Given that much of Wikipedia is dominated by cliques of editors whose main preoccupation is to keep out competing edits (no matter how sensible those edits may be), and given there's a big difference between neutrality and objectivity, I hardly think Wikipedia is a good example of what Clinton is talking about.
Is it a good idea for the protected kernel to rely on unprotected code for critical functions such as filesystem operations? I know that user-space code cannot directly interfere with the kernel, but it also doesn't have to do anything the kernel requests of it. Unless the kernel is designed to treat such user-space code as altogether untrustworthy, it seems to me a bad idea for the kernel to rely on user-space code in this manner.
All kidding aside, you may not be so far off. This ruling has broader implications than just being forced into binding arbitration. Specifically, by forcing all claims arising out of a contract to be handled via binding arbitration, the likelihood of any particular term in the contract being rejected decreases significantly, thus making enforceable pretty much all of the terms in any adhesion contract such as an EULA.
Take a look at any EULA and consider how an arbitrator would likely deal with contractual terms that seek to regulate or prohibit actions not explicitly regulated or prohibited by law. That, unfortunately, is what the future looks like for consumers of EULA-laden products and services.
The Supreme Court has just handed corporations the right to impose their will upon those who are their customers.
Clouds aren't the problem. It's contracting your cloud out to a third party that's the problem.
Exactly. What I'd like to see is an open cloud platform that makes it easy to distribute nodes between multiple unrelated ISPs instead of all the servers being handled by a single monolithic entity such as Amazon or Google.
Oh please. People check into FourSquare or Facebook religiously, and tweet that they are leaving for vacation, and then come home and post pictures for the world to see.
There's a difference between data people choose to share and data they share without knowing they are doing so. Guess which one GP is concerned about.
Now? I don't even want to pick up a paper book. IN fact, I am considering replacing my favorite books with eBook and then selling my paper books.
That's a one-way deal, though. If you wanted to replace your eBooks with printed editions, you wouldn't be able to sell any of your eBooks to fund the purchase of printed books.
Should this be allowed to stand, traffic stops will become a new tool for police to conduct what would in any other context be considered illegal suspicionless searches. It's bad enough they can do this at the border for reasons unrelated to airline security, but now they want to get away with it anywhere in the country.
When citizens take freedom for granted it becomes way too easy for the government to take those freedoms away. It's also way too easy to forget the sacrifices of generations past and sit idly by as the government flushes people's freedom down the toilet.
I'm not sure that Apple should itself be held responsible for the slimy practices of third-party developers (except that they do review all apps and should therefore be aware of questionable business practices), but I still think what some of these developers are doing is pretty screwed up. Games specifically designed to get as much money from kids who don't know how much money they're spending are borderline unethical. Their practices are similar to those of companies that sell ringtones designed to appeal to children but which require an expensive monthly subscription fee that's disclosed only in the ad's fine print.
It doesn't actually say anything about a unique identifier in the except you quoted.
"In the excerpt you quoted" being the key words in your statement. The unique identifier in question here is that which establishes a "trusted identity" allowing the other party to a transaction to know they are talking to me and nobody else.
"NSTIC is a key building block in the national effort to secure cyberspace. According to industry surveys, as many as 8 million Americans are victims of online fraud and identity theft each year and lose an average of $631 out-of-pocket per incident. Through a private sector-led effort facilitated by the government, NSTIC aims to make online transactions more trustworthy and enhance consumers’ privacy, thereby giving businesses and consumers more confidence to conduct business online."
The government wishes to enhance consumers' privacy by attaching a unique identifier to each and every online transaction? What an excellent example of doublespeak.
You probably carry around a camera 24-7. That sort of thing was unheard of when I was a kid, now nearly everyone has a video camera on them all of the time.
There's a difference between people recording the things they personally witness and having the government record everything people do in public. If a witness to a crime also happens to be carrying a camera, that's something I can see as having a positive overall effect. Same thing goes for cameras attached to police cars, which have often been used to exonerate not only innocent citizens but also innocent police officers.
Yes, but one of the nice things about video evidence is that you don't have to be an expert to interpret the result.
You also don't have to be an expert to easily misinterpret the result.
If a police officer says that he saw you sneaking out of a bank late at night there is no way to refute that evidence even if he is mistaken.
An alibi is often enough to refute such claims. On the other hand, it's somewhat more difficult to convince a jury that you weren't at the scene when the guy in the video looks exactly like you from a distance; at that point, it's basically the word of your witness against the camera's.
Drug abuse is a serious crime, but not one that I have to worry about.
Some of us are not so selfish as to only worry about things that affect us directly.
I am pretty sure that if you gathered up the last 20 years of my life on all of these subjects I would merit an honorable citizen award, not jail time.
Somehow that doesn't lead me to think any better of you.
Bullshit. It's not that long ago that it used to be illegal for men to have sex with other men. Alan turing and Oscar Wilde were both convicted of it. Also, it's not until recently that it became illegal to grow cannabis. People used to make canvas out of the stuff, and other things besides. Laws change, and not always for the better.
Yes, it is possible that the government might compile evidence of impropriety, but the worst they will realistically be able to do is tell your neighbors.
No, the worst thing they could do with embarrassing information is to use it against you for political purposes.
Unless, of course, you are talking about actual illegal activity, in which case you *should* be arrested.
Or not. It depends on the letter of the law and whether or not the law concerns behavior that is objectively unethical.
For most of human existence it has been very difficult to hide improper behavior from your neighbors.
That's not true. In fact, it's not that rare to hear neighbors exclaim that they "had no idea" a certain neighbor of theirs was a criminal of some sort.
Besides, I don't think I want the whole world to act like my nosy neighbors.
Most people seem to be willing to share details about their personal lives than even folks like me, that grew up knowing our neighbors' business, find uncomfortable.
That's their right. It's also my right not to share such information with others, be they my neighbors or not.
"Disproportionate use of bandwidth" by Google and Netflix? What a joke.
The fact is that Google and Netflix each pay their respective ISPs for all the bandwidth they use. What they *don't* pay for is the bandwidth their customers use, nor should they have to. If Google has a contract with ISP A and ISP A in turn has a contract with ISPs B and C, it's really not B and C's place to charge Google for that which is already covered by their contract with ISP A. Otherwise Google would have to sign contracts with the entire alphabet of ISPs to account for what you call their "disproportionate use of bandwidth", which I'm sure you know is bullshit.
"I think/. regularly shows the young, "highly educated" market is plenty susceptible to fear & paranoia."
Perhaps they are, but I think that for most things Slashdotters complain about it's really a matter of "it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you".
How is it anti-science to teach the weaknesses of a theory?
It isn't, but only if they're real weaknesses and not just made up objections intended to push a religious or political agenda. Guess which kind this bill concerns.
The argument here is that even though they did not claim to be engineers in this report, by it's format and quality it could be implied that it was written by an engineer, which does the public no good.
How about looking at the guy's qualifications to decide whether to give extra scrutiny to his complaint? That way they can avoid having to choose between tossing all citizen complaints into either the "poorly written and unconvincing" pile or the "too well written to be written by a non-engineer" pile.
It boggles the mind, doesn't it? "Non-engineers are incapable of producing engineering-quality work, therefore any non-engineer who does so is guilty of impersonating an engineer."
Cox never claimed to be an engineer - they didn't even accuse him of that - Sounds like the DOT just doesn't like it when someone questions their hired hand.
As far as the DOT guy is concerned, it looks like he's getting back at the complainant for making too good a complaint. For the licensing board, on the other hand, it looks like protectionism in the name of protecting the public:
Andrew L. Ritter, executive director of the engineers licensing board, said it will take three or four months to investigate Lacy's allegation against Cox. He said there is a potential for violation if DOT and the public were misled by "engineering-quality work"- even if the authors did not claim to be engineers.
"We don't take the side of the DOT," Ritter said. "What's best for the public is what we'll find."
1. What if the legal limit for BAC changes after the device has been installed into my car? Can I update the limit by going to a mechanic? Can said mechanic change it, for a few extra dollars under the table, even when the legal limit itself has not?
2. What about false positives when I need to get somewhere right now, because it's an emergency?
3. What if the thing fails while I'm driving? Isn't shutting off the car potentially more dangerous than driving slightly over the limit?
Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia? Seriously?
Given that much of Wikipedia is dominated by cliques of editors whose main preoccupation is to keep out competing edits (no matter how sensible those edits may be), and given there's a big difference between neutrality and objectivity, I hardly think Wikipedia is a good example of what Clinton is talking about.
Is it a good idea for the protected kernel to rely on unprotected code for critical functions such as filesystem operations? I know that user-space code cannot directly interfere with the kernel, but it also doesn't have to do anything the kernel requests of it. Unless the kernel is designed to treat such user-space code as altogether untrustworthy, it seems to me a bad idea for the kernel to rely on user-space code in this manner.
All kidding aside, you may not be so far off. This ruling has broader implications than just being forced into binding arbitration. Specifically, by forcing all claims arising out of a contract to be handled via binding arbitration, the likelihood of any particular term in the contract being rejected decreases significantly, thus making enforceable pretty much all of the terms in any adhesion contract such as an EULA.
Take a look at any EULA and consider how an arbitrator would likely deal with contractual terms that seek to regulate or prohibit actions not explicitly regulated or prohibited by law. That, unfortunately, is what the future looks like for consumers of EULA-laden products and services.
The Supreme Court has just handed corporations the right to impose their will upon those who are their customers.
Exactly. What I'd like to see is an open cloud platform that makes it easy to distribute nodes between multiple unrelated ISPs instead of all the servers being handled by a single monolithic entity such as Amazon or Google.
There's a difference between data people choose to share and data they share without knowing they are doing so. Guess which one GP is concerned about.
That's a one-way deal, though. If you wanted to replace your eBooks with printed editions, you wouldn't be able to sell any of your eBooks to fund the purchase of printed books.
Should this be allowed to stand, traffic stops will become a new tool for police to conduct what would in any other context be considered illegal suspicionless searches. It's bad enough they can do this at the border for reasons unrelated to airline security, but now they want to get away with it anywhere in the country.
When citizens take freedom for granted it becomes way too easy for the government to take those freedoms away. It's also way too easy to forget the sacrifices of generations past and sit idly by as the government flushes people's freedom down the toilet.
I'm not sure that Apple should itself be held responsible for the slimy practices of third-party developers (except that they do review all apps and should therefore be aware of questionable business practices), but I still think what some of these developers are doing is pretty screwed up. Games specifically designed to get as much money from kids who don't know how much money they're spending are borderline unethical. Their practices are similar to those of companies that sell ringtones designed to appeal to children but which require an expensive monthly subscription fee that's disclosed only in the ad's fine print.
"In the excerpt you quoted" being the key words in your statement. The unique identifier in question here is that which establishes a "trusted identity" allowing the other party to a transaction to know they are talking to me and nobody else.
The government wishes to enhance consumers' privacy by attaching a unique identifier to each and every online transaction? What an excellent example of doublespeak.
There's a difference between people recording the things they personally witness and having the government record everything people do in public. If a witness to a crime also happens to be carrying a camera, that's something I can see as having a positive overall effect. Same thing goes for cameras attached to police cars, which have often been used to exonerate not only innocent citizens but also innocent police officers.
You also don't have to be an expert to easily misinterpret the result.
An alibi is often enough to refute such claims. On the other hand, it's somewhat more difficult to convince a jury that you weren't at the scene when the guy in the video looks exactly like you from a distance; at that point, it's basically the word of your witness against the camera's.
Technology is no more impartial than the people interpreting the result.
Some of us are not so selfish as to only worry about things that affect us directly.
Somehow that doesn't lead me to think any better of you.
Bullshit. It's not that long ago that it used to be illegal for men to have sex with other men. Alan turing and Oscar Wilde were both convicted of it. Also, it's not until recently that it became illegal to grow cannabis. People used to make canvas out of the stuff, and other things besides. Laws change, and not always for the better.
No, the worst thing they could do with embarrassing information is to use it against you for political purposes.
Or not. It depends on the letter of the law and whether or not the law concerns behavior that is objectively unethical.
That's not true. In fact, it's not that rare to hear neighbors exclaim that they "had no idea" a certain neighbor of theirs was a criminal of some sort.
Besides, I don't think I want the whole world to act like my nosy neighbors.
That's their right. It's also my right not to share such information with others, be they my neighbors or not.
"Disproportionate use of bandwidth" by Google and Netflix? What a joke.
The fact is that Google and Netflix each pay their respective ISPs for all the bandwidth they use. What they *don't* pay for is the bandwidth their customers use, nor should they have to. If Google has a contract with ISP A and ISP A in turn has a contract with ISPs B and C, it's really not B and C's place to charge Google for that which is already covered by their contract with ISP A. Otherwise Google would have to sign contracts with the entire alphabet of ISPs to account for what you call their "disproportionate use of bandwidth", which I'm sure you know is bullshit.
"I think /. regularly shows the young, "highly educated" market is plenty susceptible to fear & paranoia."
Perhaps they are, but I think that for most things Slashdotters complain about it's really a matter of "it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you".
I-Swear-It-Is-Real.PNG
It isn't, but only if they're real weaknesses and not just made up objections intended to push a religious or political agenda. Guess which kind this bill concerns.
How about looking at the guy's qualifications to decide whether to give extra scrutiny to his complaint? That way they can avoid having to choose between tossing all citizen complaints into either the "poorly written and unconvincing" pile or the "too well written to be written by a non-engineer" pile.
It boggles the mind, doesn't it? "Non-engineers are incapable of producing engineering-quality work, therefore any non-engineer who does so is guilty of impersonating an engineer."
As far as the DOT guy is concerned, it looks like he's getting back at the complainant for making too good a complaint. For the licensing board, on the other hand, it looks like protectionism in the name of protecting the public:
Since when is talking about technology the same as practicing without a license? Asshole in power is being an asshole.
Problems with this sistem:
1. What if the legal limit for BAC changes after the device has been installed into my car? Can I update the limit by going to a mechanic? Can said mechanic change it, for a few extra dollars under the table, even when the legal limit itself has not?
2. What about false positives when I need to get somewhere right now, because it's an emergency?
3. What if the thing fails while I'm driving? Isn't shutting off the car potentially more dangerous than driving slightly over the limit?
I think you mean "agree" to it.