Living doesn't entail a 100% chance of killing or maiming other people, nor does dying. I would say the chances in either event are actually much closer to zero. So yes, your being alive is reasonably safe for me and those around you.
Now, would you rather stick with the company that is still trying its best to give you rock-bottom prices, or go back to the cable/phone companies who have spent decades trying to find ways to trick customers into paying more than you should (and who will go right back to doing it once Netflix has been laid low)?
That's the wrong model. It's either the movie studios play ball with reasonable distribution fees/practices, or else they fall victim to file sharing. Studios are trying to strong-arm Netflix now that Netflix has succeeded in popularizing streaming rather than being a tertiary income stream for studios. But if it drives customers away, it's going to backfire, and I for one am not going to support such tactics. If Netflix is a collateral casualty, then so be it. Corporations are replaceable.
Do we really think that we can possibly predict what alien logic would look like?
Yes. Logic is universally true. If they've advanced to the point where they've managed or mastered interstellar travel, then they must have access to rational thought and logic. The question isn't what their logic will look like, but what portion of their behavior is irrational and illogical.
There is some content on the Internet that "any normal human being would be offended by," he said.
I can't say I've ever seen content that I was offended by, aside from something directed at me personally, and I certainly can't think of any content that every normal human being would be offended by. Disgusted, sure. Saddened, disappointed, startled, but not offended.
Furthermore, coders, especially the "talented" ones, don't exactly fly the banner of allegiance. They'll leave at the first opportunity to make more money. If you don't let them take control of a project, they'll either do it their own way, or go somewhere else that lets them do it their own way. Have you heard of open source software? Nothing ever gets done because they keep "forking" things when they have their own ideas!
That's why The Fucking Article* says to invest in them by forming relationships, not by acquiring them as with traditional "human capital." The first project should be viewed as essentially forming that relationship, and any other value gained from it is superfluous. But after that, you let your team direct the company, not the other way around. Which makes sense really. If you have a product that looks and works like a really great shoe, then sell really great shoes. Don't throw it away because you wanted to sell hats. Likewise, if you have a team that can or does produce an awesome project that was outside of your initial scope, clearly your scope should be changed, not the project.**
This is pretty much what Apple did with the iPod, leveraging that into their phone, tablet, STB, and possibly upcoming TV. They've made plenty of missteps over the years, but jumping on the success of the iPod was not one of them, at least from a profitability standpoint.
* Thought I'd spell that one out for you too, just in case.
** Steve Jobs would probably say "Bullshit, micromanage your teams," but that's really only applicable if you're Steve Jobs, and then only if you believe he had more skill than luck in product design, and that his contributions in that respect were more important than his showmanship and marketing. In other words, don't do that.
Or you could just clone the one indefinitely. It's already being done in other animals. The important of genetic diversity should not be forgotten, though in the case of an extinct animal, it's probably not the primary concern.
Ok, I learned something new (or maybe relearned something, since I recall there was something about an adult game being published on the 2600 which led to the protections on the 7800). At any rate, I stand corrected. Thanks for that educational post.
Like I said, the problem isn't that people aren't aware what they're getting in to, it's that they don't care (enough to look into alternatives). Through their actions, people are saying that they care more about convenience (the convenience of the readily available option) than cost. It's not like we live in the dark ages where this information isn't readily available to anyone who cares enough to look.
Ataris and NESs weren't locked down, which is largely an advent of code signing and really only became popular within the last decade or so. It was somewhat impractical to write your own software, true, but if you wrote it, the system would run it.
Include a clause that allows you to change the terms at any time without notifying customers or providing any sort of consideration. If you look for it, you'll find it buried in the fine print of all sorts of consumer contracts. Yes, this is a stupid contract to be signing, but many people don't read the fine print or don't realize what that clause means if they see it. The courts have sometimes ruled those contracts invalid, but for most people it's more expensive to sue than it is to just pay up.
You can change the terms, but that *always* creates a new contract, and the other party must consent to the new terms. Even if the other party is unaware of the changes (and appears to consent by doing nothing), they could still get out of the contract AND be compensated for the period up until they became aware of the changes, and no company is going to fight them in court because it's a guaranteed losing battle, and it's a losing PR battle even if they won.
Now I agree that people sign stupid contracts, but you can't force people to be responsible with their own money, and willful ignorance is not the same as being duped.
And this doesn't demonstrate that Two Factor Authentication is worthless either. If thieves have to select their targets more carefully, (because there's no point jumping through such hoops to impersonate someone with $2.50 in their checking account) it will reduce identity theft rates overall, which is good, and create as an enemy those with the most resources fight back, which is also good.
"We have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books," Amazon wrote to customers at the time.
That's exactly the same legal argument that didn't work for Psystar in the US. Maybe such reasoning will have better results in the EU.
Lock them in without them noticing? When's the last time you signed a contract without noticing? If ever, you have bigger problems to worry about (not to mention said contract is also invalid). The problem isn't that consumers don't notice, it's that they don't care.
Not at all. It's market segmentation 101. It's the same reason Intel's top-of-the-line chip costs twice as much as the next lower model but only performs a few single percentage points better. (And because of binning, each chip actually costs the same amount to produce.) Anyway, you create one market segment for people who can only afford to pay a lower price for your product, then you give a little extra value to people who can pay more so they can feel superior despite the fact that they just paid significantly more for what is essentially the same product. It's actually insulting to the buyer when you get down to it. Fortunately neither of the two groups who pay more are likely to complain. The first group doesn't want to violate the image, real or imagined, that they can afford to spend more, and the second group will usually rationalize their overspending by any means necessary to avoid admitting they made a bad decision. (These groups are not mutually exclusive).
Democracy isn't some panacea. As Churchill said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried."
The problem isn't that the red pill is a wrong choice, the problem is that there are no benevolent dictators, or at least no reliable supply of them. (Yes, I know the question said intelligent, but presumably the intelligence would be used benevolently, otherwise we already have plenty of countries with intelligent, but not particularly benevolent, dictators.)
[S]he's convinced the federal government is reading her emails. But she's all right with that. "I assume it's part of the Patriot Act and I really don't mind," she says. "I figure I'm probably boring them to death."
Anyone who's okay with the federal government reading their email should likewise be okay with a random stranger reading their e-mail. The government doesn't have any more need-to-know than anyone else, *especially* if you're doing nothing wrong. The argument that they are ruling people out as non-threats is fallacious: if you were ruled out, there would be no need for further monitoring, which tells us what should be obvious: that people are never ruled out.
So if you're really okay with the government reading your email, go ahead and put your money where your mouth is, and post all of your sent and received messages somewhere that's publicly viewable. After all, there's a chance the government might miss something, and if it saves even one life, it's worth it, right? Right?!
I disagree. I don't think the problem is a lack of moral authority, but that people's decision making is based on risk/reward, of which morality is but one aspect. The risk of dying will usually outweigh the intrinsic reward of being moral, for example. So when there's little or no risk of being caught, it boils down to whether it's more intrinsically rewarding to adhere to your morals or to satisfy your curiosity, or even to leverage your ill-gotten knowledge for your advantage. To solve that problem, you have to either entrust the people with access to the information (which makes sense to me), or somehow shift the risk/reward balance.
Right, intending to violate the law IS mens rea. Criminal intent != malicious intent and vice versa. There's plenty of malicious things I can do that are perfectly legal, and plenty of illegal things someone could do that may be benevolent. The public, the media, and especially law enforcement often fail to make a distinction, but there is one.
Slashdot Mirror
500 watts per what?
Living doesn't entail a 100% chance of killing or maiming other people, nor does dying. I would say the chances in either event are actually much closer to zero. So yes, your being alive is reasonably safe for me and those around you.
Hopefully they compress it down to 1 bit.
In other news, a broken clock is right twice a day.
Now, would you rather stick with the company that is still trying its best to give you rock-bottom prices, or go back to the cable/phone companies who have spent decades trying to find ways to trick customers into paying more than you should (and who will go right back to doing it once Netflix has been laid low)?
That's the wrong model. It's either the movie studios play ball with reasonable distribution fees/practices, or else they fall victim to file sharing. Studios are trying to strong-arm Netflix now that Netflix has succeeded in popularizing streaming rather than being a tertiary income stream for studios. But if it drives customers away, it's going to backfire, and I for one am not going to support such tactics. If Netflix is a collateral casualty, then so be it. Corporations are replaceable.
You forgot the obvious:
Full stereo over live orchestra/band.
Do we really think that we can possibly predict what alien logic would look like?
Yes. Logic is universally true. If they've advanced to the point where they've managed or mastered interstellar travel, then they must have access to rational thought and logic. The question isn't what their logic will look like, but what portion of their behavior is irrational and illogical.
There is some content on the Internet that "any normal human being would be offended by," he said.
I can't say I've ever seen content that I was offended by, aside from something directed at me personally, and I certainly can't think of any content that every normal human being would be offended by. Disgusted, sure. Saddened, disappointed, startled, but not offended.
Furthermore, coders, especially the "talented" ones, don't exactly fly the banner of allegiance. They'll leave at the first opportunity to make more money. If you don't let them take control of a project, they'll either do it their own way, or go somewhere else that lets them do it their own way. Have you heard of open source software? Nothing ever gets done because they keep "forking" things when they have their own ideas!
That's why The Fucking Article* says to invest in them by forming relationships, not by acquiring them as with traditional "human capital." The first project should be viewed as essentially forming that relationship, and any other value gained from it is superfluous. But after that, you let your team direct the company, not the other way around. Which makes sense really. If you have a product that looks and works like a really great shoe, then sell really great shoes. Don't throw it away because you wanted to sell hats. Likewise, if you have a team that can or does produce an awesome project that was outside of your initial scope, clearly your scope should be changed, not the project.**
This is pretty much what Apple did with the iPod, leveraging that into their phone, tablet, STB, and possibly upcoming TV. They've made plenty of missteps over the years, but jumping on the success of the iPod was not one of them, at least from a profitability standpoint.
* Thought I'd spell that one out for you too, just in case.
** Steve Jobs would probably say "Bullshit, micromanage your teams," but that's really only applicable if you're Steve Jobs, and then only if you believe he had more skill than luck in product design, and that his contributions in that respect were more important than his showmanship and marketing. In other words, don't do that.
Or you could just clone the one indefinitely. It's already being done in other animals. The important of genetic diversity should not be forgotten, though in the case of an extinct animal, it's probably not the primary concern.
Ok, I learned something new (or maybe relearned something, since I recall there was something about an adult game being published on the 2600 which led to the protections on the 7800). At any rate, I stand corrected. Thanks for that educational post.
Like I said, the problem isn't that people aren't aware what they're getting in to, it's that they don't care (enough to look into alternatives). Through their actions, people are saying that they care more about convenience (the convenience of the readily available option) than cost. It's not like we live in the dark ages where this information isn't readily available to anyone who cares enough to look.
Ataris and NESs weren't locked down, which is largely an advent of code signing and really only became popular within the last decade or so. It was somewhat impractical to write your own software, true, but if you wrote it, the system would run it.
But Apple and Amazon didn't collude.
Include a clause that allows you to change the terms at any time without notifying customers or providing any sort of consideration. If you look for it, you'll find it buried in the fine print of all sorts of consumer contracts. Yes, this is a stupid contract to be signing, but many people don't read the fine print or don't realize what that clause means if they see it. The courts have sometimes ruled those contracts invalid, but for most people it's more expensive to sue than it is to just pay up.
You can change the terms, but that *always* creates a new contract, and the other party must consent to the new terms. Even if the other party is unaware of the changes (and appears to consent by doing nothing), they could still get out of the contract AND be compensated for the period up until they became aware of the changes, and no company is going to fight them in court because it's a guaranteed losing battle, and it's a losing PR battle even if they won.
Now I agree that people sign stupid contracts, but you can't force people to be responsible with their own money, and willful ignorance is not the same as being duped.
And this doesn't demonstrate that Two Factor Authentication is worthless either. If thieves have to select their targets more carefully, (because there's no point jumping through such hoops to impersonate someone with $2.50 in their checking account) it will reduce identity theft rates overall, which is good, and create as an enemy those with the most resources fight back, which is also good.
"We have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books," Amazon wrote to customers at the time.
That's exactly the same legal argument that didn't work for Psystar in the US. Maybe such reasoning will have better results in the EU.
Lock them in without them noticing? When's the last time you signed a contract without noticing? If ever, you have bigger problems to worry about (not to mention said contract is also invalid). The problem isn't that consumers don't notice, it's that they don't care.
Not at all. It's market segmentation 101. It's the same reason Intel's top-of-the-line chip costs twice as much as the next lower model but only performs a few single percentage points better. (And because of binning, each chip actually costs the same amount to produce.) Anyway, you create one market segment for people who can only afford to pay a lower price for your product, then you give a little extra value to people who can pay more so they can feel superior despite the fact that they just paid significantly more for what is essentially the same product. It's actually insulting to the buyer when you get down to it. Fortunately neither of the two groups who pay more are likely to complain. The first group doesn't want to violate the image, real or imagined, that they can afford to spend more, and the second group will usually rationalize their overspending by any means necessary to avoid admitting they made a bad decision. (These groups are not mutually exclusive).
Democracy isn't some panacea. As Churchill said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried."
The problem isn't that the red pill is a wrong choice, the problem is that there are no benevolent dictators, or at least no reliable supply of them. (Yes, I know the question said intelligent, but presumably the intelligence would be used benevolently, otherwise we already have plenty of countries with intelligent, but not particularly benevolent, dictators.)
Anyone who's okay with the federal government reading their email should likewise be okay with a random stranger reading their e-mail. The government doesn't have any more need-to-know than anyone else, *especially* if you're doing nothing wrong. The argument that they are ruling people out as non-threats is fallacious: if you were ruled out, there would be no need for further monitoring, which tells us what should be obvious: that people are never ruled out.
So if you're really okay with the government reading your email, go ahead and put your money where your mouth is, and post all of your sent and received messages somewhere that's publicly viewable. After all, there's a chance the government might miss something, and if it saves even one life, it's worth it, right? Right?!
I disagree. I don't think the problem is a lack of moral authority, but that people's decision making is based on risk/reward, of which morality is but one aspect. The risk of dying will usually outweigh the intrinsic reward of being moral, for example. So when there's little or no risk of being caught, it boils down to whether it's more intrinsically rewarding to adhere to your morals or to satisfy your curiosity, or even to leverage your ill-gotten knowledge for your advantage. To solve that problem, you have to either entrust the people with access to the information (which makes sense to me), or somehow shift the risk/reward balance.
Pretty sure that's what tuition is.
geohot
Right, intending to violate the law IS mens rea. Criminal intent != malicious intent and vice versa. There's plenty of malicious things I can do that are perfectly legal, and plenty of illegal things someone could do that may be benevolent. The public, the media, and especially law enforcement often fail to make a distinction, but there is one.