"10-year old kids should not be able to play those games at the
arcades without their parent's (or other adult's) consent, just like
they cannot go to a rated-R movie by themselves."
Yup, this is exactly what they were pushing for. The games themselves
were *NOT banned*, and even the restriction was intended for *Public
Arcades* only.
There is a huge difference between the Indy law
and the movie rating system. It is *not* illegal
for a 10-year-old to go to an R-rated movie
without parental consent. It may be against the
policy of a given theater, but it is *not*
illegal. That makes all the difference.
Words that "by their very utterance inflict injury or
tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942).
The problem with this is all a person has to do
is claim someone else's speech was fighting words to limit their
ability to critize them.
I'm astounded by the ignorance I'm seeing in this
thread, second only to the degree of insensitivity
toward the mentally ill. Some of you seem to
enjoy blaming the victims; that's easy for you to
say, because you probably do not experience more
than a fraction of the craving that these people
do.
We are all capable of obsessive-compulsive
behavior (it's adaptive), but as with most other
things, our population falls into a bell curve.
Good for you if your brain chemistry puts you
in the middle of the curve. But understand that
half (or more) of the population may be more O/C than you -- in
many cases, extremely so. And at some point, it
becomes so extreme that we refer to it as a
disorder.
There are vast numbers of people who do not have
a disorder per se, but who still have cravings
much stronger than the average person has ever
experienced, or will ever experience.
Those who think that this is simply a "lack of
discipline," "sign of weakness," or
"excuse-making" seem to think that everyone's
brain chemistry is the same (except for the
"crazy" people). It is absurd to
think that everyone is equally well-equipped to
make the "right" decision. I would like to see
how you would fare if you could
experience someone else's cravings for a week.
It's like blaming people with low IQs for not
being as smart as you -- arrogant, ignorant, and
bigoted.
If you replace <meta="keywords" content="mickey mouse">
by <meta="nonwords" content="bestiality mouse-fucking zoophilia
kinky....>, you might draw more Disney lovers and less perverts to your
site
Mommy, what does "view source" mean, and why is
the computer swearing at me?
How many/. users boast about their personal pages using any of
hundreds of methods to deny access to IE?
I've never seen one (my threshold is probably too
high), but I don't doubt they exist. That's not quite
the scale I had in mind, though... not at all comparable to MSN.
And in any event, I don't applaud the practice.
That hasn't stopped Terry Pratchett from building
a respectable adult following. And the Harry
Potter books didn't strike me as being any more
juvenile than, say, Equal Rites.
And at least the Harry Potter books don't suck
(::ducking::)...
This is an attempt to
make ALL their information accessible by a SINGLE program, and NOT an
attempt to make every piece of information accessible by a DIFFERENT
program.
You're assuming that MSN is the only site capable
of blocking specific browsers. Guess what
happens when other sites start blocking IE? If
this practice became widespread, it would
effectively make different types of information
(i.e., different sites) accessible only via
different browsers. There would not necessarily
be a single browser capable of viewing any site
on the web.
I could point out that the Pentagon is, in fact, a military target but
it isn't relevant.
I'm so glad you brought it up anyway. (?) As long as we're making irrelevant points, let me add that the WTC is not, in fact, a military target,
and that has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that Pearl Harbor is a military target, and a commercial airliner is not.
An act of war is different from a crime, regardless
of the target.
What differentiates an "ordinary" crime from an
act of war usually has more to do with who
did it, as opposed to what they did, or why. Mr.
X does not represent a foreign government, so
even if he attacks Pearl Harbor with warmongering
intent, we're most likely going to treat him like
a criminal, as we did with McVeigh.
Then, of course, there are "war" crimes, in which
the choice of target can make all of the
difference.
I guess I'm not really clear as to your point. You
seem to disagree with the statement, "if Mr. X
puts a bomb in a plane to kill his wife, that's first degree
murder (though not terrorism)," which leads me to
believe that you think intent is irrelevant.
But then on the other hand you seem to be saying that
intent is sufficient to distinguish an act of war
from an ordinary crime. So do you think intent
matters or not?
Consider your logic here: Mr. X bombs Pearl Harbor and kills thousands
of people. That's mass murder but not war. The Japanese do the same
thing for a political cause. Why don't we arrest the Japanese instead
of declaring war?
Because Pearl Harbor was a military target. A
commercial airliner is not.
FTG come in at 5 codes until 9,
leave, testers show up, program doesn't work, they have to wait until
the next day for the FTG to fix the problem. Testers sit around
twiddling their thumbs all day.
You're right, it's much better the way we do it
where I work, where everyone shows up between
8-9 AM, I sit around twiddling my thumbs waiting
for the developers to fix the code, the testers
sit around waiting for me to build it, and only
the developers get to leave by 5 PM.
Am I the only person who finds it incredibly ironic that an article
like this would appear on one of the most random, poorly-researched,
redundant, late and haphazard news sites on the net?
It may be many of those things, but it's only a
"news site" in the most narrow sense. It doesn't
make much sense to criticize an apple for not
being a very good orange.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet,
balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take
orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze
a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal,
fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
- Robert A. Heinlein
Next time your TV goes to commercial, mute it, get up, and go get a
glass of water. You have just cut off all the meaningless
advertisements the TV is pouring at you.
Except for the programming itself, which is in
many ways a more effective advertisement than
the commercials are.
Consider merchandising tie-ins, product placement,
and crossover shows, for starters. That's just
scratching the surface.
I understand the analogy, but is it accurate? If the resource is not
password protected, or uses a publically published password, can it
claim "I didn't MEAN to make that available" as a legal defense when
other internet resources use the same process for publically available
info?
IANAL, and this is not legal advice. But I had a
computer law class when I was in college, and the
general impression I walked away with was this:
Many laws define cracking as the act of circumventing
security measures. In other words, if there's
no security, there's no law being broken. I don't
know of any cases where this interpretation was
upheld, so don't take it as gospel.
I see similar things happening with people who
inadvertently share their entire c: drive over
their cable modem. My personal interpretation
would be that they have no recourse against
someone who takes a look around, since to an
outsider, the situation is indistinguishable from
*intentional* file sharing. So it is with the
scenario given in the article.
The point is, I blatantly
plagiarized someone else's "watermarked" post,
replacing their acrostic with one of my own. So
if it weren't for the dates on the posts, there
would be no way to tell who plagiarized whom.
Of course, this is a trivial example, and in the
real world, a plagiarist would not know where to
look for a watermark, or how to tell if one even
exists. So it could work. But the more complex
(and obscure) the watermark, the less likely it
is that the whole thing would be copied intact.
And of course, there's the time factor that you
mention. The returns diminish very quickly.
Plagiarism charges could be disproved if students would simply embed acrostics in their original work.
Of course, you have to make sure that your acrostic is embedded in such a way that it will be copied by the plagiarist, unnoticed.
Generally, it's not all that hard to "watermark" your work in this manner.
Even this post contains an example of a reasonably subtle acrostic.
Naturally, any paper containing an acrostic of the author's name would be assumed to be a completely original work.
I'm sure it's worth $500 in materials for a drug runner to send a
kilogram of cocaine across a border in a package too small for
airborne radar to target it.
I have to wonder, though, whether it isn't too
risky. Say it crashes. Not only have you lost
the merchandise, but if law enforcement gets
their hands on it, you've given them the exact
latitude and longitude of the destination via the
GPS unit.
Not an insurmountable problem, but not one that
I would like to deal with if I were an importer.
... that the amount of times you mention open source and Linux in a
Slashdot submission is directly proportional to the likelihood that
the story will be accepted.
Not to mention the ego-stroking suggestion that
computer programmers are "very smart" compared to
other non-mathematicians. Apparently, flattery
will get you everywhere.
*sigh*... When are people going to realize that
the reasons behind *any* human behavior are
multivariate? I can't tell you how many times
I've heard the following "logic:"
P doesn't cause Q. I should know, because I
experienced P, and I didn't perform Q.
You are a sample of one. The fact that you are
an exception does not prove that bullies don't
contribute to school violence. If it did, I could
just as easily prove that bad parenting doesn't
cause killer kids by finding one non-killer with
bad parents. (There are plenty.)
You may be able to make an argument that bullies
and bad parents are both *necessary* conditions
for going postal at school, but neither one by
itself is a *sufficient* condition. Yes, good
parenting probably would have prevented many of
these incidents from occurring -- but so would
the elimination of victimization by bullies.
And none of this is to imply, by the way, that
these are the only two such factors. Surely there
are many... the most obvious of which is access
to a gun. Certainly a necessary condition, but
obviously not a sufficient one.
The problem with censor-ware (not the only one)
is that it gives parents a false sense of
security. Even if it were 100% effective at
keeping kids out of "adult" areas of the
internet, it would not keep adults out of the
"kid" areas of the internet. Based on the news
stories I've read, most pedophiles seek out kids
on their own turf.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a huge difference between the Indy law and the movie rating system. It is *not* illegal for a 10-year-old to go to an R-rated movie without parental consent. It may be against the policy of a given theater, but it is *not* illegal. That makes all the difference.
Words that "by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942).
The problem with this is all a person has to do is claim someone else's speech was fighting words to limit their ability to critize them.
Only if a jury agrees.
IANAL, yadda yadda.
We are all capable of obsessive-compulsive behavior (it's adaptive), but as with most other things, our population falls into a bell curve. Good for you if your brain chemistry puts you in the middle of the curve. But understand that half (or more) of the population may be more O/C than you -- in many cases, extremely so. And at some point, it becomes so extreme that we refer to it as a disorder.
There are vast numbers of people who do not have a disorder per se, but who still have cravings much stronger than the average person has ever experienced, or will ever experience. Those who think that this is simply a "lack of discipline," "sign of weakness," or "excuse-making" seem to think that everyone's brain chemistry is the same (except for the "crazy" people). It is absurd to think that everyone is equally well-equipped to make the "right" decision. I would like to see how you would fare if you could experience someone else's cravings for a week.
It's like blaming people with low IQs for not being as smart as you -- arrogant, ignorant, and bigoted.
Mommy, what does "view source" mean, and why is the computer swearing at me?
"Public domain" precludes licensing. If it's truly in the public domain, no license can be enforced.
I've never seen one (my threshold is probably too high), but I don't doubt they exist. That's not quite the scale I had in mind, though... not at all comparable to MSN. And in any event, I don't applaud the practice.
That hasn't stopped Terry Pratchett from building a respectable adult following. And the Harry Potter books didn't strike me as being any more juvenile than, say, Equal Rites.
And at least the Harry Potter books don't suck (::ducking::)...
You're assuming that MSN is the only site capable of blocking specific browsers. Guess what happens when other sites start blocking IE? If this practice became widespread, it would effectively make different types of information (i.e., different sites) accessible only via different browsers. There would not necessarily be a single browser capable of viewing any site on the web.
I'm so glad you brought it up anyway. (?) As long as we're making irrelevant points, let me add that the WTC is not, in fact, a military target, and that has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that Pearl Harbor is a military target, and a commercial airliner is not.
An act of war is different from a crime, regardless of the target.
What differentiates an "ordinary" crime from an act of war usually has more to do with who did it, as opposed to what they did, or why. Mr. X does not represent a foreign government, so even if he attacks Pearl Harbor with warmongering intent, we're most likely going to treat him like a criminal, as we did with McVeigh.
Then, of course, there are "war" crimes, in which the choice of target can make all of the difference.
I guess I'm not really clear as to your point. You seem to disagree with the statement, "if Mr. X puts a bomb in a plane to kill his wife, that's first degree murder (though not terrorism)," which leads me to believe that you think intent is irrelevant. But then on the other hand you seem to be saying that intent is sufficient to distinguish an act of war from an ordinary crime. So do you think intent matters or not?
Because Pearl Harbor was a military target. A commercial airliner is not.
Why would I want to visit MSN anyway?
Depends.
C'mon, she won't be that old in 20 years.
You're right, it's much better the way we do it where I work, where everyone shows up between 8-9 AM, I sit around twiddling my thumbs waiting for the developers to fix the code, the testers sit around waiting for me to build it, and only the developers get to leave by 5 PM.
Who says you can't train a real cat?
like this would appear on one of the most random, poorly-researched,
redundant, late and haphazard news sites on the net?
It may be many of those things, but it's only a
"news site" in the most narrow sense. It doesn't
make much sense to criticize an apple for not
being a very good orange.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet,
balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take
orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze
a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal,
fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
- Robert A. Heinlein
Except for the programming itself, which is in many ways a more effective advertisement than the commercials are.
Consider merchandising tie-ins, product placement, and crossover shows, for starters. That's just scratching the surface.
IANAL, and this is not legal advice. But I had a computer law class when I was in college, and the general impression I walked away with was this: Many laws define cracking as the act of circumventing security measures. In other words, if there's no security, there's no law being broken. I don't know of any cases where this interpretation was upheld, so don't take it as gospel.
I see similar things happening with people who inadvertently share their entire c: drive over their cable modem. My personal interpretation would be that they have no recourse against someone who takes a look around, since to an outsider, the situation is indistinguishable from *intentional* file sharing. So it is with the scenario given in the article.
Again, IANAL.
The point is, I blatantly plagiarized someone else's "watermarked" post, replacing their acrostic with one of my own. So if it weren't for the dates on the posts, there would be no way to tell who plagiarized whom.
Of course, this is a trivial example, and in the real world, a plagiarist would not know where to look for a watermark, or how to tell if one even exists. So it could work. But the more complex (and obscure) the watermark, the less likely it is that the whole thing would be copied intact. And of course, there's the time factor that you mention. The returns diminish very quickly.
Plagiarism charges could be disproved if students would simply embed acrostics in their original work. Of course, you have to make sure that your acrostic is embedded in such a way that it will be copied by the plagiarist, unnoticed. Generally, it's not all that hard to "watermark" your work in this manner. Even this post contains an example of a reasonably subtle acrostic. Naturally, any paper containing an acrostic of the author's name would be assumed to be a completely original work.
I have to wonder, though, whether it isn't too risky. Say it crashes. Not only have you lost the merchandise, but if law enforcement gets their hands on it, you've given them the exact latitude and longitude of the destination via the GPS unit.
Not an insurmountable problem, but not one that I would like to deal with if I were an importer.
Not to mention the ego-stroking suggestion that computer programmers are "very smart" compared to other non-mathematicians. Apparently, flattery will get you everywhere.
P doesn't cause Q. I should know, because I experienced P, and I didn't perform Q.
You are a sample of one. The fact that you are an exception does not prove that bullies don't contribute to school violence. If it did, I could just as easily prove that bad parenting doesn't cause killer kids by finding one non-killer with bad parents. (There are plenty.)
You may be able to make an argument that bullies and bad parents are both *necessary* conditions for going postal at school, but neither one by itself is a *sufficient* condition. Yes, good parenting probably would have prevented many of these incidents from occurring -- but so would the elimination of victimization by bullies.
And none of this is to imply, by the way, that these are the only two such factors. Surely there are many... the most obvious of which is access to a gun. Certainly a necessary condition, but obviously not a sufficient one.
The problem with censor-ware (not the only one) is that it gives parents a false sense of security. Even if it were 100% effective at keeping kids out of "adult" areas of the internet, it would not keep adults out of the "kid" areas of the internet. Based on the news stories I've read, most pedophiles seek out kids on their own turf.
Everyone's too busy downloading pr0n.