There's a HUGE difference between "these changes will be effective immediately" and "these changes will be effective retroactively."
I don't see anything being done retroactively. They are merely changing the code for displaying user names going forward. Without a time machine they cannot retroactively change the HTML generated in the past. But effective immediately, the database field user names will be pulled from for display purposed will change from User.Alias to User.FullName. Nothing retroactive about it, from a legal stance that it (although IANAL). From a moral stance, it is more murky.
Modern content management systems store comments, etc, in a database and dynamically change the page as the data changes. Example - change your sig, and then go look at your old posts - they will all have the new sig.
Ethics, schmethics! The lesson to learn is to never give out your real name, use prepaid cards and throw-away email, and if they snoop your IP, use a proxy.
Sure, but some of us would rather give them the opportunity to do something dickish and then hold their feet to the fire - otherwise, it will just continue and eventually become "best practices" and "industry standard":-)
"They are breaking the terms under which posters made their previous posts."
Did you read the terms? I didn't -- never signed up for that site. I have ready many terms of sites I have signed up for and virtually all of those include some line where they can change the terms in the future. Not saying they had that -- but you are talking as if you read the terms and know exactly what it says and are full of righteous indignation.
If you haven't read the terms, then you are full of something other than righteous indignation. I leave exactly what that is up to the reader's imagination.
They themselves are admitting that the previous terms allowed anonymous posting, and that this change will be made retroactively unless you tell them by the day after Christmas to delete all your comments. Or did you not even read the summary???
If anything, they should make the default, if any, be to remove all anonymous comments unless you give them permission to show your real name. Even though even that is stupider than just enacting the new policy going forward, and leaving comments posted under the previous policy the way they were.
Eve the bible says Paul was human, and thus not perfect. Where Paul's teachings are not in congruence with Jesus, Paul is simply wrong. Paul's condemning gays, etc., is at odds with Jesus's command to love one another. Same as the whole book of the apocalypse, as well as some additions to the gospel record, are at odds.
They try to cheat our systems with technicalities, therefore why is it a problem to divert them when they technically didn't hit land? If you really wanted better lives for those people, you'd have taken them in yourself rather than expecting us to do so.
I've already stated elsewhere that I'm prepared to take in a refugee when Canada brings them over here. If I were in Oz, I would have already done so.
I respect their efforts very much, but i would rather see them become more militant, take as much money as they can get from the wilfully ignorant, and not be afraid of making enemies.
That's certainly a good way to encourage development to move to BSD, which is already the basis for both the PlayStation and OS X.
"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to loose." - Confucious:-)
Wrong. If I create a closed-source derivative of bsd-licensed software, I am NOT taking an freedom away from others. They are free to use it or not, same as people are free to not use GPL'd software if they don't want to abide by the terms of the GPL.
The BSD license allows code to propagate without putting restrictions on the person passing it on to others, unlike the GPL.
Totally bogus argument. We are talking about the GPL pretending it's a software that promotes freedom, when it is more restrictive than other licenses, such as the BSD license. The entities who directly benefit from the software freedom conservancy should be the ones paying for it. Or they can just change their license to BSD and continue to give the source away...
"In a November 12 editorial outlining the new real-name policy, the newspaper said, "We have encountered consistent difficulty with posts that exceed the bounds of civil discourse — as have many sites where comments from anonymous posters are allowed."
Like the "real names" policy of facebook ever forced people into only engaging in civil discourse... you're a newspaper - couldn't you at least do a BIT of research on how this has not worked in the past?
They are breaking the terms under which posters made their previous posts. So much for ethics. While some of us don't mind using our real names, if the site allowed nyms in the past, they should at least honour that. Who do they think they are to say, in effect "I have changed the terms of the contract. Pray I don't change it again," because now they've shown that their agreements are not really agreements.
And just how are they going to check that people's names are their real names? "Oh, this doesn't sound like a real name...?" Or people who had good reason to post anonymously to avoid being sued in retaliation for whistle-blowing? Or being outed as gay, lesbian, trans? Or a Ben Carson supporter? Or, with the current wave of Islamophobia, a Muslim? Hope their reporters complain that their "off-the-record" sources have dried up and fix this.
You forgot "sell warranties at 9x the price that they pay the 3rd party issuer that you only find out covers less than a thong when you try to make a claim."
You mean the country that took a boat with 178 in it that was a couple hundred feet from shore, towed it away from land, and won't say how they "disappeared" both the boat and the passengers?
Most of the people running zencart are probably going to have to wait until their hosting provider supplies a one-click upgrade, same as Android users had to wait for their phone company to push out the upgrade that took care of stagefright, heartblead, etc.
Of course it's short-sighted. But do you think the bean counters and their bosses care more about long term prospects than they do about short term profits that juice their stock options into the black?
Maybe that title exists because qualified women were being overlooked thanks to the old boys network?
This could easily be seen as trying to get better quality workers without prematurely culling half the herd because of their gender. Nothing SJW there - just sound business sense - if you want to hire the best, you use the largest pool of candidates to draw from. Or do you think that no woman can't be better at a job than a man?
and yet everyone here is complaining that this article even exist, yet are happy to ignore that this means hardly any women hold senior positions at Microsoft, and a huge amount of their female work force basically worked the lowest level jobs. Glass ceiling, anyone?
FTFA
Microsoft's uppermost management ranks have become more racially diverse, with African-Americans making up 2.9 percent of corporate vice presidents, compared to 1.3 percent a year ago. That's likely only a few people, but it's a sign of progress at the top. Microsoft's senior leadership team is now 27.2 percent women, which is the greatest representation of women in that role in the company's history.
The moral of the story is, as usual, that upper management is more likely to survive the cuts. While employment of women overall went down, management beat the trend... and that you should RTFA before commenting.
Your advice is rejected for the following reasons:
[x] It makes too much sense
[x] It is politically incorrect
[x] It has been tried before
Seriously, if a massive layoff occurs in the construction field, the vast majority of those affected will be male. If a massive layoff occurs in the nursing field, the mast majority of those affected will be female. The underlying problem is that people continue to conflate equality of opportunity with equality of outcome.
So how do you make first contact with a potential new recruit if you're not making publicly readable posts?
A business card or written note, shake their hand and say "Hey, I heard you're looking to make a difference" -- you know... IRL communication.
Recruit on the ground, then tell them how to get more information/further orders online.
The recruits are in another country, no can do. If it was possible to meet them in real life, there'd be no need for social media conversations.
I disagree. If you have skilled labor in house, keep it. Outsourcing will hurt moral and the talent will leave. leaving talent will always hurt a company.
Unfortunately, the bean counters and the CEOs see cutting costs for a quick bump in profits is worth an increase in THEIR pay today. When it doesn't work, they CYA by shifting the blame to the outsourcing company, rather than admit it was their mistake in the first place.
That doesn't explain why the HAL9000 on board the spacecraft deviated from the HAL9000 on the ground. The HAL9000 on board was given two contradictory orders - be be one of the crew, and lie to to his crewmates. His reaction was quite human - he went nuts. Since he was incapable of telling the crew ahead of time, If the crew was no longer around, he'd have no reason to lie to them. Crazy logic, but in retrospect, the only solution that fit all the parameters of his orders.
The rights of children are not the same as the rights of adults. The parents' responsibility for their children gives them special proper powers over their children, a subset of which, in loco parentis, are temporarily extended to schools.
Using their best judgement, parents may spank their children to prevent them from running in front of cars or kicking the neighbor's pitbull. This is not a violation of a child's rights.
So you believe that spanking a kid will keep them from running in front of cars? How odd. If they're too young to understand the danger, spanking them does nothing. If they're old enough to understand the danger, talking about it is the better approach.
If you think spanking is not a violation of a child's rights, better not come to Canada. You're never allowed to swat a kid on the head, never allowed to use anything except the palm of your hand, and hitting a child in anger or in retaliation for something a child did is illegal, as is any form of corporal punishment for children under 2 or over 12.
It's completely banned in many other countries.
So here's the real question: Why would you hit someone you love? You're showing by example that violence is how adults solve problems, and that hitting someone you love is okay. Not the best role model.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a HUGE difference between "these changes will be effective immediately" and "these changes will be effective retroactively."
I don't see anything being done retroactively. They are merely changing the code for displaying user names going forward. Without a time machine they cannot retroactively change the HTML generated in the past. But effective immediately, the database field user names will be pulled from for display purposed will change from User.Alias to User.FullName. Nothing retroactive about it, from a legal stance that it (although IANAL). From a moral stance, it is more murky.
Modern content management systems store comments, etc, in a database and dynamically change the page as the data changes. Example - change your sig, and then go look at your old posts - they will all have the new sig.
Ethics, schmethics! The lesson to learn is to never give out your real name, use prepaid cards and throw-away email, and if they snoop your IP, use a proxy.
Sure, but some of us would rather give them the opportunity to do something dickish and then hold their feet to the fire - otherwise, it will just continue and eventually become "best practices" and "industry standard" :-)
There's a HUGE difference between "these changes will be effective immediately" and "these changes will be effective retroactively."
"They are breaking the terms under which posters made their previous posts."
Did you read the terms? I didn't -- never signed up for that site. I have ready many terms of sites I have signed up for and virtually all of those include some line where they can change the terms in the future. Not saying they had that -- but you are talking as if you read the terms and know exactly what it says and are full of righteous indignation.
If you haven't read the terms, then you are full of something other than righteous indignation. I leave exactly what that is up to the reader's imagination.
They themselves are admitting that the previous terms allowed anonymous posting, and that this change will be made retroactively unless you tell them by the day after Christmas to delete all your comments. Or did you not even read the summary???
If anything, they should make the default, if any, be to remove all anonymous comments unless you give them permission to show your real name. Even though even that is stupider than just enacting the new policy going forward, and leaving comments posted under the previous policy the way they were.
Eve the bible says Paul was human, and thus not perfect. Where Paul's teachings are not in congruence with Jesus, Paul is simply wrong. Paul's condemning gays, etc., is at odds with Jesus's command to love one another. Same as the whole book of the apocalypse, as well as some additions to the gospel record, are at odds.
They try to cheat our systems with technicalities, therefore why is it a problem to divert them when they technically didn't hit land? If you really wanted better lives for those people, you'd have taken them in yourself rather than expecting us to do so.
I've already stated elsewhere that I'm prepared to take in a refugee when Canada brings them over here. If I were in Oz, I would have already done so.
I respect their efforts very much, but i would rather see them become more militant, take as much money as they can get from the wilfully ignorant, and not be afraid of making enemies.
That's certainly a good way to encourage development to move to BSD, which is already the basis for both the PlayStation and OS X.
"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to loose." - Confucious :-)
Steam the largest gaming platform? Only if you don't count Windows, XBox, Playstation, Wii, etc ...
Wrong. If I create a closed-source derivative of bsd-licensed software, I am NOT taking an freedom away from others. They are free to use it or not, same as people are free to not use GPL'd software if they don't want to abide by the terms of the GPL.
The BSD license allows code to propagate without putting restrictions on the person passing it on to others, unlike the GPL.
Totally bogus argument. We are talking about the GPL pretending it's a software that promotes freedom, when it is more restrictive than other licenses, such as the BSD license. The entities who directly benefit from the software freedom conservancy should be the ones paying for it. Or they can just change their license to BSD and continue to give the source away ...
"In a November 12 editorial outlining the new real-name policy, the newspaper said, "We have encountered consistent difficulty with posts that exceed the bounds of civil discourse — as have many sites where comments from anonymous posters are allowed."
Like the "real names" policy of facebook ever forced people into only engaging in civil discourse ... you're a newspaper - couldn't you at least do a BIT of research on how this has not worked in the past?
Someone doesn't know how the Internet works ...
They are breaking the terms under which posters made their previous posts. So much for ethics. While some of us don't mind using our real names, if the site allowed nyms in the past, they should at least honour that. Who do they think they are to say, in effect "I have changed the terms of the contract. Pray I don't change it again," because now they've shown that their agreements are not really agreements.
And just how are they going to check that people's names are their real names? "Oh, this doesn't sound like a real name ...?" Or people who had good reason to post anonymously to avoid being sued in retaliation for whistle-blowing? Or being outed as gay, lesbian, trans? Or a Ben Carson supporter? Or, with the current wave of Islamophobia, a Muslim? Hope their reporters complain that their "off-the-record" sources have dried up and fix this.
You forgot "sell warranties at 9x the price that they pay the 3rd party issuer that you only find out covers less than a thong when you try to make a claim."
You mean the country that took a boat with 178 in it that was a couple hundred feet from shore, towed it away from land, and won't say how they "disappeared" both the boat and the passengers?
Most of the people running zencart are probably going to have to wait until their hosting provider supplies a one-click upgrade, same as Android users had to wait for their phone company to push out the upgrade that took care of stagefright, heartblead, etc.
Of course it's short-sighted. But do you think the bean counters and their bosses care more about long term prospects than they do about short term profits that juice their stock options into the black?
Maybe that title exists because qualified women were being overlooked thanks to the old boys network?
This could easily be seen as trying to get better quality workers without prematurely culling half the herd because of their gender. Nothing SJW there - just sound business sense - if you want to hire the best, you use the largest pool of candidates to draw from. Or do you think that no woman can't be better at a job than a man?
and yet everyone here is complaining that this article even exist, yet are happy to ignore that this means hardly any women hold senior positions at Microsoft, and a huge amount of their female work force basically worked the lowest level jobs. Glass ceiling, anyone?
FTFA
Microsoft's uppermost management ranks have become more racially diverse, with African-Americans making up 2.9 percent of corporate vice presidents, compared to 1.3 percent a year ago. That's likely only a few people, but it's a sign of progress at the top. Microsoft's senior leadership team is now 27.2 percent women, which is the greatest representation of women in that role in the company's history.
The moral of the story is, as usual, that upper management is more likely to survive the cuts. While employment of women overall went down, management beat the trend ... and that you should RTFA before commenting.
Your advice is rejected for the following reasons:
[x] It makes too much sense
[x] It is politically incorrect
[x] It has been tried before
Seriously, if a massive layoff occurs in the construction field, the vast majority of those affected will be male. If a massive layoff occurs in the nursing field, the mast majority of those affected will be female. The underlying problem is that people continue to conflate equality of opportunity with equality of outcome.
So how do you make first contact with a potential new recruit if you're not making publicly readable posts?
A business card or written note, shake their hand and say "Hey, I heard you're looking to make a difference" -- you know... IRL communication. Recruit on the ground, then tell them how to get more information/further orders online.
The recruits are in another country, no can do. If it was possible to meet them in real life, there'd be no need for social media conversations.
I disagree. If you have skilled labor in house, keep it. Outsourcing will hurt moral and the talent will leave. leaving talent will always hurt a company.
Unfortunately, the bean counters and the CEOs see cutting costs for a quick bump in profits is worth an increase in THEIR pay today. When it doesn't work, they CYA by shifting the blame to the outsourcing company, rather than admit it was their mistake in the first place.
I meant un-powered flight too.
Oh, great. So next time I dump a body off a bridge, I need to register it ... :-)
hoardes of chinese workets proved the dominance of brain over chips. dont believe communist propaganda. thanks.
Those Chinese workers are now being displaced by robots.
That doesn't explain why the HAL9000 on board the spacecraft deviated from the HAL9000 on the ground. The HAL9000 on board was given two contradictory orders - be be one of the crew, and lie to to his crewmates. His reaction was quite human - he went nuts. Since he was incapable of telling the crew ahead of time, If the crew was no longer around, he'd have no reason to lie to them. Crazy logic, but in retrospect, the only solution that fit all the parameters of his orders.
The rights of children are not the same as the rights of adults. The parents' responsibility for their children gives them special proper powers over their children, a subset of which, in loco parentis, are temporarily extended to schools.
Using their best judgement, parents may spank their children to prevent them from running in front of cars or kicking the neighbor's pitbull. This is not a violation of a child's rights.
So you believe that spanking a kid will keep them from running in front of cars? How odd. If they're too young to understand the danger, spanking them does nothing. If they're old enough to understand the danger, talking about it is the better approach.
If you think spanking is not a violation of a child's rights, better not come to Canada. You're never allowed to swat a kid on the head, never allowed to use anything except the palm of your hand, and hitting a child in anger or in retaliation for something a child did is illegal, as is any form of corporal punishment for children under 2 or over 12.
It's completely banned in many other countries.
So here's the real question: Why would you hit someone you love? You're showing by example that violence is how adults solve problems, and that hitting someone you love is okay. Not the best role model.