Here's a simple solution: Don't play poker online.
Seriously, I've never understood why ANYONE would trust online gambling. You have no idea what's on the other end, it just seems like the most idiotic way to lose your money imaginable. Just how gullible and trusting do you have to be to gamble online??
At least at a real casino you can SEE the cards and chips and whatnot, but online? Why not just flush your money down the toilet and cut out the middle-man?
"...most likely a reference to Twitter's long-standing practice of automatically shortening and redirecting any in-message links."
Slashdot does the dirty deed too.
Hey Shashies, just send the damages money to my PayPal account.
I don't get this. The Slashdot default doesn't shorten URLs. The default really lengthens them because the links is followed by the [domain.name] in brackets. The link plus this additional information is longer than the link itself. Unless you're defining "links" as something other than a string like: <a href=http://stupidshit.com/">Your argument is bullshit</a>. But then you're no longer talking about Slashdot.
What if they deduped attachments and replaced the "original" with a link to a copy? Is that bad too?
That depends on what they do with the copy, for how long they retain it, how secure those copies are, how many backups there are, and with whom they share it. If that involves the government then they may not have a choice but to share. This can be done in huge volumes, without notice, facilitating mass surveillance.
It also depends on whether every user involved is aware of, understands, and has consciously (and unambiguously) consented to it. Whenever practical, I'm all for letting consenting adults do more or less whatever they want. But it's really hard to consent to something you aren't aware of and don't understand, especially if it's not actively disclosed to you up-front. How well does the average user understand information security in general, how easily information can become compromised, and exactly what the implications could be?
The US government (among others) has abandoned any concept of limiting this behavior and, worse, they're often the ones seeking this kind of user data from social media. For your protection, to fight terrorism, to be tough on crime, whatever you like to hear. Perhaps suing the companies who play Satan's Little Helper is easier than getting the political support it would take to change the kind of people who run governments. I hope Twitter gets nailed, hard, and I hope it sets a precedent that makes other companies hesitant to alter user data in any way, shape, or form without plainly and obviously declaring the full details and implications up-front.
I've noticed that certain tweets, especially if they are politically sensitive, get less impressions. Also, some retweets mysteriously vanish.
Seems like a censorship system is in operation.
Evidence?
How can you get evidence on a mysterious vanishing?
Well, by collecting it. And by finding conditions that reliably reproduce it. These are done with the intent of making it less mysterious. If you can't demonstrate that it's one thing (yet), you can at least rule out a few things that it isn't.
Fortunately for us, human instinct is that "we" the people are owed common decency. This occasionally comes back to bite the psychopaths who forget that detail.
Far too occasionallly. Fix that, and you patch a major bug in society.
Late in commenting (just got around to actually reading this browser tab...) but I wanted to respond. You're absolutely right. Historically, whenever a more technologically advanced civilization meets a less technically-advanced civilization, it really doesn't work out so well for the latter. It's a really consistent pattern, with no question that it isn't random chance.
Even if they're not hostile, they might have some analog of smallpox that we have little or no immunity against.
"I've never seen a serious, credible libertarian advocate pure absolute 100% anarchy, just like I've never seen a serious, credible businessperson advocate 100%"
Depends on where you look. Here is the easiest thing to find people with "binary thinking", unable to think on compromise.
Yeah that was my point, that these positions are frequently mischaracterized by those who dislike them. A lot of people have a particular arrogance: they think that not liking something makes it acceptable to paint it with an extremely broad brush and use flimsy mental associations to make it look inherently flawed, while never actually articulating a case against it. Basically they turn factual matters into contests of popularity and wonder why their opinions are not respected.
It's like that old saying - if you are going to be against something, you should first understand it. Then you can *really* be against it if you still want to.
> I've never seen a serious, credible libertarian advocate pure absolute 100% anarchy
Of course you have. You just choose to ignore them or move the goalpost (as you have done). Must be SERIOUS and CREDIBLE or else I'll add another adjective!
I've seen trolls yes, because as you are demonstrating, many people will take the bait. But that fails the commonly-understood meaning of "serious and credible". Trolling gets much more advanced than insulting your mother's propriety, you do know that, right?
I've never seen a person show signs of having thought through the available options who still wanted 100% anarchy, for the same reason people with any knowledge on the subject tend not to advocate 100% laissez-faire capitalism.
I've been around Slashdot much longer than my current user number would suggest. What you are attempting happens far too often and it's been that way for a long time. Yes, it's all the rage here, but really, crying some variant of "no true Scotsman!" every time you can't rebut an argument in which commonly understood definitions are used to pinpoint the scope of discussion (i.e. nearly all of them) is not a substitute for articulating a line of reasoning. It's not the unassailable Easy Button. It's not the effortless instant slam-dunk irrefutable victory you are looking for. You cowardly douchebag.
Wrong: Somalia. When there is no functioning government there is no chance of government surveillance.
The question has far to many implicit assumptions. It reeks of libertarian elitism.
Is no government spying on residents identical to personal freedom? That's why the Somalia example is relevant. The government isn't spying on you, but you are at the mercy (literally) of warlords and violent religions factions. So what do are you really after?
In the sense of traditional Western values, the current best answer might be Scandinavia or Germany. In those places your private life is really your own. For example there's none of the crap like in the US where right wing religious fanatics want to get into your sex life. As for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", most of the citizens are far better off then the US. They work fewer hours, have more time off, get better health care and retire at a much higher standard of living. They live longer, which is the key component of that "life" part of the quote.
Of course they have less economic freedom, but they also have much better functioning democracy. Nobody can go out and try an buy elections, which is now the way the US elections are run.
it's a trade off. But from the way the question was asked, I doubt that you like these answers. You're looking for a libertarian paradise, when what that really gets you is Somalia.
I've never seen a serious, credible libertarian advocate pure absolute 100% anarchy, just like I've never seen a serious, credible businessperson advocate 100% unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism. What I have seen is such people making arguments for a step closer to those things, an alteration or rethinking of the current balance or list of priorities. The state not spying on you without a damned good, demonstrable-in-court reason and not otherwise looking for ways to fuck with your life does not mean you must abandon all criminal justice and national defense.
These "baby with the bathwater" excuses for argumentation really get tiresome. They don't remotely represent what any thinking person actually believes. Thus, they are strawmen.
Like I said , 'the average user'. I assure you, you iptable-loving, kernel hardening, error-message-reading nerd, you are not the average user.
Geek, actually. Next time, learn to say what you mean. "Anyone" != "the average user". You made a few statements. What you said, in that statement to which I replied, was "anyone". It just can't be so difficult to understand that.
The manufacturer assures you that putting any new ink into one of their cartridges is likely to kill you, your children, your parents, probably a few of your neighbours, every single puppy in town, and your printer.
There is only one reason why anyone really uses Linux - free as in beer.
Speak for yourself, please. I've been using Linux since the mid 1990s. I genuinely prefer it. I like the neatness of a proper package manager. I like the *nix way of doing things. I like not having a Registry, and not worrying about my OS phoning home. I like the rock-solid stability that Windows has only recently started to acquire. I like not having to reboot for any reason at all other than a new kernel (and even then there is a way around it). I like not having to run virus/malware scanners. I like being able to make a copy of my/home directory to backup (or transfer) all of my settings, bookmarks, documents, etc -- ever try that on a Windows system? I like having multiple different interoperable GUIs from which I can choose, and the ability to customize each. I like that the few times I had a question about a program, I was able to effortlessly directly contact the author/maintainer and not some front-line scripted tech support. I like open standards and interoperability among diverse systems with no vendor lock-in. I like iptables and lots of other functionality that's built-in to standard Linux distros but requires third-party (and sometimes commercial) software for Windows. I like that the system doesn't assume I'm a moron who might get confused by meaningful error messages and advanced options. I like having the option to use a source-based distro with all the flexibility that brings; though of course that's not for everyone, it's great for me (I may one day decide to use systemd, but no one is pressuring me to do so). I like the general transparency, that there are no hinderances trying to stop me from peeking under the hood if I should get curious about exactly how something works. I like all the options I have to harden the kernel and userland against security threats, some of which depend on the ability to compile from source.
The few Windows-only programs I want to run have worked for me in Wine. I know that not everyone can say that, but for me this works and it works well.
I ran Linux for a long time now. That's not because I had no access to Windows. Some of my newer hardware came with Windows licenses. I'm not using Linux because I can't legitimately obtain Windows. I'm using Linux because I genuinely prefer it. While I may be a minority of all computer users, I am by no means the only one. So like I said, please speak for yourself.
You have to realise that there are different forms of power: * Power to resist corruption * Power to screw the people
Both of which can and will be abused, because power is always abused. It's in its nature.
There are many more but those two are enough to make you look completely wrongheaded.
The only certain way to reduce the abuses of power is to reduce the total amount of power available, in any form. It also helps to make power more difficult to use (for example, this is the idea behind requiring police to obtain warrants for certain actions). That you can come up with categories and call these multiple forms of power does not, in any way, change this.
It is hard to have a discussion when the summary is so biased. It should be like a real news report - report the facts. Don't report an interpretation of the facts. That crap at the end about an attempt to save face, no apology coming, etc. - all non-facts (although possibly correct). "News for Nerds" not "Opinion loosely based on facts for Nerds".
Yes, it should be more like "real news" where the bias is implemented by convenient omission of "undesirable" facts and certain stories just plain don't get reported at all. From reading/watching mainstream news, one would think that people with conceal-carry permits never use them (typically without firing a shot) to stop a crime in progress. The news story will say something like "the suspect was subdued until police arrived" and that is all it will say, because citizens who legally carry firearms is not something the mainstream news wishes to promote ("why" is a good question, but they clearly don't). They aren't technically lying, though I call this lying by omission because the intent is obvious. Meanwhile any criminal act committed with a gun gets full coverage.
However you feel about guns, the idea that certain facts are selectively reported or not reported at all means that your "real news" is not really news either. If they can do this with a topic you don't care about, they can also do this with a topic you do value. Look into the Fox BGH affair if you want to see the degree of censorship that happens. Last fall/winter I remember seeing a story about influenza that strongly encouraged people to get the flu vaccine. Nowhere did it mention that there is no real proof of efficacy supporting this vaccine. Hell, Dr. J. Anthony Morris, at the time the Chief Vaccine Officer of the FDA plainly came out and said this, but I didn't see that reported anywhere. How many people even know that this happened? Only those who researched it themselves. In practice, that's a small minority. Most of the rest are trusting the authority of those official news sources.
One would think that would be newsworthy, except that the biggest sponsors who purchase advertising happen to be pharmaceutical and food companies. The people watching the news are consumers. The ones buying ads are the customers. It's simply not good business to piss off your customers.
I'll take an obvious editorial that never claimed to be otherwise, any day.
Uh huh. And I'm sure it was all smiles and sunshine pre 2003. Not saying we didn't blow the execution to an extent that some people shouldn't be able to look themselves in the mirror, but some places just invite chaos by their very nature. Case in point: Egypt, Syria, Libya: not a single American boot on the ground before the "unpleasantness". One could make the case the same thing would have happened in Iraq regardless.
It's as though the parent poster talked about Subject A, and you replied as though you were making a response to him/her, but proceeded to talk about Unrelated Subject B.
The push for greater cooperation with tech companies has been a big theme for the DOD in the last year, but many big tech companies so far have been wary of the government's overtures following NSA spying revelations.
No, the Fortune 500 company replacing 3 competent network engineers with an H-1B who works 12x6 for $65K and can't handle the outage, is the reason shit's going downhill. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
How many games would exist or continue with no players?
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a simple solution: Don't play poker online.
Seriously, I've never understood why ANYONE would trust online gambling. You have no idea what's on the other end, it just seems like the most idiotic way to lose your money imaginable. Just how gullible and trusting do you have to be to gamble online??
At least at a real casino you can SEE the cards and chips and whatnot, but online? Why not just flush your money down the toilet and cut out the middle-man?
Won't somebody think of the poor middlemen?
"...most likely a reference to Twitter's long-standing practice of automatically shortening and redirecting any in-message links."
Slashdot does the dirty deed too.
Hey Shashies, just send the damages money to my PayPal account.
I don't get this. The Slashdot default doesn't shorten URLs. The default really lengthens them because the links is followed by the [domain.name] in brackets. The link plus this additional information is longer than the link itself. Unless you're defining "links" as something other than a string like: <a href=http://stupidshit.com/">Your argument is bullshit</a>. But then you're no longer talking about Slashdot.
What if they deduped attachments and replaced the "original" with a link to a copy? Is that bad too?
That depends on what they do with the copy, for how long they retain it, how secure those copies are, how many backups there are, and with whom they share it. If that involves the government then they may not have a choice but to share. This can be done in huge volumes, without notice, facilitating mass surveillance.
It also depends on whether every user involved is aware of, understands, and has consciously (and unambiguously) consented to it. Whenever practical, I'm all for letting consenting adults do more or less whatever they want. But it's really hard to consent to something you aren't aware of and don't understand, especially if it's not actively disclosed to you up-front. How well does the average user understand information security in general, how easily information can become compromised, and exactly what the implications could be?
The US government (among others) has abandoned any concept of limiting this behavior and, worse, they're often the ones seeking this kind of user data from social media. For your protection, to fight terrorism, to be tough on crime, whatever you like to hear. Perhaps suing the companies who play Satan's Little Helper is easier than getting the political support it would take to change the kind of people who run governments. I hope Twitter gets nailed, hard, and I hope it sets a precedent that makes other companies hesitant to alter user data in any way, shape, or form without plainly and obviously declaring the full details and implications up-front.
I've noticed that certain tweets, especially if they are politically sensitive, get less impressions. Also, some retweets mysteriously vanish.
Seems like a censorship system is in operation.
Evidence?
How can you get evidence on a mysterious vanishing?
Well, by collecting it. And by finding conditions that reliably reproduce it. These are done with the intent of making it less mysterious. If you can't demonstrate that it's one thing (yet), you can at least rule out a few things that it isn't.
If you're a lawyer, you launch law suits.... it's what you do....
Plenty of lawyers are not trial lawyers. Look it up -- before you speak as though you know. It's better for everyone that way.
Fortunately for us, human instinct is that "we" the people are owed common decency. This occasionally comes back to bite the psychopaths who forget that detail.
Far too occasionallly. Fix that, and you patch a major bug in society.
Late in commenting (just got around to actually reading this browser tab...) but I wanted to respond. You're absolutely right. Historically, whenever a more technologically advanced civilization meets a less technically-advanced civilization, it really doesn't work out so well for the latter. It's a really consistent pattern, with no question that it isn't random chance.
Even if they're not hostile, they might have some analog of smallpox that we have little or no immunity against.
"I've never seen a serious, credible libertarian advocate pure absolute 100% anarchy, just like I've never seen a serious, credible businessperson advocate 100%" Depends on where you look. Here is the easiest thing to find people with "binary thinking", unable to think on compromise.
Yeah that was my point, that these positions are frequently mischaracterized by those who dislike them. A lot of people have a particular arrogance: they think that not liking something makes it acceptable to paint it with an extremely broad brush and use flimsy mental associations to make it look inherently flawed, while never actually articulating a case against it. Basically they turn factual matters into contests of popularity and wonder why their opinions are not respected.
It's like that old saying - if you are going to be against something, you should first understand it. Then you can *really* be against it if you still want to.
I work with a lot of systems that transfer a lot of data, and the trick is balancing all the hardware so it can all keep up with the speeds.
Yes, I imagine "not having obvious bottlenecks" is a most clever and creative trick.
> I've never seen a serious, credible libertarian advocate pure absolute 100% anarchy
Of course you have. You just choose to ignore them or move the goalpost (as you have done). Must be SERIOUS and CREDIBLE or else I'll add another adjective!
I've seen trolls yes, because as you are demonstrating, many people will take the bait. But that fails the commonly-understood meaning of "serious and credible". Trolling gets much more advanced than insulting your mother's propriety, you do know that, right?
I've never seen a person show signs of having thought through the available options who still wanted 100% anarchy, for the same reason people with any knowledge on the subject tend not to advocate 100% laissez-faire capitalism.
I've been around Slashdot much longer than my current user number would suggest. What you are attempting happens far too often and it's been that way for a long time. Yes, it's all the rage here, but really, crying some variant of "no true Scotsman!" every time you can't rebut an argument in which commonly understood definitions are used to pinpoint the scope of discussion (i.e. nearly all of them) is not a substitute for articulating a line of reasoning. It's not the unassailable Easy Button. It's not the effortless instant slam-dunk irrefutable victory you are looking for. You cowardly douchebag.
Wrong: Somalia. When there is no functioning government there is no chance of government surveillance.
The question has far to many implicit assumptions. It reeks of libertarian elitism.
Is no government spying on residents identical to personal freedom? That's why the Somalia example is relevant. The government isn't spying on you, but you are at the mercy (literally) of warlords and violent religions factions. So what do are you really after?
In the sense of traditional Western values, the current best answer might be Scandinavia or Germany. In those places your private life is really your own. For example there's none of the crap like in the US where right wing religious fanatics want to get into your sex life. As for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", most of the citizens are far better off then the US. They work fewer hours, have more time off, get better health care and retire at a much higher standard of living. They live longer, which is the key component of that "life" part of the quote.
Of course they have less economic freedom, but they also have much better functioning democracy. Nobody can go out and try an buy elections, which is now the way the US elections are run.
it's a trade off. But from the way the question was asked, I doubt that you like these answers. You're looking for a libertarian paradise, when what that really gets you is Somalia.
I've never seen a serious, credible libertarian advocate pure absolute 100% anarchy, just like I've never seen a serious, credible businessperson advocate 100% unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism. What I have seen is such people making arguments for a step closer to those things, an alteration or rethinking of the current balance or list of priorities. The state not spying on you without a damned good, demonstrable-in-court reason and not otherwise looking for ways to fuck with your life does not mean you must abandon all criminal justice and national defense.
These "baby with the bathwater" excuses for argumentation really get tiresome. They don't remotely represent what any thinking person actually believes. Thus, they are strawmen.
Like I said , 'the average user'. I assure you, you iptable-loving, kernel hardening, error-message-reading nerd, you are not the average user.
Geek, actually. Next time, learn to say what you mean. "Anyone" != "the average user". You made a few statements. What you said, in that statement to which I replied, was "anyone". It just can't be so difficult to understand that.
The manufacturer assures you that putting any new ink into one of their cartridges is likely to kill you, your children, your parents, probably a few of your neighbours, every single puppy in town, and your printer.
Where do I sign up?
Turn off your phone when you're not expecting a call.
One of the reasons I have a phone in the first place is so I can be reached in case of emergencies or other unexpected events.
> There might be very good reasons why Photoshop doesn't have a Linux version
Photoshop is known to crash horribly on case-sensitive filesystems on OS X. All filesystems on Linux are case-sensitive by default.
That doesn't qualify as a "good" reason. That qualifies as "an easily foreseeable and preventable" reason.
There is only one reason why anyone really uses Linux - free as in beer.
Speak for yourself, please. I've been using Linux since the mid 1990s. I genuinely prefer it. I like the neatness of a proper package manager. I like the *nix way of doing things. I like not having a Registry, and not worrying about my OS phoning home. I like the rock-solid stability that Windows has only recently started to acquire. I like not having to reboot for any reason at all other than a new kernel (and even then there is a way around it). I like not having to run virus/malware scanners. I like being able to make a copy of my /home directory to backup (or transfer) all of my settings, bookmarks, documents, etc -- ever try that on a Windows system? I like having multiple different interoperable GUIs from which I can choose, and the ability to customize each. I like that the few times I had a question about a program, I was able to effortlessly directly contact the author/maintainer and not some front-line scripted tech support. I like open standards and interoperability among diverse systems with no vendor lock-in. I like iptables and lots of other functionality that's built-in to standard Linux distros but requires third-party (and sometimes commercial) software for Windows. I like that the system doesn't assume I'm a moron who might get confused by meaningful error messages and advanced options. I like having the option to use a source-based distro with all the flexibility that brings; though of course that's not for everyone, it's great for me (I may one day decide to use systemd, but no one is pressuring me to do so). I like the general transparency, that there are no hinderances trying to stop me from peeking under the hood if I should get curious about exactly how something works. I like all the options I have to harden the kernel and userland against security threats, some of which depend on the ability to compile from source.
The few Windows-only programs I want to run have worked for me in Wine. I know that not everyone can say that, but for me this works and it works well.
I ran Linux for a long time now. That's not because I had no access to Windows. Some of my newer hardware came with Windows licenses. I'm not using Linux because I can't legitimately obtain Windows. I'm using Linux because I genuinely prefer it. While I may be a minority of all computer users, I am by no means the only one. So like I said, please speak for yourself.
You have to realise that there are different forms of power: * Power to resist corruption * Power to screw the people
Both of which can and will be abused, because power is always abused. It's in its nature.
There are many more but those two are enough to make you look completely wrongheaded.
The only certain way to reduce the abuses of power is to reduce the total amount of power available, in any form. It also helps to make power more difficult to use (for example, this is the idea behind requiring police to obtain warrants for certain actions). That you can come up with categories and call these multiple forms of power does not, in any way, change this.
It is hard to have a discussion when the summary is so biased. It should be like a real news report - report the facts. Don't report an interpretation of the facts. That crap at the end about an attempt to save face, no apology coming, etc. - all non-facts (although possibly correct). "News for Nerds" not "Opinion loosely based on facts for Nerds".
Yes, it should be more like "real news" where the bias is implemented by convenient omission of "undesirable" facts and certain stories just plain don't get reported at all. From reading/watching mainstream news, one would think that people with conceal-carry permits never use them (typically without firing a shot) to stop a crime in progress. The news story will say something like "the suspect was subdued until police arrived" and that is all it will say, because citizens who legally carry firearms is not something the mainstream news wishes to promote ("why" is a good question, but they clearly don't). They aren't technically lying, though I call this lying by omission because the intent is obvious. Meanwhile any criminal act committed with a gun gets full coverage.
However you feel about guns, the idea that certain facts are selectively reported or not reported at all means that your "real news" is not really news either. If they can do this with a topic you don't care about, they can also do this with a topic you do value. Look into the Fox BGH affair if you want to see the degree of censorship that happens. Last fall/winter I remember seeing a story about influenza that strongly encouraged people to get the flu vaccine. Nowhere did it mention that there is no real proof of efficacy supporting this vaccine. Hell, Dr. J. Anthony Morris, at the time the Chief Vaccine Officer of the FDA plainly came out and said this, but I didn't see that reported anywhere. How many people even know that this happened? Only those who researched it themselves. In practice, that's a small minority. Most of the rest are trusting the authority of those official news sources.
One would think that would be newsworthy, except that the biggest sponsors who purchase advertising happen to be pharmaceutical and food companies. The people watching the news are consumers. The ones buying ads are the customers. It's simply not good business to piss off your customers.
I'll take an obvious editorial that never claimed to be otherwise, any day.
"If Google was, in truth, motivated by the highest ideals of service to the public..." Are you sure the motivation wasn't data mining?
The motivation probably wasn't data mining. If it were, Google Books would be a very big well-funded project.
Uh huh. And I'm sure it was all smiles and sunshine pre 2003. Not saying we didn't blow the execution to an extent that some people shouldn't be able to look themselves in the mirror, but some places just invite chaos by their very nature. Case in point: Egypt, Syria, Libya: not a single American boot on the ground before the "unpleasantness". One could make the case the same thing would have happened in Iraq regardless.
It's as though the parent poster talked about Subject A, and you replied as though you were making a response to him/her, but proceeded to talk about Unrelated Subject B.
The push for greater cooperation with tech companies has been a big theme for the DOD in the last year, but many big tech companies so far have been wary of the government's overtures following NSA spying revelations.
This is called reaping what you sow.
No, the Fortune 500 company replacing 3 competent network engineers with an H-1B who works 12x6 for $65K and can't handle the outage, is the reason shit's going downhill. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
How many games would exist or continue with no players?
"Sometimes," "commonly" and "accidentally" are not exclusive conditions. They can all be true at once.
That's what the AC was asking about, yes. We still haven't heard a clarification.
Those are especially handy because they cost considerably more
Does not compute.
and can require a small screwdriver to lever under the hoold and release the connector tab.
Still not seeing what is "especially handy" about that.
Article only show drawings/illustrations - where's an actual picture
That's exactly what I said in Sex Ed!