But we in the UK live in a country with more surveilance cameras per square foot than any other in the world.
Which have a strange habit of breaking down exactly when they are actually needed.
We have a a government that has introduced curfews, travel restrictions, has done away with the right to silence, wishes to remove the right to trial by jury, has instituted detention without trial and without evidence,
Claiming that all this is about "prevention of terrorism". Is there any evidence that the meme of "reduce civil liberties (of the common man) to increase safety and security" actually has any basis in reality in the first place.
that lies to its people to justify foreign wars of aggression, has no compuction in victimising journalists that speak out against it, that plans to force through expensive identity card schemes in the face of both public opposition, and a total lack of evidence that thes scheme will benefit anyone at all.
To find out who it benefits you'd need to "follow the money".
And one that apparently condones shooting commuters in the head at point blank range without evidence and with no warning.
Then sending the shooters on holiday, rather than to prison.
You have a flawed assumption in that the file is read only. Exchange/Outlook will let you modify the attachment in place and keep it in your mailbox.
Which is going to lead to all sorts of "fun" if several users try to alter the file. Not just in terms of file handling, but also in terms of people not realising that something they have read is now changed.
Isn't it simply the rational thing to do to code to a vendor-independent programming framework?
Depends if you are the customer or the vendor...
The dweebs that support these kind of crappy business practices simply don't get it. And amazingly enough, more often than not they're the same crowd that pushes the "must have an alternative vendor, no sole-sourcing" meme (a good meme, by the way) whenever it fits their agenda to do so.
Typically software gets treated as an exception. Probably because applying this meme would rule out all proprietary software.
It's using some retarded fucking captcha implementation using IE XML data islands instead of using one of the 40 million scripts that don't require brower support.
Maybe someone will come up with a work around.
I hate this stupid shit. And I know it's not even malicious, because I've seen it happen before at government agencies. It's out and out incompetence.
Or boneheadedness.
Although it seems that given all the other crap FEMA has fucked up lately, this won't even register to most people.
Both "Management" and "Mismanagement" start with the same letter:)
It is pointless to try and stop a "crime" that millions of people are willing to permit, and even to commit. At this point, it's not a crime, it's an inevitability. Look at the failures of the various Prohibitions, for example.
But that dosn't stop their advocates continuing with the "war". If anything using the legal system is more effective than using soldiers, since it's harder for people to fight back.
Exactly. This is why there are specific laws for such offenses related to 'intellectual property', because the established principals of real property common/stautory law can't reasonably apply.
To the point where sanctions for misusing this fictional property are more extreme than misusing real property.
These laws amount to a corporate privledge, because they are mostly if not entirely pointless to the natural person.
Or unusable by a natural person. Are there any cases of individuals taking out these kind of suits against corporates?
There's no natural right here. The debate is over whether or not the copyright system adequately encourages artists to produce. It does.
How do you conclude this? You'd first need to know what the level of production without any copyright laws and current technology. It's an equally valid hypothesis that artists are continuing to produce, dispite, current copyright laws.
Surely it is an inalienable right to attempt to profit from your labours.
The simple answer is no. There also certainly isn't any kind of right to profit from work you did years ago...
If there is no copyright, and copying of electronic media is essentially effortless and free, how then do content creators profit from their labours?
They can do what everyone else does, get a job or draw an income from investmets/pension fund. If their work is highly in demand they might accept commisions or sponsorship. Storys, poems, songs, etc all existed before copyright existed and when copyright conditions were much more modest.
The RIAA just cares about making money? Why are they a non-profit organization then? One of the main goals of the RIAA is to "protect the intellectual property rights" of its member companies.
This also means that the member companies are protected from being counter sued.
If I go to an artist and ask them for a song, I expect them to charge me.. but I then expect to be free to do with that work as I please - I've paid for it.
Remember that the vast majority of artists never expect their art to be their main income.
We used to accept this in our society because so few of us had the means to copy things.
There are a couple of other changes which have happened in recent decades. One is the loosening of the coupling between content and media. The other is the ability to copy content trivially on a one at a time basis. Copyright originally came into being when the only way to cheaply duplicate content was through a third party publisher.
Let's not forget the rest of Clause 8:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Whereas currently laws exist which appear to have the effect of impeding said progress.
Always seemed to me that Britney Spears songs and Arnold Schwarzenegger films was not what the founding fathers had in mind.
Wonder what thety would have though about The Internet or "fanfiction".
Not to mention limited != ever increasing.
Once a copyright term is longer than the average human lifespan it's may as well be unlimited for all practical purposes.
Only because Congress gave them that right, which is a little assinine to me. Why should some outmoded businesss model be kept alive via legislation? Bah humbug...
They wern't so much given the right as bought the right through lobbying probably some bribary too. If they didn't then use that right they'd look like fools, which to some of the prople involved is probably a worst fate than losing money.
Then and now, the teachers and administrators probably resent having to have the computers at all. They don't understand computers (well, OK, most people don't), but they *do* understand that the kids know more about computers than they ever will, which makes the adults feel like they're not in control. The type of person who becomes a school administrator is the type who hates being out of control, so they use (or abuse) their authority to make sure the kids are too terrified to step out of line.
Not too long ago, I did a contract job for a school system, setting up routers and proxy (censoring) software. One day the boss (former English teacher who was put in charge of the school's IT dept) asked me what I was doing, so I told her. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was probably something like "I'm installing Apache so you can use this CGI script to configure your whitelist and blacklist for the squid proxy". Her response was, "Don't use all those technical terms with me! How would you like it if I used educational jargon when talking to you?"
Sounds like someone who also has communication issues when it comes to dealing with adults.
It almost made me crack up laughing... but she was dead serious. So I calmed myself, and I told her (and not in a smart-assed way either): "Well, if you used words I didn't understand, I'd ask you to explain them. You're a teacher, so you're probably pretty good at that. I was trying to communicate with you, not confuse you, so tell me what I said that you didn't understand, and I'll try to explain it."
She got *pissed*. I mean red-faced, white-knuckled, and shaking. She stormed off...
Wonder how she'd have reacted if you had asked for clarification had she used "educational jargon" when talking to you. Or meaningless phrases like "it's not working". IME when it comes to computers many teachers appear unable to describe what is in front of their eyes.
After the admin changed them all, the kids then used a brute force cracker to break the passwords which they found on the local machines (password file?) and proceeded to install unauthorized software.
Dosn't MacOS allow file systems to be mounted with a no-execution paramater? What about denying root logon from the console... Sounds like the "admins" didn't know what they were doing. They couldn't use inbuilt features of the OS, let alone removing surplus administrative interfaces from software.
They were punished multiple times and they still continued to do it. Calling the cops on them was a last resort the schools were forced to do.
The school apparently failed to contact the parents of the students involved. Nor did they take the computers away. Either as punishment or to have them properly fixed.
Why do high school students need their own laptops anyway?
Because somebody, somewhere, thought issuing every student with a laptop and requiring them to use it was a good idea. No doubt this moron hasn't even been named, let alone fired.
Aren't laptops inordinately expensive items to be handing out to every kid in the school? Plus they're easily damaged and so on. Why do they do this?
Because those who make these kind of decisions know nothing about computers. Except possibly how to get a backhander from a computer supplier.
At the very least they can use a projector and a laptop in the classroom to give presentations,
You can just as easily do this with a fixed projector and fixed, networked, computer. Which will have a much lower TCO than messing around with a laptop and portable projector.
One thing that baffles me is why the school returned the laptops, password changed or no password changed, after "previous offenses".
A big part of the problem is that the school badly mismanaged the whole thing. There was probably no good reason for these machines to even have an "admin" login, let alone for this password to be published. Indeed, for such an application, the paradigm of a "Personal Computer" is probably just wrong. But that's not unsuprising when "off the shelf" is today's fashion for IT systems design...
I guess for the most part, I tend to think about historical religious documents in the context/time they were written.
There's also the issue of what they were when they were written. Whilst we know that the pslams were originally songs we don't know what every book of the bible was originally...
"Environmentalism" and "diversity" and "social justice" are indistinguishable from religion. Yet somehow they find their way into public schools with no problem, and slashdot doesn't seem to mind.
Because most of these sound perfectly reasonable and sensible. Problem is once you look a little more closely you find that there are many extremists and crackpots involved. Sometimes to the extent that what is actually being advocated can be almost opposite of what it appears. e.g. "diversity" which turns out to be "quota filling" and extreme supression of opinions and beliefs.
Slashdot Mirror
But we in the UK live in a country with more surveilance cameras per square foot than any other in the world.
Which have a strange habit of breaking down exactly when they are actually needed.
We have a a government that has introduced curfews, travel restrictions, has done away with the right to silence, wishes to remove the right to trial by jury, has instituted detention without trial and without evidence,
Claiming that all this is about "prevention of terrorism". Is there any evidence that the meme of "reduce civil liberties (of the common man) to increase safety and security" actually has any basis in reality in the first place.
that lies to its people to justify foreign wars of aggression, has no compuction in victimising journalists that speak out against it, that plans to force through expensive identity card schemes in the face of both public opposition, and a total lack of evidence that thes scheme will benefit anyone at all.
To find out who it benefits you'd need to "follow the money".
And one that apparently condones shooting commuters in the head at point blank range without evidence and with no warning.
Then sending the shooters on holiday, rather than to prison.
You have a flawed assumption in that the file is read only. Exchange/Outlook will let you modify the attachment in place and keep it in your mailbox.
Which is going to lead to all sorts of "fun" if several users try to alter the file. Not just in terms of file handling, but also in terms of people not realising that something they have read is now changed.
Isn't it simply the rational thing to do to code to a vendor-independent programming framework?
Depends if you are the customer or the vendor...
The dweebs that support these kind of crappy business practices simply don't get it. And amazingly enough, more often than not they're the same crowd that pushes the "must have an alternative vendor, no sole-sourcing" meme (a good meme, by the way) whenever it fits their agenda to do so.
Typically software gets treated as an exception. Probably because applying this meme would rule out all proprietary software.
So we have an *INTERNAL* app that was opened to the public, thus adding new browsers for which it was not designed to it's possible clients.
As opposed to creating something which will work with any browser. Including MSIE and any possible future browsers.
It's using some retarded fucking captcha implementation using IE XML data islands instead of using one of the 40 million scripts that don't require brower support.
:)
Maybe someone will come up with a work around.
I hate this stupid shit. And I know it's not even malicious, because I've seen it happen before at government agencies. It's out and out incompetence.
Or boneheadedness.
Although it seems that given all the other crap FEMA has fucked up lately, this won't even register to most people.
Both "Management" and "Mismanagement" start with the same letter
It is pointless to try and stop a "crime" that millions of people are willing to permit, and even to commit. At this point, it's not a crime, it's an inevitability. Look at the failures of the various Prohibitions, for example.
But that dosn't stop their advocates continuing with the "war". If anything using the legal system is more effective than using soldiers, since it's harder for people to fight back.
Exactly. This is why there are specific laws for such offenses related to 'intellectual property', because the established principals of real property common/stautory law can't reasonably apply.
To the point where sanctions for misusing this fictional property are more extreme than misusing real property.
These laws amount to a corporate privledge, because they are mostly if not entirely pointless to the natural person.
Or unusable by a natural person. Are there any cases of individuals taking out these kind of suits against corporates?
There's no natural right here. The debate is over whether or not the copyright system adequately encourages artists to produce. It does.
How do you conclude this? You'd first need to know what the level of production without any copyright laws and current technology.
It's an equally valid hypothesis that artists are continuing to produce, dispite, current copyright laws.
Surely it is an inalienable right to attempt to profit from your labours.
The simple answer is no. There also certainly isn't any kind of right to profit from work you did years ago...
If there is no copyright, and copying of electronic media is essentially effortless and free, how then do content creators profit from their labours?
They can do what everyone else does, get a job or draw an income from investmets/pension fund. If their work is highly in demand they might accept commisions or sponsorship.
Storys, poems, songs, etc all existed before copyright existed and when copyright conditions were much more modest.
The RIAA just cares about making money? Why are they a non-profit organization then? One of the main goals of the RIAA is to "protect the intellectual property rights" of its member companies.
This also means that the member companies are protected from being counter sued.
If I go to an artist and ask them for a song, I expect them to charge me.. but I then expect to be free to do with that work as I please - I've paid for it.
Remember that the vast majority of artists never expect their art to be their main income.
We used to accept this in our society because so few of us had the means to copy things.
There are a couple of other changes which have happened in recent decades. One is the loosening of the coupling between content and media. The other is the ability to copy content trivially on a one at a time basis.
Copyright originally came into being when the only way to cheaply duplicate content was through a third party publisher.
Let's not forget the rest of Clause 8:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Whereas currently laws exist which appear to have the effect of impeding said progress.
Always seemed to me that Britney Spears songs and Arnold Schwarzenegger films was not what the founding fathers had in mind.
Wonder what thety would have though about The Internet or "fanfiction".
Not to mention limited != ever increasing.
Once a copyright term is longer than the average human lifespan it's may as well be unlimited for all practical purposes.
The state no longer represents the will of the people.
Or for that matter the interests of the people.
Only because Congress gave them that right, which is a little assinine to me. Why should some outmoded businesss model be kept alive via legislation? Bah humbug...
They wern't so much given the right as bought the right through lobbying probably some bribary too. If they didn't then use that right they'd look like fools, which to some of the prople involved is probably a worst fate than losing money.
Then and now, the teachers and administrators probably resent having to have the computers at all. They don't understand computers (well, OK, most people don't), but they *do* understand that the kids know more about computers than they ever will, which makes the adults feel like they're not in control. The type of person who becomes a school administrator is the type who hates being out of control, so they use (or abuse) their authority to make sure the kids are too terrified to step out of line.
Not too long ago, I did a contract job for a school system, setting up routers and proxy (censoring) software. One day the boss (former English teacher who was put in charge of the school's IT dept) asked me what I was doing, so I told her. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was probably something like "I'm installing Apache so you can use this CGI script to configure your whitelist and blacklist for the squid proxy". Her response was, "Don't use all those technical terms with me! How would you like it if I used educational jargon when talking to you?"
Sounds like someone who also has communication issues when it comes to dealing with adults.
It almost made me crack up laughing... but she was dead serious. So I calmed myself, and I told her (and not in a smart-assed way either): "Well, if you used words I didn't understand, I'd ask you to explain them. You're a teacher, so you're probably pretty good at that. I was trying to communicate with you, not confuse you, so tell me what I said that you didn't understand, and I'll try to explain it."
She got *pissed*. I mean red-faced, white-knuckled, and shaking. She stormed off...
Wonder how she'd have reacted if you had asked for clarification had she used "educational jargon" when talking to you. Or meaningless phrases like "it's not working". IME when it comes to computers many teachers appear unable to describe what is in front of their eyes.
After the admin changed them all, the kids then used a brute force cracker to break the passwords which they found on the local machines (password file?) and proceeded to install unauthorized software.
Dosn't MacOS allow file systems to be mounted with a no-execution paramater? What about denying root logon from the console... Sounds like the "admins" didn't know what they were doing. They couldn't use inbuilt features of the OS, let alone removing surplus administrative interfaces from software.
They were punished multiple times and they still continued to do it. Calling the cops on them was a last resort the schools were forced to do.
The school apparently failed to contact the parents of the students involved. Nor did they take the computers away. Either as punishment or to have them properly fixed.
Why do high school students need their own laptops anyway?
Because somebody, somewhere, thought issuing every student with a laptop and requiring them to use it was a good idea. No doubt this moron hasn't even been named, let alone fired.
Aren't laptops inordinately expensive items to be handing out to every kid in the school? Plus they're easily damaged and so on. Why do they do this?
Because those who make these kind of decisions know nothing about computers. Except possibly how to get a backhander from a computer supplier.
At the very least they can use a projector and a laptop in the classroom to give presentations,
You can just as easily do this with a fixed projector and fixed, networked, computer. Which will have a much lower TCO than messing around with a laptop and portable projector.
One thing that baffles me is why the school returned the laptops, password changed or no password changed, after "previous offenses".
A big part of the problem is that the school badly mismanaged the whole thing. There was probably no good reason for these machines to even have an "admin" login, let alone for this password to be published.
Indeed, for such an application, the paradigm of a "Personal Computer" is probably just wrong. But that's not unsuprising when "off the shelf" is today's fashion for IT systems design...
But this fails to address the one place that the shuttle was good at: maintance of satellites.
Thing is that the shuttle cannot reach geosynchronous orbit. Which is where such an ability would be most useful.
Why to air forces the world round rely on C130 Hercules aircraft for transport?
Let alone also using B52s, KC135s, K10s, E3s
Why do we communicate with a 30 year old communication protocol?
Or using telephones, which are over a century old.
Why do I drive a car which is 10 years old but for which the basic design is more than 20 years old?
The basic design of cars hasn't changed in a lot longer than that. There is also plenty of car technology which hasn't changed much in 70 years.
Interestingly, only 38% of physicians think that evolution alone was sufficient to bring about all diversity of life.
How sucessful are evolutionary biologists at treating sick people though?
I guess for the most part, I tend to think about historical religious documents in the context/time they were written.
There's also the issue of what they were when they were written. Whilst we know that the pslams were originally songs we don't know what every book of the bible was originally...
"Fundamentalism," as a religious position, asserts a literalist interpretation of the Bible.
It would be intersting to see someone actually try and do this. In practice such people will play "pick and choose".
"Environmentalism" and "diversity" and "social justice" are indistinguishable from religion. Yet somehow they find their way into public schools with no problem, and slashdot doesn't seem to mind.
Because most of these sound perfectly reasonable and sensible. Problem is once you look a little more closely you find that there are many extremists and crackpots involved. Sometimes to the extent that what is actually being advocated can be almost opposite of what it appears. e.g. "diversity" which turns out to be "quota filling" and extreme supression of opinions and beliefs.
Evolution does nto rule out god, ID/creationists work under that assumption.
There are also plenty of people who are both scientists and religious.