But seriously, who is going to want a microchip embedded in their body just for paying for stuff. Apart from the odd wierdo, most people get completely creeped out by this kind of thing.
Currently, a very large proportion of young people choose to have things implanted into them to look sexy, get noticed, or fit in with the crowd. If you told them they didn't need to carry around a purse too, you think they'd see that as a bad thing or a good thing?
Furthermore, when credit cards first started appearing, an amazing number of people were freaked out by them, refused to use them. In the end, I'd say they've been pretty succesful.
Politicians doubtfully are the first to read their email. More than likely you'd be targeting an intern, whose job is to wade through the inbox to pick out the handful of real emails. I don't think your point will get across to them, do you?
While true, when the politician has to pay 8 interns to read their email instead of 1 intern, and they all complain about the amount of disgusting porn they are seeing, they might be more likely to do something about it.
The reason for this is because we really don't teach computing fundamentals. We teach computer technology through rote memory.
This is because 95% of jobs using a computer require the ability to carry out simple tasks learned through memory, and only very few require knowledge of computer fundamentals.
This is like complaining that we don't teach algebra and calculus to 7 year olds - it's quite simple they don't need it.
However, re-enriching uranium is banned under international treaty
I would be very surprised if this is true, care to provide some links? I have had dealings with BNFL - British Nuclear Fuels Limited. They carry out this reprocessing of spent Uraniaum on facilities less than 50 miles from where my parents lived all their lives.
The interesting thing to note is how everyone seems to assume that they are in that 40% (or 15% or whatever) that is capable of making an informed decision. How that percentage is figured I am a little vague on, but I suspect it is based on the number of voters who voted the same as you.
Not at all, I picked a random number. My point was not that "some people vote for better parties than others" but that people who bother to look into issues and spend time researching them and effort voting are the people who *should* be deciding who runs the country. The people who read the tabloids once per week and vote based on whatever the owner of the tabloids has manipulated them into believing drown out the well informed choices (be they left, right or center).
The entire human nuclear arsonal, if strategically placed, could blow the moon into tiny little pieces (actually, one very powerful bomb could supposedly do this). Most geologists think that this is true of the Earth as well - if we aim something between techtonic plates, they think we can send a shockwave to the core and blow the planet to chunks. Perhaps you meant "the entire non-nuclear arsonal"?
No, he meant Nuclear arsenal. Those scientists with those theories are not taken seriously within the geological community.
Think careful about earthquakes : they are the build up and release of energy many MANY orders of magnitude greater than the largest atomic bomb, and they happen..... right between the joins of tectonic plates.
This alone should be enough to show that having a nuclear explosion in the crust affect the core or the tectonic is a ludicrous idea, but then consider that below the crust much of the material has properties and behaviours that more closely approximately liquids than solids - and that the impact of an explosion or otherwise would dissipate in many directions, rather than focusing in one.
Someone who is not motivated enough to take an hour or so to travel to their local voting booth and vote does not care or know enough about the issues involved to make an informed and sensible choice.
Having 90% of the population vote when only 40% of the population researches, interrogates and cares only means you'll have 50% of pseudo random "noise" votes drowning out the informed, important votes.
On top of this you are definitely on crack if you think that "launching counter attacks to clean infected hosts!" is a) a good idea or b) legal.
I understand where you're coming from, but let's take an analogy : in any other walk of life, if you are attacked you are allowed to take reasonable actions to defend yourself.
If someone comes at you and other people in the street with a knife, you are allowed to wrestle the knife from him. Things such as punching him, pinning him or even breaking his arm might be viewed as perfectly reasonable by a judge - in order to prevent harm.
In the same vein, we're talking about disarming the offensive person (host) without causing any collateral damage... So why might this not be considered legal by an enlightened society?
It is simpler than that, by placing very small devices near the gate of a military base one can easily keep track of everything moving in and out.
Not at all - see, RFID tags work by responding to a transmission. You would have to have a transmitter close by a military base constantly transmitting. How long do you think that will last?
It's very clear that you don't deal with users in the real world.
Clicking a "yes/no" responce to "would you like to disable x" may get most users clicking it. Sending them an email with those contents will result in less than 10% of them following the instructions, and at least 20% calling technical support asking "WTF"?
Life isn't full of people who know what a "command prompt" is. Hell, most users don't know what a "command" is nor what a "prompt" is FFS. Stop spouting off pretending you know how to administer a network full of inexperienced users - AOL having been doing it for years, and their ideas are a damn sight better than yours.
And I am sorry, but any employee who is swayed by stock options IS A TOTAL FSCKING MORON.
Microsoft have more millionaire secretaries and millionaire-ex secrataries than most companies have employees. Are they all morons?
The only way stock options are valuable is if the stock price of the company significantly increases from the time the options are granted to the time they are vested. As other posters have pointed out, this leads to a company trying to grow continuously, which is simply not possible.
You claim growing continuously is not possible, but we have not established boundaries for the use of the word "continuous" in this context. You claim it is DE FACTO impossible - which is true if we take "continuous" to describe its intended growth INFINITELY. On the other hand if we talk about continuous as in five years, or ten years, fifty or even a thousand years it is very possible that the company will grow continuously for one or more of these periods.
Stock options are not all worthless, however they are something one should scrutinise before committing to.
You don't buy a license to a physical item - like a dovetailing bit - you buy the bit. It's your's. You own it and have full right to use it for the purpose intended. You can sell it, loan it to someone else, and modify it
You can do, but in the USA, the company responsible for the EULA can take you to court for doing so. If you cannot afford a good enough lawyer to make a convincing argument that the EULA should not be valid, you will lose an enormous amount of money. In the event that you do hire a good enough lawyer, you will only lose a large amount of money.
This is an enormous, and rapidly growing, problem in the USA. Many other countries have employed a policy of "plaintiff pays" the legal fees, should they lose the suit - but in the USA one must initiate yet more costly action (I believe you call it a SLAPP suit?) in order to obtain these fees, and such suits are rarely succesful.
In the UK for example, our government offers "Legal Aid" - a scheme by which people can get free or reduced cost legal help for fighting cases. This greatly reduces the disincentive to fight that an ordinary (non supported) court battle would have, which in turn reduces the incentive for companies to sue individuals with cases that are not strong.
The end result is that in the UK there are very very few frivolous or weak lawsuits brought about against individuals, lower costs for everyone, and a fairer system for society.
Does anyone know why the US does not have a system for aiding people in legal battles, and why when a motion in court is found to not be enforcable in law, does the person who brought the suit (and therefore a large monetary cost) to someone erroneously, does not have to pay?
Congratulations on taking a stance, did you consider informing the authorities and the clients of your company?
If you're in the US (and many states in Europe) there are "Whistle Blower" laws that protect you from recriminations by the company, and often financial incentives too.
Cost of SatNav in car in the UK : Approx. 1500 / car Cost of increased number of accidents due to drivers concentrating on SatNav at speed : Unkown Amount of roads that can be built for (number of cars * 1500) : More roads than god.
I don't deny that everyone having SatNav would help, but so would computer controlled driving (in a much bigger way). The problem in the UK is that less than 30% of the taxes collected from motoring related taxes are put back into the roads, causing congestion. The welfare state takes most of the rest.
If they'd actually sent out any of the invoices, they could have been prosecuted for wire fraud.
Indeed. I'm a UK citizen, so I don't know which dept. of the US government is responsible for enforcing fraud cases like this, but would it be possible for someone to call SCOs "hotline" and say they are ready to pay for, say 16 processors worth of SCO Source licenses, and can SCO please send out the invoice for 16 units to "Blah Blah Fictitious Company, The Address Of The US Fraud Office, US".
That way, their greed for 10,000 dollars might get the best of them, and get your fraud office a fraudulent invoice?
Shut the fuck up, you moron! As was clearly indicated in the summary of the article, they are planning on doing this to avoid being sued because of false statements being reported! What the hell kind of academic honesty and freely discussed ideas involve making shit up to damn people, anybody, politicians included! unfairly? If it is spoken, that is called slander, when it is written, it is called libel. And it is most definately illegal.
The reason they have to do it is not just because there might be court action, but mainly because of the nature of court action in the USA, thanks to the policies of the federal government.
Saying something out of line, particularly something about the government, doesn't just mean a fine of a few weeks wages or any other reasonable punishment. Laws enacted already, and laws soon to be enacted make these offences punishable much more harshly, and the resources the government has to throw at trial lawyers mean you will very likely be convicted unless you have a great amount of cash to defend yourself.
I realise how my original post may have looked like a troll, however my point was this:
Academics should be free to speak their minds, as should everyone. If there is a problem because some person made a claim that was not true it should be remedied fairly - most people do not have a reasonable expectation that crossing the government (or big business for that matter, many cannot see the disctinction) would be remedied fairly.
If you are willing to wait long enough, history repeats itself.
Now, the citizens of the USA (academics at that) are having to resort to using the tactics of the underground to disseminate information about the conduct, actions and transgressions of their government for fear of persecution.
There was a time when people respected the US for its stance on individual rights, freedoms and the ideals of America.
While not a direct, damning criticism, one of the HUGE indicators of a state entering into an oppressive regime is when academics are not valued, and when academics are not free to openly discuss, read and disseminate ideas. This has already happened in the US... is this an indicator of what is to come, or just an anomaly?
It shouldn't be ubiquitous because people should put more value on quality and less on convenience.
I disagree, people should place value on whatever they perceive to be valuable - "experts" in a field should not be allowed to decide for end users what is and is not "valuable".
If you are sepperated, then you run the risk of something happening to one party and the other is unaware of that. What if you'd fallen in the store and been knocked unconcious? What if the car had been hit by some teenagers playing around acting all 'fast and furious' in the lot? What if someone broke the window and grabbed your kid?
While I'm all for caring people, and prevention of ABUSE, this kind of interefering can be annoying. To cite the examples you gave:
What if you *did* trip in the store, but were carrying your child, and landed on her, injuring her head so severely she died?
What if by driving off you pulled out onto the road at the end of the row of cars, you placed your daughter in the rear-right of your car in the direct line of a speeding driver not watching the road?
What if someone car-jacks you when you drive off with your kid in the back?
There are dozens of possible examples and counter-examples we could offer here, however I don't feel going back inside to pickup a bag leaving a child in the back seat of the car is bad parenting, and it's certainly not particularly dangerous.
What would you do if he simply shoplifted the cd's, cut off his hands?
Obviously this is a very harsh punishment, however it is also very effective. There are no costs to society for jailed thieves, and levels or robbery and similar crimes are almost ZERO in countries which employ such punishments.
It is not something I wish to see in my country, but your post appears to write it off as instantly wrong, but it's a very subjective area. Is the loss of hands to thieves really worth the incredible cost to society of thievery and robbery? I say it's not a clear cut issue.
Dude, if I had you as a parent, I'd watch your back. How is your lesson any better than a thug breaking a gambler's legs for not paying on time? I hope you don't own any guns... you just may become a statistic.
It's different in that a gambler not paying his money on time has not broken a law, he merely has a debt. It's different in that destroying a possession of someone is quite, quite different to inflicting a crippling injury. It's different in that the man posting is the parent of the child, and has a duty to bring his child up morally and ethically, and is carrying out actions to do so, rather than in an attempt to scare someone into giving him money.
It's different in so many fundamental and critical ways that I hope *you* don't own any guns. Your twisted view of reality, and strange analogies could well turn you into a statistic.
I can't believe the parent got modded up:/ When I was a child, if I used a toy for something it shouldn't have been used for (example, firing a spud gun at other kids) my mother would take it away and BIN it, just like this man did to his sons iBook. It seemed harsh at the time, but I cannot deny that it was also fair.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree, if you had said "are of above average technicaly ability" this would almost certainly be true, but intelligence is a much more grey area.
Currently, a very large proportion of young people choose to have things implanted into them to look sexy, get noticed, or fit in with the crowd. If you told them they didn't need to carry around a purse too, you think they'd see that as a bad thing or a good thing?
Furthermore, when credit cards first started appearing, an amazing number of people were freaked out by them, refused to use them. In the end, I'd say they've been pretty succesful.
While true, when the politician has to pay 8 interns to read their email instead of 1 intern, and they all complain about the amount of disgusting porn they are seeing, they might be more likely to do something about it.
The Swiss. And with pretty incredible wealth in a land with almost no natural resources, that says something for stable, open democracy.
This is because 95% of jobs using a computer require the ability to carry out simple tasks learned through memory, and only very few require knowledge of computer fundamentals.
This is like complaining that we don't teach algebra and calculus to 7 year olds - it's quite simple they don't need it.
I would be very surprised if this is true, care to provide some links? I have had dealings with BNFL - British Nuclear Fuels Limited. They carry out this reprocessing of spent Uraniaum on facilities less than 50 miles from where my parents lived all their lives.
Not at all, I picked a random number. My point was not that "some people vote for better parties than others" but that people who bother to look into issues and spend time researching them and effort voting are the people who *should* be deciding who runs the country. The people who read the tabloids once per week and vote based on whatever the owner of the tabloids has manipulated them into believing drown out the well informed choices (be they left, right or center).
No, he meant Nuclear arsenal. Those scientists with those theories are not taken seriously within the geological community.
Think careful about earthquakes : they are the build up and release of energy many MANY orders of magnitude greater than the largest atomic bomb, and they happen..... right between the joins of tectonic plates.
This alone should be enough to show that having a nuclear explosion in the crust affect the core or the tectonic is a ludicrous idea, but then consider that below the crust much of the material has properties and behaviours that more closely approximately liquids than solids - and that the impact of an explosion or otherwise would dissipate in many directions, rather than focusing in one.
Someone who is not motivated enough to take an hour or so to travel to their local voting booth and vote does not care or know enough about the issues involved to make an informed and sensible choice.
Having 90% of the population vote when only 40% of the population researches, interrogates and cares only means you'll have 50% of pseudo random "noise" votes drowning out the informed, important votes.
You are however allowed to use physical force to stop someone who is currently attempting to key your car...
I understand where you're coming from, but let's take an analogy : in any other walk of life, if you are attacked you are allowed to take reasonable actions to defend yourself.
If someone comes at you and other people in the street with a knife, you are allowed to wrestle the knife from him. Things such as punching him, pinning him or even breaking his arm might be viewed as perfectly reasonable by a judge - in order to prevent harm.
In the same vein, we're talking about disarming the offensive person (host) without causing any collateral damage... So why might this not be considered legal by an enlightened society?
No, it is not.
Not at all - see, RFID tags work by responding to a transmission. You would have to have a transmitter close by a military base constantly transmitting. How long do you think that will last?
It's very clear that you don't deal with users in the real world.
Clicking a "yes/no" responce to "would you like to disable x" may get most users clicking it. Sending them an email with those contents will result in less than 10% of them following the instructions, and at least 20% calling technical support asking "WTF"?
Life isn't full of people who know what a "command prompt" is. Hell, most users don't know what a "command" is nor what a "prompt" is FFS. Stop spouting off pretending you know how to administer a network full of inexperienced users - AOL having been doing it for years, and their ideas are a damn sight better than yours.
Microsoft have more millionaire secretaries and millionaire-ex secrataries than most companies have employees.
Are they all morons?
You claim growing continuously is not possible, but we have not established boundaries for the use of the word "continuous" in this context. You claim it is DE FACTO impossible - which is true if we take "continuous" to describe its intended growth INFINITELY.
On the other hand if we talk about continuous as in five years, or ten years, fifty or even a thousand years it is very possible that the company will grow continuously for one or more of these periods.
Stock options are not all worthless, however they are something one should scrutinise before committing to.
You can do, but in the USA, the company responsible for the EULA can take you to court for doing so. If you cannot afford a good enough lawyer to make a convincing argument that the EULA should not be valid, you will lose an enormous amount of money. In the event that you do hire a good enough lawyer, you will only lose a large amount of money.
This is an enormous, and rapidly growing, problem in the USA. Many other countries have employed a policy of "plaintiff pays" the legal fees, should they lose the suit - but in the USA one must initiate yet more costly action (I believe you call it a SLAPP suit?) in order to obtain these fees, and such suits are rarely succesful.
In the UK for example, our government offers "Legal Aid" - a scheme by which people can get free or reduced cost legal help for fighting cases. This greatly reduces the disincentive to fight that an ordinary (non supported) court battle would have, which in turn reduces the incentive for companies to sue individuals with cases that are not strong.
The end result is that in the UK there are very very few frivolous or weak lawsuits brought about against individuals, lower costs for everyone, and a fairer system for society.
Does anyone know why the US does not have a system for aiding people in legal battles, and why when a motion in court is found to not be enforcable in law, does the person who brought the suit (and therefore a large monetary cost) to someone erroneously, does not have to pay?
Congratulations on taking a stance, did you consider informing the authorities and the clients of your company?
If you're in the US (and many states in Europe) there are "Whistle Blower" laws that protect you from recriminations by the company, and often financial incentives too.
Cost of SatNav in car in the UK : Approx. 1500 / car
Cost of increased number of accidents due to drivers concentrating on SatNav at speed : Unkown
Amount of roads that can be built for (number of cars * 1500) : More roads than god.
I don't deny that everyone having SatNav would help, but so would computer controlled driving (in a much bigger way). The problem in the UK is that less than 30% of the taxes collected from motoring related taxes are put back into the roads, causing congestion. The welfare state takes most of the rest.
Indeed. I'm a UK citizen, so I don't know which dept. of the US government is responsible for enforcing fraud cases like this, but would it be possible for someone to call SCOs "hotline" and say they are ready to pay for, say 16 processors worth of SCO Source licenses, and can SCO please send out the invoice for 16 units to "Blah Blah Fictitious Company, The Address Of The US Fraud Office, US".
That way, their greed for 10,000 dollars might get the best of them, and get your fraud office a fraudulent invoice?
The reason they have to do it is not just because there might be court action, but mainly because of the nature of court action in the USA, thanks to the policies of the federal government.
Saying something out of line, particularly something about the government, doesn't just mean a fine of a few weeks wages or any other reasonable punishment. Laws enacted already, and laws soon to be enacted make these offences punishable much more harshly, and the resources the government has to throw at trial lawyers mean you will very likely be convicted unless you have a great amount of cash to defend yourself.
I realise how my original post may have looked like a troll, however my point was this:
Academics should be free to speak their minds, as should everyone. If there is a problem because some person made a claim that was not true it should be remedied fairly - most people do not have a reasonable expectation that crossing the government (or big business for that matter, many cannot see the disctinction) would be remedied fairly.
If you are willing to wait long enough, history repeats itself.
Now, the citizens of the USA (academics at that) are having to resort to using the tactics of the underground to disseminate information about the conduct, actions and transgressions of their government for fear of persecution.
There was a time when people respected the US for its stance on individual rights, freedoms and the ideals of America.
While not a direct, damning criticism, one of the HUGE indicators of a state entering into an oppressive regime is when academics are not valued, and when academics are not free to openly discuss, read and disseminate ideas.
This has already happened in the US... is this an indicator of what is to come, or just an anomaly?
I disagree, people should place value on whatever they perceive to be valuable - "experts" in a field should not be allowed to decide for end users what is and is not "valuable".
While I'm all for caring people, and prevention of ABUSE, this kind of interefering can be annoying. To cite the examples you gave:
What if you *did* trip in the store, but were carrying your child, and landed on her, injuring her head so severely she died?
What if by driving off you pulled out onto the road at the end of the row of cars, you placed your daughter in the rear-right of your car in the direct line of a speeding driver not watching the road?
What if someone car-jacks you when you drive off with your kid in the back?
There are dozens of possible examples and counter-examples we could offer here, however I don't feel going back inside to pickup a bag leaving a child in the back seat of the car is bad parenting, and it's certainly not particularly dangerous.
Obviously this is a very harsh punishment, however it is also very effective. There are no costs to society for jailed thieves, and levels or robbery and similar crimes are almost ZERO in countries which employ such punishments.
It is not something I wish to see in my country, but your post appears to write it off as instantly wrong, but it's a very subjective area. Is the loss of hands to thieves really worth the incredible cost to society of thievery and robbery? I say it's not a clear cut issue.
It's different in that a gambler not paying his money on time has not broken a law, he merely has a debt. It's different in that destroying a possession of someone is quite, quite different to inflicting a crippling injury. It's different in that the man posting is the parent of the child, and has a duty to bring his child up morally and ethically, and is carrying out actions to do so, rather than in an attempt to scare someone into giving him money.
It's different in so many fundamental and critical ways that I hope *you* don't own any guns. Your twisted view of reality, and strange analogies could well turn you into a statistic.
I can't believe the parent got modded up
When I was a child, if I used a toy for something it shouldn't have been used for (example, firing a spud gun at other kids) my mother would take it away and BIN it, just like this man did to his sons iBook. It seemed harsh at the time, but I cannot deny that it was also fair.