Wired Magazine quotes a Senior Indian programmer as making $11,000. I don't know where you're getting that information, or where that number comes from, but I -do- know nobody has come to these workers and said "Hey, would you be willing to cut down to $40,000 and move to the Dakotas to keep your job?" They're just being outright fired. And I also know that you can't make a living in most parts of the US on $11,000, and shouldn't have to with a college degree (American workers would in fact be better off leaving IT and taking other jobs-- or moving to India with their cost of living-- than trying to work for the amount tech companies are paying Indian workers while living here).
In many elections, you do not have the right to an anonymous vote in the US--consider the Iowa (and numerous other) caucuses as proof of the point
In every major election (the presidential/us congressional/state congressional/mayoral), however, I -do- have the right to the anonymous vote.
In addition--there's one thing you can do from a public computer that you can't from home--and that's be anonymous. Just so you know, they have these things called IP addresses that allow what you do at home to be tracked.
And there are relatively simple ways to get around being tracked by your IP, if that's really your goal. On top of which, I don't know how this sudden anonimity somehow breaks down somebody's right to free speech.
First of all, public figures do not have an expectation of privacy, as they have made themselves public figures.
Second of all, this ruling has nothing to do with the press. The judge did not declare it was ok to install cameras, which is one matter, but that the cybercafes are -required- to install them.
The right to anonymous free speech is, in fact, exactly the sort of thing we have the right to. I give the voting process as an example of this-- there was a time in this country when somebody's boss or landlord or their cronies could look over his shoulder while he was writing out his ballot, and indeed a person could be fired, evicted, or end up beaten as a result. The anonymous vote was established to allow people to express their opinions free of harrassment.
Now, if I post to the internet that the Martians have landed, and this causes mass panic, this is perhaps analagous to the "fire" situation you've described, often the example given as a limit of free speech-- but this is the internet. First of all, you're not going to take my word for it, you're going to check the major news sites and reliable sources to see if this is true, or turn your TV to CNN. The internet is not a "crowded theater." People don't panic about web postings, and even if they did, it's hard to imagine large numbers of injuries and deaths resulting (see trampling issue in fire/crowded theater).
The internet is already filled with hate speech, protected under law in this country-- and if the sort of thing on the KKK's website isn't enough to cite riots, I can't imagine what would be.
The thing about public computers is this: there's nothing I can do on them I can't do at home. From here, I can post an article declaring the Martians have landed (I'm sure many websites already claim such), and from the internet cafe I can do the same. My anonymity is always protected, because it's the internet. Although the cafe is a public place, I am not broadcasting my message in the cafe-- I am broadcasting it on the internet. The other people at the cafe can keep on doing what they're doing, and won't know what the hell I've typed, unless they happen to visit my site, on pure coincidence.
If I'm fired and you're hired to do my position, you've taken what was once my job. If I get this job back from you, I've reclaimed it. How would you prefer me to word it? That you happen to gain a job and I happen to lose one? I'm not implying that I own the position, or anything of the sort, but people don't say "I'm going to a job today," they say "I'm going to my job today." Don't assume I'm saying that jobs are owned by a single individual, that is not my intention.
It would seem the one thing you don't understand is the difference between cost of living in the US and cost of living in India. $5,000 a year goes a lot farther in Mumbai and Bangalore than it does in somewhere like Des Moine. You can't afford to live in America for what the tech companies are paying the Indian programmers. The Indians are working FAR below the American poverty line (last I checked, about $9,000 a year)-- but not below their own.
You're right, I had just heard a lot about Americans being rejected in their attempts to move to India to claim lost jobs, and at the moment am not going to go on a linksearch to prove it, so consider that point nullified.
I hope you understand the rest of my statements better with this clarification.
To be honest, I don't think that's too likely. For one, India is already overrun with people who have skills in areas like C++ and Visual Basic (see the cover article in this month's issue of Wired if you don't believe me)-- and according to the above interview, these are the only prevalent languages among Iraqi programmers.
If you've been following the issues going on with Indian tech jobs taken from American IT workers, you'd see that both the Indian firms hiring these folks and the government of India are trying to keep these Americans from coming over to India and reclaiming positions. If they're keeping out the people who used to have these jobs, what's the likelihood they're going to accept in a bunch of Iraqis to do it?
The balance of disaster for the US IT industry (which makes up a large part of the now failing American economy) vs. disaster for the new Iraqi nation may be a delicate one in the future, it's true, but I don't expect a mass exodus from Iraq by the intellectual population if they don't get a bunch of outsourcing contracts.
That's one way to guarantee your job security in a shaky market-- be the guy who volunteers to go to Iraq! Hell, most of the US soldiers I know aren't exactly volunteering for that position.
Of course, make sure you don't teach the Iraqis -too- well, or they might start outsourcing jobs there, too;)
Oh, really? Glad to hear you don't work in an industry like art or tech, where "your" creations are seized upon by the company you work for and (c) in their name.
Other then not hiring Jayson Blair, I'm curious as to how you're going to "improve" what's considered the best paper in the country-- please let me in on your secret.
I Don't agree with you. People IS responsible for what they government does. The majority of the USA voted for bush, we all know exactly who bush was, who his father was, and what kind of government we where going to have. You can be responsible for something in 2 ways: being directly responsible, for example: voting for bush, or for inaction, for example: not doing anything to get him out of the government, or to limit his power. Don't tell me you can't do anything. We all can help.
The majority of the US people voted for AL GORE. A full million people more than for Bush. Just to clarify a point of fact.
I don't know if you can call 210th in the country THAT big of a problem, coming from somebody who lives in Chicago-- the city with the most murders in the past year.
Now, let's say you live in a city with a HUGE gang/gang violence problem (as I do, and you feel the people of Garden Grove do), I'd say the solution involves, Ohh, I dunno, DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THE GANGS! Since when are Cyber Cafes the biggest site of violence? It sounds more as if a few incidents have been blown out of proportion by a community who is up against a wall as to how to rid itself of gangs, and a city government looking for a good scapegoat and a quick fix.
Whether violence in video games=violence in real life is highly debatable (no study has ever proven a direct connection between the two, although many different contested studies have tried to the sides), the violence in real life=further violence in real life connection has been well established.
If the city of Garden Grove and their police force could take action against slums (beautifying projects, increased patrols, etc), drug houses (demolishing abandoned buildings), and major gang forces, then perhaps the city could fix their problem, and avert future generations from becoming a part of the gang world. I am going to have to guess this small city finds itself without the budget to really fix the problem, or government officials interested in long-haul investments of tax dollars.
The simple truth is, when confronted by more than two or three set of authentication information, people will either use the same password, or simple variations, everywhere or they will write them down... come-on, you know you've done it:)
No, in fact, I have not. I have about twelve different passwords, one for every service I want to keep secure and then two blanket passwords for lower security things. I do not forget them. They are never variations of another password. Five of those are e-mail adresses that I keep, and it is not a hassle to keep them. I do not see what the great challenge is. Use something you know. Everything is a refererence to personal life that I use for a password. Witty phrases are always good, as are things in other languages. You are less likely to forget them. People tell me it's a hassle, but I have no problem with it. An extra thirty seconds is worth my security. It is not like having five different mailboxes in different locations of New York.
So, yeah, I don't do that. It's not hard, and it is in fact safer.
Have they found scientific evidence for the 'Tremors' movies, that maybe earthquakes are the result of precambrian beings who desire to eat all of us?
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for yes.
Re:One of my favourite quotes...
on
Want Freedom?
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· Score: 1
Maybe I'm just dumb, but I believe the quote is a statement of what the man did, and exists within a play on the life of Julius Caesar. I would say that it comes from the Shakespearean work of the same name, but I am familiar enough with both Shakespeare and and the run of that particular play to know that isn't.
I must tell you this: the person has a valid idea running here. I, sadly, am moving to Illinois, where sales tax is a very inconvienent 8.75%. What the fuck is that? In the state of Florida, It's around 2%, and they decided to rid of it for a time because they had enough money. I live in Michigan, where sales tax used to be 5, but is now 6%. It can make a huge difference in how much you're losing over time (take a look at how much people save with those Kroger plus cards, I went to pick something up for my parents, and it claimed they had already saved 2000 dollars). Sadly, I will be losing more money, and coming much closer to 50%, when I move to Chicago. The state-to-state tax difference is huge.
The record industry is a greedy, disgusting bunch of corporate scum, with no respect whatsoever for anybody or anything. They are NOT protecting artists, because the artists whose content is published are forced to sign over their copyright to the record company! Only independant artists are not affected, and those are the only artists whose works should be supported by those of us who hate the record industry.
I need to point out to you at this time that not all distribution companies are the devil. This goes for book publishers, movie producers/studios, and even record companies. Fat Wreck Chords, Fueled By Ramen, Epitaph, and Hopeless (to name just a few) are not tied to any larger record company (as far as recent times go, that I have heard of), nor are they are connected in any way to the RIAA.
Indie artists (whom I do love dearly) are not the only good people out there. There are people who protect the artists, there are people who don't fuck consumers. They're not most record stores, who just take cheap costing records from these companies and mark them up more so they cost what the rest of the CD's on the racks do. They're not anybody involved in the RIAA. But these companies are there, not fucking the artists, offering a safe and fair alternative. Just to let you know. but I agree with you for the most part.
Because I really don't think I can figure out how to do this. And even if I could, I wouldn't have the hand skills to work with it...just because you can roll an 18 dexterity in D&D doesn't mean you have any skills.
California is (by far) the most densely populated state where consent is 18. There are about 6 or 7 others, including such populus states as North Dakota and forward thinking ones like Tennessee.
Where I live, it's 16, but only for people under 18. At 18, it is no longer legal to have sex with anyone under 18. State laws are kind of odd that way.
In New Mexico, it's 17 for heterosexual sex but only 13 for homosexual sex. The difference is because of an effort to curb teen pregnancy.
Yes, well...the real problem with the idea of the 'false positive certificate' is that it makes the system too easy to circumvent. The terrorists (I feel funny just saying it that way) would get their hands on some, and the security people wouldn't look twice when 'Ms. Nussbaum' passed through security waving the form in front of them. So it's either be screwed and get searched every time or don't let this sort of security be installed.
No, actually, my left arm isn't any bigger. Yeah, it's a bit of an exaggeration, but I do masturbate more than the common man (4 hours is a common day). And don't you think it would be awful if the government outlawed this traditional practice of my indigineous peoples (non-dating geeks, that is)?
I used the example because it is something many slashdotters would be agree with me on (as Slashdotters, in my experience, tend to be relatively liberal). First rule of the argument: know your audience. Still, it is true that I should have chosen something enforced by law and not something NOT enforced by law. Sodomy laws would be a far better example, and looking back I wish I had used that, instead.
As for the issues of reasons for firing people, this is rooted not in gay rights essentially but rather in the rights of the employee. Because the employer is given to a position of power, controls must be placed to prevent his abuse of the workforce. Now, in true capitalist society, that isn't theoretically the case...but this is getting so off topic, it doesn't really matter. As for my point of debate, you're right.
I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but if you're serious, you're wrong.
Right now, in your own eyes, you are not a criminal. But what keeps you that way? What if the government decides something you do is a criminal offense? Perhaps they'll decide that Slashdot, as a part of Hax0r culture (I wouldn't call it that, but the people in power in this country are stupid enough to do so), must be outlawed, and its users are all 'terrorists.' Of course, fifty years ago we'd all be 'communists,' but times change and the way you make the idea of a subversive sound like the enemy change.
You see, anything is potentially a crime. Leaving my house, attending class, writing papers, playing water polo, jacking off ten hours a day- these are things that take up most of my time. The fact is, no one is to say that these are not crimes. If using drugs is a crime, if someone who feeds a non-violent subversive activist is a 'terrorist' now, any of these activities could become criminal.
In the majority of the United States, it is still legal to fire someone for quite simply being gay. There is no amendment to protect from this, there is no federal law. And it will be this way for a long time, most likely. In fact, some of the anti-discrimination laws that keep this from being true everywhere are being repealed. What's to say that you aren't a criminal in such an unjust nation?
We are not the land of the free, don't buy that. You aren't safe. Unless you work for the government in a high ranking office (as in you were either elected or appointed), or have a LOT of money, you can be screwed at any time.
Slashdotters need to worry. Fight surveillance! Fight for your freedom, no matter the cost.
Insofar as this being limited to people who download music and videos, I don't buy into that. I think that the overhead of analyzing and tracking the header-type of every IP packet would be prohibitive. Even if it could be done, which it certainly cannot. You cannot discern a file's type by analyzing the packet. The variety in protocol's alone make this next to impossible in real time.
Given that they cannot identify the file type accurately enough for billing purposes, that leaves them to implement a flat tiered rate.
I don't believe they meant literally that they would charge for the people using these things more than others. The implication is that most of the bandwith is used by people downloading these things. Quite simply, for the amount of space taken by a high quality Pr0n movie, I can download 900 pr0n stories. And I'd say it's probably true that it's where most of the bandwith goes, although I agree this is total BS
This is really funny. Amazingly, in fact. Ok, no one's making money off of MP3's these days because if Joe Blow downloads a good song for 50 cents, he's going to put it on Limewire/BearShare/various other shareware thing so that all of his buddies can get it without having to pay. And then when they tell their friends about it, they go download it off the shareware site. And so on. In a circle of friends, you get one 50 cent hit. Digital music is NOT the wave of the future.
The way people make money is to belong to fair record companies. I'm a punker- I don't pay more than $15 for concert tickets no matter who's playing. More is extortion. Punk bands (ones belonging to punk labels such as Feuled By Ramen or Fat Wreck Chords, that is) sell their CD's for less (Compilations tend to be $3, single band CD's rarely top $10), sell their concert tix for less, sell their limited merchandise for less, and still make more. Why? Because if you sign to Fat Wreck, you aren't going to get screwed. If you sign to Sub City, you aren't going to get screwed. If these record companies were to screw a band, it would hit the punk scene the next morning and that label would go out of business. The problem is that the major record label industry is in agreement to all be bastards to their artists.
I would also point out, a lot of bands are greedy. If you pay more than $75 for tickets to see ANYONE, you are getting fucked up the ass and someone is pocketing a LOT. If you pay $50 for shitty seats, you are getting screwed, too. I would never pay near this much, but these are the limits of decency. If you pay this much or more, you are paying to see people who want to fleece you.
This is really very OT.
As for the problem of payola, I have to say, people need to learn some fucking dignity. I mean, the record industries, the people paying them...no one who's in on the process can be without shame. Don't be a corporate whore! Don't sell out to the man! Hunh!
I will clarify for y'all the reference which another has pointed out. NOFX(who is in competition with Bad Religion for the title 'oldest punk band still standing') released a live album entitled "I Heard they Suck Live!" The picture is of a guy saying this to another guy AT a concert. It's absurdism, and it's supposed to make a point, but I think your dumb band bashing has rendered it moot. Whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
Wired Magazine quotes a Senior Indian programmer as making $11,000. I don't know where you're getting that information, or where that number comes from, but I -do- know nobody has come to these workers and said "Hey, would you be willing to cut down to $40,000 and move to the Dakotas to keep your job?" They're just being outright fired. And I also know that you can't make a living in most parts of the US on $11,000, and shouldn't have to with a college degree (American workers would in fact be better off leaving IT and taking other jobs-- or moving to India with their cost of living-- than trying to work for the amount tech companies are paying Indian workers while living here).
In many elections, you do not have the right to an anonymous vote in the US--consider the Iowa (and numerous other) caucuses as proof of the point
In every major election (the presidential/us congressional/state congressional/mayoral), however, I -do- have the right to the anonymous vote.
In addition--there's one thing you can do from a public computer that you can't from home--and that's be anonymous. Just so you know, they have these things called IP addresses that allow what you do at home to be tracked.
And there are relatively simple ways to get around being tracked by your IP, if that's really your goal. On top of which, I don't know how this sudden anonimity somehow breaks down somebody's right to free speech.
First of all, public figures do not have an expectation of privacy, as they have made themselves public figures.
Second of all, this ruling has nothing to do with the press. The judge did not declare it was ok to install cameras, which is one matter, but that the cybercafes are -required- to install them.
The right to anonymous free speech is, in fact, exactly the sort of thing we have the right to. I give the voting process as an example of this-- there was a time in this country when somebody's boss or landlord or their cronies could look over his shoulder while he was writing out his ballot, and indeed a person could be fired, evicted, or end up beaten as a result. The anonymous vote was established to allow people to express their opinions free of harrassment.
Now, if I post to the internet that the Martians have landed, and this causes mass panic, this is perhaps analagous to the "fire" situation you've described, often the example given as a limit of free speech-- but this is the internet. First of all, you're not going to take my word for it, you're going to check the major news sites and reliable sources to see if this is true, or turn your TV to CNN. The internet is not a "crowded theater." People don't panic about web postings, and even if they did, it's hard to imagine large numbers of injuries and deaths resulting (see trampling issue in fire/crowded theater).
The internet is already filled with hate speech, protected under law in this country-- and if the sort of thing on the KKK's website isn't enough to cite riots, I can't imagine what would be.
The thing about public computers is this: there's nothing I can do on them I can't do at home. From here, I can post an article declaring the Martians have landed (I'm sure many websites already claim such), and from the internet cafe I can do the same. My anonymity is always protected, because it's the internet. Although the cafe is a public place, I am not broadcasting my message in the cafe-- I am broadcasting it on the internet. The other people at the cafe can keep on doing what they're doing, and won't know what the hell I've typed, unless they happen to visit my site, on pure coincidence.
If I'm fired and you're hired to do my position, you've taken what was once my job. If I get this job back from you, I've reclaimed it. How would you prefer me to word it? That you happen to gain a job and I happen to lose one? I'm not implying that I own the position, or anything of the sort, but people don't say "I'm going to a job today," they say "I'm going to my job today." Don't assume I'm saying that jobs are owned by a single individual, that is not my intention.
It would seem the one thing you don't understand is the difference between cost of living in the US and cost of living in India. $5,000 a year goes a lot farther in Mumbai and Bangalore than it does in somewhere like Des Moine. You can't afford to live in America for what the tech companies are paying the Indian programmers. The Indians are working FAR below the American poverty line (last I checked, about $9,000 a year)-- but not below their own.
You're right, I had just heard a lot about Americans being rejected in their attempts to move to India to claim lost jobs, and at the moment am not going to go on a linksearch to prove it, so consider that point nullified.
I hope you understand the rest of my statements better with this clarification.
To be honest, I don't think that's too likely. For one, India is already overrun with people who have skills in areas like C++ and Visual Basic (see the cover article in this month's issue of Wired if you don't believe me)-- and according to the above interview, these are the only prevalent languages among Iraqi programmers.
If you've been following the issues going on with Indian tech jobs taken from American IT workers, you'd see that both the Indian firms hiring these folks and the government of India are trying to keep these Americans from coming over to India and reclaiming positions. If they're keeping out the people who used to have these jobs, what's the likelihood they're going to accept in a bunch of Iraqis to do it?
The balance of disaster for the US IT industry (which makes up a large part of the now failing American economy) vs. disaster for the new Iraqi nation may be a delicate one in the future, it's true, but I don't expect a mass exodus from Iraq by the intellectual population if they don't get a bunch of outsourcing contracts.
That's one way to guarantee your job security in a shaky market-- be the guy who volunteers to go to Iraq! Hell, most of the US soldiers I know aren't exactly volunteering for that position.
;)
Of course, make sure you don't teach the Iraqis -too- well, or they might start outsourcing jobs there, too
Oh, really? Glad to hear you don't work in an industry like art or tech, where "your" creations are seized upon by the company you work for and (c) in their name.
Other then not hiring Jayson Blair, I'm curious as to how you're going to "improve" what's considered the best paper in the country-- please let me in on your secret.
I Don't agree with you. People IS responsible for what they government does. The majority of the USA voted for bush, we all know exactly who bush was, who his father was, and what kind of government we where going to have. You can be responsible for something in 2 ways: being directly responsible, for example: voting for bush, or for inaction, for example: not doing anything to get him out of the government, or to limit his power. Don't tell me you can't do anything. We all can help.
The majority of the US people voted for AL GORE. A full million people more than for Bush. Just to clarify a point of fact.
I don't know if you can call 210th in the country THAT big of a problem, coming from somebody who lives in Chicago-- the city with the most murders in the past year.
Now, let's say you live in a city with a HUGE gang/gang violence problem (as I do, and you feel the people of Garden Grove do), I'd say the solution involves, Ohh, I dunno, DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THE GANGS! Since when are Cyber Cafes the biggest site of violence? It sounds more as if a few incidents have been blown out of proportion by a community who is up against a wall as to how to rid itself of gangs, and a city government looking for a good scapegoat and a quick fix.
Whether violence in video games=violence in real life is highly debatable (no study has ever proven a direct connection between the two, although many different contested studies have tried to the sides), the violence in real life=further violence in real life connection has been well established.
If the city of Garden Grove and their police force could take action against slums (beautifying projects, increased patrols, etc), drug houses (demolishing abandoned buildings), and major gang forces, then perhaps the city could fix their problem, and avert future generations from becoming a part of the gang world. I am going to have to guess this small city finds itself without the budget to really fix the problem, or government officials interested in long-haul investments of tax dollars.
The simple truth is, when confronted by more than two or three set of authentication information, people will either use the same password, or simple variations, everywhere or they will write them down ... come-on, you know you've done it :)
No, in fact, I have not. I have about twelve different passwords, one for every service I want to keep secure and then two blanket passwords for lower security things. I do not forget them. They are never variations of another password. Five of those are e-mail adresses that I keep, and it is not a hassle to keep them. I do not see what the great challenge is. Use something you know. Everything is a refererence to personal life that I use for a password. Witty phrases are always good, as are things in other languages. You are less likely to forget them. People tell me it's a hassle, but I have no problem with it. An extra thirty seconds is worth my security. It is not like having five different mailboxes in different locations of New York.
So, yeah, I don't do that. It's not hard, and it is in fact safer.
Have they found scientific evidence for the 'Tremors' movies, that maybe earthquakes are the result of precambrian beings who desire to eat all of us?
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for yes.
Maybe I'm just dumb, but I believe the quote is a statement of what the man did, and exists within a play on the life of Julius Caesar. I would say that it comes from the Shakespearean work of the same name, but I am familiar enough with both Shakespeare and and the run of that particular play to know that isn't.
I must tell you this: the person has a valid idea running here. I, sadly, am moving to Illinois, where sales tax is a very inconvienent 8.75%. What the fuck is that? In the state of Florida, It's around 2%, and they decided to rid of it for a time because they had enough money. I live in Michigan, where sales tax used to be 5, but is now 6%. It can make a huge difference in how much you're losing over time (take a look at how much people save with those Kroger plus cards, I went to pick something up for my parents, and it claimed they had already saved 2000 dollars). Sadly, I will be losing more money, and coming much closer to 50%, when I move to Chicago. The state-to-state tax difference is huge.
The record industry is a greedy, disgusting bunch of corporate scum, with no respect whatsoever for anybody or anything. They are NOT protecting artists, because the artists whose content is published are forced to sign over their copyright to the record company! Only independant artists are not affected, and those are the only artists whose works should be supported by those of us who hate the record industry.
I need to point out to you at this time that not all distribution companies are the devil. This goes for book publishers, movie producers/studios, and even record companies. Fat Wreck Chords, Fueled By Ramen, Epitaph, and Hopeless (to name just a few) are not tied to any larger record company (as far as recent times go, that I have heard of), nor are they are connected in any way to the RIAA.
Indie artists (whom I do love dearly) are not the only good people out there. There are people who protect the artists, there are people who don't fuck consumers. They're not most record stores, who just take cheap costing records from these companies and mark them up more so they cost what the rest of the CD's on the racks do. They're not anybody involved in the RIAA. But these companies are there, not fucking the artists, offering a safe and fair alternative. Just to let you know. but I agree with you for the most part.
Because I really don't think I can figure out how to do this. And even if I could, I wouldn't have the hand skills to work with it...just because you can roll an 18 dexterity in D&D doesn't mean you have any skills.
Anyone else here, or am I just a fucking moron?
California is (by far) the most densely populated state where consent is 18. There are about 6 or 7 others, including such populus states as North Dakota and forward thinking ones like Tennessee.
Where I live, it's 16, but only for people under 18. At 18, it is no longer legal to have sex with anyone under 18. State laws are kind of odd that way.
In New Mexico, it's 17 for heterosexual sex but only 13 for homosexual sex. The difference is because of an effort to curb teen pregnancy.
Yes, well...the real problem with the idea of the 'false positive certificate' is that it makes the system too easy to circumvent. The terrorists (I feel funny just saying it that way) would get their hands on some, and the security people wouldn't look twice when 'Ms. Nussbaum' passed through security waving the form in front of them. So it's either be screwed and get searched every time or don't let this sort of security be installed.
No, actually, my left arm isn't any bigger. Yeah, it's a bit of an exaggeration, but I do masturbate more than the common man (4 hours is a common day). And don't you think it would be awful if the government outlawed this traditional practice of my indigineous peoples (non-dating geeks, that is)?
I used the example because it is something many slashdotters would be agree with me on (as Slashdotters, in my experience, tend to be relatively liberal). First rule of the argument: know your audience. Still, it is true that I should have chosen something enforced by law and not something NOT enforced by law. Sodomy laws would be a far better example, and looking back I wish I had used that, instead.
As for the issues of reasons for firing people, this is rooted not in gay rights essentially but rather in the rights of the employee. Because the employer is given to a position of power, controls must be placed to prevent his abuse of the workforce. Now, in true capitalist society, that isn't theoretically the case...but this is getting so off topic, it doesn't really matter. As for my point of debate, you're right.
I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but if you're serious, you're wrong.
Right now, in your own eyes, you are not a criminal. But what keeps you that way? What if the government decides something you do is a criminal offense? Perhaps they'll decide that Slashdot, as a part of Hax0r culture (I wouldn't call it that, but the people in power in this country are stupid enough to do so), must be outlawed, and its users are all 'terrorists.' Of course, fifty years ago we'd all be 'communists,' but times change and the way you make the idea of a subversive sound like the enemy change.
You see, anything is potentially a crime. Leaving my house, attending class, writing papers, playing water polo, jacking off ten hours a day- these are things that take up most of my time. The fact is, no one is to say that these are not crimes. If using drugs is a crime, if someone who feeds a non-violent subversive activist is a 'terrorist' now, any of these activities could become criminal.
In the majority of the United States, it is still legal to fire someone for quite simply being gay. There is no amendment to protect from this, there is no federal law. And it will be this way for a long time, most likely. In fact, some of the anti-discrimination laws that keep this from being true everywhere are being repealed. What's to say that you aren't a criminal in such an unjust nation?
We are not the land of the free, don't buy that. You aren't safe. Unless you work for the government in a high ranking office (as in you were either elected or appointed), or have a LOT of money, you can be screwed at any time.
Slashdotters need to worry. Fight surveillance! Fight for your freedom, no matter the cost.
Insofar as this being limited to people who download music and videos, I don't buy into that. I think that the overhead of analyzing and tracking the header-type of every IP packet would be prohibitive. Even if it could be done, which it certainly cannot. You cannot discern a file's type by analyzing the packet. The variety in protocol's alone make this next to impossible in real time.
Given that they cannot identify the file type accurately enough for billing purposes, that leaves them to implement a flat tiered rate.
I don't believe they meant literally that they would charge for the people using these things more than others. The implication is that most of the bandwith is used by people downloading these things. Quite simply, for the amount of space taken by a high quality Pr0n movie, I can download 900 pr0n stories. And I'd say it's probably true that it's where most of the bandwith goes, although I agree this is total BS
This is really funny. Amazingly, in fact. Ok, no one's making money off of MP3's these days because if Joe Blow downloads a good song for 50 cents, he's going to put it on Limewire/BearShare/various other shareware thing so that all of his buddies can get it without having to pay. And then when they tell their friends about it, they go download it off the shareware site. And so on. In a circle of friends, you get one 50 cent hit. Digital music is NOT the wave of the future.
The way people make money is to belong to fair record companies. I'm a punker- I don't pay more than $15 for concert tickets no matter who's playing. More is extortion. Punk bands (ones belonging to punk labels such as Feuled By Ramen or Fat Wreck Chords, that is) sell their CD's for less (Compilations tend to be $3, single band CD's rarely top $10), sell their concert tix for less, sell their limited merchandise for less, and still make more. Why? Because if you sign to Fat Wreck, you aren't going to get screwed. If you sign to Sub City, you aren't going to get screwed. If these record companies were to screw a band, it would hit the punk scene the next morning and that label would go out of business. The problem is that the major record label industry is in agreement to all be bastards to their artists.
I would also point out, a lot of bands are greedy. If you pay more than $75 for tickets to see ANYONE, you are getting fucked up the ass and someone is pocketing a LOT. If you pay $50 for shitty seats, you are getting screwed, too. I would never pay near this much, but these are the limits of decency. If you pay this much or more, you are paying to see people who want to fleece you.
This is really very OT.
As for the problem of payola, I have to say, people need to learn some fucking dignity. I mean, the record industries, the people paying them...no one who's in on the process can be without shame. Don't be a corporate whore! Don't sell out to the man! Hunh!
I will clarify for y'all the reference which another has pointed out. NOFX(who is in competition with Bad Religion for the title 'oldest punk band still standing') released a live album entitled "I Heard they Suck Live!" The picture is of a guy saying this to another guy AT a concert. It's absurdism, and it's supposed to make a point, but I think your dumb band bashing has rendered it moot. Whatever.