You could get a significantly better cup of coffee for less money from your local roastery, not have to deal with Starbucks lines, and support local industry as well. These seem like compelling enough arguments against Starbucks to me.
The smoking ban in Edmonton is worded essentially the same way, but is not enforced as such. Unless someone complains loud enough, you will not get a ticket for smoking a cigarette within 10ft of a pub entrance. As far as the authorities tend to be concerned, you will only get in trouble for actually smoking inside.
If you don't want to eat food stored in lead tins, don't eat them. If most people in New York cared enough to choose not to eat them, most restaurants would not use them.
Or maybe, since there is no rational motivation for anyone to want to eat food stored in lead tins, we could just ban it outrights and save everyone a lot of trouble? Transfats have no nutritional value and do not actually taste very good. They are essentially a mildly toxic preservative, something that is fully reasonable for the government to remove in the public interest.
This is an excellent point. Many of the arguments here are suggesting that one turn of the law simply restricts freedoms, while the other does not, and this is false; when the interests of two groups come into conflict, they restrict each others' freedoms. The law in this case must strike an appropriate balance that ensures the greatest possible amount of freedom for each group. This is simply the sort of necessary compromise that every society must make every day.
I smoke, and I miss being able to smoke inside at bars, but honestly, stepping outside to have a cigarette is not so bad at all. In fact, it's become its own sort of social niche, and it gets you outside if the crowd's causing a headache, and it gives you quieter time to flirt with person you're after, and it gives you time to step around the corner and have a joint, etc. In the end, were my freedoms restricted somewhat by indoor smoking being banned? Yes, a little. Were the freedoms of another group significantly increased? No, not really. But no significant harm was caused to either group and I don't think there was a particular loss of freedom on either side. And I kind of like going outside to smoke now.
I am a little stunned that this got modded up at all.
1) what they do in Iran has no bearing on what is right and wrong in America. Civil rights abuses overseas doesn't mean we can respond with similar civil rights abuses.
2) bad things will happen to you if you wave a gun around in front of a police officer because a gun is a dangerous weapon.
3) the police do not have the authority to taser people for 'being a dick,' no more than they have the authority to beat people for being rude or shoot people for being ugly. Are you honestly suggesting that the laws be amended for a Taser All Dicks clause? Do you honestly think that is a good idea?
Slashdotters are eventually going to have to face this reality. There is more proof of effect caused by video games in children than there is in global warming and it is time we stop believing in the science that supports the things we like and not in the science that doesn't.
That's fucking bullshit and you know it. mod: flamebait.
I would consider Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to be a very biting and on-point piece of social satire. The fact that the medium - gameplay - is entertaining doesn't make it less artful.
It's actually a very good analogy, as violent pornography doesn't make people want to kill, either. As such, the errors in reasoning parallel each other just fine.
The disconnect is of course that having guns would make it easier for you to kill someone if you would like to. Owning violent pornography doesn't make it easier to commit a murder. Banning violent pornography, however, might make it easier for you to get elected.
Keep your mp3s on a separate hard drive. Minimize references to this hard drive by the rest of your OS. Keep a tiny folder of legal music or video as red herring on your main drive.
Shit, I think I may have just violated some acts here.
We don't observe simple species turning into more and more complex species, so we explain that lack of observation by saying that this occurs over vast stretches of time, and is therefore inobservable.
We do and have observed it through fossil records, as well as populations which have changed within recorded human history.
Is always 100% fatal to the fetus. A fetus is not a baby; a fetus isn't even a human being. It's a slurry of cells that has the potential to produce a human being, but that doesn't give it any more rights than a fungus - or shouldn't, depending on where you live.
Kant would say that it's wrong to treat people as mere objects. If you believe that a fetus is a person, and you follow Kant's reasoning, you would consider it wrong to treat a fetus as a mere object, even if it's destined for a futile death.
These kids ran a tracker service that allowed you to see which users had clicked through your profile. It wasn't an original idea; the first implementation was through another service called spyspace, which a member of the Philadelphia-based, music-oriented forum at board.crewcial.org (the current form of the predecessor communites of pr.n and pf.c) had coded up and provided free of charge to his peers. One or more of them abused the service and sold accounts on eBay, at which point the MySpacePlus programmers caught wind of the concept and decided to code their own.
The original Spyspace service took everything from cookies, and allowed you to view the profile, access time, IP address, and - if they were using Internet Explorer, the contents of their clipboard (!!!). Out of privacy concerns Spyspace's coder removed the clipboard function fairly quickly. MySpace was aware of the service's existence and patched most of the holes that allowed it to work, although the Spyspace code was simply altered to read data in different ways and stayed up. Eventually, too many accounts had been sold to people outside of the community and the coder did not wish to be associated with the project any longer, and terminated the service.
This was about the same time as MySpacePlus, the service created by the arrested pair, was taking off. They did not seem to possess the same coding talents as Spyspace's creator and were not able to create the same workarounds, so the quality of their service degraded as Myspace's security improved. There were always concerns about the security of their service, as well - the coder of Spyspace apparently examined their service and noted that they collected personal data of their users, such as Myspace logins and passwords, that Spyspace did not.
At any rate, either the pair discovered a new vulnerability that was not marketable in the same way the tracker services were, or they were simply bluffing. I think an important note is this: if they had instead said, "we have discovered a vulnerability in your product and will sell you the details for $150k," they would still be prosecutable under American law. In fact, it is entirely possible that this is exactly what they said. Is this a just law at all? Consider that Fox would have had a concrete choice - attempt to figure out the flaw themselves and risk a loss of credibility, or buy the data. The loss of credibility is in any rate not a result of the teenagers' actions, but of Fox's own flawed code! The way that TFA is written is clearly in judgement against the pair already, but without specific details the degree of actual extortion here is suspect.
The many comments here and elsewhere on the internet suggesting these pair should be raped in prison are reprehensible. What's wrong with you people?
Shake a box of Lego long enough and some pieces will stick together. Congratulations, you have just created complexity without resorting to greater complexity. All that is needed to create complexity is randomness, and as it turns out, some forms of complexity clump together and become more progressively complex. At least, that's the basic idea behind the evolutionary hypothesis.
Along those lines, there is no need to posit an intelligent designer for the physical laws of the universe. Consider that those laws could come in any configuration. Now consider that if they were in any other configuration, we would not exist. Obviously any universe that we inhabit must have properties that permit us to inhabit it. So again, seemingly irreducible complexity can be reduced to the outcome of random chance.
You've got the scientific method backwards. 'Evolutionists' can't prove evolution any more than 'Creationists' can prove Creation. Evolution, however, is a valid hypothesis because it is disprovable. Creationism is not disprovable, therefore it is not a scientific hypothesis. That's all there is to it.
You mean disprovable. No theory (outside of closed, axiomatic systems) can be flat-out proven. The scientific method rests on making hypotheses that can be disproven.
You're on the right track, though. Matters of faith can't be reasonably disproven, and as such they're not proper scientific hypotheses.
1. Look up a band I like on AMG / talk about it on a music forum / chat with one of the guys down at the record store about it
2. Look up bands I heard about from (1) on Soulseek
3. Listen to music I 'stole' during (2)
4. Buy vinyl with music I enjoyed during (3)
5. Goto (1)
Don't be like me. Enjoying music will destroy the industry. Piracy is the greatest threat to free thought in all of the entire universe. And don't get me started about checking out live acts in your town or city: if you were to buy a record on the basis of a good live show, you'd drive thousands of innocent artists into the merciless streets. Honest.
I know at least a dozen bands just in my hometown who have gone and done nearly everything you've mentioned there. The only thing that record companies provide that the musicians themselves could not is huge heaping piles of expensive advertisement.
Coincidentally, file-sharing provides huge heaping piles of word-of-mouth advertising. For free.
So yes, file-sharing does pose a grave threat to these corporations, and it does so because it obviates their entire business model. Tell it to horse-carriage manufacturers.
Piracy may discourage sales, but I would not be so bold as to flatly apply that to all cases.
My tastes are not met by the media in my area and I download a lot of music. I'm not in any way being forced to download music, but I enjoy good art. While not hardly a proof, I will say that before I began downloading music, I spend next to no money on it. Now that I am a 'pirate', I spend most of my disposable income and certainly beyond my means on music.
In my specific case, piracy encourages sales. From where I'm standing, it doesn't look like I'm the one exception to the rule.
Slashdot Mirror
You could get a significantly better cup of coffee for less money from your local roastery, not have to deal with Starbucks lines, and support local industry as well. These seem like compelling enough arguments against Starbucks to me.
It's hardly the only way. How about taking your children to church?
The smoking ban in Edmonton is worded essentially the same way, but is not enforced as such. Unless someone complains loud enough, you will not get a ticket for smoking a cigarette within 10ft of a pub entrance. As far as the authorities tend to be concerned, you will only get in trouble for actually smoking inside.
If you don't want to eat food stored in lead tins, don't eat them. If most people in New York cared enough to choose not to eat them, most restaurants would not use them.
Or maybe, since there is no rational motivation for anyone to want to eat food stored in lead tins, we could just ban it outrights and save everyone a lot of trouble? Transfats have no nutritional value and do not actually taste very good. They are essentially a mildly toxic preservative, something that is fully reasonable for the government to remove in the public interest.
This is an excellent point. Many of the arguments here are suggesting that one turn of the law simply restricts freedoms, while the other does not, and this is false; when the interests of two groups come into conflict, they restrict each others' freedoms. The law in this case must strike an appropriate balance that ensures the greatest possible amount of freedom for each group. This is simply the sort of necessary compromise that every society must make every day.
I smoke, and I miss being able to smoke inside at bars, but honestly, stepping outside to have a cigarette is not so bad at all. In fact, it's become its own sort of social niche, and it gets you outside if the crowd's causing a headache, and it gives you quieter time to flirt with person you're after, and it gives you time to step around the corner and have a joint, etc. In the end, were my freedoms restricted somewhat by indoor smoking being banned? Yes, a little. Were the freedoms of another group significantly increased? No, not really. But no significant harm was caused to either group and I don't think there was a particular loss of freedom on either side. And I kind of like going outside to smoke now.
But to make it work, you have to discard all shampoo bottles over 150ml. And place the rock in your anus.
I am a little stunned that this got modded up at all.
1) what they do in Iran has no bearing on what is right and wrong in America. Civil rights abuses overseas doesn't mean we can respond with similar civil rights abuses.
2) bad things will happen to you if you wave a gun around in front of a police officer because a gun is a dangerous weapon.
3) the police do not have the authority to taser people for 'being a dick,' no more than they have the authority to beat people for being rude or shoot people for being ugly. Are you honestly suggesting that the laws be amended for a Taser All Dicks clause? Do you honestly think that is a good idea?
Slashdotters are eventually going to have to face this reality. There is more proof of effect caused by video games in children than there is in global warming and it is time we stop believing in the science that supports the things we like and not in the science that doesn't.
That's fucking bullshit and you know it. mod: flamebait.
I want to see David Cross play 'sassy marine voiced by David Cross.'
Master Chief can just keep his helmet on and let his plucky, sarcastic, pessimistic bald marine sidekick do all the emoting.
But it comes from garbage!
But it's made out of garbage.
I would consider Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to be a very biting and on-point piece of social satire. The fact that the medium - gameplay - is entertaining doesn't make it less artful.
It's actually a very good analogy, as violent pornography doesn't make people want to kill, either. As such, the errors in reasoning parallel each other just fine.
The disconnect is of course that having guns would make it easier for you to kill someone if you would like to. Owning violent pornography doesn't make it easier to commit a murder. Banning violent pornography, however, might make it easier for you to get elected.
I tried, but I think my message got stuck in the tubes somewhere.
Keep your mp3s on a separate hard drive. Minimize references to this hard drive by the rest of your OS. Keep a tiny folder of legal music or video as red herring on your main drive.
Shit, I think I may have just violated some acts here.
We don't observe simple species turning into more and more complex species, so we explain that lack of observation by saying that this occurs over vast stretches of time, and is therefore inobservable.
We do and have observed it through fossil records, as well as populations which have changed within recorded human history.
Is always 100% fatal to the fetus. A fetus is not a baby; a fetus isn't even a human being. It's a slurry of cells that has the potential to produce a human being, but that doesn't give it any more rights than a fungus - or shouldn't, depending on where you live.
Kant would say that it's wrong to treat people as mere objects. If you believe that a fetus is a person, and you follow Kant's reasoning, you would consider it wrong to treat a fetus as a mere object, even if it's destined for a futile death.
</devilsadvocate>
ie, do some fucking research.
These kids ran a tracker service that allowed you to see which users had clicked through your profile. It wasn't an original idea; the first implementation was through another service called spyspace, which a member of the Philadelphia-based, music-oriented forum at board.crewcial.org (the current form of the predecessor communites of pr.n and pf.c) had coded up and provided free of charge to his peers. One or more of them abused the service and sold accounts on eBay, at which point the MySpacePlus programmers caught wind of the concept and decided to code their own.
The original Spyspace service took everything from cookies, and allowed you to view the profile, access time, IP address, and - if they were using Internet Explorer, the contents of their clipboard (!!!). Out of privacy concerns Spyspace's coder removed the clipboard function fairly quickly. MySpace was aware of the service's existence and patched most of the holes that allowed it to work, although the Spyspace code was simply altered to read data in different ways and stayed up. Eventually, too many accounts had been sold to people outside of the community and the coder did not wish to be associated with the project any longer, and terminated the service.
This was about the same time as MySpacePlus, the service created by the arrested pair, was taking off. They did not seem to possess the same coding talents as Spyspace's creator and were not able to create the same workarounds, so the quality of their service degraded as Myspace's security improved. There were always concerns about the security of their service, as well - the coder of Spyspace apparently examined their service and noted that they collected personal data of their users, such as Myspace logins and passwords, that Spyspace did not.
At any rate, either the pair discovered a new vulnerability that was not marketable in the same way the tracker services were, or they were simply bluffing. I think an important note is this: if they had instead said, "we have discovered a vulnerability in your product and will sell you the details for $150k," they would still be prosecutable under American law. In fact, it is entirely possible that this is exactly what they said. Is this a just law at all? Consider that Fox would have had a concrete choice - attempt to figure out the flaw themselves and risk a loss of credibility, or buy the data. The loss of credibility is in any rate not a result of the teenagers' actions, but of Fox's own flawed code! The way that TFA is written is clearly in judgement against the pair already, but without specific details the degree of actual extortion here is suspect.
The many comments here and elsewhere on the internet suggesting these pair should be raped in prison are reprehensible. What's wrong with you people?
Shake a box of Lego long enough and some pieces will stick together. Congratulations, you have just created complexity without resorting to greater complexity. All that is needed to create complexity is randomness, and as it turns out, some forms of complexity clump together and become more progressively complex. At least, that's the basic idea behind the evolutionary hypothesis.
Along those lines, there is no need to posit an intelligent designer for the physical laws of the universe. Consider that those laws could come in any configuration. Now consider that if they were in any other configuration, we would not exist. Obviously any universe that we inhabit must have properties that permit us to inhabit it. So again, seemingly irreducible complexity can be reduced to the outcome of random chance.
You've got the scientific method backwards. 'Evolutionists' can't prove evolution any more than 'Creationists' can prove Creation. Evolution, however, is a valid hypothesis because it is disprovable. Creationism is not disprovable, therefore it is not a scientific hypothesis. That's all there is to it.
You mean disprovable. No theory (outside of closed, axiomatic systems) can be flat-out proven. The scientific method rests on making hypotheses that can be disproven.
You're on the right track, though. Matters of faith can't be reasonably disproven, and as such they're not proper scientific hypotheses.
1. Look up a band I like on AMG / talk about it on a music forum / chat with one of the guys down at the record store about it
2. Look up bands I heard about from (1) on Soulseek
3. Listen to music I 'stole' during (2)
4. Buy vinyl with music I enjoyed during (3)
5. Goto (1)
Don't be like me. Enjoying music will destroy the industry. Piracy is the greatest threat to free thought in all of the entire universe. And don't get me started about checking out live acts in your town or city: if you were to buy a record on the basis of a good live show, you'd drive thousands of innocent artists into the merciless streets. Honest.
One man's well-advertised garbage is another ignorant man's treasure.
I know at least a dozen bands just in my hometown who have gone and done nearly everything you've mentioned there. The only thing that record companies provide that the musicians themselves could not is huge heaping piles of expensive advertisement.
Coincidentally, file-sharing provides huge heaping piles of word-of-mouth advertising. For free.
So yes, file-sharing does pose a grave threat to these corporations, and it does so because it obviates their entire business model. Tell it to horse-carriage manufacturers.
Piracy may discourage sales, but I would not be so bold as to flatly apply that to all cases.
My tastes are not met by the media in my area and I download a lot of music. I'm not in any way being forced to download music, but I enjoy good art. While not hardly a proof, I will say that before I began downloading music, I spend next to no money on it. Now that I am a 'pirate', I spend most of my disposable income and certainly beyond my means on music.
In my specific case, piracy encourages sales. From where I'm standing, it doesn't look like I'm the one exception to the rule.