I think the largest obstacle to getting more advanced daily transportation (flying cars, etc) is the *human* element.
We need to take *out* the human element in *most* of the flight controls and make it so that a person gets in the vehicle, says where they want to go, or types it in, and the vehicle does pretty much everything else.
We need to build these flying or driving cars to be so smart that in the event of an emergency, they have built-in, completely separate, autonomous controls to shut or bring the vehicle to a *safe* stop. Barring a completely unforeseen disaster, the vehicles would almost maintain themselves, their electronics and controls as well as their operation.
Much like computers today, they do what we *tell* them to do, right or wrong. But that's the way I see it, humans (on average and without special training) aren't likely to handle the complexities of stable, controlled flight without hurting themselves or those around them either in training or in the daily routine of getting in a flying car and going to work.
The thought of a conspiracy to cover this up is nagging at me. Imagine if we *were* to be contacted by aliens, what do you think the repercussions would be with respect to religion, national security (U.S. as well as others), economics, science, politics, and so on? To veer off a bit to make my point, if we were hit by a very large meteor from outer space, society if it weren't completely wiped out *might* stand a chance at rebuilding.
But if something like extraterrestial contact were to happen to us as a society, our fundamental ideas of who we are, and more importantly where we're going would change so drastically that I think it would be beyond our level of common comprehension. I think the most serious implications would in fact be religious. I think that most people of faith are happy believing in a creator that created us, our world and that's about it. I don't remember running across any mono-theistic religions which dealt directly with the idea of ET's.
When I've posed this question to religious folk, they often just say that just because it wasn't in the Bible or Koran or Kaballa (sp?) or various other religious writings, doesn't imply that *God* didn't create other life forms outside our planet. He simply didn't tell us about them.
My point to this rant is both a question, and an answer. I think for many people it would be exciting to finally have a question like *are we alone in the universe* answered. I think the great majority though, would be scared shitless and chaos would ensue. Wasn't it about 60 + years ago that Orson Wells did his famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast? Weren't there more than a *few* people out there that were running around reporting lights in the sky, running for safety?
We like to think of ourselves as so much *smarter* than we were back then (collectively and generally) but I still think people would freak out (especially the religiously faithful) if it were found to be true that we were NOT the only intelligent life in the Universe.
Sorry to state the obvious, but the winner will be us as consumers. For once we'll have two powerful companies fighting for our money with products that kick butt.
I didn't mean to come off as xenophobic, it seems to me though that we humans are roughly trudging along as we have for a few thousand years or more... +/- However within the last 80 years or so we've come QUITE a long way in terms of technological and scientific advances. I think this AI in whatever form it eventually takes could in fact be *superior* to our own innate intelligence, think of Mr. Spock where logic is the driving force in reason rather than emotion. With logic driving these robots it would then seem logical (pun intended) that eventually they'd wise up and see us as useless. Your neighbors aren't necessarily planning on killing you and vice versa because of emotion, laws and motivation. You may actually *like* your neighbors and vice versa, thus, with emotion you choose not to kill them and hopefully they won't kill you. Get it?
So with logic and/or some other form of reasoning driving an advanced AI equipped robot, the land that you own or the resources you have may well be viewed as *necessary* requirements for them to continue to manufacture themselves. On a 'one-by-one' basis I doubt it would mean much, but when they get to the point that they view countries or continents as geographically or resource rich in continuing their existence, we'll be put in a world of hell. It's not that they'll hate us or dislike us, I just feel like they'll be driven by logic AND emotion with logic taking more of a precedent than emotion which would be an advance for us as humans. We're emotional beings, and often emotion leads to the strife we see each night on the news.
Anyway, like I said, I didn't mean to come off as xenophobic, I don't fear these things because they're new/different, I fear the day when they're effectively to superior to us in reasoning and motivation without the baggage that makes us humans great and weak at the same time.
What happens when these robots gain the level of AI where they no longer view us as 'masters'? I hate to sound like I'm placing faith in movies like the Matrix and others, but seriously, I can understand what she's saying about robots and how they'll take the jobs we don't want, and create jobs which will effectively be creating/manufacturing them... fine and dandy, until they acquire, invent or evolve to the point where they can produce and manufacture themselves. Then they don't need us to *make* them anymore.
I'm not losing sleep over this scenario but I do wonder what will happen. Do any of you out there think that the evolution will somehow *skip* over AI equipped robots? I think eventually they will gain the same level of consciousness that we humans have, whether through what we call AI today or something entirely new... when it's no longer just pattern recognition and conditioned responses based on some lines of code, but real, bona-fide consciousness or sentience... then my friends, I think it'll be lights out for us. That's when I'll start losing sleep.
No I'm not fucking trolling or trying to start a flame war...
I'm sure I'll get modded to the 7th circle of hell for this, but I think the problem with the open source community is choice. There's just too god damned much. Imagine you're in a mechanics shop, you're the mechanic and you need to adjust one itsy bitsy bolt on an otherwise trouble-free sports car, you open your toolbox drawer to discover every possible tool you could think of to get this one bolt tightened...
There's the old addage, just use the right tool for the job... yeah, what if ALL the tools are the right tool for the job? What then? Use any? Arbitrarily? Why is wrench m400 any better or worse than z767? What's the difference? They both tighten the bolt, they both do a good simple job of it, so why have so much fragmentation?
Granted this is a two wrench example... in the open source community (which I think should be renamed the Open Choice Community... because you've got nothing but choices) you've got soooooooo many options, it's mind boggling. Not so much to a seasoned admin or someone who knows a bit of everything or the zealots that claim superiority to anyone with so much as a simple question to why use one over another... it's mind-boggling for mom n' pop, and joe-six pack and so on down the line.
Too many ways of installing software, too many commands to choose from, too many ways of doing things and simply viewing data.
Now there'll be those that say I'm opposed to choice altogether and that I'm preaching for the "one ring to rule them all" mentality, that there should be one way to do things, one software vendor, one hardware architecture, etc... but that's NOT what I'm suggesting. I'm merely suggesting that we scale back some of the available choices that are out there in the Open Source community... when we pare things down a bit and get to the fundamentals, we could truly kick the ass of the money hungry, FUD spreading closed source competition.
I'm just voting for a balance between the MS way of doing things (their way) and the open source way of doing things (too many to list). We've got toolkits and window managers coming out our respective asses... and that's great for choice... but choice just for the damned sake of choice... is stupid, the choices should be brought down to "good" "better" "best"... brought from an objective point of view, or a standards board, or something/someone... there are bits and pieces of all the different toolkits, window managers and programming languages that are useful, neat, exciting and important... let's start taking the best of breed and really make a go of it.
That last part may sound a bit "rah rah" marketing speak for this crowd, but I'm serious, no sarcasm intended. Let the modding down begin.
This shit is getting out of control. I'm all for *free speech* if such a thing truly exists anymore, but christ when are these companies and the US government going to wake up? Everything going on now seems to be a fight for control more than a fight for rights... or perhaps it's the inherent nature of capitalist businesses to feel that it's their *right* to make money regardless of how, whom they affect or where they want to draw income.
Companies want to control what you download, they want to control what you buy or from whom, they want to control what you do with products after you've bought them. Everytime they feel they're being inhibited in some way the ones with enough money buy out the lawmakers to make the rules favor them... the ones with lesser amounts of money sue the lawmakers/government...
It's getting absolutely ridiculous. I'm not trolling and I don't give a rats ass about the economic, social or environmental benefits of being capitalist, nor do I give a shit about writing congress, senators or any others about what I'm displeased with. These lawsuits need to stop... and these companies that think it's their god given right to control everything we as the public see and touch has got to stop as well.
No I don't think you could possibly embarrass people who buy that sort of thing but that's why I put in *remove* and *inhibit* because they're two not-so-friendly alternatives to people who simply the crap and don't care whether they look like fools doing it. The point is that we kill spammers by killing their markets... the people who sponsor them are their market, so make it as inconvenient or annoying or embarrassing or costly as it possibly can be for them to buy this crap in the first place. I think most of those people *WOULD* be embarrassed to buy this shit if it were sitting in a retail store somewhere. DO YOU honestly think that joe-six pack with a two-inch weiner is REALLY going to go into a GNC with some other dudes in there or a girl behind the counter and ask for the penile elongator pills???
Yes exactly, they can own cars but they can't drive them on public roads.
Yes they can own a computer but they can't connect to the internet without some form of training or accountability. Most would be discouraged to do so simply by the inconvenience...
I hate the FCC but I've heard their longstanding argument about unregulated airwaves would result in radio of the lowest common denominator... I think some regulation is good because it prevents a total anarchy situation over the airwaves. I think a similar body (government or otherwise) would help people with lesser computer skills understand how/who they're affecting by sponsoring spammers continued existence.
That's what their patronage boils down to... sponsorship... and it's that sponsorship that causes the rest of us to suffer and I think you'll find more than a few out there that are sick and tired of it. Additionally you'll find more than a few who are in favor of keeping the less *educated* off the net altogether because it renders an open system virtually unusable most of the time... and by open I mean monetarily free and by system I mean email.
It should be a pre-requisite if you are of lesser intelligence. Owning a computer isn't a right, just like owning a car isn't a right... it's a privelage. No offense to those with Down's Syndrome (sp?) but those that are mentally challenged typically aren't allowed to drive... because they could get themselves and others into a world of danger by doing so.
Granted, spam doesn't *kill* people like an automobile does but it does cause traffic... congestion and loss of money just as an auto accident would to those stuck behind it waiting for it to clear.
Apparently we've been trying to stop spam by targeting the wrong people. It seems to me that if we want to stop spam, we need to remove, inhibit or embarrass the people who actually BUY their products as a result of the spam they receive...
now go ahead and mod me flaimbait or troll you useless dickweeds!
In my not so humble opinion these types of laws & legistlation,
is just about as effective as curbing spam distribution as screendoors
would be at stopping water from coming in on a submarine
I love being a pessimist and this is one thing that I see
no easily stoppable solution for.
I wish I had an idea of how to stop spam being sent out
rather than a lot of people who try to fight it on
the receiving side.
Not that it's a bad thing to fight, or that we should just accept
it as the norm, it's just getting to the point of
complete futility.
I'm not trying to encourage anyone to throw their hands up and submit
But seriously, without a total "re-do" of the internet and it's connected
servers/services, there's nothing that can stop them because they're simply
too hard to track down and more importantly prosecute effectively.
As usual, I'm reminded of a movie quote, this time, from
Apocalypse Now where at the beginning the General is telling
Martin Sheen's character about Colonel Kurtz and how he's had a break with
reality/sanity, he mentions "...there's a struggle
within every human between the rational and the irrational, good and evil... and good does not always win..."
That's my point, even those of us who hate spam more than we hate our own lives
are on the *right* side, we're just not going to win...
It seems to me that humans are involved in a one-way relationship with every other animal on the planet. If there were a mass extinction of humans, through anything other than a species-hopping virus and/or global thermonuclear war, if we simply *weren't* here anymore, animals (in my opinion) would continue to live and thrive. If our extinction was not based on any environmental factors other than social issues.
I would say that it's their *lack of society* that makes other animals so strong... the way they seemingly operate on instinct and loosely defined (by our conventions) social structures. Oscillating (beyond our understanding) between these two polar opposites. If however all the animals on the planet were suddenly gone, including insects, I think we'd probably last a few years or less. Point is, we need them, they *don't* need us. What's more, I believe we could learn a lot from them in terms of living socially. And I mean that in a sincere way not a dig against us as humans but as suggestion that just because we appear to be the most intellectually motivated species on the planet, doesn't mean we're automatically right and just in our endeavours.
I'm reminded of the line from Aliens when they're discussing the impending break-in of the aliens and someone says something to the effect of "you don't see them fucking one another over for a share".
In my opinion the strength of the computer industry lies in it's ability to solve a given problem with many different tools. There are different programming languages, different architectures... etc etc.
That's fine and dandy but it obviously works against us in cases like these where pop-up ad's are able to circumvent and/or bypass our attempts to stop them.
Imagine for a moment that there was only ONE browser to use, one language to program in, one way to view the web (excluding the fights that ensue over who currently controls those types of things). If there were only one way to do things, we'd be able to block these pop-up/under dicks without a problem. Unfortunately with an over abundance of tools available it becomes a (and forgive the analogy) game of push-down/pop-up. We stop them in one area or with one tool and they find a way around it.
Granted we do the same thing in other industries and sectors but I wonder sometimes if maybe the technology world has gone overboard with it's developing of choices.
I think choice is fundamentally a good thing, it's necessary and has it's function in the grand scheme of things... but I think it's high-time people organized and started trimming down some of those extranneous choices, not that there has to be *one* way of always doing thing or even *two* or *three*... but for christ's sake, when is it all enough?
If this project continues to show promise, I give it about a year before the local police start using these things stateside to monitor traffic offenders.... like sentinels in the Matrix... just waiting for you to speed, run a red light, give chase, etc....man I can't WAIT for the end of the world!
Sorry to be the voice of pessimism on here, but I've noticed a few people asking for *courses of action* which we as consumers could suggest or take to remedy the **AA's gestapo style tactics for movie and music sharers.
IMHO there is nothing we can do that will provide them the security and control that they want, while at the same time, protecting our rights as consumers. They simply will NOT let go! It really is that plain and simple. They've built an industry out of milking every last dime out of an intangible product. They don't offer a service... they offer an *experience*.
That's what sells... and sells very very well. There is no happy medium in this fight. They either get the control they want and we lose the control we want... or we get what we see now, half-assed versions of the products (if they can be called that) that we were used to, i.e. DRM'd CDs, bans on academy award screeners, etc. They'll do ANYTHING and everything to keep their fingers in the pie.
The only thing that would wake them up is a total nose-dive in sales. Not just a lull or low... an over-the-cliff, down the rocks, plummet of sales, either for music or movies. How will that ever happen? It won't... it won't happen because they're spoonfeeding us their restrictions. They know that whatever they come out with, we'll hack. Whatever move they make, we'll make another. But each step forward that they make, however small, in general public acceptance of their new products whether it's a slightly DRM'd CD whose protection is defeated with a green sharpie pen or a watermarked movie, any little bit of that that slips into the mainstream and doesn't cause WalMartians to flip out over, is a victory for them.
Educating the general public about these things is the only way to go. Educating them to the dangers and restrictions that are being forced down their throats. But guess what? The public doesn't care. They don't give a rat's ass about DRM or watermarking or encryption or any such nonsense. They only care about the experience. Being able to escape the real-world for 5 minutes of music or 2 hours of movie is all that they want. So long as the **AA's are in tact organizationally... they'll have product to sell and that my friends.....
is the "rest of the story" so to speak.
To get on-topic, this court ruling (however final) is to be expected at this point. Perhaps it's always been this way and we never knew it because it never affected us... but whatever the reason, big-business in the country rules the land with an iron fist. I'm not saying that the justice system is totally corrupt, I'm saying the entire country is totally corrupt. Look around you right now in your offices and homes. What's NOT for sale?
Damned near everything we see and a good portion of what we can't, is for sale in some form or another. An organization like the RIAA getting SBC's previous ruling overturned is about as surprising as the ending of Titanic. Did you all think that the RIAA was going to bend over and take it like a man? That they'd let a media conglomerate of sorts like SBC tell them whose information is available and whose isn't? Hell no, they want names, they want numbers, they're not going to sit by and let some mid-level corporation tell them what can and can't be done.
This is such old news!
Doesn't everyone know that KFC has been doing genetic engineering on it's chickens for years! How do you think the chicken wings get that big???? A bird with wings that large and muscular would be able to tear off it's shackles and start it's own revolution!
As I understand it, they've crossed the genes of a chicken with that of an average house-spider. The result is a very cunning chicken, able to climb walls that (as an added bonus) has eight legs. Thus making KFC that much more profitable! I even heard they have chickens that are able to do trigonometry at the college level and another that scored perfectly on it's SAT's.
To the biased whiners who're on here pissing and moaning about the $5 Billion figure, defending M$, all I can say is:
It's the same insane dollar figure that you assholes use to come up with damage assessments on individuals who break into your networks.
Let me pose this to you, let's say M$ caught the hacker point blank that was taking source code or whatever and sending it to Russia. How much do you think M$ would sue that ONE individual for? How much would the FBI and whoever else tack on as additional restitution? Shitloads more than you, I or any of us here collectively will probably ever make in a lifetime.
You jackholes do the same thing, exaggerating dollar figures sky-high to pay for "company losses". Gimme a break, you and your companies lost a damn weekend of securing your system, some general headaches and some bad press.
And NO, I'm not advocating script kiddies!Honestly, these legal damages they're seeking for what NO one here can verify as "fair/unfair" treatment in their working environment is standard hyperbole... you think an auto accident is worth suing an individual into the ground over? Some cases, shit yeah, others, hell no! So basically what some here are saying is that the plaintiffs should be suing for something nice and fair, like say... $10,000... For being treated like less than a person.
Bottom line is, it's up to the individuals who feel and experience this stuff to decide what they consider "discrimination". It's all subjective arguments. What one group thinks is god-awful treatment, others might consider normal status quo.
You're all missing the impetus behind all this! The Yankees are a high-profile organization right? The guys who run the Yankees are VERY rich people right? So imagine this, you're the manager/owner/whatever of the Yankees, you wake up one day, roll out of your four thousand dollar bed and turn on your computer. Your homepage is Yankees.com (how cute) and you notice it's been tweaked. OR you're the webmaster @ Yankees.com and you notice upon routine checking of the site/availability/whatever that it's been tweaked... you call the owner or the owner finds it on his own. Point being, the funnelling stops here and it's now the owner who makes the call to his buddies who pull some strings in the FBI to get this stuff investigated ASAP! Not tomorrow, not after breakfast, RIGHT NOW! So they do, they expedite the warrant process and get right down to business. I mean come on people, you think every hacked page gets the FBI's attention in as little as 48/72 hours? Or that they routinely pair up a field agent with someone who actually knows computers? Whether or not this guy should or shouldn't be doing his forensic checking is a WHOLE other issue.
My point (cuz I think I have one) is that the Feds treatment of this is RARE! The only time the Feds take this shit seriously is when it's high-profile (i.e. big MONEY losses or GAINED) or when there's an interpersonal tie with the feds themselves. A personal relationship with someone in the bureau. I myself have been/or are currently under their "watch" and it's ONLY because of a personal tie one person had with them directly... if not for that, nothing would ever have come of my "wrong-doing".
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I think the largest obstacle to getting more advanced daily transportation (flying cars, etc) is the *human* element.
We need to take *out* the human element in *most* of the flight controls and make it so that a person gets in the vehicle, says where they want to go, or types it in, and the vehicle does pretty much everything else.
We need to build these flying or driving cars to be so smart that in the event of an emergency, they have built-in, completely separate, autonomous controls to shut or bring the vehicle to a *safe* stop. Barring a completely unforeseen disaster, the vehicles would almost maintain themselves, their electronics and controls as well as their operation.
Much like computers today, they do what we *tell* them to do, right or wrong. But that's the way I see it, humans (on average and without special training) aren't likely to handle the complexities of stable, controlled flight without hurting themselves or those around them either in training or in the daily routine of getting in a flying car and going to work.
The thought of a conspiracy to cover this up is nagging at me. Imagine if we *were* to be contacted by aliens, what do you think the repercussions would be with respect to religion, national security (U.S. as well as others), economics, science, politics, and so on? To veer off a bit to make my point, if we were hit by a very large meteor from outer space, society if it weren't completely wiped out *might* stand a chance at rebuilding.
But if something like extraterrestial contact were to happen to us as a society, our fundamental ideas of who we are, and more importantly where we're going would change so drastically that I think it would be beyond our level of common comprehension. I think the most serious implications would in fact be religious. I think that most people of faith are happy believing in a creator that created us, our world and that's about it. I don't remember running across any mono-theistic religions which dealt directly with the idea of ET's.
When I've posed this question to religious folk, they often just say that just because it wasn't in the Bible or Koran or Kaballa (sp?) or various other religious writings, doesn't imply that *God* didn't create other life forms outside our planet. He simply didn't tell us about them.
My point to this rant is both a question, and an answer. I think for many people it would be exciting to finally have a question like *are we alone in the universe* answered. I think the great majority though, would be scared shitless and chaos would ensue. Wasn't it about 60 + years ago that Orson Wells did his famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast? Weren't there more than a *few* people out there that were running around reporting lights in the sky, running for safety?
We like to think of ourselves as so much *smarter* than we were back then (collectively and generally) but I still think people would freak out (especially the religiously faithful) if it were found to be true that we were NOT the only intelligent life in the Universe.
Sorry to state the obvious, but the winner will be us as consumers. For once we'll have two powerful companies fighting for our money with products that kick butt.
I didn't mean to come off as xenophobic, it seems to me though that we humans are roughly trudging along as we have for a few thousand years or more... +/- However within the last 80 years or so we've come QUITE a long way in terms of technological and scientific advances. I think this AI in whatever form it eventually takes could in fact be *superior* to our own innate intelligence, think of Mr. Spock where logic is the driving force in reason rather than emotion. With logic driving these robots it would then seem logical (pun intended) that eventually they'd wise up and see us as useless. Your neighbors aren't necessarily planning on killing you and vice versa because of emotion, laws and motivation. You may actually *like* your neighbors and vice versa, thus, with emotion you choose not to kill them and hopefully they won't kill you. Get it?
So with logic and/or some other form of reasoning driving an advanced AI equipped robot, the land that you own or the resources you have may well be viewed as *necessary* requirements for them to continue to manufacture themselves. On a 'one-by-one' basis I doubt it would mean much, but when they get to the point that they view countries or continents as geographically or resource rich in continuing their existence, we'll be put in a world of hell. It's not that they'll hate us or dislike us, I just feel like they'll be driven by logic AND emotion with logic taking more of a precedent than emotion which would be an advance for us as humans. We're emotional beings, and often emotion leads to the strife we see each night on the news.
Anyway, like I said, I didn't mean to come off as xenophobic, I don't fear these things because they're new/different, I fear the day when they're effectively to superior to us in reasoning and motivation without the baggage that makes us humans great and weak at the same time.
What happens when these robots gain the level of AI where they no longer view us as 'masters'? I hate to sound like I'm placing faith in movies like the Matrix and others, but seriously, I can understand what she's saying about robots and how they'll take the jobs we don't want, and create jobs which will effectively be creating/manufacturing them... fine and dandy, until they acquire, invent or evolve to the point where they can produce and manufacture themselves. Then they don't need us to *make* them anymore.
I'm not losing sleep over this scenario but I do wonder what will happen. Do any of you out there think that the evolution will somehow *skip* over AI equipped robots? I think eventually they will gain the same level of consciousness that we humans have, whether through what we call AI today or something entirely new... when it's no longer just pattern recognition and conditioned responses based on some lines of code, but real, bona-fide consciousness or sentience... then my friends, I think it'll be lights out for us. That's when I'll start losing sleep.
No I'm not fucking trolling or trying to start a flame war...
I'm sure I'll get modded to the 7th circle of hell for this, but I think the problem with the open source community is choice. There's just too god damned much. Imagine you're in a mechanics shop, you're the mechanic and you need to adjust one itsy bitsy bolt on an otherwise trouble-free sports car, you open your toolbox drawer to discover every possible tool you could think of to get this one bolt tightened...
There's the old addage, just use the right tool for the job... yeah, what if ALL the tools are the right tool for the job? What then? Use any? Arbitrarily? Why is wrench m400 any better or worse than z767? What's the difference? They both tighten the bolt, they both do a good simple job of it, so why have so much fragmentation?
Granted this is a two wrench example... in the open source community (which I think should be renamed the Open Choice Community... because you've got nothing but choices) you've got soooooooo many options, it's mind boggling. Not so much to a seasoned admin or someone who knows a bit of everything or the zealots that claim superiority to anyone with so much as a simple question to why use one over another... it's mind-boggling for mom n' pop, and joe-six pack and so on down the line.
Too many ways of installing software, too many commands to choose from, too many ways of doing things and simply viewing data.
Now there'll be those that say I'm opposed to choice altogether and that I'm preaching for the "one ring to rule them all" mentality, that there should be one way to do things, one software vendor, one hardware architecture, etc... but that's NOT what I'm suggesting. I'm merely suggesting that we scale back some of the available choices that are out there in the Open Source community... when we pare things down a bit and get to the fundamentals, we could truly kick the ass of the money hungry, FUD spreading closed source competition.
I'm just voting for a balance between the MS way of doing things (their way) and the open source way of doing things (too many to list). We've got toolkits and window managers coming out our respective asses... and that's great for choice... but choice just for the damned sake of choice... is stupid, the choices should be brought down to "good" "better" "best"... brought from an objective point of view, or a standards board, or something/someone... there are bits and pieces of all the different toolkits, window managers and programming languages that are useful, neat, exciting and important... let's start taking the best of breed and really make a go of it.
That last part may sound a bit "rah rah" marketing speak for this crowd, but I'm serious, no sarcasm intended. Let the modding down begin.
This shit is getting out of control. I'm all for *free speech* if such a thing truly exists anymore, but christ when are these companies and the US government going to wake up? Everything going on now seems to be a fight for control more than a fight for rights... or perhaps it's the inherent nature of capitalist businesses to feel that it's their *right* to make money regardless of how, whom they affect or where they want to draw income.
Companies want to control what you download, they want to control what you buy or from whom, they want to control what you do with products after you've bought them. Everytime they feel they're being inhibited in some way the ones with enough money buy out the lawmakers to make the rules favor them... the ones with lesser amounts of money sue the lawmakers/government...
It's getting absolutely ridiculous. I'm not trolling and I don't give a rats ass about the economic, social or environmental benefits of being capitalist, nor do I give a shit about writing congress, senators or any others about what I'm displeased with. These lawsuits need to stop... and these companies that think it's their god given right to control everything we as the public see and touch has got to stop as well.
No I don't think you could possibly embarrass people who buy that sort of thing but that's why I put in *remove* and *inhibit* because they're two not-so-friendly alternatives to people who simply the crap and don't care whether they look like fools doing it. The point is that we kill spammers by killing their markets... the people who sponsor them are their market, so make it as inconvenient or annoying or embarrassing or costly as it possibly can be for them to buy this crap in the first place. I think most of those people *WOULD* be embarrassed to buy this shit if it were sitting in a retail store somewhere. DO YOU honestly think that joe-six pack with a two-inch weiner is REALLY going to go into a GNC with some other dudes in there or a girl behind the counter and ask for the penile elongator pills???
get real.
Yes exactly, they can own cars but they can't drive them on public roads.
Yes they can own a computer but they can't connect to the internet without some form of training or accountability. Most would be discouraged to do so simply by the inconvenience...
I hate the FCC but I've heard their longstanding argument about unregulated airwaves would result in radio of the lowest common denominator... I think some regulation is good because it prevents a total anarchy situation over the airwaves. I think a similar body (government or otherwise) would help people with lesser computer skills understand how/who they're affecting by sponsoring spammers continued existence.
That's what their patronage boils down to... sponsorship... and it's that sponsorship that causes the rest of us to suffer and I think you'll find more than a few out there that are sick and tired of it. Additionally you'll find more than a few who are in favor of keeping the less *educated* off the net altogether because it renders an open system virtually unusable most of the time... and by open I mean monetarily free and by system I mean email.
It should be a pre-requisite if you are of lesser intelligence. Owning a computer isn't a right, just like owning a car isn't a right... it's a privelage. No offense to those with Down's Syndrome (sp?) but those that are mentally challenged typically aren't allowed to drive... because they could get themselves and others into a world of danger by doing so.
Granted, spam doesn't *kill* people like an automobile does but it does cause traffic... congestion and loss of money just as an auto accident would to those stuck behind it waiting for it to clear.
Apparently we've been trying to stop spam by targeting the wrong people. It seems to me that if we want to stop spam, we need to remove, inhibit or embarrass the people who actually BUY their products as a result of the spam they receive...
now go ahead and mod me flaimbait or troll you useless dickweeds!
In my not so humble opinion these types of laws & legistlation,
is just about as effective as curbing spam distribution as screendoors
would be at stopping water from coming in on a submarine
I love being a pessimist and this is one thing that I see
no easily stoppable solution for.
I wish I had an idea of how to stop spam being sent out
rather than a lot of people who try to fight it on the receiving side.
Not that it's a bad thing to fight, or that we should just accept
it as the norm, it's just getting to the point of complete futility.
I'm not trying to encourage anyone to throw their hands up and submit
But seriously, without a total "re-do" of the internet and it's connected
servers/services, there's nothing that can stop them because they're simply
too hard to track down and more importantly prosecute effectively.
As usual, I'm reminded of a movie quote, this time, from
Apocalypse Now where at the beginning the General is telling
Martin Sheen's character about Colonel Kurtz and how he's had a break with
reality/sanity, he mentions "...there's a struggle within every human between the rational and the irrational, good and evil... and good does not always win..."
That's my point, even those of us who hate spam more than we hate our own lives
are on the *right* side, we're just not going to win...
but work makes you free
Yeah, I read the same slogan above a Nazi concentration camp just outside of Berlin.
It seems to me that humans are involved in a one-way relationship with every other animal on the planet. If there were a mass extinction of humans, through anything other than a species-hopping virus and/or global thermonuclear war, if we simply *weren't* here anymore, animals (in my opinion) would continue to live and thrive. If our extinction was not based on any environmental factors other than social issues.
I would say that it's their *lack of society* that makes other animals so strong... the way they seemingly operate on instinct and loosely defined (by our conventions) social structures. Oscillating (beyond our understanding) between these two polar opposites. If however all the animals on the planet were suddenly gone, including insects, I think we'd probably last a few years or less. Point is, we need them, they *don't* need us. What's more, I believe we could learn a lot from them in terms of living socially. And I mean that in a sincere way not a dig against us as humans but as suggestion that just because we appear to be the most intellectually motivated species on the planet, doesn't mean we're automatically right and just in our endeavours.
I'm reminded of the line from Aliens when they're discussing the impending break-in of the aliens and someone says something to the effect of "you don't see them fucking one another over for a share".
In my opinion the strength of the computer industry lies in it's ability to solve a given problem with many different tools. There are different programming languages, different architectures... etc etc.
That's fine and dandy but it obviously works against us in cases like these where pop-up ad's are able to circumvent and/or bypass our attempts to stop them.
Imagine for a moment that there was only ONE browser to use, one language to program in, one way to view the web (excluding the fights that ensue over who currently controls those types of things). If there were only one way to do things, we'd be able to block these pop-up/under dicks without a problem. Unfortunately with an over abundance of tools available it becomes a (and forgive the analogy) game of push-down/pop-up. We stop them in one area or with one tool and they find a way around it.
Granted we do the same thing in other industries and sectors but I wonder sometimes if maybe the technology world has gone overboard with it's developing of choices.
I think choice is fundamentally a good thing, it's necessary and has it's function in the grand scheme of things... but I think it's high-time people organized and started trimming down some of those extranneous choices, not that there has to be *one* way of always doing thing or even *two* or *three*... but for christ's sake, when is it all enough?
If this project continues to show promise, I give it about a year before the local police start using these things stateside to monitor traffic offenders.... like sentinels in the Matrix... just waiting for you to speed, run a red light, give chase, etc. ...man I can't WAIT for the end of the world!
Sorry to be the voice of pessimism on here, but I've noticed a few people asking for *courses of action* which we as consumers could suggest or take to remedy the **AA's gestapo style tactics for movie and music sharers.
IMHO there is nothing we can do that will provide them the security and control that they want, while at the same time, protecting our rights as consumers. They simply will NOT let go! It really is that plain and simple. They've built an industry out of milking every last dime out of an intangible product. They don't offer a service... they offer an *experience*.
That's what sells... and sells very very well. There is no happy medium in this fight. They either get the control they want and we lose the control we want... or we get what we see now, half-assed versions of the products (if they can be called that) that we were used to, i.e. DRM'd CDs, bans on academy award screeners, etc. They'll do ANYTHING and everything to keep their fingers in the pie.
The only thing that would wake them up is a total nose-dive in sales. Not just a lull or low... an over-the-cliff, down the rocks, plummet of sales, either for music or movies. How will that ever happen? It won't... it won't happen because they're spoonfeeding us their restrictions. They know that whatever they come out with, we'll hack. Whatever move they make, we'll make another. But each step forward that they make, however small, in general public acceptance of their new products
whether it's a slightly DRM'd CD whose protection is defeated with a green sharpie pen or a watermarked movie, any little bit of that that slips into the mainstream and doesn't cause WalMartians to flip out over, is a victory for them.
Educating the general public about these things is the only way to go. Educating them to the dangers and restrictions that are being forced down their throats. But guess what? The public doesn't care. They don't give a rat's ass about DRM or watermarking or encryption or any such nonsense. They only care about the experience. Being able to escape the real-world for 5 minutes of music or 2 hours of movie is all that they want. So long as the **AA's are in tact organizationally... they'll have product to sell and that my friends.....
is the "rest of the story" so to speak.
To get on-topic, this court ruling (however final) is to be expected at this point. Perhaps it's always been this way and we never knew it because it never affected us... but whatever the reason, big-business in the country rules the land with an iron fist. I'm not saying that the justice system is totally corrupt, I'm saying the entire country is totally corrupt. Look around you right now in your offices and homes. What's NOT for sale?
Damned near everything we see and a good portion of what we can't, is for sale in some form or another. An organization like the RIAA getting SBC's previous ruling overturned is about as surprising as the ending of Titanic. Did you all think that the RIAA was going to bend over and take it like a man? That they'd let a media conglomerate of sorts like SBC tell them whose information is available and whose isn't? Hell no, they want names, they want numbers, they're not going to sit by and let some mid-level corporation tell them what can and can't be done.
This is such old news! Doesn't everyone know that KFC has been doing genetic engineering on it's chickens for years! How do you think the chicken wings get that big???? A bird with wings that large and muscular would be able to tear off it's shackles and start it's own revolution! As I understand it, they've crossed the genes of a chicken with that of an average house-spider. The result is a very cunning chicken, able to climb walls that (as an added bonus) has eight legs. Thus making KFC that much more profitable! I even heard they have chickens that are able to do trigonometry at the college level and another that scored perfectly on it's SAT's.
To the biased whiners who're on here pissing and moaning about the $5 Billion figure, defending M$, all I can say is: It's the same insane dollar figure that you assholes use to come up with damage assessments on individuals who break into your networks. Let me pose this to you, let's say M$ caught the hacker point blank that was taking source code or whatever and sending it to Russia. How much do you think M$ would sue that ONE individual for? How much would the FBI and whoever else tack on as additional restitution? Shitloads more than you, I or any of us here collectively will probably ever make in a lifetime. You jackholes do the same thing, exaggerating dollar figures sky-high to pay for "company losses". Gimme a break, you and your companies lost a damn weekend of securing your system, some general headaches and some bad press. And NO, I'm not advocating script kiddies!Honestly, these legal damages they're seeking for what NO one here can verify as "fair/unfair" treatment in their working environment is standard hyperbole... you think an auto accident is worth suing an individual into the ground over? Some cases, shit yeah, others, hell no! So basically what some here are saying is that the plaintiffs should be suing for something nice and fair, like say... $10,000... For being treated like less than a person. Bottom line is, it's up to the individuals who feel and experience this stuff to decide what they consider "discrimination". It's all subjective arguments. What one group thinks is god-awful treatment, others might consider normal status quo.
You're all missing the impetus behind all this! The Yankees are a high-profile organization right? The guys who run the Yankees are VERY rich people right? So imagine this, you're the manager/owner/whatever of the Yankees, you wake up one day, roll out of your four thousand dollar bed and turn on your computer. Your homepage is Yankees.com (how cute) and you notice it's been tweaked. OR you're the webmaster @ Yankees.com and you notice upon routine checking of the site/availability/whatever that it's been tweaked... you call the owner or the owner finds it on his own. Point being, the funnelling stops here and it's now the owner who makes the call to his buddies who pull some strings in the FBI to get this stuff investigated ASAP! Not tomorrow, not after breakfast, RIGHT NOW! So they do, they expedite the warrant process and get right down to business. I mean come on people, you think every hacked page gets the FBI's attention in as little as 48/72 hours? Or that they routinely pair up a field agent with someone who actually knows computers? Whether or not this guy should or shouldn't be doing his forensic checking is a WHOLE other issue. My point (cuz I think I have one) is that the Feds treatment of this is RARE! The only time the Feds take this shit seriously is when it's high-profile (i.e. big MONEY losses or GAINED) or when there's an interpersonal tie with the feds themselves. A personal relationship with someone in the bureau. I myself have been/or are currently under their "watch" and it's ONLY because of a personal tie one person had with them directly... if not for that, nothing would ever have come of my "wrong-doing".