So if I understand you correctly, you're saying the USA PATRIOT act isn't all bad, that there are some babies in it that shouldn't be thrown out with the collective bathwater?
If that's the case, then I agree with you in principle. Information sharing in this case is most likely a good thing, provided that the information was gathered ethically and legally in the first place. Sadly, while the current gang of idiots is running things, that cannot be assured, and therefore IMHO the whole thing should be scrapped in favor of a new act that explicitly defines what kinds of information can be shared and how said information should be acquired.
What needs to be remembered here is that with every erosion of our civil rights, those who would seek to destroy our way of life through acts of terror realize a victory without ever 'firing a shot', so to speak. Privacy, while perhaps not explicitly laid out in the Constitution (and that's debatable under some interpretations of the Fourth Amendment) should be protected in the name of Americans who have fought, bled, and died to ensure our rights (not to mention the civilians caught in the crossfire, both domestically and abroad).
Fuck Web 2.0, IT departments are slow to move on any project except those that somehow benefit IT itself.
Nothing else benefits IT, so of course they're looking out for themselves. It almost seems like there's a course in business school now called "Never Give IT Anything To Work With." 1/3 staffing levels, ancient tech, constant micromanagement by non-technical departments, it goes on and on.
We have an extraordinarily difficult time getting IT to update broken links on our website (we used to have access via the shitty CMS they were running but they now took that away too) nevermind solutions such as chat, online appointment scheduling, or additional databases to store information captured from web forms.
Isn't it just possible that your IT is so busy covering up for the idiot users' mistakes that they don't have time to do anything useful? It's hard to get time to update a web site when the CEO has to have his bridge program on his laptop RIGHT FUCKING NOW, or when Marketing is trying to get you to do their research for them, or when the Vice President Of Things That Begin With H On Alternate Tuesdays has hosed his registry for the tenth time, despite ludicrous amounts of coaching (compounded by the fact that he absolutely HAS TO HAVE admin rights on his desktop, or the world would end.)
We have had to go to third party outfits that specialize in hosting their own web application solutions and paying them yearly sums of money to do for us what IT will not. Not a single department has a decent relationship with IT at any of the last few places I have worked (especially the current) and we're all wasting money because of it.
Have you tried using that money to bring staffing levels in IT up to sane levels? Or investing in more infrastructure? How about not treating IT like a red-headed stepchild and appreciating the fact that your business is DEAD without your computers? No? Not shocked.
It's really not that difficult a concept. Has anyone tried saying "please" and "thank you" to any of these folks? Or tried to find out what they do with their time? I'd bet you a paycheck that they're so busy putting out fires that idiot users or executives (but I repeat myself) are setting that they don't have TIME to do anything else. If you treat IT half as badly as it sounds, I think you're lucky they haven't dragged you from your car yet.
And I believe that little green men from Mars danced the Watusi on my dining room table. Doesn't make it any more true.
Many of us believe God did come into many people's living rooms, embraced them (I think this was more culturally appropriate than shaking hands at the time, if I'm not mistaken), talked with them, ate with them, wept with them, etc.
Substitute any other being or concept for "God" in that sentence, and most people would be looking for the men in the white coats. (Look up the Flying Spaghetti Monster on wikipedia. Absurd, right? Then look at organized Christianity objectively, if you're able to. Guy that got nailed to a tree came back to life three days later. Water turning into wine. Seas parting in physically impossible ways. Men who lived 800 years. Silly, really.)
Please get in touch with the concept called "reality". There was no physical presence in that room. I'm assuming there were no recordings of said conversations or the meal that they shared.
I'm sorry, believe what you want, but don't confuse it with reality. Reality is what you can see, touch, taste, hear, and smell. Faith requires none of those things, but believing in something doesn't make it so. GOD IS NOT REAL.
If your life is made complete by talking to your imaginary friends, go on with your bad self. My life is made more complete by thinking you're a looney.
Nor can it be proven. Until such time as the big guy walks into my living room and shakes my hand, I'll be skeptical, thank you very much.
Oh, and news flash:
#1 there's no 'distasteful' moderation, #2 not everyone agrees with you (matter of fact, some people regard mainstream religion as highly offensive and insulting), #3 just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean they're 'wrong'.
You have faith in "God". The parent poster has faith in what he/she can scientifically determine. Neither is wrong nor right. I apologize if you're uncomfortable with that much gray, but that's life.
There you go, bringing reality into the argument then.
Don't you know that hundreds of acts of fatal violence are fine, but ONE NIPPLE will drive us over the edge into anarchy? WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!?
After all, it's much more important to deprive your child of any shred of privacy, attempt to micromanage their thoughts without teaching them to think for themselves, and ignore any actual conversation with them. It's much easier to have TV raise them; the technology is there, we should use it!
Isn't it wonderful to live in an age where we don't have to waste any time on parenting; we can spend it all on protesting two consenting adults having sex on a computer screen!
But using it for torrents is not a good use because it affects more than just yourself, so much so that the people who support it ask you not to do so.
And the fact that it affects more than just me is what the problem is, not what I'm doing with it. Don't get all indignant with me because I'm standing up for the fact that I see privacy as a RIGHT, not a privilege. Are you telling me that I don't have a right to keep what I'm downloading confidential, because some assholes think that if I'm protecting my privacy I must be doing something wrong?
You bet I'm offended. And we're not just talking about the CONTENT of what I'm downloading; maybe I don't want the powers that be to know about the conversation at all. TOR obfuscates more than content, it obfuscates paths of communication as well. The government doesn't need a warrant to know who you're contacting on the Internet, it only needs one to determine what the CONTENT of that conversation is (and lately, they don't even need that, since the evidence they collect will never be used in court, and therefore its inadmissibility is moot.) It's MY business and none of theirs, or of yours.
You're probably thinking "So what, you're buying towels or downloading Ubuntu, what do you care if someone knows?" Maybe I don't want them to know. Sure, it's arbitrary, but it's a very slippery slope to start with "Oh it's ok if someone knows I'm doing x or y, what's the problem?" The problem is, you've given up a right and set a precedent; a precedent that erodes everyone ELSE'S rights. And THAT, more than my downloading Ubuntu via TOR, is what causes the damage.
Mind you, it confirms that you are downloading something illegal, because otherwise you would simply use Torrent as it is muchfaster than going via Tor.
Bullshit. Using TOR is not an admission of illegal behavior. TOR has plenty of legal uses, to the point that the FBI and other federal investigative agencies use it on a daily basis. I actually ran into the TOR guys at a conference at Harvard, and asked them about how much abuse they must get from less enlightened members of the LEO community. They told me that they and law enforcement have a civil, even productive, relationship.
Personally, maybe I just don't want people to know that I'm shopping for towels online (or, for that matter, downloading Ubuntu). Maybe I don't think it's anyone's business. Maybe I believe in an ABSOLUTE right to privacy. There's nothing illegal about trying to ensure your own privacy using technology. It sounds to me like you're the kind of person that would like to see hammers outlawed because you MIGHT use one to kill somebody.
Seriously, they make a lot of revenue from their ATM business; banks can afford to pay handsomely for them, since #1) they're banks and have lots of money (mostly ours), and #2) ATMs generate revenue for them (that $2 you pay a competitor's bank when you use your ATM.)
The voting machines, on the other hand, make very little money for them, since towns, counties, states, etc generally don't have enough money to make the voting machines profitable when they're sold. So there's two things going on: Diebold cuts the prices on voting machines in order to get government to use them, and they also don't feel they need to commit the resources to a product that isn't profitable. Best of both worlds here; they get their machines into the field so the can manipulate the results the way they want, and generate such a crap product that nobody will notice the difference between "accidental" erroneous results due to shitty machines/programming and deliberate manipulation.
If it sounds like I think it's a certainty that Diebold is guilty of conspiracy to commit election fraud, it's because I do. The only question is to what degree.
It's already too late for much of Europe -- it's not yet too late for you.
Yes it is. The private companies that control our communications networks not only give the government whatever information it wants, they own a significant chunk of said government. All you have to do to stop any objection to $egregiousInvasionOfPrivacy is say the word "terrorism" and suddenly you don't have any opposition anymore. Osama bin Laden is the biggest and most useful bogeyman the US government has had in years. Why do you think we don't have him in custody? As long as this nebulous threat is out there, the G can do pretty much whatever the fuck it wants. Hell, they could probably justify monitoring cameras on every street corner if they wanted to.
Think about it. Our president, who we didn't elect (twice!) has done more to erode our global standing than any before him, has spent untold billions of dollars on a war that nobody (except big oil) wants (which has put us so far into debt that my great-grandchildren will likely still be paying it off), has manipulated the justice system and twisted the Constitution to his own needs, has repeatedly declared himself above the law (to the point where his Vice President claims he's not even part of the Executive branch), and has had top aides resign under clouds of corruption, STILL has an approval rating of 30% or so. (And that's just the stuff we know about. $deity knows what other nefarious and reprehensible schemes he's involved with that would get any reporter "accidentally" killed if he/she got wind of them.) Seriously, a THIRD of the country thinks he's doing a good job. (That has to be more than just the executives at big companies who basically run the government. The top 1% of the richest people in the USA control 20% of the economy; who are the other 29%?)
As long as we have Americans, our privacy is history. We're that fucking stupid.
Problem is, after "business hours", most laptops are shut off/in standby. It's hard to back up a machine that's not powered up.
On a related note, any backup solution that you implement for laptops MUST MUST MUST not be cancellable by the user. Sure, you can set things up for after hours work to minimize any loss of productivity, but if that user shuts off their laptop at 6 pm and doesn't power it up again until 9 the next day, when exactly should the backup run? It'll have to run during business hours, and some slowdown is inevitable (but can be minimized). If a user is sophisticated enough to end a process in Task Manager, he/she needs to be protected from themselves for the good of the organization.
I once had a support contract that included maintaining a Retrospect server to back up all the Macs in the organization (educational institution). We had an overpromoted PHB CTO who would not do ANYTHING to change his behavior regarding backups. In those days broadband was not widely available, and WiFi had ever even been heard of; a 128k ISDN line was the most anyone had. This required that the laptop be on the network long enough to complete the backup. Time and time again, he would be educated regarding the need for the laptop to be on the network and powered up long enough for the backup to happen, but would not listen; he received warnings on the laptop regarding backup status as being incomplete, and completely disregarded them. He insisted that doing so would inconvenience him, and as we all know, this is a disaster on par with a 8.5 level earthquake. We also tried the USB-drive-at-home approach, but we all knew for a fact that he would NEVER use it, as again, it represented an inconvenience. To top it all off, he was EXTREMELY hard on his laptop, to the point where after 8 or 9 months it was beaten up (physically) to the point of no longer functioning. Seriously, it looked like someone had run over it with a truck. Five times. Needless to say, data loss was a near certainty, but his attitude was that it was our problem, not his, and we needed to figure out something else (despite the fact that it was very nearly impossible). Of course, should he lose things on his laptop, it was completely OUR fault, and frequently his drives would be sent to recovery to the tune of thousands of taxpayer dollars.
I wish you luck with trying to back up these laptops. Hopefully you will not have anyone to support like that dipshit. The ubiquity of broadband should make your life a lot easier.
Or you could live in a state (like mine) where there isn't a legal limit for DUI, the state just has to prove that you were "impaired". I sat on a DUI jury a few years ago and we convicted a guy of DUI after drinking 2 beers in 15 minutes. I even sent a question to the judge about legal limits and was admonished lightly for asking questions outside the scope of evidence.
I really wish you were the rule rather than the exception. How have your customers reacted? (both the ones getting tossed and the others)? Do you toss out families with unruly children?
I was looking for the right comment to reply to on this, because I have a solution to the problem.
Ahem.
Mr. Theater Manager, MAKE GOING TO THE THEATER A LESS FUCKING MISERABLE EXPERIENCE.
I wouldn't have a problem paying $7.50 for a ticket if the following problems were corrected:
1) Throw people out who refuse to sit quietly in the theater. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in front of or right behind someone carrying on a conversation with the people next to them like they're the only ones within earshot. This also includes children and their families. If the child isn't old enough to sit quietly for the running time of the movie, then they need to not be there out of respect for the other paying customers. One rambunctious child shouldn't ruin the experience for 200+ other paying customers. Politely explain the "shut the fuck up" rule, and refund their money.
2) I will pay a premium to NOT be subjected to advertising. The slide show before the trailers start is one thing (at the very least it gives me something to look at while I'm waiting, and I don't mind that so much). But paying for the privilege of seeing advertising has never been acceptable, and I'm amazed that you've been able to get away with it for so long. HBO doesn't carry advertising; coincidence?
3) Clean the fucking theater. I'm sure one of your minimum wage PFYs can be taught to run a mop.
4) Invest in a better presentation for the film. This includes monitoring prints for damage, maintaining sound equipment, fixing damaged screens, and fixing HVAC issues (too hot/cold/dank etc.) Less painful (I was going to say "more comfortable" but "less painful" seems more appropriate) seating would help as well; stadium seating is A Good Thing.
5) Check IDs at the ticket window for R rated films. (I frequent a premium cinema near my home that is 21+ for all shows.)
The aforementioned premium cinema costs significantly more ($12.50 - $15 a ticket depending on time) but it is worth the extra expense. For that, you get leather seating, two of your OWN armrests, a tray table in front of you, UNLIMITED popcorn, and a full cash bar in the lobby, which serves drinks you can bring into the theater with you. It's also 21+, has THX specification projection and sound, and generally only carries movies that can benefit from the improved experience (movies like Cheaper By The Dozen 2 won't make it in there.) That's pretty much the only place I'll go at this point, after being subjected to most of the problems I described above when I went to see Superman Returns.
The way to improve your bottom line is to improve your product, not try to demonize an extremely small percentage of your customers and piss off the rest by treating them like criminals. EVERYONE KNOWS that it's copyright infringement when they download a movie they haven't paid for. STOP INSULTING YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS.
In the specific case of TOR, I don't see how they can effectively ban the use of the technology. TOR nodes are all over the world, and getting the code from a foreign server where we have no jurisdiction is trivial. Worse comes to worst, we can have a buddy burn it to CD and mail it to us labeled "Vacation pictures".
We also can't ban encrypted content outright; that'd be the end of eCommerce as we know it, and Big Biz would never let the legislators they own take that action.
If someone can point out something I've missed, I'd be grateful for the information.
That perception needs to be fought against. I believe in an absolute right to privacy. If the government thinks I'm engaged in illegal activity, it can bloody well get a warrant and investigate. Until then, my web traffic is none of their business.
Incidentally, it was brought to my attention recently that the government doesn't need a warrant to know the sites you've visited; it only needs a warrant to determine the content of those communications. This goes back to a "pen register" precedent that was set decades ago regarding phone wiretaps.
How likely do you think it is that a child pornographer is going to get caught in a passive filter? If they were that easy to find they'd be shut down already.
Things like Freenet, TOR, and open anonymizing proxies make finding these people using filtering or other content-based examination technically impractical already. Sure, you might catch a careless one here or there, but the truth of the matter is child pornographers are probably the most sophisticated users of available privacy enhancing technology in existence. (Hmm, I better keep quiet about that. After all, clearly people who provide and/or sell this technology are supporting terrorism by not allowing the government to know that I'm going to Wikipedia to look up flower arranging.)
It's hard to filter something when it looks like "(*#U(*YkaJH(*&F()*&G(SER". (Clearly that's a naked 12 year old boy.)
If the legislators in question REALLY wanted to do something effective they'd allocate funds for more traditional investigatory agencies, like the FBI. Social engineering is how these people get caught; their pursuit of their perversion is ironically their greatest weakness, which can be exploited. But I'm assuming that Congress isn't a logic-free zone, and that they actually want to do something useful.
Hate to be the party pooper (I agree with you in principle, I used to use IceWM myself), but without the "eye candy" you don't have a desktop distribution. Period.
Not saying that a usable "pretty-print" interface for Linux isn't possible without an egregious slowdown, but there WILL be a slowdown, and that's all there is to it.
The problem IMHO isn't the inefficiency of the GUI under Linux, it's that desktop users insist on all the eye candy before they'll even THINK of trying to use it. They'd look at IceWM and want to know where the start menu is. Any words that you say other than "It doesn't have one because" are a waste of energy, it's dead in the water.
It is a sorry OS indeed. Sadly, that OS is installed on more than 90% of the world's desktops, so if you're a developer and you want your software to be used and/or sold, you're stuck on Windows.
Apps screw up the system all the time by hooking calls, inserting themselves in networking chains, or leaving cruft behind in the registry. When you're building an uninstaller, you have to make sure it grabs all this junk and leaves the system in a reasonable state, and that's where a VM has its usefullness; you can sit there and install/uninstall/debug/install/uninstall/debug all day long, and be SURE that you're starting with a clean slate each time.
The patent deal I doubt would cause any impact on sales - I mean, unless there are high powered idiots making decisions based on emotive overtones rather than on a factual basis.
You've just described every executive at every large company in the US. The executive washroom is a logic-free zone.
If anything it'll be due to the same issue it has always had, terrible marketing, terrible sales people, terrible communication with customers and developers. The lack a leader with charisma and charm that can not only win over customers but developers as well. Everyone of them so far have either been technocrats trying to run a software company like a consumer product company or a geek who completely lacks any idea of business sense, marketing knowledge or the ability to sell products to non-technically minded people.
That's its strength. It competes on its own, without the need for marketing bullshit. Think about it: this is a product that has made significant inroads on Microsoft's territory with no cohesive marketing message, no charismatic leader, only geeks trying to make good software for the good of the community. In the end the quality of the product is what should be important, not whose box is shinier.
Yeah, why let the facts get in the way of a good argument.
"Rates of current use of illicit drugs were higher for young adults aged 18 to 25 (20.1 percent) than for youths aged 12 to 17 and adults aged 26 or older,"
This has what to do with anything? All this means is that one age group is more likely than another to use drugs. It has nothing to do with what we're discussing.
"In the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 32% of State prisoners and 26% of Federal prisoners said they had committed their current offense while under the influence of drugs. "
Can you prove that the drugs made them do it? Can you prove that they wouldn't have committed the crimes were they not under the influence? Most importantly, did the fact that the drugs were illegal have anything to do with motivating them to break the law?
SO, the highest drug use rate is about 20%, and the rate of criminals who use drugs is 26% - 32%
You're not considering the percentage of the prison population which is incarcerated SOLEY on non-violent drug charges. If we're going to discount the illegality of drugs as germane to our discussion in terms of whether or not someone is 'law-abiding', then we need to talk about people who commit OTHER crimes while under the influence. 23.7% of all US prisoners are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses, mostly due to mandatory minimum sentencing. http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/poor/pp.html So if we take that percentage out of the equation, what does that do to your percentages? How many of that 26 to 32% committed no other crime than their drug offense? Your statistics are meaningless. You've taken two largely unrelated numbers and manipulated the comparison to back up your argument. You could just as easily say that (for example) 85% of all prisoners have brown hair, therefore brown hair predisposes you towards criminal behavior.
Sounds like people who use drugs are LESS law-abiding.
Yes, you certainly make it sound that way. You've got no proof of the matter, however, and your comparisons are specious.
I'm sure you'll continue to nit-pick those numbers, etc. Correlation =/= causation. Whatever. I'm done.
If by "nit-pick" you mean "point out how meaningless your use of statistics is", then yes, I will continue to "nit-pick".
Your dismissal of the concept of correlation not equaling causation means that all your arguments are meaningless. You're dismissing logic in favor of spinning the facts to suit your world view, and can't stand a rational argument. No wonder you're tired, all that spinning is hard work.
First you said you were NOT going to argue that druggies are MORE law abiding.
With you so far, although your use of the word "druggies" is unnecessary. It exposes your prejudice against people based on one small aspect of their behavior. The fact that someone puts something in their system that the current societal view disapproves of doesn't change their entire worth to that society.
Later you said it was possible they WERE more law abiding.
OK.
Make up your mind- are your going to use that argument or not??
Asked and answered. See first quote.
Of those, 'equally abiding' is unlikely, because (as I pointed out) drugs change how you act.
You pointed this out when, exactly?
So, the only thing left is 'less abiding'.
You haven't eliminated "more abiding" or "equally abiding" with any sort of facts or other evidence. All three remain possible.
1. "People who use drugs are generally more law abiding"; 2. "People who use drugs are generally less law abiding"; 3. "People who use drugs are as law abiding as the general population".
I think what we're both dancing around here, is that what you're meaning to say is that people who do drugs, IN YOUR OPINION, are less law abiding. My opinion is that such a general statement is meaningless.
You're so convinced there's a cause-and-effect relationship between drug use and criminal behavior. IT. IS. NOT. THAT. SIMPLE. The given user's conscience, psychological makeup, living environment, and the legal status of the drug in question all play into how law abiding they are. You cannot put all drug users in one lump, as much as it looks like you'd like to.
Drug abuse is a complicated issue, involving legality, morality, and financial impact. You're trying to over-simplify things.
One other thing: Your assumption that since I'm not on the "Drugs are bad, mmkay" bandwagon, I must be a drug user. Again, not that simple. It IS possible to be against current drug policy in this country and take a contrary viewpoint to your own without being a drug user.
by BVis (267028) on Friday July 20, @09:30AM (#19925975) It's not impossible for them to be MORE law abiding. Are you arguing that people who are under the influence of drugs are _more_ law-abiding than those who are not under the influence?
No.
You're putting words in my mouth. All that "No" means is that I am not arguing that people who use drugs are more law-abiding than others. I'm not arguing that they're less likely or as likely, either. It's not as simple as that. It will vary from person to person. All three states are possible, and I never drew a cause-and-effect relationship. Indeed, that's what I was getting at with that "No." I'm saying that none of these statements are true:
1. "People who use drugs are always more law abiding"; 2. "People who use drugs are always less law abiding"; 3. "People who use drugs are as law abiding as the general population".
As with most social issues, there is no black or white here, just shades of grey.
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So if I understand you correctly, you're saying the USA PATRIOT act isn't all bad, that there are some babies in it that shouldn't be thrown out with the collective bathwater?
If that's the case, then I agree with you in principle. Information sharing in this case is most likely a good thing, provided that the information was gathered ethically and legally in the first place. Sadly, while the current gang of idiots is running things, that cannot be assured, and therefore IMHO the whole thing should be scrapped in favor of a new act that explicitly defines what kinds of information can be shared and how said information should be acquired.
What needs to be remembered here is that with every erosion of our civil rights, those who would seek to destroy our way of life through acts of terror realize a victory without ever 'firing a shot', so to speak. Privacy, while perhaps not explicitly laid out in the Constitution (and that's debatable under some interpretations of the Fourth Amendment) should be protected in the name of Americans who have fought, bled, and died to ensure our rights (not to mention the civilians caught in the crossfire, both domestically and abroad).
It's really not that difficult a concept. Has anyone tried saying "please" and "thank you" to any of these folks? Or tried to find out what they do with their time? I'd bet you a paycheck that they're so busy putting out fires that idiot users or executives (but I repeat myself) are setting that they don't have TIME to do anything else. If you treat IT half as badly as it sounds, I think you're lucky they haven't dragged you from your car yet.
It's you that's wrong in this case. If everyone in the world thinks that 1 = 2, they're STILL wrong.
Popularity is not the same as proof.
Please get in touch with the concept called "reality". There was no physical presence in that room. I'm assuming there were no recordings of said conversations or the meal that they shared.
I'm sorry, believe what you want, but don't confuse it with reality. Reality is what you can see, touch, taste, hear, and smell. Faith requires none of those things, but believing in something doesn't make it so. GOD IS NOT REAL.
If your life is made complete by talking to your imaginary friends, go on with your bad self. My life is made more complete by thinking you're a looney.
Nor can it be proven. Until such time as the big guy walks into my living room and shakes my hand, I'll be skeptical, thank you very much.
Oh, and news flash:
#1 there's no 'distasteful' moderation,
#2 not everyone agrees with you (matter of fact, some people regard mainstream religion as highly offensive and insulting),
#3 just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean they're 'wrong'.
You have faith in "God". The parent poster has faith in what he/she can scientifically determine. Neither is wrong nor right. I apologize if you're uncomfortable with that much gray, but that's life.
There you go, bringing reality into the argument then.
Don't you know that hundreds of acts of fatal violence are fine, but ONE NIPPLE will drive us over the edge into anarchy? WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!?
After all, it's much more important to deprive your child of any shred of privacy, attempt to micromanage their thoughts without teaching them to think for themselves, and ignore any actual conversation with them. It's much easier to have TV raise them; the technology is there, we should use it!
Isn't it wonderful to live in an age where we don't have to waste any time on parenting; we can spend it all on protesting two consenting adults having sex on a computer screen!
You bet I'm offended. And we're not just talking about the CONTENT of what I'm downloading; maybe I don't want the powers that be to know about the conversation at all. TOR obfuscates more than content, it obfuscates paths of communication as well. The government doesn't need a warrant to know who you're contacting on the Internet, it only needs one to determine what the CONTENT of that conversation is (and lately, they don't even need that, since the evidence they collect will never be used in court, and therefore its inadmissibility is moot.) It's MY business and none of theirs, or of yours.
You're probably thinking "So what, you're buying towels or downloading Ubuntu, what do you care if someone knows?" Maybe I don't want them to know. Sure, it's arbitrary, but it's a very slippery slope to start with "Oh it's ok if someone knows I'm doing x or y, what's the problem?" The problem is, you've given up a right and set a precedent; a precedent that erodes everyone ELSE'S rights. And THAT, more than my downloading Ubuntu via TOR, is what causes the damage.
Personally, maybe I just don't want people to know that I'm shopping for towels online (or, for that matter, downloading Ubuntu). Maybe I don't think it's anyone's business. Maybe I believe in an ABSOLUTE right to privacy. There's nothing illegal about trying to ensure your own privacy using technology. It sounds to me like you're the kind of person that would like to see hammers outlawed because you MIGHT use one to kill somebody.
Money.
Seriously, they make a lot of revenue from their ATM business; banks can afford to pay handsomely for them, since #1) they're banks and have lots of money (mostly ours), and #2) ATMs generate revenue for them (that $2 you pay a competitor's bank when you use your ATM.)
The voting machines, on the other hand, make very little money for them, since towns, counties, states, etc generally don't have enough money to make the voting machines profitable when they're sold. So there's two things going on: Diebold cuts the prices on voting machines in order to get government to use them, and they also don't feel they need to commit the resources to a product that isn't profitable. Best of both worlds here; they get their machines into the field so the can manipulate the results the way they want, and generate such a crap product that nobody will notice the difference between "accidental" erroneous results due to shitty machines/programming and deliberate manipulation.
If it sounds like I think it's a certainty that Diebold is guilty of conspiracy to commit election fraud, it's because I do. The only question is to what degree.
Think about it. Our president, who we didn't elect (twice!) has done more to erode our global standing than any before him, has spent untold billions of dollars on a war that nobody (except big oil) wants (which has put us so far into debt that my great-grandchildren will likely still be paying it off), has manipulated the justice system and twisted the Constitution to his own needs, has repeatedly declared himself above the law (to the point where his Vice President claims he's not even part of the Executive branch), and has had top aides resign under clouds of corruption, STILL has an approval rating of 30% or so. (And that's just the stuff we know about. $deity knows what other nefarious and reprehensible schemes he's involved with that would get any reporter "accidentally" killed if he/she got wind of them.) Seriously, a THIRD of the country thinks he's doing a good job. (That has to be more than just the executives at big companies who basically run the government. The top 1% of the richest people in the USA control 20% of the economy; who are the other 29%?)
As long as we have Americans, our privacy is history. We're that fucking stupid.
Problem is, after "business hours", most laptops are shut off/in standby. It's hard to back up a machine that's not powered up.
On a related note, any backup solution that you implement for laptops MUST MUST MUST not be cancellable by the user. Sure, you can set things up for after hours work to minimize any loss of productivity, but if that user shuts off their laptop at 6 pm and doesn't power it up again until 9 the next day, when exactly should the backup run? It'll have to run during business hours, and some slowdown is inevitable (but can be minimized). If a user is sophisticated enough to end a process in Task Manager, he/she needs to be protected from themselves for the good of the organization.
I once had a support contract that included maintaining a Retrospect server to back up all the Macs in the organization (educational institution). We had an overpromoted PHB CTO who would not do ANYTHING to change his behavior regarding backups. In those days broadband was not widely available, and WiFi had ever even been heard of; a 128k ISDN line was the most anyone had. This required that the laptop be on the network long enough to complete the backup. Time and time again, he would be educated regarding the need for the laptop to be on the network and powered up long enough for the backup to happen, but would not listen; he received warnings on the laptop regarding backup status as being incomplete, and completely disregarded them. He insisted that doing so would inconvenience him, and as we all know, this is a disaster on par with a 8.5 level earthquake. We also tried the USB-drive-at-home approach, but we all knew for a fact that he would NEVER use it, as again, it represented an inconvenience. To top it all off, he was EXTREMELY hard on his laptop, to the point where after 8 or 9 months it was beaten up (physically) to the point of no longer functioning. Seriously, it looked like someone had run over it with a truck. Five times. Needless to say, data loss was a near certainty, but his attitude was that it was our problem, not his, and we needed to figure out something else (despite the fact that it was very nearly impossible). Of course, should he lose things on his laptop, it was completely OUR fault, and frequently his drives would be sent to recovery to the tune of thousands of taxpayer dollars.
I wish you luck with trying to back up these laptops. Hopefully you will not have anyone to support like that dipshit. The ubiquity of broadband should make your life a lot easier.
Or you could live in a state (like mine) where there isn't a legal limit for DUI, the state just has to prove that you were "impaired". I sat on a DUI jury a few years ago and we convicted a guy of DUI after drinking 2 beers in 15 minutes. I even sent a question to the judge about legal limits and was admonished lightly for asking questions outside the scope of evidence.
I really wish you were the rule rather than the exception. How have your customers reacted? (both the ones getting tossed and the others)? Do you toss out families with unruly children?
You really throw people out for being disruptive? I'm kind of surprised. Do you give them refunds?
I was looking for the right comment to reply to on this, because I have a solution to the problem.
Ahem.
Mr. Theater Manager, MAKE GOING TO THE THEATER A LESS FUCKING MISERABLE EXPERIENCE.
I wouldn't have a problem paying $7.50 for a ticket if the following problems were corrected:
1) Throw people out who refuse to sit quietly in the theater. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in front of or right behind someone carrying on a conversation with the people next to them like they're the only ones within earshot. This also includes children and their families. If the child isn't old enough to sit quietly for the running time of the movie, then they need to not be there out of respect for the other paying customers. One rambunctious child shouldn't ruin the experience for 200+ other paying customers. Politely explain the "shut the fuck up" rule, and refund their money.
2) I will pay a premium to NOT be subjected to advertising. The slide show before the trailers start is one thing (at the very least it gives me something to look at while I'm waiting, and I don't mind that so much). But paying for the privilege of seeing advertising has never been acceptable, and I'm amazed that you've been able to get away with it for so long. HBO doesn't carry advertising; coincidence?
3) Clean the fucking theater. I'm sure one of your minimum wage PFYs can be taught to run a mop.
4) Invest in a better presentation for the film. This includes monitoring prints for damage, maintaining sound equipment, fixing damaged screens, and fixing HVAC issues (too hot/cold/dank etc.) Less painful (I was going to say "more comfortable" but "less painful" seems more appropriate) seating would help as well; stadium seating is A Good Thing.
5) Check IDs at the ticket window for R rated films. (I frequent a premium cinema near my home that is 21+ for all shows.)
The aforementioned premium cinema costs significantly more ($12.50 - $15 a ticket depending on time) but it is worth the extra expense. For that, you get leather seating, two of your OWN armrests, a tray table in front of you, UNLIMITED popcorn, and a full cash bar in the lobby, which serves drinks you can bring into the theater with you. It's also 21+, has THX specification projection and sound, and generally only carries movies that can benefit from the improved experience (movies like Cheaper By The Dozen 2 won't make it in there.) That's pretty much the only place I'll go at this point, after being subjected to most of the problems I described above when I went to see Superman Returns.
The way to improve your bottom line is to improve your product, not try to demonize an extremely small percentage of your customers and piss off the rest by treating them like criminals. EVERYONE KNOWS that it's copyright infringement when they download a movie they haven't paid for. STOP INSULTING YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS.
From what I understand, it's difficult to distinguish a TOR packet from any other encrypted packet, am I wrong?
In the specific case of TOR, I don't see how they can effectively ban the use of the technology. TOR nodes are all over the world, and getting the code from a foreign server where we have no jurisdiction is trivial. Worse comes to worst, we can have a buddy burn it to CD and mail it to us labeled "Vacation pictures".
We also can't ban encrypted content outright; that'd be the end of eCommerce as we know it, and Big Biz would never let the legislators they own take that action.
If someone can point out something I've missed, I'd be grateful for the information.
That perception needs to be fought against. I believe in an absolute right to privacy. If the government thinks I'm engaged in illegal activity, it can bloody well get a warrant and investigate. Until then, my web traffic is none of their business.
Incidentally, it was brought to my attention recently that the government doesn't need a warrant to know the sites you've visited; it only needs a warrant to determine the content of those communications. This goes back to a "pen register" precedent that was set decades ago regarding phone wiretaps.
It's hard to filter something when it looks like "(*#U(*YkaJH(*&F()*&G(SER". (Clearly that's a naked 12 year old boy.)
If the legislators in question REALLY wanted to do something effective they'd allocate funds for more traditional investigatory agencies, like the FBI. Social engineering is how these people get caught; their pursuit of their perversion is ironically their greatest weakness, which can be exploited. But I'm assuming that Congress isn't a logic-free zone, and that they actually want to do something useful.
Hate to be the party pooper (I agree with you in principle, I used to use IceWM myself), but without the "eye candy" you don't have a desktop distribution. Period.
Not saying that a usable "pretty-print" interface for Linux isn't possible without an egregious slowdown, but there WILL be a slowdown, and that's all there is to it.
The problem IMHO isn't the inefficiency of the GUI under Linux, it's that desktop users insist on all the eye candy before they'll even THINK of trying to use it. They'd look at IceWM and want to know where the start menu is. Any words that you say other than "It doesn't have one because" are a waste of energy, it's dead in the water.
It is a sorry OS indeed. Sadly, that OS is installed on more than 90% of the world's desktops, so if you're a developer and you want your software to be used and/or sold, you're stuck on Windows.
Apps screw up the system all the time by hooking calls, inserting themselves in networking chains, or leaving cruft behind in the registry. When you're building an uninstaller, you have to make sure it grabs all this junk and leaves the system in a reasonable state, and that's where a VM has its usefullness; you can sit there and install/uninstall/debug/install/uninstall/debug all day long, and be SURE that you're starting with a clean slate each time.
Your dismissal of the concept of correlation not equaling causation means that all your arguments are meaningless. You're dismissing logic in favor of spinning the facts to suit your world view, and can't stand a rational argument. No wonder you're tired, all that spinning is hard work.
You're so convinced there's a cause-and-effect relationship between drug use and criminal behavior. IT. IS. NOT. THAT. SIMPLE. The given user's conscience, psychological makeup, living environment, and the legal status of the drug in question all play into how law abiding they are. You cannot put all drug users in one lump, as much as it looks like you'd like to.
Drug abuse is a complicated issue, involving legality, morality, and financial impact. You're trying to over-simplify things.
One other thing: Your assumption that since I'm not on the "Drugs are bad, mmkay" bandwagon, I must be a drug user. Again, not that simple. It IS possible to be against current drug policy in this country and take a contrary viewpoint to your own without being a drug user.
1. "People who use drugs are always more law abiding";
2. "People who use drugs are always less law abiding";
3. "People who use drugs are as law abiding as the general population".
As with most social issues, there is no black or white here, just shades of grey.