I don't follow your logic. How does cooking meth, which can rather easily (according to what I have heard on new reports via NPR, CNN, etc.) cause explosions that can kill or maim individuals (not to mention the dangers of the drugs themselves if the cooking is succesful), any less dangerous than instructions on how to build explosives (which can have purposes other than the kill people, such as blowing up rocks before plowing a field)?
Also, how is hosting, or even linking to, child pornography not harming anyone? What about the child in the picture? You may be inclined to argue that the harm has already been done, so displaying the picture causes no further harm, but you'd be wrong. By displaying the picture you are causing further mental pain to the child if they see it, or if someone that they know sees it and then they hear about it.
Having said all that, I agree that there should be a way to stop people from linking (directly or indirectly) to illegal material. However, logically and tehnically, I don't see how it could be done without simply shutting down the illegal material directly. If you tell a website operator that they can't link to X website, then they can setup website Y to link to X, and just link to Y now. If you say they can't link to X within 5 hops, they can open up 6 new websites to create a longer chain. If you say they cannot indirectly link to it at all, then you are pretty much saying that they may not link to ANY website, because eventually they will get back to a search engine, and from there back to the offending material.
I think in this case the judge should have said that the prosecution should go after the offending material (I know it was in another country, but it is not the judge's job to make the prosecutions life easier).
When I say look at auctions, I don't mean e-bay. Most of the stuff I have seen at e-bay is WAY overpriced. If you look long enough there you may find something though.
When I say auctions, I mean look at companies that went out of business. With all the telecommunications companies that are on the rocks (or under-water already), as well as some of the last dot-com companies dying out, you can find a lot of good deals. It is just a matter of looking hard enough. Especially if you have any contacts in the industries, you can get some very nice deals.
That might be fine for buying the software, but what about installing it?
If they can't enter into a contract, then they can't click on all of the little "I Agree" buttons for the Microsoft installations. Now if they buy all the software pre-installed, or maybe if they pay a third party to click through the licensing agreements for them while their back is turned...:)
"Since the Personal Location Device collects data from satellites, it is a VERY accurate digital watch."
FINALLY! I was always worrying about the minute that my current watch lost every year!
Really though, I think this would be a good device if three things happened. 1) The battery life was increased (they say it currently needs to be recharged every 48 hours). 2) Any service cost came down considerably, 25-40 dollars a month is a bit steep. 3) None of the wacky parents who don't allow their kids to play with other children for fear they might catch some disease are allowed nowhere near this device.
As it is, I think that the people who will use this device first are ALL going be the wacky parents who are so overprotective that their children become crazies themselves. That is sad. If normal parents used it to monitor their small children at public places, then it could be useful. But right now the monthly fee would be too much (for me as a parent) for a device that I would just use once or twice a month.
Citing the large number of school children who frequent such establishments, and the violent content of many of the books available to minors, the Baltimore city council decided that swift action was necessary to stop the endless cycle of violence. Children younger than 18 are no longer allowed to read books themselves, they must be read by an adult supervisor who will censor content as deemed appropriate. The council has also been alerted to the large number of school children who frequent schools, and the accompanying violence that comes with having so many minors in close proximity. They are considering whether to close all schools, requiring more adults to go to school, or simply outlawing minority, since it seems many of these violent crimes are commited by minors. Stay tuned for further developments.
The above might be true for some of Asia, but for China $50/hr is more than enough. As a student I lived there for a year studying and taught English two nights a week for about $10 an hour. A cheap rate, but I was an undergrad student, so I guess you get what you pay for. But, that small amount of money was almost enough to pay for all my food and entertainment as well as half of my housing costs. In China, especially outside of Beijing and Shanghai, a little money can go a long way.
I think the real point is what is your friend WILLING to work for. If he does his research and finds that $50 in the foreign economy is comparable or better than whatever he is making now, then go for it. It all depends on what he really wants.
One last note. If he hasn't worked/traveled abroad for an extended period of time before, I would recommend it. Even if he isn't getting a great pay raise, just the experience alone was worth it for me. A lot of Americans seem to have a pretty skewed view of a lot of the world, and living in China, meeting people from all over, really gave me a broader perspective. Of course, having met my wife over there also makes me a little biased for foreign travel.:)
I'm not sure how you can say any of this. How is English, with it's complex myriad meanings that make it so difficult to learn, better than Esperanto, or Loglan for that matter? Just because it has become a de-facto standard in no way means it actually is better. Or would you argue that Microsoft must be the god of all software packages since it is used so extensively?
As for your statement, "as long as everyone writes stuff that they personally can read", that would create a lot of potentially useless code. Imagine that someone write a wonderful word processor, everyone loves it and begins to use it. Then imagine that the writer of the software dies and suddenly everyone notices that the author wrote the software using his own proprietary language. Now, either everyone can spend (waste really) months learning his new language to update the software, learn to live with the current version for the rest of their lives, or write a new wordprocessor from scratch. Imagine how much time could have possibly been saved if the original author had instead invested some time to write easily understandable, well documented, managable code. Everyone would benefit.
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I don't follow your logic. How does cooking meth, which can rather easily (according to what I have heard on new reports via NPR, CNN, etc.) cause explosions that can kill or maim individuals (not to mention the dangers of the drugs themselves if the cooking is succesful), any less dangerous than instructions on how to build explosives (which can have purposes other than the kill people, such as blowing up rocks before plowing a field)?
Also, how is hosting, or even linking to, child pornography not harming anyone? What about the child in the picture? You may be inclined to argue that the harm has already been done, so displaying the picture causes no further harm, but you'd be wrong. By displaying the picture you are causing further mental pain to the child if they see it, or if someone that they know sees it and then they hear about it.
Having said all that, I agree that there should be a way to stop people from linking (directly or indirectly) to illegal material. However, logically and tehnically, I don't see how it could be done without simply shutting down the illegal material directly. If you tell a website operator that they can't link to X website, then they can setup website Y to link to X, and just link to Y now. If you say they can't link to X within 5 hops, they can open up 6 new websites to create a longer chain. If you say they cannot indirectly link to it at all, then you are pretty much saying that they may not link to ANY website, because eventually they will get back to a search engine, and from there back to the offending material.
I think in this case the judge should have said that the prosecution should go after the offending material (I know it was in another country, but it is not the judge's job to make the prosecutions life easier).
When I say look at auctions, I don't mean e-bay. Most of the stuff I have seen at e-bay is WAY overpriced. If you look long enough there you may find something though.
When I say auctions, I mean look at companies that went out of business. With all the telecommunications companies that are on the rocks (or under-water already), as well as some of the last dot-com companies dying out, you can find a lot of good deals. It is just a matter of looking hard enough. Especially if you have any contacts in the industries, you can get some very nice deals.
That might be fine for buying the software, but what about installing it?
:)
If they can't enter into a contract, then they can't click on all of the little "I Agree" buttons for the Microsoft installations. Now if they buy all the software pre-installed, or maybe if they pay a third party to click through the licensing agreements for them while their back is turned...
I loved this quote from their website:
"Since the Personal Location Device collects data from satellites, it is a VERY accurate digital watch."
FINALLY! I was always worrying about the minute that my current watch lost every year!
Really though, I think this would be a good device if three things happened.
1) The battery life was increased (they say it currently needs to be recharged every 48 hours).
2) Any service cost came down considerably, 25-40 dollars a month is a bit steep.
3) None of the wacky parents who don't allow their kids to play with other children for fear they might catch some disease are allowed nowhere near this device.
As it is, I think that the people who will use this device first are ALL going be the wacky parents who are so overprotective that their children become crazies themselves. That is sad. If normal parents used it to monitor their small children at public places, then it could be useful. But right now the monthly fee would be too much (for me as a parent) for a device that I would just use once or twice a month.
Citing the large number of school children who frequent such establishments, and the violent content of many of the books available to minors, the Baltimore city council decided that swift action was necessary to stop the endless cycle of violence. Children younger than 18 are no longer allowed to read books themselves, they must be read by an adult supervisor who will censor content as deemed appropriate.
The council has also been alerted to the large number of school children who frequent schools, and the accompanying violence that comes with having so many minors in close proximity. They are considering whether to close all schools, requiring more adults to go to school, or simply outlawing minority, since it seems many of these violent crimes are commited by minors. Stay tuned for further developments.
Q: Given one object, and one orifice, which object would you choose to stick in which orifice of Mr. Gates?
Seriously though, couldn't you find more important uses of your time than a maybe-job like this?
--Bobo The Boinger
I think the real point is what is your friend WILLING to work for. If he does his research and finds that $50 in the foreign economy is comparable or better than whatever he is making now, then go for it. It all depends on what he really wants.
One last note. If he hasn't worked/traveled abroad for an extended period of time before, I would recommend it. Even if he isn't getting a great pay raise, just the experience alone was worth it for me. A lot of Americans seem to have a pretty skewed view of a lot of the world, and living in China, meeting people from all over, really gave me a broader perspective. Of course, having met my wife over there also makes me a little biased for foreign travel. :)
I'm not sure how you can say any of this. How is English, with it's complex myriad meanings that make it so difficult to learn, better than Esperanto, or Loglan for that matter? Just because it has become a de-facto standard in no way means it actually is better. Or would you argue that Microsoft must be the god of all software packages since it is used so extensively?
As for your statement, "as long as everyone writes stuff that they personally can read", that would create a lot of potentially useless code. Imagine that someone write a wonderful word processor, everyone loves it and begins to use it. Then imagine that the writer of the software dies and suddenly everyone notices that the author wrote the software using his own proprietary language. Now, either everyone can spend (waste really) months learning his new language to update the software, learn to live with the current version for the rest of their lives, or write a new wordprocessor from scratch. Imagine how much time could have possibly been saved if the original author had instead invested some time to write easily understandable, well documented, managable code. Everyone would benefit.