1.) "There are a lot of people talking about privacy issues. "
Very true, and I agree that privacy isn't the problem.
2.) "A lot of posters who don't have children really can't fathom the depth of emotion a parent feels for their child, and thus the lengths a parent is willing to go to in order to protect that child."
Agreed, and you have just touched on the big diverter in this argument. As I (and a number of others) argued, its effectiveness is what's at issue here, not its marketability. Plenty of people buy snake oil in whatever form it's offered, and I have no doubt that there are plenty of suckers out there willing to shell out money for this particular panacea. What bothers me is that this very marketability could be a hazard in itself, just like psychic surgeons who convince people to forgo necessary medical treatments in favor of their charlatanry.
3.) "I saw a lot of "Parents must be lazy, just watch your kid" type of posts. As a parent yourself I don't think I need to explain the shortcomings of this type of statement."
Again, I'm with you on this. See back to my answer to #2 above, though, and understand that my concern is that anything that convinces a parent that he can be less vigilant is dangerous.
4.) "A lot of folks talk about how easy it would be to defeat the device. Well, it's pretty darn easy to defeat a home alarm system too."
There's a functional difference, in that burglars often look for the easiest steal for the effort, as they're driven by the profit motive. This means that someone advertises they have an alarm system and the thief moves on to an easier mark, since one house is very much like another. Kidnappers, on the other hand, are driven either by target motive or psychology. That is, they will almost always want a particular child, for a variety of reasons (a non-custodial parent or relative will want that child only, a kidnapper for profit will choose a target for the grab, a pedophile will rarely pick a child at random but will target a particular child or group of children). Therefore, the deterrent force necessary to prevent the abduction needs to be far greater, and this device isn't going to be enough.
So, in conclusion, my take is that this device would be very handy for tracking a child where getting lost is a problem (my camping in the woods scenario), but is actually worse than nothing for protection from abduction because of the false sense of security that it fosters.
As always, someone like you comes along and decided that because we don't agree with your assessment of the situation, we're (A) immature asses who need to open our eyes and see the Truth that is so obvious to you and (B) anyone who disagrees with this must not have kids because they can't see the aforementioned Truth that must be obvious to all.
You're a myopic nitwit, and here's why. Few people are arguing that abductions don't happen. The argument is that this device would be a very ineffective way to prevent abductions, and that the abuses are far riskier than the danger it's meant to prevent. The kids on the side of your milk carton are (more than 90 percent) taken by someone they know, like a non-custodial parent or other relative. In those cases, it's very likely that the abductor knows about the device, and since knowledge of the device eliminates its effectiveness (crushing it would prevent it from calling home, so don't tell me it'll call home even if it's tampered with), it's no hindrance. Also, from my point of view, this device can easily convince someone who doesn't understand its limitations that their child is safe when in fact he's not, so it could very well be endangering the child more by its presence than its absence. This is the real danger in these devices, not the lunatic-parent-tracking-the-kid's-every-move danger.
Perhaps you should realize that growing up entails understanding that you're not always right, and that those who disagree with you are not always wrong. But then, you'll learn that as you grow up, I suppose.
Virg
P.S. Yes, I do have children, and no, I don't intend to use this device unless I take them camping in the wilderness.
Okay, then fall back to my favorite. Crush it with a pair of pliers. You don't even need to remove it first. How strong a signal does pulverized silicon put out? And, can you initate repairs by remote?
> He sees the wristband and moves on to another potential victim.
That's a really comforting thought, but the facts do not agree with you. Firstly, most (over 90 percent of ) abductions are committed by someone the child knows. The whole idea of the dangerous pedophile trolling the playground for someone to snatch at random is dangerously inaccurate, and this device could very well lead to overcomplacency in a situation where the child can be in real danger.
So, in short, there is almost always a "complex premedicated reason to go for that particular child." (assuming, of course, that you mean "premeditated", not "premedicated").
Also, you're assuming that the only way to disable it is to remove it. How's this? Grab the kid, jump in the van, crush the device with a pair of pliers, pour on some water, and drive off. Now, how is this going to protect my child?
...psychopathology, do you? Since most abusers don't choose their victims at random (more than 90 percent of victims know their attackers), this logic is badly flawed and is a good reason why this device is a bad idea, since it fosters a false sense of security.
The problem is that it's not blatantly false. Note that the wording is "business or other enterprise", which does not include public services. That's where the confusion originates. The real laws vary from state to state, but according to federal law, only federal agencies are restricted in the use of your SSN. State governments are not restricted in its use by federal law, although some states restrict its use by statute. So, although it's most likely legal for a state DMV to require your SSN, it's not beyond possibility that they aren't allowed to insist on your providing it. Check with your own state's laws to be certain.
But that would be clairvoyance. Telekinesis would only be useful for remote skirt-lifting (or remote pants-unbuttoning and unzipping, which is so much harder to do serreptitiously), and again it doesn't work through cube walls or desks (well, okay, the lifting does, but the resultant viewing can't), which is very important here.
Besides, I've only met one person vacuous enough to forget what color her panties were, and she was so incautious that no extraordinary power greater than the ability to stand her conversation long enough for her to uncross her legs was needed for that particular discovery.
> for fucks sake! (in a frustrated sense, not an angry one) I didn't say "his" was more appropriate, I said I'd rather read "his or hers" or "theirs".
Actually, you'd be grammatically accurate to say that "his" is more appropriate. I know this may seem like a turnaround, but reread my entire post, and you'll see that I tend to fall on the side of "he" for gender-neutral grammar in general use. As to the concept of affirmative action language, that's a personal thing. I tend to switch between "he" and "she" because I pick whichever falls into my head while I'm writing, and that seems to be evenly divided. Your implication is that I (or anyone) would choose "she" instead of "he" because of political reasons, but that's not the case here. My use of "she" instead of "he" is more closely the grammatical equivalent of a random number generator, so appropriateness does not enter into my figuring.
Lastly, calling someone's decision to try to change an established rule (even a grammatical one) silly is trivializing to that person's political beliefs, and it's insulting. You need to choose your words more carefully. Being right is no excuse for being condescending.
Well, then I'd like to support the artificial change of the reading of both paragraphs of my post, not just the first one, and complain that in racing to argue the first point you didn't get my whole message. In the second paragraph, you will see that I agree that precedent validates the use of "his" in gender-neutral settings. I also largely disagree that using "her" in gender-neutral settings is standard use. My comment was a suggestion for rhaig to consider why it seemed unnatural, not a suggestion that it really was unnatural.
Well, the N-1 was supposed to be a Moon-shot rocket, and this is a story about the N-1, so discussing our success in that particular regard seems appropriate. You are, however, missing a few points, most importantly (to my way of thinking) exploration of the outer planets. Although there is much to be proud of in the Russian space heritage, there are also many "firsts" in the U.S. program.
Hey, in the U.S. at least, half a bill is $50.00. In American, you say half a bil. If, however, you're talking in British, you need to say half a milliard.
As a first note, the race issue was brought in as a comparison. The parent poster didn't say or imply that you were a racist. Also, that poster's comment was to the effect that saying "his" and saying "her" are interchangeable in this day and age, and your finding it hard to read is your problem, not the author's.
Now, you should not necessarily take my comment to indicate that I agree, because while I see the parent poster's point, I don't think you're coming from nowhere, since there's a great deal of precedent for using the male pronoun in non-gender specific conversation. Still, the view that "his" is more appropriate than "her" in this case is merely precedent, so you may want to give some thought to why you find it harder to read.
I can't say I agree that all touch typists would miss the tactile feedback. That said, I personally would miss it, but I thought of a very good use. When possible, I could project the virtual keyboard on a real keyboard. The value is that I wouldn't need to connect the real keyboard so I can park it anywhere on the desk (without worrying about wireless keyboard communication, which causes audible interference in my sound recording gear or requires a line-of-sight to the sensor for IR), and I could use the projector without it when I'm away from the desk.
No, sir or madam, you are incorrect. The GPL does not apply to your case. In your case (a screenshot that contains Windows widgets), Microsoft holds to copyright to those items, so the GPL does not apply, based on prior art. You could conceivably defend screenshots of said (copyrighted) widgets under fair use, so even Microsoft's copyright can be defended against, but this is tangential to the point, which is that the GPL does not apply to the widgets, so the GPL restriction is immaterial.
There are two big differences between spam and junk mail. First, if you ask the Post Office who owns the postal permit on which the junk mail is sent, they'll tell you, and if the company gives them the wrong contact information they'll go to prison (or at least face severe fines and possible loss of corporate charter). Second, you would indeed have grounds for a lawsuit if all of those pieces of junk mail arrived at your box postage due and you weren't allowed to turn them away.
Your myopic perspective demonstrates that you know not of what you speak. My ISP (I'm friends with the owner) handles 16,000 pieces of spam every day, in total. Each one eats up 1-3Kb of bandwidth for the message. The total dollar value of that bandwith to the ISP is US$27,000.00 per year. That cost gets passed on to the customers, and because of that I get charged extra to pay for that bandwidth. Also, I had an address that I stopped posting to public forums in 1997, but until I changed my address I got somewhere around 100 messages a DAY. After about a year of not getting messages because there was too much garbage to crawl through, and having to "just click delete" 85 times a day, it got to be too much.
So, next time you decide to talk about how it's no big deal, could you send me a few hundred dollars to make up for the insignificant impact it's had on me?
Now, now, this monstrosity is Fernandes's fault, not Lucas's. They most likely approached him, saying, "If we can put Star Wars stuff all over a guitar, we'll pay you a lot of money." He responded, "What the hell. Why not? There are Star Wars condoms, after all. How much worse could this be?"
Virg
P.S. I don't know if "Gorge" Lucas was an intentional pun or not. If it was, well done.
You tell me if you don't think Leia in a gold chainmail bikini wouldn't sell a bunch of these guitars. Or perhaps R2-D2. With Leia on the back so you can rub while you play...mmmmm...
Virg
Yet Another Trekkie Moment
on
Hack in Space
·
· Score: 2
Or perhaps they'd have beamed it into the cargo bay and fixed the damn wheels.
There was some work done in an attempt to replace fuses on spacefaring vessels with breakers, the idea of course being that if a breaker popped, a servo could reclose it at a later time (we looked into this issue while I was in college, putting a not-small amount of work into materials development for low-temp breakers that would still work). The concept was scrapped, however, when NASA engineers who were getting our results discovered that (at least with late '80s tech) repairing the fault that opened the breaker was more often than not impossible by remote, so having a servobreaker was pointless. Still, with advances in robotics, I'm still hopeful that one of these gizmos will become useful, and having my name engraved on a piece of polymer that gets to leave the solar system would be a nice memorial.
Slashdot Mirror
1.) "There are a lot of people talking about privacy issues. "
Very true, and I agree that privacy isn't the problem.
2.) "A lot of posters who don't have children really can't fathom the depth of emotion a parent feels for their child, and thus the lengths a parent is willing to go to in order to protect that child."
Agreed, and you have just touched on the big diverter in this argument. As I (and a number of others) argued, its effectiveness is what's at issue here, not its marketability. Plenty of people buy snake oil in whatever form it's offered, and I have no doubt that there are plenty of suckers out there willing to shell out money for this particular panacea. What bothers me is that this very marketability could be a hazard in itself, just like psychic surgeons who convince people to forgo necessary medical treatments in favor of their charlatanry.
3.) "I saw a lot of "Parents must be lazy, just watch your kid" type of posts. As a parent yourself I don't think I need to explain the shortcomings of this type of statement."
Again, I'm with you on this. See back to my answer to #2 above, though, and understand that my concern is that anything that convinces a parent that he can be less vigilant is dangerous.
4.) "A lot of folks talk about how easy it would be to defeat the device. Well, it's pretty darn easy to defeat a home alarm system too."
There's a functional difference, in that burglars often look for the easiest steal for the effort, as they're driven by the profit motive. This means that someone advertises they have an alarm system and the thief moves on to an easier mark, since one house is very much like another. Kidnappers, on the other hand, are driven either by target motive or psychology. That is, they will almost always want a particular child, for a variety of reasons (a non-custodial parent or relative will want that child only, a kidnapper for profit will choose a target for the grab, a pedophile will rarely pick a child at random but will target a particular child or group of children). Therefore, the deterrent force necessary to prevent the abduction needs to be far greater, and this device isn't going to be enough.
So, in conclusion, my take is that this device would be very handy for tracking a child where getting lost is a problem (my camping in the woods scenario), but is actually worse than nothing for protection from abduction because of the false sense of security that it fosters.
Virg
As always, someone like you comes along and decided that because we don't agree with your assessment of the situation, we're (A) immature asses who need to open our eyes and see the Truth that is so obvious to you and (B) anyone who disagrees with this must not have kids because they can't see the aforementioned Truth that must be obvious to all.
You're a myopic nitwit, and here's why. Few people are arguing that abductions don't happen. The argument is that this device would be a very ineffective way to prevent abductions, and that the abuses are far riskier than the danger it's meant to prevent. The kids on the side of your milk carton are (more than 90 percent) taken by someone they know, like a non-custodial parent or other relative. In those cases, it's very likely that the abductor knows about the device, and since knowledge of the device eliminates its effectiveness (crushing it would prevent it from calling home, so don't tell me it'll call home even if it's tampered with), it's no hindrance. Also, from my point of view, this device can easily convince someone who doesn't understand its limitations that their child is safe when in fact he's not, so it could very well be endangering the child more by its presence than its absence. This is the real danger in these devices, not the lunatic-parent-tracking-the-kid's-every-move danger.
Perhaps you should realize that growing up entails understanding that you're not always right, and that those who disagree with you are not always wrong. But then, you'll learn that as you grow up, I suppose.
Virg
P.S. Yes, I do have children, and no, I don't intend to use this device unless I take them camping in the wilderness.
Okay, then fall back to my favorite. Crush it with a pair of pliers. You don't even need to remove it first. How strong a signal does pulverized silicon put out? And, can you initate repairs by remote?
So munch for that.
Virg
> He sees the wristband and moves on to another potential victim.
That's a really comforting thought, but the facts do not agree with you. Firstly, most (over 90 percent of ) abductions are committed by someone the child knows. The whole idea of the dangerous pedophile trolling the playground for someone to snatch at random is dangerously inaccurate, and this device could very well lead to overcomplacency in a situation where the child can be in real danger.
So, in short, there is almost always a "complex premedicated reason to go for that particular child." (assuming, of course, that you mean "premeditated", not "premedicated").
Also, you're assuming that the only way to disable it is to remove it. How's this? Grab the kid, jump in the van, crush the device with a pair of pliers, pour on some water, and drive off. Now, how is this going to protect my child?
Virg
...psychopathology, do you? Since most abusers don't choose their victims at random (more than 90 percent of victims know their attackers), this logic is badly flawed and is a good reason why this device is a bad idea, since it fosters a false sense of security.
Virg
The problem is that it's not blatantly false. Note that the wording is "business or other enterprise", which does not include public services. That's where the confusion originates. The real laws vary from state to state, but according to federal law, only federal agencies are restricted in the use of your SSN. State governments are not restricted in its use by federal law, although some states restrict its use by statute. So, although it's most likely legal for a state DMV to require your SSN, it's not beyond possibility that they aren't allowed to insist on your providing it. Check with your own state's laws to be certain.
Virg
Um, I don't see how changing the color of the card is really going to help this. Besides, my driver's license isn't magenta to begin with.
Oh, you mean demagnetize! Never mind.
Virg
>Remote viewing is more reliable
But that would be clairvoyance. Telekinesis would only be useful for remote skirt-lifting (or remote pants-unbuttoning and unzipping, which is so much harder to do serreptitiously), and again it doesn't work through cube walls or desks (well, okay, the lifting does, but the resultant viewing can't), which is very important here.
Besides, I've only met one person vacuous enough to forget what color her panties were, and she was so incautious that no extraordinary power greater than the ability to stand her conversation long enough for her to uncross her legs was needed for that particular discovery.
Virg
> for fucks sake! (in a frustrated sense, not an angry one) I didn't say "his" was more appropriate, I said I'd rather read "his or hers" or "theirs".
Actually, you'd be grammatically accurate to say that "his" is more appropriate. I know this may seem like a turnaround, but reread my entire post, and you'll see that I tend to fall on the side of "he" for gender-neutral grammar in general use. As to the concept of affirmative action language, that's a personal thing. I tend to switch between "he" and "she" because I pick whichever falls into my head while I'm writing, and that seems to be evenly divided. Your implication is that I (or anyone) would choose "she" instead of "he" because of political reasons, but that's not the case here. My use of "she" instead of "he" is more closely the grammatical equivalent of a random number generator, so appropriateness does not enter into my figuring.
Lastly, calling someone's decision to try to change an established rule (even a grammatical one) silly is trivializing to that person's political beliefs, and it's insulting. You need to choose your words more carefully. Being right is no excuse for being condescending.
Virg
Well, then I'd like to support the artificial change of the reading of both paragraphs of my post, not just the first one, and complain that in racing to argue the first point you didn't get my whole message. In the second paragraph, you will see that I agree that precedent validates the use of "his" in gender-neutral settings. I also largely disagree that using "her" in gender-neutral settings is standard use. My comment was a suggestion for rhaig to consider why it seemed unnatural, not a suggestion that it really was unnatural.
Virg
Well, the N-1 was supposed to be a Moon-shot rocket, and this is a story about the N-1, so discussing our success in that particular regard seems appropriate. You are, however, missing a few points, most importantly (to my way of thinking) exploration of the outer planets. Although there is much to be proud of in the Russian space heritage, there are also many "firsts" in the U.S. program.
Virg
Hey, in the U.S. at least, half a bill is $50.00. In American, you say half a bil. If, however, you're talking in British, you need to say half a milliard.
Virg
Damn right you'd better. Telepathy is MUCH easier, especially through walls, and you can still find out what color they are if you're wrong.
Virg
As a first note, the race issue was brought in as a comparison. The parent poster didn't say or imply that you were a racist. Also, that poster's comment was to the effect that saying "his" and saying "her" are interchangeable in this day and age, and your finding it hard to read is your problem, not the author's.
Now, you should not necessarily take my comment to indicate that I agree, because while I see the parent poster's point, I don't think you're coming from nowhere, since there's a great deal of precedent for using the male pronoun in non-gender specific conversation. Still, the view that "his" is more appropriate than "her" in this case is merely precedent, so you may want to give some thought to why you find it harder to read.
Virg
I can't say I agree that all touch typists would miss the tactile feedback. That said, I personally would miss it, but I thought of a very good use. When possible, I could project the virtual keyboard on a real keyboard. The value is that I wouldn't need to connect the real keyboard so I can park it anywhere on the desk (without worrying about wireless keyboard communication, which causes audible interference in my sound recording gear or requires a line-of-sight to the sensor for IR), and I could use the projector without it when I'm away from the desk.
Virg
> We used to lovingly call it the "hammerboard" because it would take a hammer on the buttons to register keystrokes. :)
We used to refer to it lovingly as "case decoration" since that seemed to be its only use.
Virg
No, sir or madam, you are incorrect. The GPL does not apply to your case. In your case (a screenshot that contains Windows widgets), Microsoft holds to copyright to those items, so the GPL does not apply, based on prior art. You could conceivably defend screenshots of said (copyrighted) widgets under fair use, so even Microsoft's copyright can be defended against, but this is tangential to the point, which is that the GPL does not apply to the widgets, so the GPL restriction is immaterial.
Virg
There are two big differences between spam and junk mail. First, if you ask the Post Office who owns the postal permit on which the junk mail is sent, they'll tell you, and if the company gives them the wrong contact information they'll go to prison (or at least face severe fines and possible loss of corporate charter). Second, you would indeed have grounds for a lawsuit if all of those pieces of junk mail arrived at your box postage due and you weren't allowed to turn them away.
Virg
Your myopic perspective demonstrates that you know not of what you speak. My ISP (I'm friends with the owner) handles 16,000 pieces of spam every day, in total. Each one eats up 1-3Kb of bandwidth for the message. The total dollar value of that bandwith to the ISP is US$27,000.00 per year. That cost gets passed on to the customers, and because of that I get charged extra to pay for that bandwidth. Also, I had an address that I stopped posting to public forums in 1997, but until I changed my address I got somewhere around 100 messages a DAY. After about a year of not getting messages because there was too much garbage to crawl through, and having to "just click delete" 85 times a day, it got to be too much.
So, next time you decide to talk about how it's no big deal, could you send me a few hundred dollars to make up for the insignificant impact it's had on me?
Virg
"The is a great disturbance in the Force, like a million voices crying out and then suddenly the sound board went dead."
Virg
Now, now, this monstrosity is Fernandes's fault, not Lucas's. They most likely approached him, saying, "If we can put Star Wars stuff all over a guitar, we'll pay you a lot of money." He responded, "What the hell. Why not? There are Star Wars condoms, after all. How much worse could this be?"
Virg
P.S. I don't know if "Gorge" Lucas was an intentional pun or not. If it was, well done.
You tell me if you don't think Leia in a gold chainmail bikini wouldn't sell a bunch of these guitars. Or perhaps R2-D2. With Leia on the back so you can rub while you play...mmmmm...
Virg
Or perhaps they'd have beamed it into the cargo bay and fixed the damn wheels.
Think, people, think!
Virg
There was some work done in an attempt to replace fuses on spacefaring vessels with breakers, the idea of course being that if a breaker popped, a servo could reclose it at a later time (we looked into this issue while I was in college, putting a not-small amount of work into materials development for low-temp breakers that would still work). The concept was scrapped, however, when NASA engineers who were getting our results discovered that (at least with late '80s tech) repairing the fault that opened the breaker was more often than not impossible by remote, so having a servobreaker was pointless. Still, with advances in robotics, I'm still hopeful that one of these gizmos will become useful, and having my name engraved on a piece of polymer that gets to leave the solar system would be a nice memorial.
Virg
> Grammar nazis unite!
Should that not be "Grammar Nazis unite!" instead?
Virg