...and here I thought Google paid for their bandwidth like everybody else.
Google isn't getting any more of a "free lunch" than anybody else; all that makes them special is that the service they provide with the bandwidth they use is insanely popular and valuable.
Imagine for a moment that Verizon provides natural gas utilities instead of communications utilities. Google pays 'em for the gas they use to bake the big, juicy pies that everybody loves. Google makes a fortune from their pies. Is Verizon somehow due something extra because their gas was used to fire the oven?
All that Verizon can see are the nice, fat pies Google has cooling on the windowsill. This isn't about free lunch; this is about grabbing a piece of Google's pie for themselves--by crook or hook.
If my OS gets trashed but my photos are unscathed, I can still view them if I rebuild the OS using the install discs -- or I can even switch to a different OS entirely, and the photos will be viewable there. It may take some time to recover, but it's possible and even likely.
...you and I, yes. What of the unfortunate user who has never installed an operating system? What of the unfortunate user who, for whatever reason, is unable to get the restore to work? What of the unfortunate user who drops their computer off at Big Computer Store Service Center, waits a week, drops some serious dough and finds that they've wiped the contents of the disk and done a fresh install?
To fall back on the automobile analogy, you and I are guys who can change oil and tune an engine in our sleep. The problem comes in with average folks. What does the average person do when the little red light comes on and the engine won't start? You and I know just by looking that by brushing all the oxidized crap off the terminal on the battery, they can have their car running again in no time--but the average person not only doesn't know this, they're not entirely comfortable futzing around with this stuff. It's outside their realm of experience and expertise; there's a real fear that they'll just make things worse by trying to fix things.
To understand the problem average folks have, you need to look at the computer as a single, monolithic appliance, not as a computer with userspace and system files. Whether we like it or not, personal computers are now consumer applicances, in the same league as television sets, microwave ovens and automobiles. They'll always be more complex than that, but for the purposes of ordinarily folks, they need to be treated as something that is either working properly or needs to be serviced by a professional.
On a home system, files are almost invariably not backed up, with the result that $HOME is precious. The rest of the system is relatively unimportant -- most of the non-default configuration is in $HOME anyway -- and can easily be reinstalled in an hour. (A day?!? Maybe on Gentoo!)
...I assume your OS install disk includes Office, Photoshop lite, World of Warcraft, Quicken, TurboTax, Dreamweaver, Eudora, Half-Life 2, RealPlayer, AIM, Limewire, Webshots Desktop, Acrobat Reader, Flash, Winamp, Bookworm Deluxe, Encarta, and the countless other little things that your typical user installs over the lifetime of a machine, yes?
When this hypothetical killer virus attacks your OS, it's gonna torch everything it can get its bits on. Even if all it does is corrupt your operating system, though, there's an excellent chance that the advice a home user receives is "do a fresh re-install of your operating system", as reparing this sort of damage can be difficult and time consuming, even for an advanced user.
That sucks, but: UNIX rocks, the system keeps on running, the server-oriented security has done its work, no system files were affected, uptime is not affected. Great, halleluja, triumph for UNIX.
and a triumph for the home user. If you had to choose between having a virus that both destroys your personal files and compromises your system or a virus that only destroys your personal files, which would you pick? He's making light of a very significant thing for most home users--a full wipe and reinstall of the operating system and applications. That's a day's work for your typical user, more if you have a bunch of programs you need to go hunting for.
But what is more important to a home user? His or her own personal files, or a bunch of system files? I can answer that question for you: the pictures of little Johnny's first day of school mean a whole lot more to a user than the system files that keep the system running.
What's the value of Johnny's first day of school photos if you can't boot the damned computer? Again, the author makes light of the value of the system to the home user. Just because John Q. Public cares more about his cup holder than his engine block doesn't mean he won't care when the cylinder head cracks.
Of course, they should make backups-- but wasn't Linux supposed to be secure? So why should they backup? Isn't Linux immune to viruses and what not? Isn't that what the Linux world has been telling them?
Actually, no. I have yet to speak with a single techie who says that you don't need to back up important files under any circumstances. In fact, viruses are almost always a "secondary" reason for backing up files; the primary driving reason behind backing up your files has traditionally been that of hardware failure.
The crux of his entire argument rests on the supposition that, to the home user, the system simply doesn't matter. In a most cosmetic sense, this is true; home users don't give a damn about kernels and drivers. The instant something goes wrong with that system, however, it's a nightmare for that archetypical home user (who, remember, doesn't know and doesn't care how the thing works). When everything works, they can open and print Johnny's files just fine, but what the heck are you supposed to do when the omgwtf32.dll pops up an error message when you try to open Johnny's picture?
Again, however, it's a sliding scale. If we grant that individual rights begin at conception, should we extend child endangerment laws to the mother who got absolutely hammered at Christmas and New Year's parties while in the first month of her pregnancy? After all, even though she had absolutely no intention of harming the child she wasn't even aware of yet, her actions at the very least put her child at risk (and, at worst, maimed or killed it.) Is it unreasonable to charge this woman with involuntary manslaughter should she spontaneously abort? Should this child be born with a birth defect, should the mother be charged with criminal negligence? What of the woman who gives birth to a superpreemie because she failed to get the appropriate prenatal care that would have allowed her to carry to term? Should she be brought up on criminal charges for this?
If you posit that conception marks the start of full individual rights, then you expose women to an utterly unreasonable standard: so long as there is any chance you may be pregnant, you must either assume you are pregnant and treat your body accordingly or risk the legal ramifications of abusing or killing another person.
The logical counter-argument is to say that we wouldn't hold women to that standard, and that if a woman were to drink excessively while in the first few weeks of her yet-to-be-realized pregnancy, she would not be held legally accountable for the death of that child. But then you've gone and changed the scale again--that person, through no fault of his own, was deprived of its right to life by the actions of another individual!
Potential does indeed matter. Trouble is, we're all working on a sliding scale.
Potential exists in a gamete; how troubled are you by the loss of billions of potential lives during the course of one man's life? How troubled are you by the thought that people using condoms or birth control pills actively want these gametes to never realize their full potential as human beings? What of the father of four seeking a vasectomy--is it his right to nip all that potential in the bud? What of the young woman in need of a hysterectomy--is she more deserving of life than the multiple potential lives she could one day carry to term? What of the celebate--people who have actively decided that they're not even going to try to give all these potential lives a shot?
Yes, I go to extremes in my examples. That's just the problem, though; though extreme, these scenarios still sit on the same scale of "potential", and we each still need to choose where "extreme" starts. I know for a fact that many people decry the use of condoms, an attitude I personally feel falls comfortably on the "extreme" end of things. Other people feel comfortable with things like late-term abortion, which frankly makes me squirm just to think of doing such a thing.
I honestly don't know exactly where I comfortably sit on this scale. It isn't a clear, easy call for me to make. I do realize, however, that at some point we all stand up and say, "OK, that's where I no longer have a problem with cutting off the potential". To paraphrase the old joke, we already know what kind of decision this is. We're just haggling over the price.
The fundamental problem in this matter is not that the "other side" fails to see what is right. It's that we're all called upon to make a judgement on a matter that none of us are truly able to see clearly.
The fact that the Dems applauded when Bush pointed out that they did nothing to contribute to *any* solution only shows the American heartland that Democrats don't care about the problem.
Sweeping and absolute generalization aside, a good number of Democrats did and still do have proposals for fixing Social Security. These proposals tend to focus on comparatively minor but entirely sufficient modifications--"course adjustments"--rather than the more radical privatization plans put forth by the Bush administration.
Trouble is, it's very, very tricky for a Democratic representative to move a bill forward in a Republican-controlled Congress--especially in light of the fact that this particular Republican-controlled Congress has gone to extraordinary lengths to consolidate their power and close out the opposition. (Exhibit A: The K Street Project)
The Democrats had plenty to say on the matter. It's not their fault that the majority party didn't want anything to do with their ideas. What more were Democrats supposed to do?
It bears mentioning in mind that virtually all of our nation's supply of insulin is generated by human-animal hybrids.
While I doubt that the President's intent is to stop the manufacture of human insulin, I can't help but notice that legislators are historically bad at crafting good legislation on complex scientific subjects. Here's hoping the whole human-animal hybrid thing has the legs of the "stop steroids in baseball" and "manned mission to Mars" schticks he's thrown out in past State of the Union addresses...
Starships take a long time to build, you couldn't just pump out 100 galaxy class ships in war time.
...unlike common foot soldiers, which can be recruited, trained and deployed in ten seconds for the low, low price of $100 each.
Hell, at least Star Trek has easily-tinkered-with pseudotechnology where one could plausibly invert the harmonics of the anti-oxidant flux of the manufacturing beam array to make it magically ejaculate fully assembled warp cores...
"Trolling" is the act of saying something false or inflamatory in order to provoke a reaction for your own amusement.
...so are you saying that the statement "Mac users demonstrate an indefensible smugness when it comes to the dangers of having their systems compromised by malicious software and opened up to exploitation by others. It's time they started behaving a bit more responsibly" is true? Are you suggesting that it is somehow not inflammatory? Trolling for amusement is but one form of trolling--you can also troll to draw attention to yourself.
Had he said "Linux users are snide and condescending when it comes to answering requests for help. It's time they learned some manners and grow up a bit", would he be trolling, or would he simply be telling it as it is?
I doubt a columnist would risk his career just for a laugh.
...can you imagine a columnist writing overgeneralized, inflammatory statements in order to make more people pay attention to him?
Now, he isn't a "troll" for pointing out that very real, very serious fact. Sure, it might have angered some people, but that's not his fault in any way.
Wait, it's a fact that "Mac users demonstrate an indefensible smugness when it comes to the dangers of having their systems compromised"? You'll note that I don't take issue with his assertions that there are very real dangers that all computer users need to be aware of; I take issue with his saying, in essence, "If you use a Mac, you're irresponsible and smug when it comes to security".
That is indeed trolling--at least, it's either trolling or flaming, depending on how you judge his motives. Had he said, "for many casual computer users, there is a common misconception that the Mac is perfectly secure," I would have absolutely no beef with his statement. As it is, though, you'll generate a lot more attention and traffic if you simply say that Mac users on the whole are smug and irresponsible. If making inflammatory statements for the apparent purpose of drumming up attention and agitating readers doesn't count as trolling, I don't know what does.
If your doctor were to diagnose you with AIDS, and you did indeed have the syndrome, he would not be a "troll", regardless of how much you were angered by his diagnosis. In much the same way, this BBC author is not a "troll".
Absolutely true. However, if your doctor were to then go on and say, "so, are you homosexual, or are you a junkie?", would his actions still be defensible, or would you smack him upside the head for making an innacurate and crass assumption about you based on a sweeping generalization?
Mac users demonstrate an indefensible smugness when it comes to the dangers of having their systems compromised by malicious software and opened up to exploitation by others. It's time they started behaving a bit more responsibly.
Dear Mr. Thompson:
When you accuse several million people of demonstrating "indefensible smugness" based solely on the type of computer they're sitting in front of, you must certainly expect something of a backlash from those of us who do, in fact, take security seriously. When you tell the likes of systems administrators and security experts they should behave "a bit more responsibly", they're rightly going to tell you to go piss up a rope.
On the Internet, we refer to people who make statements such as the one quoted above as "trolls". Engaging in this type of behavior is generally frowned upon. For example, if I were to say "this is the sort of idioctic drivel the world has come to expect from those effete Brits," I, too would be guilty of trolling and would receive untold amounts of well-deserved invective from the readers of this post.
Fortunately for me, I know better than to make such outrageous statements.
Words Matter
on
Spam is Dead
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· Score: 5, Insightful
When you're talking about news sources, an "article" is something substantively different from an "opinion" piece. Articles are (ostensibly) researched and based in demonstrable fact, whereas an opinion piece is just that--opinion, nothing more or less.
As it stands, this is simply an opinion piece, and is labeled as such on the Observer's website. Apart from a loose reference to remembered statistics on the website of a company that sells spam-filtering software, there's nothing in the way of solid evidence to support this guy's claims. What's more, he asserts that things like phishing mails and penny stock solicitations somehow fall outside the realm of "spam". He further goes on to claim that the "new wave" of spam won't actually last, because things like penny-stock spam "rely on credulousness"; he basically asserts that common sense will prevail against the "new" spam where it failed previously. I seriously doubt that the same caliber of individual who falls for the Nigerian e-mail scam will somehow be immune to the siren call of the "penny stock" scam--which, incidentally, has been around for years.
While the author has some valid points, I think he's drawing conclusions on bad assumptions and gut reactions, not hard data.
What about what Kayne West said? He wasn't sued for what he said.
First off, you got the quote wrong. Kanye West said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." There's a world of difference between "hates" and "doesn't care about". For example, I don't care about the game of cricket--I don't know the rules, I can't name teams, and I have no real desire to ever play the game. I certainly do not hate cricket, though; it simply isn't a part of my life. I don't care about it.
While I sincerely doubt that Mr. Bush is racist or actively seeks to harm black Americans, he is an insular individual, he was almost frighteningly disconnected from the realities of Hurricane Katrina when West said what he did, and "black America" is frankly not high on his list of backs to scratch. He cares about black people in that as President, he cares about all Americans. He doesn't care about black people in the sense that the needs and troubles of black America are frankly not at the top of his agenda. He cares a fair bit more about terrorism, war and cutting taxes than he cares about poverty, gang violence and urban renewal.
Regardless of whether or not Mr. Bush cares about black people, there's absolutely no way he would benefit by suing Mr. West for libel. Setting aside the fact that he's a public official (which makes winning a libel case very, very difficult for him,) suing Kanye West would end any real hope of the GOP successfully courting the black vote in the near to middle-term future. The entire thing would be painted as a pointless and spiteful retaliation on the President's part, and would further cement the "George Bush doesn't care about black people" in the minds of the public.
The lesson here is that a "distinctive" look and feel can alienate gamers as well as attract them - I won't play or watch anything modern that Toriyama's involved with simply because I just can't stand to look at it.
There's nothing remotely new or surprising about this--edgy art has always appealed to a smaller audience than "mainstream" art.
Frankly, I'd rather "suffer" through the occasional bizzare-looking game than have designers bend their vision for the sake of mass appeal. Take, for example, Hieronymus Bosch. Bosch made plenty of "regular" art, but he is best remembered for his utterly mind-bending depictions of demons, Hell, and Judgement. Had he abandoned his artistic direction and not composed some of the most truly exotic, horrifying pre-modern art ever created, he'd be remembered as a talented--but only marginally significant--artist, and our society would be missing out on some geuninely unique and amazing art.
Art doesn't always appeal, but it's almost always more valuable than uninspired works designed for mass comsumption. There's a seemingly endless supply of well-painted, arrow-riddled St. Sebastians out there--but there's nothing else quite like the Garden of Earthly Delights...
People need to realize, there is no such thing as international "law." There certainly are things that are called international law, but it is not actually law.
The Constitution of the United States of America, Article VI:
"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
When the United States Government fails to abide by any international treaty into which it has entered, it carries as much weight in the eyes of the Constitution as when the United States Government fails to abide by the law of the land.
They are parts of treaties and agreements built between nations, and they are broken by all nations when it is in their best interest.
Yes, the US and other countries often "break" treaties. In the case of the United States, though, the government needs to explicity declare that the US is no longer a signatory to the treaty or they'll be in violation of the law as laid out by the U.S. Constitution. In short, it's OK to withdraw from a treaty; it is not OK to violate the terms of a treaty without first withdrawing from said treaty.
The founders appreciated the value of maintaining good standing in the eyes of other nations. Thus, the Constitution grants our international treaties the same legal weight as our own laws.
Otherwise I can't imagine why you would care. And let me sharpen that point by stating that for the vast majority of you out there, the old saw to not burn your bridges is in fact nonsense. The likelihood of you returning to an ex employer except in the circumstances of immediately returning as a contractor, are near zero. You want to leave and they don't want you back.
You're right--95% of the time, you won't be looking back, and you can throw that match with impugnity.
It's the other 5% of the time that really bites you in the ass.
Of course, civility and courtesy don't cost you a single damn thing, and the smug satisfaction you get from burning said bridges plus a dollar'll buy you a coffee.
Yes, do sensible stuff such as purging personal information from your work computer. Yes, make sure that you make a clean break, and don't leave any expectation that you're still on-call. But do try to go about this in a civil, professional, and courteous manner. You'll thank yourself if you actually happen to need that bridge again.
Slashdot Mirror
Google isn't getting any more of a "free lunch" than anybody else; all that makes them special is that the service they provide with the bandwidth they use is insanely popular and valuable.
Imagine for a moment that Verizon provides natural gas utilities instead of communications utilities. Google pays 'em for the gas they use to bake the big, juicy pies that everybody loves. Google makes a fortune from their pies. Is Verizon somehow due something extra because their gas was used to fire the oven?
All that Verizon can see are the nice, fat pies Google has cooling on the windowsill. This isn't about free lunch; this is about grabbing a piece of Google's pie for themselves--by crook or hook.
...but the little foot icon looks astonishingly like an old rotary telephone today.
To fall back on the automobile analogy, you and I are guys who can change oil and tune an engine in our sleep. The problem comes in with average folks. What does the average person do when the little red light comes on and the engine won't start? You and I know just by looking that by brushing all the oxidized crap off the terminal on the battery, they can have their car running again in no time--but the average person not only doesn't know this, they're not entirely comfortable futzing around with this stuff. It's outside their realm of experience and expertise; there's a real fear that they'll just make things worse by trying to fix things.
To understand the problem average folks have, you need to look at the computer as a single, monolithic appliance, not as a computer with userspace and system files. Whether we like it or not, personal computers are now consumer applicances, in the same league as television sets, microwave ovens and automobiles. They'll always be more complex than that, but for the purposes of ordinarily folks, they need to be treated as something that is either working properly or needs to be serviced by a professional.
When this hypothetical killer virus attacks your OS, it's gonna torch everything it can get its bits on. Even if all it does is corrupt your operating system, though, there's an excellent chance that the advice a home user receives is "do a fresh re-install of your operating system", as reparing this sort of damage can be difficult and time consuming, even for an advanced user.
and a triumph for the home user. If you had to choose between having a virus that both destroys your personal files and compromises your system or a virus that only destroys your personal files, which would you pick? He's making light of a very significant thing for most home users--a full wipe and reinstall of the operating system and applications. That's a day's work for your typical user, more if you have a bunch of programs you need to go hunting for.
But what is more important to a home user? His or her own personal files, or a bunch of system files? I can answer that question for you: the pictures of little Johnny's first day of school mean a whole lot more to a user than the system files that keep the system running.
What's the value of Johnny's first day of school photos if you can't boot the damned computer? Again, the author makes light of the value of the system to the home user. Just because John Q. Public cares more about his cup holder than his engine block doesn't mean he won't care when the cylinder head cracks.
Of course, they should make backups-- but wasn't Linux supposed to be secure? So why should they backup? Isn't Linux immune to viruses and what not? Isn't that what the Linux world has been telling them?
Actually, no. I have yet to speak with a single techie who says that you don't need to back up important files under any circumstances. In fact, viruses are almost always a "secondary" reason for backing up files; the primary driving reason behind backing up your files has traditionally been that of hardware failure.
The crux of his entire argument rests on the supposition that, to the home user, the system simply doesn't matter. In a most cosmetic sense, this is true; home users don't give a damn about kernels and drivers. The instant something goes wrong with that system, however, it's a nightmare for that archetypical home user (who, remember, doesn't know and doesn't care how the thing works). When everything works, they can open and print Johnny's files just fine, but what the heck are you supposed to do when the omgwtf32.dll pops up an error message when you try to open Johnny's picture?
If you posit that conception marks the start of full individual rights, then you expose women to an utterly unreasonable standard: so long as there is any chance you may be pregnant, you must either assume you are pregnant and treat your body accordingly or risk the legal ramifications of abusing or killing another person.
The logical counter-argument is to say that we wouldn't hold women to that standard, and that if a woman were to drink excessively while in the first few weeks of her yet-to-be-realized pregnancy, she would not be held legally accountable for the death of that child. But then you've gone and changed the scale again--that person, through no fault of his own, was deprived of its right to life by the actions of another individual!
Potential exists in a gamete; how troubled are you by the loss of billions of potential lives during the course of one man's life? How troubled are you by the thought that people using condoms or birth control pills actively want these gametes to never realize their full potential as human beings? What of the father of four seeking a vasectomy--is it his right to nip all that potential in the bud? What of the young woman in need of a hysterectomy--is she more deserving of life than the multiple potential lives she could one day carry to term? What of the celebate--people who have actively decided that they're not even going to try to give all these potential lives a shot?
Yes, I go to extremes in my examples. That's just the problem, though; though extreme, these scenarios still sit on the same scale of "potential", and we each still need to choose where "extreme" starts. I know for a fact that many people decry the use of condoms, an attitude I personally feel falls comfortably on the "extreme" end of things. Other people feel comfortable with things like late-term abortion, which frankly makes me squirm just to think of doing such a thing. I honestly don't know exactly where I comfortably sit on this scale. It isn't a clear, easy call for me to make. I do realize, however, that at some point we all stand up and say, "OK, that's where I no longer have a problem with cutting off the potential". To paraphrase the old joke, we already know what kind of decision this is. We're just haggling over the price.
The fundamental problem in this matter is not that the "other side" fails to see what is right. It's that we're all called upon to make a judgement on a matter that none of us are truly able to see clearly.
Sweeping and absolute generalization aside, a good number of Democrats did and still do have proposals for fixing Social Security. These proposals tend to focus on comparatively minor but entirely sufficient modifications--"course adjustments"--rather than the more radical privatization plans put forth by the Bush administration.
Trouble is, it's very, very tricky for a Democratic representative to move a bill forward in a Republican-controlled Congress--especially in light of the fact that this particular Republican-controlled Congress has gone to extraordinary lengths to consolidate their power and close out the opposition. (Exhibit A: The K Street Project)
The Democrats had plenty to say on the matter. It's not their fault that the majority party didn't want anything to do with their ideas. What more were Democrats supposed to do?
The genetic material they modify the bacteria/yeast with comes from human beings.
Picking my own nit: yeast is a fungus, not an animal. The broader point still stands.
While I doubt that the President's intent is to stop the manufacture of human insulin, I can't help but notice that legislators are historically bad at crafting good legislation on complex scientific subjects. Here's hoping the whole human-animal hybrid thing has the legs of the "stop steroids in baseball" and "manned mission to Mars" schticks he's thrown out in past State of the Union addresses...
Hell, at least Star Trek has easily-tinkered-with pseudotechnology where one could plausibly invert the harmonics of the anti-oxidant flux of the manufacturing beam array to make it magically ejaculate fully assembled warp cores...
Had he said "Linux users are snide and condescending when it comes to answering requests for help. It's time they learned some manners and grow up a bit", would he be trolling, or would he simply be telling it as it is?
I doubt a columnist would risk his career just for a laugh.
Wait, it's a fact that "Mac users demonstrate an indefensible smugness when it comes to the dangers of having their systems compromised"? You'll note that I don't take issue with his assertions that there are very real dangers that all computer users need to be aware of; I take issue with his saying, in essence, "If you use a Mac, you're irresponsible and smug when it comes to security".
That is indeed trolling--at least, it's either trolling or flaming, depending on how you judge his motives. Had he said, "for many casual computer users, there is a common misconception that the Mac is perfectly secure," I would have absolutely no beef with his statement. As it is, though, you'll generate a lot more attention and traffic if you simply say that Mac users on the whole are smug and irresponsible. If making inflammatory statements for the apparent purpose of drumming up attention and agitating readers doesn't count as trolling, I don't know what does.
If your doctor were to diagnose you with AIDS, and you did indeed have the syndrome, he would not be a "troll", regardless of how much you were angered by his diagnosis. In much the same way, this BBC author is not a "troll".
Absolutely true. However, if your doctor were to then go on and say, "so, are you homosexual, or are you a junkie?", would his actions still be defensible, or would you smack him upside the head for making an innacurate and crass assumption about you based on a sweeping generalization?
Mac users demonstrate an indefensible smugness when it comes to the dangers of having their systems compromised by malicious software and opened up to exploitation by others. It's time they started behaving a bit more responsibly.
Dear Mr. Thompson:
When you accuse several million people of demonstrating "indefensible smugness" based solely on the type of computer they're sitting in front of, you must certainly expect something of a backlash from those of us who do, in fact, take security seriously. When you tell the likes of systems administrators and security experts they should behave "a bit more responsibly", they're rightly going to tell you to go piss up a rope.
On the Internet, we refer to people who make statements such as the one quoted above as "trolls". Engaging in this type of behavior is generally frowned upon. For example, if I were to say "this is the sort of idioctic drivel the world has come to expect from those effete Brits," I, too would be guilty of trolling and would receive untold amounts of well-deserved invective from the readers of this post.
Fortunately for me, I know better than to make such outrageous statements.
You know, down is nice...
As it stands, this is simply an opinion piece, and is labeled as such on the Observer's website. Apart from a loose reference to remembered statistics on the website of a company that sells spam-filtering software, there's nothing in the way of solid evidence to support this guy's claims. What's more, he asserts that things like phishing mails and penny stock solicitations somehow fall outside the realm of "spam". He further goes on to claim that the "new wave" of spam won't actually last, because things like penny-stock spam "rely on credulousness"; he basically asserts that common sense will prevail against the "new" spam where it failed previously. I seriously doubt that the same caliber of individual who falls for the Nigerian e-mail scam will somehow be immune to the siren call of the "penny stock" scam--which, incidentally, has been around for years.
While the author has some valid points, I think he's drawing conclusions on bad assumptions and gut reactions, not hard data.
Dude, where exactly do you live? Springfield?
Boobies!
In DOA 4, Team Ninja has focused their attention on making the most visually pleasing fighter available on consoles today.
Whooooo, boobies!
Eye candy is the most apt label you could put on this game.
Boingiddy-boingiddy-boingiddy-wheeeee!
Dead or Alive 4, then, continues the series tradition of offering typical fighting action with good looking and varied characters.
Boobies boobies!
What about what Kayne West said? He wasn't sued for what he said.
First off, you got the quote wrong. Kanye West said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." There's a world of difference between "hates" and "doesn't care about". For example, I don't care about the game of cricket--I don't know the rules, I can't name teams, and I have no real desire to ever play the game. I certainly do not hate cricket, though; it simply isn't a part of my life. I don't care about it.
While I sincerely doubt that Mr. Bush is racist or actively seeks to harm black Americans, he is an insular individual, he was almost frighteningly disconnected from the realities of Hurricane Katrina when West said what he did, and "black America" is frankly not high on his list of backs to scratch. He cares about black people in that as President, he cares about all Americans. He doesn't care about black people in the sense that the needs and troubles of black America are frankly not at the top of his agenda. He cares a fair bit more about terrorism, war and cutting taxes than he cares about poverty, gang violence and urban renewal.
Regardless of whether or not Mr. Bush cares about black people, there's absolutely no way he would benefit by suing Mr. West for libel. Setting aside the fact that he's a public official (which makes winning a libel case very, very difficult for him,) suing Kanye West would end any real hope of the GOP successfully courting the black vote in the near to middle-term future. The entire thing would be painted as a pointless and spiteful retaliation on the President's part, and would further cement the "George Bush doesn't care about black people" in the minds of the public.
There's nothing remotely new or surprising about this--edgy art has always appealed to a smaller audience than "mainstream" art.
Frankly, I'd rather "suffer" through the occasional bizzare-looking game than have designers bend their vision for the sake of mass appeal. Take, for example, Hieronymus Bosch. Bosch made plenty of "regular" art, but he is best remembered for his utterly mind-bending depictions of demons, Hell, and Judgement. Had he abandoned his artistic direction and not composed some of the most truly exotic, horrifying pre-modern art ever created, he'd be remembered as a talented--but only marginally significant--artist, and our society would be missing out on some geuninely unique and amazing art.
Art doesn't always appeal, but it's almost always more valuable than uninspired works designed for mass comsumption. There's a seemingly endless supply of well-painted, arrow-riddled St. Sebastians out there--but there's nothing else quite like the Garden of Earthly Delights...
The Constitution of the United States of America, Article VI:
"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
When the United States Government fails to abide by any international treaty into which it has entered, it carries as much weight in the eyes of the Constitution as when the United States Government fails to abide by the law of the land. They are parts of treaties and agreements built between nations, and they are broken by all nations when it is in their best interest.
Yes, the US and other countries often "break" treaties. In the case of the United States, though, the government needs to explicity declare that the US is no longer a signatory to the treaty or they'll be in violation of the law as laid out by the U.S. Constitution. In short, it's OK to withdraw from a treaty; it is not OK to violate the terms of a treaty without first withdrawing from said treaty.
The founders appreciated the value of maintaining good standing in the eyes of other nations. Thus, the Constitution grants our international treaties the same legal weight as our own laws.
You're right--95% of the time, you won't be looking back, and you can throw that match with impugnity.
It's the other 5% of the time that really bites you in the ass.
Of course, civility and courtesy don't cost you a single damn thing, and the smug satisfaction you get from burning said bridges plus a dollar'll buy you a coffee.
Yes, do sensible stuff such as purging personal information from your work computer. Yes, make sure that you make a clean break, and don't leave any expectation that you're still on-call. But do try to go about this in a civil, professional, and courteous manner. You'll thank yourself if you actually happen to need that bridge again.