I guess that money I shelled out for an exercise bike to slouch on while I watch Food Network shows was wasted, huh?
With no evidence to support this whatsoever... I'll say 90-95% of all home exercise equipment eventually becomes a place to stack clothes or something like that. Probably within the first 3-6 months.
No, they'll stick with their usual MO -- do minimal testing, say there's no evidence to suggest it's harmful, get it approved, and wait until people have been using it to 'discover' side-effects.
In all probability, they will have fudged their numbers to have excluded people with those effects as outliers.
The IPCC, rabid environmentalists, and the Democrats keep saying the part in bold. These people also tend to have have political agendas.
And you know what, the people vehemently saying nothing is happening also have a political agenda.
The existence of an agenda doesn't in and of itself invalidate anything related to the science of this -- just what people think we should do about it and how big of an impact it might have.
But there's an awful lot of people with financial interests in oil who are trying very hard to convince us that nothing is happening, or that if it is happening it's natural and there's no evidence humans are doing it, or that maybe we are causing it but we'll require decades more study to really know -- all the while selling us oil for their own profit.
So, when British Petroleum says "the leak wasn't that bad", or "there is insufficient evidence" -- well, they have an agenda, and a PR department.
False takedowns are a felony that maybe a Comcast lawyer should experience, you know, to be made an example of.
And yet, I don't believe a single person has been charged for it that I've hear of, even when it seems pretty blatant to the rest of us.
Apparently all you have to do is claim you did it in good faith or there was a clerical error... presto, you're off the hook.
It's a system written by, and for the benefit of, copyright holders -- and they seem to be presumed innocent unless you can absolutely prove otherwise. Not just that they're stupid or incompetent.
Unfortunately, the host seems as smart as the lawyer, considering they're threatening to shut down the server according to the synopsis.
Because it's easier for the hosting company to just say "fuck it, not my problem".
This is what happens when the DMCA tells you that if you comply with a takedown, you are off the hook.
The law is written in such a way that the hosting company has no incentive to care.
That nobody seems to be doling out punishments for false takedowns is the big problem -- because apparently you can claim almost anything belongs to you with neither facts nor evidence on your side.
emacs outshines all other editing software in approximately the same way that the noonday sun does the stars. It is not just bigger and brighter; it simply makes everything else vanish.";-)
There's an Orson Welles or Kirstie Alley joke in there somewhere.;-)
But, I certainly do remember it making all of your memory disappear -- there's a reason we used to call it "Eight Megs and Constantly Swapping".
Now, go ahead and mod me down into oblivion. But anyone who has ever dealt with a rabid member of that sect knows it's true.
And the same can be said for Christians, Republicans, Sports fans, people who insist chocolate ice-cream is better, and all those people who try to tell me how awesome emacs is even though they're wrong. The rabid people have a fixed position which in their minds is unassailable -- that's true. That doesn't mean that anybody who has any intersection with that group exhibits the same level of zeal or irrationality.
See, if you throw out the entire notion that we're fucking up the planet (or anything else) on the basis of the most lunatic element of any group you're being an idiot. I'm a vegetarian, but I look at half the stuff PETA does and just shake my head.
That, however, in no way changes that climate change definitely seems to be happening, the actual overwhelming scientific consensus is that we're causing it, and that if we don't do something about it then long-term we're probably fucked.
So, if we judge this based on all idiots called TWiTfan, since there are people who have extreme environmental ideas, fuck it, lets burn everything because there's no point in trying to do anything.
If we judge the world according the Westboro Baptist Church we're all evil sinners and God is doing this to punish us,
If we judge this by the most 'free market' position there is, then clearly 'the market' has indicated it wants pollution and global warming as a desirable outcome.
Sorry, but you have just acted as extreme and idiotic as the people you're bitching about. Big deal, you have identified that there will always be people who take their ideas to extreme -- and you've managed to say nothing at all intelligent about the topic at hand.
The world isn't a black and white "everybody who slightly disagrees with me is wrong". And, as anybody who has ever dealt with a rabid idiot who makes such assertions can tell you, they often act like irrational douchebags -- so, congratulations, you're in good company.
Wow, based on current exchange rates... the Europeans are getting screwed on that deal. (Assuming, of course, that Slashdot was capable of showing the euro and pound symbols, that is)
It looks like in real currency, they'll pay more for this. Is that typical?
LOL... well, before they can land and eat, they honk. Then they honk some more. Eating and pooping definitely happens, and I'm certain I've seen both happen at the same time. In between both there's more honking. Before they take off, they poop and honk some more. Then they go someplace else and do it all over again.
But eating, honking, pooping, and making even more geese seems to be the general theme.
Indeed -- my understanding is Mercedes S class cars have introduced more safety features than pretty much anybody else.
And I certainly remember what ABS was something only to be found in high-end cars.
If the Tesla broke a test rig for the roof crush, needed a new test for flipping because they make it happen and survived a front impact better than anything else -- well, that reflects well on Tesla.
Oddly, Alaskans actually respect the natural migration of Canadian Geese, and find the entire yearly event a treasure to protect. Shame on the Canadians!
I don't know how many of the geese get up to Alaska, but huge sections of Canada become essentially overrun with Geese.
Managing where they go can be a huge problem and a nuisance.
I worked at a building once where the geese would nest in the medians in the parking lot. They'd routinely attack people going to and from their cars. I've seen huge sections of parks which are essentially covered in green goose-shit and which are unusable (and which can also be a health hazard).
We do respect the migration, and as migratory birds they are protected -- but that doesn't mean that every damned place that literally hundreds (or thousands, or 10's of thousands) of geese move into can be left to have them take over.
Sometimes, the sheer scale of the mess which can be caused by these things means you need to find ways to convince them to find another place to be.
Which is kind of like predicting colder temperatures in winter.
Hell, I was in Myrtle Beach this year... and there they were: Canadian Geese, honking, eating, and pooping, and then honking, eating and pooping some more for good measure. Because, well, that's what they do.
Yes, because we really need to "open up the market" for more stupid, sloppy, poor designed, pointless, shitty apps
So, we should avoid writing tools which could potentially write good apps, because initially only crappy apps will be written?
Wow, I'm glad you're not in charge of any science or R&D. With that attitude, nothing would ever get made.
Done properly, there is great potential in giving people a simple visual vocabulary of building blocks which could be assembled into something interesting. But, nope, someone could write something boring, so why bother.
Five star safety rating across the board. Excellent! Now if only it didn't come with a five star price tag
And are you of the opinion that improvements in safety haven't always come in on the high end first and then trickle down?
Airbags. ABS. That 3rd eye brake-light. Tire pressure sensors. Probably even more -- all of these things appeared first in higher-end cars and then made their way down to the rest of the models.
If anything, I expect a car at that price point to have more engineering and safety features in it. You don't just start out putting everything into the cheapest cars on the market.
I suspect that -- other than wiring up GUI elements to events -- there aren't a lot of interesting things you can do with a GUI-based code builder that you can't do more efficiently by writing actual code.
And by the same token, if you can give people a good enough toolset, you have no idea of what they'll be capable of writing.
Code-less visual programming has been something people have been talking about for a long time, and I've occasionally gone looking for something in that family but never actually seen anything which is more than a proof-of-concept (or a horrible kludge).
I have to wonder: are any serious app developers using this
Who cares? I expect the 'serious' developers to use whatever tools make sense. But for Joe Smartphone, if he wanted to string together some basic tools to do something useful, I can see it being a good idea.
Of course, that it's on Windows Phone and a hosted thing means I'll never see it. I want something self contained on the device that runs in airplane mode.
Are we supposed to believe they're just going to stop doing this completely?
Or will they just come up with a new way to spin it -- "Comrade Yang, in contrition for his terrible crime of jaywalking has volunteered to be euthenized and have his organs harvested. He hopes the glorious People's Republic will accept his noble sacrifice as atonement for his transgressions." Forcing someone to sign the paperwork probably isn't that tough when you can get away with anything in secret and threaten people's families.
And then they'll be right back where they are now, but with better PR.
I'd like to think China is going to halt the practice. But in reality, it's probably quite lucrative, and power once held is seldom given up.
If the communication was directed to a lawyer at the site, would client attorney privilege not be a valid shield?
From pervasive government spying, probably not.
We already know the FBI and other agencies have been doing some 'creative writing' to hide the source of their information -- trumped up traffic stops or finding another excuse to make it look like they found this through innocent means.
It's well known that intelligence agencies will often use stuff they got that is either of sketchy origin, or stuff from a source they can't afford to compromise -- and then work backwards to either confirming through other sources, or find a way to conceal it.
If they truly wanted to go after someone, I believe they would intercept protected communications, and then either lie about it, or find another way to present it which made it look like they didn't intercept it.
I think it takes more than your average order to break that.
Only if you are worried about strictly following the law. If you're willing to skirt it (or ignore it), there's n o technical barriers greater than anything else. And from what we've seen, they're entirely willing to go into some gray areas of the law, or ignore it altogether.
At the end of the day, if they think you're a big enough 'threat' (which could eventually reach to political adversaries and the like) -- they will simply go after you. And they won't be worrying about respecting your legal rights when they do it.
You must ask yourself a honest question, is your life in any way meaningful enough for the surveillance state to spy on? While i could be wrong, my general thoughts on that is no.
So, basically you're saying "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". If so, you're an idiot.
I'd like to tell you that you deserve to live in that world. But that means the rest of us would have to as well.
Think of the McCarthy Era, or the worst stories about the Soviets -- and that's the kind of world you live in if you accede to constant state surveillance.
Because, if you ever decide to have an affair, or run against an incumbent, or try to prove government wrong-doing, or follow a religion the state disapproves of, or organize a gathering of an unpopular political party, discuss something controversial, or seriously ponder taking action against an unjust government... you're totally screwed.
Think China and trying to talk about Tiananmen Square. Think the Soviet Gulags. Think of some of the nastier dictators who just drag people off in the night and shoot them.
If someone can dredge through your entire private life and discredit, inconvenience, arrest, or otherwise intimidate you or fuck with your life -- you cease to live in a free society. Because they will either police the crap out of everyone, and make it into a really nasty place to live -- or they will selectively police the crap out of everyone, and make it into a really nasty place to live.
If your face looks like everyone else then its just noise like everything else. If all your activity's are hidden in encrypted containers and on the dark web, they cant spy on that if you are smart and do simple things like disable javascript and encrypt your shit with strong passwords.
So, you're saying that if you're generic enough looking, smart enough to outsmart the security people, you deserve privacy, but everyone else should do without?
I'm sorry, but you sound like you haven't got the barest clue about why people object to the spying in the first place, let alone the problems that come along with the widespread surveillance of a society. When your government knows everything you do, your options are far more circumscribed.
If you think people should be giving up rights so that governments can prop up the illusion of security -- well, you deserve neither, to paraphrase.
I find it astounding that any organization wouldn't have long ago asked themselves WTF they're running it for -- and I can't imagine there have been any updates to it in a long time.
Or, it's alive and thriving -- I have no idea. It's been a dead horse for years to me. If someone told me they'd be putting in a new server with SCO Unixware on it -- well, I'm not sure of how long it would take me to stop laughing.
Slashdot Mirror
With no evidence to support this whatsoever ... I'll say 90-95% of all home exercise equipment eventually becomes a place to stack clothes or something like that. Probably within the first 3-6 months.
No, they'll stick with their usual MO -- do minimal testing, say there's no evidence to suggest it's harmful, get it approved, and wait until people have been using it to 'discover' side-effects.
In all probability, they will have fudged their numbers to have excluded people with those effects as outliers.
That's how they've been doing it for years.
And you know what, the people vehemently saying nothing is happening also have a political agenda.
The existence of an agenda doesn't in and of itself invalidate anything related to the science of this -- just what people think we should do about it and how big of an impact it might have.
But there's an awful lot of people with financial interests in oil who are trying very hard to convince us that nothing is happening, or that if it is happening it's natural and there's no evidence humans are doing it, or that maybe we are causing it but we'll require decades more study to really know -- all the while selling us oil for their own profit.
So, when British Petroleum says "the leak wasn't that bad", or "there is insufficient evidence" -- well, they have an agenda, and a PR department.
Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you - I'm just saying based on what we've seen of these in the past, nobody even makes an attempt to enforce it.
I suspect that nobody is interested in prosecuting these things because they're too beholden to the content owners.
And yet, I don't believe a single person has been charged for it that I've hear of, even when it seems pretty blatant to the rest of us.
Apparently all you have to do is claim you did it in good faith or there was a clerical error ... presto, you're off the hook.
It's a system written by, and for the benefit of, copyright holders -- and they seem to be presumed innocent unless you can absolutely prove otherwise. Not just that they're stupid or incompetent.
Because it's easier for the hosting company to just say "fuck it, not my problem".
This is what happens when the DMCA tells you that if you comply with a takedown, you are off the hook.
The law is written in such a way that the hosting company has no incentive to care.
That nobody seems to be doling out punishments for false takedowns is the big problem -- because apparently you can claim almost anything belongs to you with neither facts nor evidence on your side.
There's an Orson Welles or Kirstie Alley joke in there somewhere. ;-)
But, I certainly do remember it making all of your memory disappear -- there's a reason we used to call it "Eight Megs and Constantly Swapping".
Have you got a working Top 5 of places which don't have this? Because I'm having a hard time thinking of them, and I'd dearly love to know. :(
And the same can be said for Christians, Republicans, Sports fans, people who insist chocolate ice-cream is better, and all those people who try to tell me how awesome emacs is even though they're wrong. The rabid people have a fixed position which in their minds is unassailable -- that's true. That doesn't mean that anybody who has any intersection with that group exhibits the same level of zeal or irrationality.
See, if you throw out the entire notion that we're fucking up the planet (or anything else) on the basis of the most lunatic element of any group you're being an idiot. I'm a vegetarian, but I look at half the stuff PETA does and just shake my head.
That, however, in no way changes that climate change definitely seems to be happening, the actual overwhelming scientific consensus is that we're causing it, and that if we don't do something about it then long-term we're probably fucked.
So, if we judge this based on all idiots called TWiTfan, since there are people who have extreme environmental ideas, fuck it, lets burn everything because there's no point in trying to do anything.
If we judge the world according the Westboro Baptist Church we're all evil sinners and God is doing this to punish us,
If we judge this by the most 'free market' position there is, then clearly 'the market' has indicated it wants pollution and global warming as a desirable outcome.
Sorry, but you have just acted as extreme and idiotic as the people you're bitching about. Big deal, you have identified that there will always be people who take their ideas to extreme -- and you've managed to say nothing at all intelligent about the topic at hand.
The world isn't a black and white "everybody who slightly disagrees with me is wrong". And, as anybody who has ever dealt with a rabid idiot who makes such assertions can tell you, they often act like irrational douchebags -- so, congratulations, you're in good company.
Wow, based on current exchange rates ... the Europeans are getting screwed on that deal. (Assuming, of course, that Slashdot was capable of showing the euro and pound symbols, that is)
It looks like in real currency, they'll pay more for this. Is that typical?
LOL ... well, before they can land and eat, they honk. Then they honk some more. Eating and pooping definitely happens, and I'm certain I've seen both happen at the same time. In between both there's more honking. Before they take off, they poop and honk some more. Then they go someplace else and do it all over again.
But eating, honking, pooping, and making even more geese seems to be the general theme.
Well, Canada has a larger land area than the US, with huge tracts of it being essentially wilderness.
There is literally no shortage of places they could go to once they've been spooked from these places.
Think Wisconsin or Maine, but much larger. Miles and miles or forests, wetlands, and whatever else might keep a goose happy.
Now you're just exaggerating. ;-)
Indeed -- my understanding is Mercedes S class cars have introduced more safety features than pretty much anybody else.
And I certainly remember what ABS was something only to be found in high-end cars.
If the Tesla broke a test rig for the roof crush, needed a new test for flipping because they make it happen and survived a front impact better than anything else -- well, that reflects well on Tesla.
I don't know how many of the geese get up to Alaska, but huge sections of Canada become essentially overrun with Geese.
Managing where they go can be a huge problem and a nuisance.
I worked at a building once where the geese would nest in the medians in the parking lot. They'd routinely attack people going to and from their cars. I've seen huge sections of parks which are essentially covered in green goose-shit and which are unusable (and which can also be a health hazard).
We do respect the migration, and as migratory birds they are protected -- but that doesn't mean that every damned place that literally hundreds (or thousands, or 10's of thousands) of geese move into can be left to have them take over.
Sometimes, the sheer scale of the mess which can be caused by these things means you need to find ways to convince them to find another place to be.
Not really .. but they do make it up in volume. ;-)
Which is kind of like predicting colder temperatures in winter.
Hell, I was in Myrtle Beach this year ... and there they were: Canadian Geese, honking, eating, and pooping, and then honking, eating and pooping some more for good measure. Because, well, that's what they do.
So, we should avoid writing tools which could potentially write good apps, because initially only crappy apps will be written?
Wow, I'm glad you're not in charge of any science or R&D. With that attitude, nothing would ever get made.
Done properly, there is great potential in giving people a simple visual vocabulary of building blocks which could be assembled into something interesting. But, nope, someone could write something boring, so why bother.
And are you of the opinion that improvements in safety haven't always come in on the high end first and then trickle down?
Airbags. ABS. That 3rd eye brake-light. Tire pressure sensors. Probably even more -- all of these things appeared first in higher-end cars and then made their way down to the rest of the models.
If anything, I expect a car at that price point to have more engineering and safety features in it. You don't just start out putting everything into the cheapest cars on the market.
And by the same token, if you can give people a good enough toolset, you have no idea of what they'll be capable of writing.
Code-less visual programming has been something people have been talking about for a long time, and I've occasionally gone looking for something in that family but never actually seen anything which is more than a proof-of-concept (or a horrible kludge).
Who cares? I expect the 'serious' developers to use whatever tools make sense. But for Joe Smartphone, if he wanted to string together some basic tools to do something useful, I can see it being a good idea.
Of course, that it's on Windows Phone and a hosted thing means I'll never see it. I want something self contained on the device that runs in airplane mode.
All you need is better spin and propaganda.
Are we supposed to believe they're just going to stop doing this completely?
Or will they just come up with a new way to spin it -- "Comrade Yang, in contrition for his terrible crime of jaywalking has volunteered to be euthenized and have his organs harvested. He hopes the glorious People's Republic will accept his noble sacrifice as atonement for his transgressions." Forcing someone to sign the paperwork probably isn't that tough when you can get away with anything in secret and threaten people's families.
And then they'll be right back where they are now, but with better PR.
I'd like to think China is going to halt the practice. But in reality, it's probably quite lucrative, and power once held is seldom given up.
From pervasive government spying, probably not.
We already know the FBI and other agencies have been doing some 'creative writing' to hide the source of their information -- trumped up traffic stops or finding another excuse to make it look like they found this through innocent means.
It's well known that intelligence agencies will often use stuff they got that is either of sketchy origin, or stuff from a source they can't afford to compromise -- and then work backwards to either confirming through other sources, or find a way to conceal it.
If they truly wanted to go after someone, I believe they would intercept protected communications, and then either lie about it, or find another way to present it which made it look like they didn't intercept it.
Only if you are worried about strictly following the law. If you're willing to skirt it (or ignore it), there's n o technical barriers greater than anything else. And from what we've seen, they're entirely willing to go into some gray areas of the law, or ignore it altogether.
At the end of the day, if they think you're a big enough 'threat' (which could eventually reach to political adversaries and the like) -- they will simply go after you. And they won't be worrying about respecting your legal rights when they do it.
So, basically you're saying "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". If so, you're an idiot.
I'd like to tell you that you deserve to live in that world. But that means the rest of us would have to as well.
Think of the McCarthy Era, or the worst stories about the Soviets -- and that's the kind of world you live in if you accede to constant state surveillance.
Because, if you ever decide to have an affair, or run against an incumbent, or try to prove government wrong-doing, or follow a religion the state disapproves of, or organize a gathering of an unpopular political party, discuss something controversial, or seriously ponder taking action against an unjust government ... you're totally screwed.
Think China and trying to talk about Tiananmen Square. Think the Soviet Gulags. Think of some of the nastier dictators who just drag people off in the night and shoot them.
If someone can dredge through your entire private life and discredit, inconvenience, arrest, or otherwise intimidate you or fuck with your life -- you cease to live in a free society. Because they will either police the crap out of everyone, and make it into a really nasty place to live -- or they will selectively police the crap out of everyone, and make it into a really nasty place to live.
So, you're saying that if you're generic enough looking, smart enough to outsmart the security people, you deserve privacy, but everyone else should do without?
I'm sorry, but you sound like you haven't got the barest clue about why people object to the spying in the first place, let alone the problems that come along with the widespread surveillance of a society. When your government knows everything you do, your options are far more circumscribed.
If you think people should be giving up rights so that governments can prop up the illusion of security -- well, you deserve neither, to paraphrase.
That was kinda my point ... Netcraft confirming something has been a meme on Slashdot as long as I've been using Slashdot.
And that's at at least 2 or 3 weeks I think. ;-)
Must be those people who paid the extortion fee.
I find it astounding that any organization wouldn't have long ago asked themselves WTF they're running it for -- and I can't imagine there have been any updates to it in a long time.
Or, it's alive and thriving -- I have no idea. It's been a dead horse for years to me. If someone told me they'd be putting in a new server with SCO Unixware on it -- well, I'm not sure of how long it would take me to stop laughing.