Dell to worry about that piddly crap so I can spend my time working on interesting things instead of wiggling cables and running repetetive diagnostics. My company would rather pay Dell than have me doing it too, for good reason--by the time I've spent a couple hours fiddling with a hardware issue, I've wasted more in lost productivity and wages than the warranty would have cost. (we won't discuss lost productivity and wages resulting from surfing Slashdot at work;) )
Hardware was fun when I was new to the field and hadn't seen it a hundred times, and if you're just getting into things (or are just hyped on the 'cool tech' factor and don't understand cost/benefit ratios) I can see where you're at--but it certainly doesn't make sense in every case to try to service the small stuff yourself when there is a warranty available.
I think what he's saying, though, is that it's better to set the precedent of openness now, before all of these surveillance technologies are already in place, than to wait until they are there and only then start demanding the sort of accountability that only comes with exposure. These things ARE coming; soon, it will be all but impossible to verify that your privacy is being respected by normal means (looking around for cameras, getting credit agency reports, etc.). The best safeguard we can have against future abuses is to set strong societal precedents for demanding accountability and openness--unfortunately, this works both ways. If you want to be able to hide things, the same laws and precedents that allow that will allow wealthy and powerful individual and corporations to do the same. In other words, they'll be in a better position to violate your privacy and get away with it than you will theirs. It's a losing proposition.
If you have a security system that actually locks you in the building, lighting up would be about the last thing to do! I didn't think that sort of thing was allowed by building codes, these days (or any days since the Triangle Fire, for that matter)?
Umm... because it's "Microsoft" Outlook Express? Checked who holds Hotmail's pink-slip lately?
j/k
Point taken, though... but the real reason is that most people do not use a POP3 client (and besides, don't they insert adds directly into your mail, now?) so they're not really losing much if a few do. If everyone did, you'd probably see that go away, as well.
Well, I couldn't agree with you more. I guess that the scary thing that I am getting at is that some of those "simpletons" submit things to MAPS and other blacklists, or write complaints to ISPs, or otherwise do all the things that you and I might agree to be appropriate for use against 'real' spammers. It's not just silly--it's problematic.
FWIW, I do tailor my cover letters, but not my resumes.
But the point is that by some people's definition (including some legal ones--see the page referenced above for an example from, I believe, Illinois) it's still spam. It wasn't solicited, I have no prior relationship with them, and the bulk of the content delivered was identical to what was delivered to someone else.
Interesting side topic, though--if Bernie had used a script of some sort (not that it sounds like he would be capable of authoring such a thing) to individually tailor his e-mails, would it then not be spam?
There are a lot of hard-core anti-spammers who would include direct marketing in their definition of 'spam'. So, if you think that can be effective, than in some people's books that would mean that spam can be effective; I would have to agree with that.
One of the problems, though, is definitions. I would say that what I consider to be 'spam' is not very effective (in part, probably just because I consider it in those terms--I don't even see most of it as it goes straight into the trash, so how effective can it be?); but what I think of as spam is primarily the poorly written, obviously mass mailed, dubiously legal adverts for pr0n, Viagra, and shady business deals. There are a lot of people, though, who apparently consider mailing a few resumes out at the same time as spam (although, having read the site, I have to agree that is exactly what this twerp was up to), which I would not--I've done it myself (although I have to say that I do manage to get the correct HR address ahead of time) and consider it no different from mailing out hardcopy resumes to companies I'm interested in working for.
Anyway; the point is, which side you stand on of the debate over whether or not spam is effective as a marketing tool depends very much on what you define as spam. I don't think the communal definition is nearly as solid as some people seem to.
Yeah, but with "The Abyss" you have to swap discs to get one version or the other--which means it's just like having two separate movies. I think it is technically possible, though, just based on what they can do with DVDs to run movies in "PG" mode or whatever they call it. I would think that added scenes could work the same way.
Hmmm... I guess I should have qualified what I was saying better.
I don't disagree that people would like to accomplish their goals without paying the price--wouldn't we all! But civil disobedience on a small scale (in other words, those cases where you do NOT have a million people out marching) relies upon garnering respect. I think that respect comes from seeing people who are dedicated enough to their cause to break an unjust law and face the consequences. When they are NOT willing to face the consequences, the respect tends to evaporate (no one likes a whiner!) and their potential for gathering support with it. This could be a personal bias, but I am much more moved by someone who someone who goes out to face imprisonment precisely in order to draw attention to their cause, than by someone who suddenly finds that they have a cause only after they get caught. Fighting the charges is perfectly acceptable, because it generates more attention and the courts often provide the best forum for demonstrating the absurdity of truly unjust laws. But the willingness to go to that length is, IMHO, what separates those who are exercising true civil disobedience from the people who just happened to be breaking the law and got caught.
So it's not a case of wanting to do time or not--it's a case of being willing to do it if that's what it takes. This does not require narcissists or the insane; just people with strong convictions. The presence of a desire not to be punished does not in any way preclude a willingness to face such punishment if it is required to accomplish the goal. The worst thing that can happen is to be completely ignored (although at that point, what is there to disobey?).
Anyway; the warez d00dz and I agree on more than a few points, but if any of them consider what they are doing civil disobedience (which I doubt) they didn't pick their fight very well. These issues are too arcane for a fair hearing in a public forum, and will likely remain so for years. Better demonstrations are available--people don't 'get' software, but they do get education, and the chilling effects of the DMCA on research and teaching institutions is probably the soft place where protesters should be driving the wedge.
I think that they did face the consequences... seems to me that there was a bit of a messy war that happened not long after that--no doubt many of those same disguised Bostonians were wounded or killed during the Revolution. I don't think that was civil disobedience so much as a step on the path to inciting a war, which is what happened.
But that brings up a good point--there is a difference between conducting legitimate civil disobedience and just breaking the law to get something you want. I doubt that many of these pirates were truly interested in making a statement about unjust laws. IMHO, civil disobedience requires the willingness to be arrested and jailed, very publicly, in order to make your point. It is, as you say, to draw attention to an unjust law, and the best way to do that is to force the public to realize the absurdity of the actions versus the consequences. A lot of those who would currently claim the mantle of civil disobedience seem to want to skip the consequence part. That's understandable, but regardless of the fact that the law may be unjust, it's a necessary part of the game. If they don't want to do time, they need to hire a lobbyist and work inside the system. Otherwise, people need to stop whining and make their choices.
I tend to trust Google too, but I think you under-rate the devious abilities of bored corporate minions to work around rating system restrictions that are supposed to keep them from artificially boosting their site's rating. I give it a week or two before someone comes up with a script that relatively quickly and easily will artificially elevate a rating. This sort of thing is too easy to abuse, especially for a necessarily open system like a public search engine.
I have never used Verio for co-location, but in general I've found (experienced by several of my clients who used them, as well) that their customer service blows chunks.
Exodus I never had any qualms about. Their connectivity seemed fine. I never signed up for any of their fancy services; to me, colocation is some bandwidth and some rackspace, and the rest is up to me. As far as support for issues with either of those two things, they had a well-defined ticket and escalation protocol, and the few times I had to use it, they took care of everything in short order. This was in their Seattle (Tukwila) facility. I suppose it depends on what you're looking for--rackspace and a pipe, or full service.
Yeah, but although that makes all the sense in the world, the fact of the matter is that high crime areas are high in crime for a reason--burglars generally don't go across town to do their business. People living in low-income/low-rent areas are far more likely to get ripped off than the average yuppie surburbanite.
This all plays into this theory I have about criminals--they tend to be very lazy. Most of them aren't really evil, they just would rather take something than work for it. They don't go out and 'case the joint' or actively look for crimes to commit--they just see someone's TV through the window and decide to go get it. That's more likely to happen in their own neighborhood than someone else's.
As for security systems, they're just a deterrent--like the old joke about the two hikers and the bear. The hikers come across the hungry-looking bear out in the woods, and the one hiker sits down immediately and strips his heavy boots off, pulling out a pair of tennis shoes and putting them on instead.
"What are you doing?" the second hiker asked. "You can't out-run a bear!"
"No," said the first hiker, "but I don't have to--all I have to do is out-run you."
You just have to make your house look less appealing to burgle than your neighbor's.
Or just making a bad assumption that these workstations that you are tracking are probably all networked?
And if that's the case, why don't you just have them all track themselves? They can run the same sort of tracking programs as the handheld, right? The only thing you miss on is the GPS requirement, and I question the utility of that anyway. I've always had workstations I've been responsible for inventory themselves; saves a lot of trouble.:)
The September 11th hijackers were, for all practical purposes, "ordinary Americans." Timothy McVeigh was an "ordinary American." How do you tell the "ordinary Americans" from the "evil Hijackers?"
I'm not saying that Federalization is the answer, or even that I'm opposed to CCPs in general, but airplanes are not the place for guns. Federal Marshals with the right ammo, maybe. But even in the right hands, firearms on airplanes are orders of magnitude more dangerous--for all of us--than they are elsewhere. If "ordinary Americans" have to defend themselves on airplanes, they can do it with their hands, and the best we can do is make sure that the potential hijackers are forced to face them on even terms.
I understand that you're just exploring the idea, and you're certainly asking the right questions. But IMHO, and no offense, you've got a lot of things to get familiar with before getting too serious about it. The fact that you can toss off a line like "...interested in rolling my own Internet connection using a T-1 or T-3" says to me that you either haven't figured your requirements out very well or aren't familiar with the technologies in question, as those are two very different beasts.
It might help if you posted what your objectives are. I don't often recommend getting T1 service to anyone anymore, especially individual users, and there would have to be some really special circumstances to make me think it's a cost-effective idea. So what are your circumstances?
I'd be interested in a more in-depth explanation. I understand that some astronomical events are cyclical (meteor showers, for instance) based on orbital concurrency, but I don't think that's how those odds are figured. A lot of things that aren't randomly distributed can be, nevertheless, accurately described statistically. Why do you not think this is the case with anything astronomical?
Plus, since all units are actually played by real people, you do have an element of morale, as well. It's interesting to read the game boards for the side that is winning and compare them to the losers and see the differences in attitudes. One good, solid breakthrough on a hard-fought stretch of the line can really boost the morale of the attackers, and shatter the mood of the defense and lead to a rout. Equipment that is poor lowers morale; lack of communication and coordination leads to defeat.
It's a very interesting concept, and very promising as a base to build upon. The real 'war' has not even begun yet and these factors are already important--when the RPG elements are tied in and the supply lines are fully visualized it may become both the best tactical and strategic simulation on the market today.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah! And hang anyone who links to DeCSS! And lock up Skylarov! And crowbar manufacturers! And... and... hey, wait a minute... I'VE BEEN FUDED! Help!
And your explanation for the failure of the Soviets there would be...?
But then there's the time you lose when you're trying to concentrate and your mates holler at you for help with whatever stumped them, too, eh?
I'd take the privacy--a door that shuts, a phone that can be unplugged, a stereo that goes up to eleven... everybody's different, though.
And you sound like some geek who just got his A+ and is still excited about finding his first HDD controller failure. Just because you know how to service a computer yourself doesn't mean it's a good idea. I'd rather pay Dell to worry about that piddly crap so I can spend my time working on interesting things instead of wiggling cables and running repetetive diagnostics. My company would rather pay Dell than have me doing it too, for good reason--by the time I've spent a couple hours fiddling with a hardware issue, I've wasted more in lost productivity and wages than the warranty would have cost. (we won't discuss lost productivity and wages resulting from surfing Slashdot at work ;) )
Hardware was fun when I was new to the field and hadn't seen it a hundred times, and if you're just getting into things (or are just hyped on the 'cool tech' factor and don't understand cost/benefit ratios) I can see where you're at--but it certainly doesn't make sense in every case to try to service the small stuff yourself when there is a warranty available.
Heh... yeah, but who has the bigger buildings? You or Corporate America? Don't bring a knife to a gunfight. ;)
Go CLC!
Whew. Glad I didn't get that job over there at Zama, after all. It's amazing how many places didn't hire me a year ago that are out of business now. :)
I think what he's saying, though, is that it's better to set the precedent of openness now, before all of these surveillance technologies are already in place, than to wait until they are there and only then start demanding the sort of accountability that only comes with exposure. These things ARE coming; soon, it will be all but impossible to verify that your privacy is being respected by normal means (looking around for cameras, getting credit agency reports, etc.). The best safeguard we can have against future abuses is to set strong societal precedents for demanding accountability and openness--unfortunately, this works both ways. If you want to be able to hide things, the same laws and precedents that allow that will allow wealthy and powerful individual and corporations to do the same. In other words, they'll be in a better position to violate your privacy and get away with it than you will theirs. It's a losing proposition.
If you have a security system that actually locks you in the building, lighting up would be about the last thing to do! I didn't think that sort of thing was allowed by building codes, these days (or any days since the Triangle Fire, for that matter)?
Umm... because it's "Microsoft" Outlook Express? Checked who holds Hotmail's pink-slip lately?
j/k
Point taken, though... but the real reason is that most people do not use a POP3 client (and besides, don't they insert adds directly into your mail, now?) so they're not really losing much if a few do. If everyone did, you'd probably see that go away, as well.
Well, I couldn't agree with you more. I guess that the scary thing that I am getting at is that some of those "simpletons" submit things to MAPS and other blacklists, or write complaints to ISPs, or otherwise do all the things that you and I might agree to be appropriate for use against 'real' spammers. It's not just silly--it's problematic.
FWIW, I do tailor my cover letters, but not my resumes.
But the point is that by some people's definition (including some legal ones--see the page referenced above for an example from, I believe, Illinois) it's still spam. It wasn't solicited, I have no prior relationship with them, and the bulk of the content delivered was identical to what was delivered to someone else.
Interesting side topic, though--if Bernie had used a script of some sort (not that it sounds like he would be capable of authoring such a thing) to individually tailor his e-mails, would it then not be spam?
There are a lot of hard-core anti-spammers who would include direct marketing in their definition of 'spam'. So, if you think that can be effective, than in some people's books that would mean that spam can be effective; I would have to agree with that.
One of the problems, though, is definitions. I would say that what I consider to be 'spam' is not very effective (in part, probably just because I consider it in those terms--I don't even see most of it as it goes straight into the trash, so how effective can it be?); but what I think of as spam is primarily the poorly written, obviously mass mailed, dubiously legal adverts for pr0n, Viagra, and shady business deals. There are a lot of people, though, who apparently consider mailing a few resumes out at the same time as spam (although, having read the site, I have to agree that is exactly what this twerp was up to), which I would not--I've done it myself (although I have to say that I do manage to get the correct HR address ahead of time) and consider it no different from mailing out hardcopy resumes to companies I'm interested in working for.
Anyway; the point is, which side you stand on of the debate over whether or not spam is effective as a marketing tool depends very much on what you define as spam. I don't think the communal definition is nearly as solid as some people seem to.
Yeah, but with "The Abyss" you have to swap discs to get one version or the other--which means it's just like having two separate movies. I think it is technically possible, though, just based on what they can do with DVDs to run movies in "PG" mode or whatever they call it. I would think that added scenes could work the same way.
Hmmm... I guess I should have qualified what I was saying better.
I don't disagree that people would like to accomplish their goals without paying the price--wouldn't we all! But civil disobedience on a small scale (in other words, those cases where you do NOT have a million people out marching) relies upon garnering respect. I think that respect comes from seeing people who are dedicated enough to their cause to break an unjust law and face the consequences. When they are NOT willing to face the consequences, the respect tends to evaporate (no one likes a whiner!) and their potential for gathering support with it. This could be a personal bias, but I am much more moved by someone who someone who goes out to face imprisonment precisely in order to draw attention to their cause, than by someone who suddenly finds that they have a cause only after they get caught. Fighting the charges is perfectly acceptable, because it generates more attention and the courts often provide the best forum for demonstrating the absurdity of truly unjust laws. But the willingness to go to that length is, IMHO, what separates those who are exercising true civil disobedience from the people who just happened to be breaking the law and got caught.
So it's not a case of wanting to do time or not--it's a case of being willing to do it if that's what it takes. This does not require narcissists or the insane; just people with strong convictions. The presence of a desire not to be punished does not in any way preclude a willingness to face such punishment if it is required to accomplish the goal. The worst thing that can happen is to be completely ignored (although at that point, what is there to disobey?).
Anyway; the warez d00dz and I agree on more than a few points, but if any of them consider what they are doing civil disobedience (which I doubt) they didn't pick their fight very well. These issues are too arcane for a fair hearing in a public forum, and will likely remain so for years. Better demonstrations are available--people don't 'get' software, but they do get education, and the chilling effects of the DMCA on research and teaching institutions is probably the soft place where protesters should be driving the wedge.
I think that they did face the consequences... seems to me that there was a bit of a messy war that happened not long after that--no doubt many of those same disguised Bostonians were wounded or killed during the Revolution. I don't think that was civil disobedience so much as a step on the path to inciting a war, which is what happened.
But that brings up a good point--there is a difference between conducting legitimate civil disobedience and just breaking the law to get something you want. I doubt that many of these pirates were truly interested in making a statement about unjust laws. IMHO, civil disobedience requires the willingness to be arrested and jailed, very publicly, in order to make your point. It is, as you say, to draw attention to an unjust law, and the best way to do that is to force the public to realize the absurdity of the actions versus the consequences. A lot of those who would currently claim the mantle of civil disobedience seem to want to skip the consequence part. That's understandable, but regardless of the fact that the law may be unjust, it's a necessary part of the game. If they don't want to do time, they need to hire a lobbyist and work inside the system. Otherwise, people need to stop whining and make their choices.
I tend to trust Google too, but I think you under-rate the devious abilities of bored corporate minions to work around rating system restrictions that are supposed to keep them from artificially boosting their site's rating. I give it a week or two before someone comes up with a script that relatively quickly and easily will artificially elevate a rating. This sort of thing is too easy to abuse, especially for a necessarily open system like a public search engine.
I have never used Verio for co-location, but in general I've found (experienced by several of my clients who used them, as well) that their customer service blows chunks.
Exodus I never had any qualms about. Their connectivity seemed fine. I never signed up for any of their fancy services; to me, colocation is some bandwidth and some rackspace, and the rest is up to me. As far as support for issues with either of those two things, they had a well-defined ticket and escalation protocol, and the few times I had to use it, they took care of everything in short order. This was in their Seattle (Tukwila) facility. I suppose it depends on what you're looking for--rackspace and a pipe, or full service.
hehe...
Yeah, but although that makes all the sense in the world, the fact of the matter is that high crime areas are high in crime for a reason--burglars generally don't go across town to do their business. People living in low-income/low-rent areas are far more likely to get ripped off than the average yuppie surburbanite.
This all plays into this theory I have about criminals--they tend to be very lazy. Most of them aren't really evil, they just would rather take something than work for it. They don't go out and 'case the joint' or actively look for crimes to commit--they just see someone's TV through the window and decide to go get it. That's more likely to happen in their own neighborhood than someone else's.
As for security systems, they're just a deterrent--like the old joke about the two hikers and the bear. The hikers come across the hungry-looking bear out in the woods, and the one hiker sits down immediately and strips his heavy boots off, pulling out a pair of tennis shoes and putting them on instead.
"What are you doing?" the second hiker asked. "You can't out-run a bear!"
"No," said the first hiker, "but I don't have to--all I have to do is out-run you."
You just have to make your house look less appealing to burgle than your neighbor's.
Or just making a bad assumption that these workstations that you are tracking are probably all networked?
:)
And if that's the case, why don't you just have them all track themselves? They can run the same sort of tracking programs as the handheld, right? The only thing you miss on is the GPS requirement, and I question the utility of that anyway. I've always had workstations I've been responsible for inventory themselves; saves a lot of trouble.
The September 11th hijackers were, for all practical purposes, "ordinary Americans." Timothy McVeigh was an "ordinary American." How do you tell the "ordinary Americans" from the "evil Hijackers?"
I'm not saying that Federalization is the answer, or even that I'm opposed to CCPs in general, but airplanes are not the place for guns. Federal Marshals with the right ammo, maybe. But even in the right hands, firearms on airplanes are orders of magnitude more dangerous--for all of us--than they are elsewhere. If "ordinary Americans" have to defend themselves on airplanes, they can do it with their hands, and the best we can do is make sure that the potential hijackers are forced to face them on even terms.
Ack! Moderators! Help quick... horrible pun... vision... fading. can't... breathe... *hack* *gasp* must mod down below threshold... soon!
AVENGE ME!
Death to all punsters!
I understand that you're just exploring the idea, and you're certainly asking the right questions. But IMHO, and no offense, you've got a lot of things to get familiar with before getting too serious about it. The fact that you can toss off a line like "...interested in rolling my own Internet connection using a T-1 or T-3" says to me that you either haven't figured your requirements out very well or aren't familiar with the technologies in question, as those are two very different beasts.
It might help if you posted what your objectives are. I don't often recommend getting T1 service to anyone anymore, especially individual users, and there would have to be some really special circumstances to make me think it's a cost-effective idea. So what are your circumstances?
I'd be interested in a more in-depth explanation. I understand that some astronomical events are cyclical (meteor showers, for instance) based on orbital concurrency, but I don't think that's how those odds are figured. A lot of things that aren't randomly distributed can be, nevertheless, accurately described statistically. Why do you not think this is the case with anything astronomical?
Plus, since all units are actually played by real people, you do have an element of morale, as well. It's interesting to read the game boards for the side that is winning and compare them to the losers and see the differences in attitudes. One good, solid breakthrough on a hard-fought stretch of the line can really boost the morale of the attackers, and shatter the mood of the defense and lead to a rout. Equipment that is poor lowers morale; lack of communication and coordination leads to defeat.
It's a very interesting concept, and very promising as a base to build upon. The real 'war' has not even begun yet and these factors are already important--when the RPG elements are tied in and the supply lines are fully visualized it may become both the best tactical and strategic simulation on the market today.