I am curious as to what was actually done. All of the news articles on this story only say that phones were "hacked". This is Slashdot. Does anyone know what exactly the reporters did to the phones and/or voicemail accounts, and how difficult or easy it is to do?
I must strongly disagree with the idea that "real music" will suffer without highly profitable major record labels to promote it. The major record labels have long been more interested in spending promotional dollars on pop acts than on anyone doing anything innovative. With the self-promotion opportunities that the Internet provides, I have been able to find (and purchase music from) dozens of truly excellent artists that I would never have been able to find under the old model. Even aside from the concentration of advertising dollars on artists that pump out popular singles, most traditional radio stations are now owned by a few megacorps who are closely tied in with the major labels. When you call most stations these days and ask them to play anything that isn't already on their rotation list, even if in-genre and not too obscure, they aren't even allowed to do it. (Although the DJs are often frustrated and wish that they could.)
Why is the commenter worried? If his children have been 'vaccinated', then how can they catch measles?
Many vaccines are not (cannot be?) given until a certain age. If enough people go unvaccinated that outbreaks become possible, children too young to receive the vaccine can become infected. There is also, of course, the cost to society as a whole when there is an outbreak.
Actually, the US is not particularly bad in the libel/slander/defamation department. For example, US law places the burden of proof on the plaintiff to show that the defendant's statements about them are demonstrably false. In fact, there is a law in progress intended to shield US citizens from libel lawsuits originating in countries like England where the accused is actually expected to prove the truth of their statements about the accuser.
Mod parent up. Dual screens that your eyes are looking straight forward at independently sounds exactly like something that would throw off one's normal stereoscopic vision (if only momentarily in most people). Modern 3D display technologies don't work like that. The old finding might merit further research using newer 3D technologies (which is likely already being done), but there is no need to jump to conclusions.
From what I've seen, the Japanese take this only slightly more seriously than people here in the US take horoscopes.
IANJ, but I am given to understand that in Japan, blood type is still asked in some job interviews. There is even a word in Japanese, burahara, which refers to discrimination on the basis of blood type.
I'm not really your target audience here, but if you are trying to persuade the crowd that would be influenced by appeals to the "american dream", you might want to modify your spelling of "centre". They're pretty big on the "English-only" thing, and they have an odd definition of "English".
You can name your passwords file something more obvious and put it in an easier to access place if it is encrypted. There are a lot of free applications that make it pretty easy to encrypt documents and to access said documents, AxCrypt being one example. Remembering one password then gives you access to all of your old, obscure passwords; just never use that password anywhere else.
If you would like to see a unique way of dealing with this problem, check out Planescape: Torment. If the main character dies, he simply wakes up someplace else. This condition is part of the plot, and having amnesia, he initially doesn't know why.
Yes, in fact there are liberals who support it. While most/. readers only know that the bill includes retroactive immunity for cooperating telecoms, the bill also includes new restrictions on wiretapping. For example, it requires court supervision, significantly more bookkeeping on exactly what it is that they are doing, and more congressional oversight. I'm not sure if it is the final version or not, but you can read one recent version of the bill here:
In both his books and his campaigning, Sen. Obama has presented himself as a fairly middle-of-the-road populist who is strongly influenced by his Christian values. For a while, both the right and the left seemed to have written this image off as a politician trying to remain electable. Suddenly, everyone is shocked when on a few recent issues (death penalty, abortion, FISA), he has taken a moderate stance. Perhaps they should have taken him at his word.
I wholeheartedly agree. One of the main aspects of Paul is that he unnerves everyone around him by being a child that is so intense and insightful. The dinner party scene in Dune is an excellent example of this. I do not believe that the book can be done well without finding a truly extraordinary young actor to play Paul.
"Diablo II had this kind of ability; you could use characters online and offline."
Um... I'm afraid that Diablo II has no such feature. You can have eight characters on your computer and eight on the server, and they cannot mix. Incidentally, allowing the use of local characters on official servers would have really messed with the economy given the ability to modify savegame files. (You would have had people in chat offering "FREE SOJs in game freefreefree!!!" without it being just another troll.)
"this experiment tells us exactly nothing unless we know the age distribution of the subjects."
Yes it does, it tells us that they were all college students. As such, I think it safe to assume that the vast majority of them are in the 18-23 age range. However, as I mentioend in another post, it does not tell us if liberal college students tend to play more video games than conservative college students. (I do not know the answer.)
"Or, it could mean that liberals are incapable of learning from previous experience."
If what you say was true, conservatives would have been more reliable at scoring when the more common 'M' signal was displayed, whereas the study showed that the two groups were equally accurate in that regard.
Personally, although I find it to be somewhat interesting, I think that the article did not mention an important piece of information. It is good that the participants were about the same age range. However, how do I know that college-aged liberals don't just play more video games than their conservative peers, which would be an alternate explanation their better hand-eye reflexes? (Anyone who happens to know such a study, feel free to inform me.)
"And, I didn't say I'm a liberal, too. This word has been hijacked by american Commiecrats, a totally despicable party of corrupt populists who tout their version of socialism."
You can choose to label it what you want, but the version of "socialism" in question would be called "conservative" in most first world nations.
Multiple people have given anecdotes about Chinese ignorance of Tiananmen square, but a friend of mine from Shanghai remembers it vividly. (He had been ticked off about it because he was a child at the time and the special news report on it preempted an important episode of Transformers.)
I am certainly under the impression that "news" in China is highly distorted and selective, but the extent of this is often exaggerated. In regards to not remembering key events, you may be surprised at how little studies show U.S. citizens know of the past 50 years of their own history.
"...as long as you don't take part in acts of agression against our country, you're safe. If you're planning on taking part in those things, please leave, and quit bitching about your "rights"."
That would be all well and good if the government were required to demonstrate that the people in question actually committed any such acts. As a matter of fact, as of right now, my wonderful government doesn't even have to charge people with anything specific to hold them indefinitely without access to the courts, a lawyer, or anyone else on the outside. Unless something has changed that escaped my notice, they are not even compelled to disclose the fact that they are holding you. (Theoretically, if any of these people were US citizens, how would we even find out?)
The argument that these losses of liberty are unimportant because the people being shortchanged are terrorists is getting very tired. We don't know that they are terrorists, we don't even necessarily know who they are. The idea that we should blindly trust the executive branch of our government to not get overzealous with so few restrictions and no oversight is laughable.
"Second, the bill doesn't trump the Constitution, it just points out that foreign enemies don't get the benefit of the Constitution."
I do not believe that someone having been born in another country (or perhaps more precisely, with a different faith background or color of skin) is any less human or any less deserving of guarantees of their basic liberties.
"Quit being such a cry-baby."
Seventeen people from Guantanamo Bay have just been releasted. All were found to have committed no crime. Most of these were Afghan citizens taken from their home country to have over *four years* of their lives taken away while living in a prison where, as many of them allege, they were subject to methods of psychological torture. I could go on and on about various US prison abuses, or about reasons to doubt the ability of our executive branch to exercise sound judgement, but you should be familiar with them already. We have ample evidence that rights that most of us would agree should be provided to everyone have been taken away from a great many people by our government. People's lives are, in fact, being irrevocably harmed by our actions.
Without any transparency or accountability, we have no idea how many people have been so wronged, and will have no idea whether or not it is continuing or expanding. We are essentially being asked by certain factions in our government to simply trust them to use these powers wisely. I find little reason to do so, either on the grounds of ethics or competency. I would ask that others try not to make decisions on this matter (like voting) while thinking that these changes only affect "bad guys," which is the mentality being promoted. People should not be indiscriminantly punished for the crimes of extremists that happen to share a region of birth with them. I certainly wouldn't want to be.
"...what better way to control a population than to deprive the people of information..."
Easy. Provide the people with an overabundance of bad information. Then each individual will believe the "facts" that correspond to their previously held beliefs/alliegances. They will naturally tend to polarize, and will then be easily manipulated into taking sides in simulated "conflicts" that happen to solidify or increase the political power of both sides of the issue.
We can see this pattern to an extent right now in the U.S. I don't necessarily believe that there are conspiricies to operate according to this type of power structure, but it can come about anyway because it is a stable system and tends to persist once created.
Except that artificial social constructs are far older than games. In Julius Caesar's writings, he describes the reactions of his enemies to his unorthodox tactics, which they decry is dishonorable, unfair, or unmanly. So yes, in the sense of violating the commonly held ideas about what is fair and what is not, people can cheat in reality. When they didn't suffer too much of a negative reaction for it, they were often quite successful. (Caesar is an obvious example.)
The difference is that while in reality, the things being contested are resources or lasting power over others, most people that play games engage in the simulated conflict for the sake of enjoying the conflict itself. So, for many of them, cheating would serve no purpose, and they become quite irritated when others cheat. They become irritated both because the game that they play ceases to be the one that they expected, and because they do have a degree of desire to win. Perhaps those that do cheat are the ones whose desire to win is the greater part of their desire to play. Sounds like the heads of certain corporations I know.
Slashdot Mirror
I am curious as to what was actually done. All of the news articles on this story only say that phones were "hacked". This is Slashdot. Does anyone know what exactly the reporters did to the phones and/or voicemail accounts, and how difficult or easy it is to do?
I must strongly disagree with the idea that "real music" will suffer without highly profitable major record labels to promote it. The major record labels have long been more interested in spending promotional dollars on pop acts than on anyone doing anything innovative. With the self-promotion opportunities that the Internet provides, I have been able to find (and purchase music from) dozens of truly excellent artists that I would never have been able to find under the old model. Even aside from the concentration of advertising dollars on artists that pump out popular singles, most traditional radio stations are now owned by a few megacorps who are closely tied in with the major labels. When you call most stations these days and ask them to play anything that isn't already on their rotation list, even if in-genre and not too obscure, they aren't even allowed to do it. (Although the DJs are often frustrated and wish that they could.)
Why is the commenter worried? If his children have been 'vaccinated', then how can they catch measles?
Many vaccines are not (cannot be?) given until a certain age. If enough people go unvaccinated that outbreaks become possible, children too young to receive the vaccine can become infected. There is also, of course, the cost to society as a whole when there is an outbreak.
B sues A for libel/slander/defamation
Actually, the US is not particularly bad in the libel/slander/defamation department. For example, US law places the burden of proof on the plaintiff to show that the defendant's statements about them are demonstrably false. In fact, there is a law in progress intended to shield US citizens from libel lawsuits originating in countries like England where the accused is actually expected to prove the truth of their statements about the accuser.
Mod parent up. Dual screens that your eyes are looking straight forward at independently sounds exactly like something that would throw off one's normal stereoscopic vision (if only momentarily in most people). Modern 3D display technologies don't work like that. The old finding might merit further research using newer 3D technologies (which is likely already being done), but there is no need to jump to conclusions.
Oy Carumba? Are you a Mexican Jew? Not that there's anything wrong with that or anything.
Yes, actually. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/11/07/
From what I've seen, the Japanese take this only slightly more seriously than people here in the US take horoscopes.
IANJ, but I am given to understand that in Japan, blood type is still asked in some job interviews. There is even a word in Japanese, burahara, which refers to discrimination on the basis of blood type.
I'm not really your target audience here, but if you are trying to persuade the crowd that would be influenced by appeals to the "american dream", you might want to modify your spelling of "centre". They're pretty big on the "English-only" thing, and they have an odd definition of "English".
You can name your passwords file something more obvious and put it in an easier to access place if it is encrypted. There are a lot of free applications that make it pretty easy to encrypt documents and to access said documents, AxCrypt being one example. Remembering one password then gives you access to all of your old, obscure passwords; just never use that password anywhere else.
If you would like to see a unique way of dealing with this problem, check out Planescape: Torment. If the main character dies, he simply wakes up someplace else. This condition is part of the plot, and having amnesia, he initially doesn't know why.
Yes, in fact there are liberals who support it. While most /. readers only know that the bill includes retroactive immunity for cooperating telecoms, the bill also includes new restrictions on wiretapping. For example, it requires court supervision, significantly more bookkeeping on exactly what it is that they are doing, and more congressional oversight. I'm not sure if it is the final version or not, but you can read one recent version of the bill here:
http://www.depublican.org/index.php?view=article&catid=39&id=54%3Aamend-fisa-act-of-2008&option=com_content&Itemid=72
In both his books and his campaigning, Sen. Obama has presented himself as a fairly middle-of-the-road populist who is strongly influenced by his Christian values. For a while, both the right and the left seemed to have written this image off as a politician trying to remain electable. Suddenly, everyone is shocked when on a few recent issues (death penalty, abortion, FISA), he has taken a moderate stance. Perhaps they should have taken him at his word.
I wholeheartedly agree. One of the main aspects of Paul is that he unnerves everyone around him by being a child that is so intense and insightful. The dinner party scene in Dune is an excellent example of this. I do not believe that the book can be done well without finding a truly extraordinary young actor to play Paul.
Also known as the first classic blunder, which is "Never start a land war in Asia!"
It's not Monty Python, it's Mel Brooks. Perhaps you've had too much "mighty joint" to remember?
Mod parent up.
"Diablo II had this kind of ability; you could use characters online and offline."
Um... I'm afraid that Diablo II has no such feature. You can have eight characters on your computer and eight on the server, and they cannot mix. Incidentally, allowing the use of local characters on official servers would have really messed with the economy given the ability to modify savegame files. (You would have had people in chat offering "FREE SOJs in game freefreefree!!!" without it being just another troll.)
"this experiment tells us exactly nothing unless we know the age distribution of the subjects."
Yes it does, it tells us that they were all college students. As such, I think it safe to assume that the vast majority of them are in the 18-23 age range. However, as I mentioend in another post, it does not tell us if liberal college students tend to play more video games than conservative college students. (I do not know the answer.)
"Or, it could mean that liberals are incapable of learning from previous experience."
If what you say was true, conservatives would have been more reliable at scoring when the more common 'M' signal was displayed, whereas the study showed that the two groups were equally accurate in that regard.
Personally, although I find it to be somewhat interesting, I think that the article did not mention an important piece of information. It is good that the participants were about the same age range. However, how do I know that college-aged liberals don't just play more video games than their conservative peers, which would be an alternate explanation their better hand-eye reflexes? (Anyone who happens to know such a study, feel free to inform me.)
"And, I didn't say I'm a liberal, too. This word has been hijacked by american Commiecrats, a totally despicable party of corrupt populists who tout their version of socialism."
You can choose to label it what you want, but the version of "socialism" in question would be called "conservative" in most first world nations.
And for Strong Bad's take on the quality of bad old games...
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail94.html/
'Tis no ordinary rabbit!
Multiple people have given anecdotes about Chinese ignorance of Tiananmen square, but a friend of mine from Shanghai remembers it vividly. (He had been ticked off about it because he was a child at the time and the special news report on it preempted an important episode of Transformers.)
I am certainly under the impression that "news" in China is highly distorted and selective, but the extent of this is often exaggerated. In regards to not remembering key events, you may be surprised at how little studies show U.S. citizens know of the past 50 years of their own history.
"...as long as you don't take part in acts of agression against our country, you're safe. If you're planning on taking part in those things, please leave, and quit bitching about your "rights"."
That would be all well and good if the government were required to demonstrate that the people in question actually committed any such acts. As a matter of fact, as of right now, my wonderful government doesn't even have to charge people with anything specific to hold them indefinitely without access to the courts, a lawyer, or anyone else on the outside. Unless something has changed that escaped my notice, they are not even compelled to disclose the fact that they are holding you. (Theoretically, if any of these people were US citizens, how would we even find out?)
The argument that these losses of liberty are unimportant because the people being shortchanged are terrorists is getting very tired. We don't know that they are terrorists, we don't even necessarily know who they are. The idea that we should blindly trust the executive branch of our government to not get overzealous with so few restrictions and no oversight is laughable.
"Second, the bill doesn't trump the Constitution, it just points out that foreign enemies don't get the benefit of the Constitution."
I do not believe that someone having been born in another country (or perhaps more precisely, with a different faith background or color of skin) is any less human or any less deserving of guarantees of their basic liberties.
"Quit being such a cry-baby."
Seventeen people from Guantanamo Bay have just been releasted. All were found to have committed no crime. Most of these were Afghan citizens taken from their home country to have over *four years* of their lives taken away while living in a prison where, as many of them allege, they were subject to methods of psychological torture. I could go on and on about various US prison abuses, or about reasons to doubt the ability of our executive branch to exercise sound judgement, but you should be familiar with them already. We have ample evidence that rights that most of us would agree should be provided to everyone have been taken away from a great many people by our government. People's lives are, in fact, being irrevocably harmed by our actions.
Without any transparency or accountability, we have no idea how many people have been so wronged, and will have no idea whether or not it is continuing or expanding. We are essentially being asked by certain factions in our government to simply trust them to use these powers wisely. I find little reason to do so, either on the grounds of ethics or competency. I would ask that others try not to make decisions on this matter (like voting) while thinking that these changes only affect "bad guys," which is the mentality being promoted. People should not be indiscriminantly punished for the crimes of extremists that happen to share a region of birth with them. I certainly wouldn't want to be.
"...what better way to control a population than to deprive the people of information..."
Easy. Provide the people with an overabundance of bad information. Then each individual will believe the "facts" that correspond to their previously held beliefs/alliegances. They will naturally tend to polarize, and will then be easily manipulated into taking sides in simulated "conflicts" that happen to solidify or increase the political power of both sides of the issue.
We can see this pattern to an extent right now in the U.S. I don't necessarily believe that there are conspiricies to operate according to this type of power structure, but it can come about anyway because it is a stable system and tends to persist once created.
Except that artificial social constructs are far older than games. In Julius Caesar's writings, he describes the reactions of his enemies to his unorthodox tactics, which they decry is dishonorable, unfair, or unmanly. So yes, in the sense of violating the commonly held ideas about what is fair and what is not, people can cheat in reality. When they didn't suffer too much of a negative reaction for it, they were often quite successful. (Caesar is an obvious example.)
The difference is that while in reality, the things being contested are resources or lasting power over others, most people that play games engage in the simulated conflict for the sake of enjoying the conflict itself. So, for many of them, cheating would serve no purpose, and they become quite irritated when others cheat. They become irritated both because the game that they play ceases to be the one that they expected, and because they do have a degree of desire to win. Perhaps those that do cheat are the ones whose desire to win is the greater part of their desire to play. Sounds like the heads of certain corporations I know.