Money spreads disease, has an administrative cost, is vunerable to forgery.
And these aren't vulnerable to forgery? Sounds to me like the cash is actually stored in the device (if you lose it, you lose that money). How long before some geek hacks it and loads it up with free cash?
Seems much more vulnerable to forgery from my point of view. It's anonymous and you don't have to convince some clerk that it's real - just buy whatever you want, and nobody will know the difference (until the company who makes the device tries to balance their budget).
You could get rid of this problem by linking all readers to a database to validate transactions ala Visa, but then it isn't really anonymous anymore...
This is silly. They should be using iButtons. Totally waterproof & nearly indestructible. About the size of a thick dime, can be made into jewelery, etc. The Java versions are only slightly larger and can hold public & private keys and perform detailed transactions.
And they're cheap! Less than a buck each in bulk. A little more spendy for the Java iButtons. They aren't contactless. They automatically transfer data at 140 some odd Kb/s when you tap them onto a reader. One quick tap is enough to complete the transaction.
I've bought some and am having one built into a ring to use for access control for my home (unlock doors, etc) so I don't have to carry keys anymore.
I have no idea why Visa/etc haven't signed on to this idea. iButtons are the best thing since sliced bread.
I think it adds a nice dimension to the game. Especially when a "good" wizard/god comes and fights the bad one:)
Not quite the same thing, but we used to have SysOp wars "back in the day". I had 7 incoming lines to my BBS & 300 users. Very large board for the area, and I had several CoSysOps to help me run the place.
Inevitably, a few of us would be chatting, and someone's text would change from blue to red (indicating another SysOp had just changed his sex to female). That would spark a war of powers, with each online sysop doing obnoxious things to the others, while simultaneously trying to undo what was being done to him. Changing names, online status information, setting "time left for the day" to 10 seconds to see if the other guy can type fast enough to give himself more time before he's booted off, etc...
Meanwhile the users would sit on the sidelines and laugh their asses off. Some would make comments and get themselves dragged into the battle. Others would be dragged in whether they liked it or not, either for fun, or for use as pawns against another sysop.
I sample, and I buy if I like what I hear - this may be illegal, but I don't give a shit. As far as I'm concerned the law is a crock.
You got it. I download - and archive - Enterprise episodes. Why? I can't pick it up over the air, my local cable company doesn't have it, and even if they did I wouldn't subscribe for one show. So I download them. Illegal? Sure. Do I care? Hell no. What's the difference between downloading them and taping them with my VCR? There isn't any. Morally I have zero problems with my actions.
Oh, and to take this one step further, I downloaded American Pie 2 before it was in theaters. I thought the first one was so hilarious I watched it nearly a dozen times in theaters, and then bought the DVD. I just had to have a sneak preview of part 2. I still saw it (part 2) in theaters, and I still bought the DVD. Now tell me how I'm a crook? They got their money from me. I'm one of their most loyal customers.
Re:Uphill water flow at Disneyworld since 1971..
on
Water Flows Uphill
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· Score: 1
You go to the base of the hill, put your car in neutral, and your car will roll up the hill. Its an optical illusion, you are actually rolling downhill, but you look and it looks uphill, no amount of thinking its downhill dispells that.
There's also one in Grangeville, Idaho. Tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. The effect is perfect: The hill looks quite steep, and you roll up it slowly. Way cool.
Odd. Where I live, debit cards are actually your regular banking cards. Hand it over, type in your PIN, and you're done.
Right, it's the same way here. They're an ATM & Visa in one. You can swipe it and use your pin, or you can also run it as a normal Visa without a pin. Instead of coming off of credit, the charge comes out of your checking account.
I think they're great as they allow anyone (including kids) who can't get credit to still have a Visa.
Yup. I grew up and attended school in Washington State. My last year in high school, I spent the vast majority of the year suspended. First, Big Johnson shirts were outlawed because they might offend somebody. Then it was for a "Richard Noggin: Don't be one, wear one!" shirt. Then they attempted to take my pager away (which I used to run a successful, LEGAL business out of my home) on multiple occasions and suspended me for insubordination for refusing to hand it over to them each time.
I now have children of my own who are home-schooled. It will be a cold day in hell before my kids will spend a minute in a public school here.
Uh, lots of kids have "credit cards". They're called "debit cards". You can open a checking account at my credit union when you're 12 and get a free Visa tied to your account. Put your lawnmowing/babysitting money in it and you can buy anywhere Visa is accepted.
I take it you've never driven a nice car in a questionable neighbourhood, or a sports car on a highway? Well, if you ever wanna experience the thrill, there's plenty of people desperate to sell them cheaply wherever cops have taken some profiling classes.
The AC has a very valid point.
I own a nice sports car. I've owned it since I was 17. Worked my ass off at Burger King for years to afford it and the insane insurance rates (my parents financed the car, but I had to make the payments, buy my own gas, insurance, etc).
I drove through a bad neighborhood once. Picked up a friend in a so-so area and the quickest way to the freeway and the affluent area we were heading was through the 'hood. I was pulled over and harassed for being a young white male driving a nice car after dark in a poor, mostly hispanic neighborhood. Cop wanted to know what I was doing, where I was heading, where I worked, how much money I made, how I could afford the car, etc. I told him it was none of his damn business, which simply resulted in him detaining us longer. We were 45 minutes late to the party we were heading to because of him.
It's complete and total bullshit. Or at least that's what I thought until now:
The original poster also had a great point:
Here is a question though: if a group of bald white men were slowly cruising around predominately African-American neighborhoods, wouldn't you want the police to make sure it was not a bunch of skinheads looking for a target? Listen to the heart of what I am saying: it is out of the ordinary.
After reading this, I am torn between how I feel on this issue. The post makes sense. Am I willing to tolerate profiling for the good of the community as a whole? As far as that cop was concerned, I was probably a drug dealer finishing a sale. That section of town was full of users. Quite frankly, the next kid in a fancy sports car that came through there probably was dealing.
In a free society, I should have been able to drive my nice car through any neighborhood without being harassed. On the other hand, if I were one of the poor residents who lived there, I'd appreciate the police stopping the kid in the fancy car to ensure he isn't contributing to the sad state of affairs in my neighborhood.
I have subsequently added "Badmovies" to my friends list for his excellent post. Thank you for making me think.
There ought to be punishment for parents whose kids break laws.
That's bullshit. I knew kids in high school who had good parents who did their best to raise them up right. The kids fell in with the wrong crowd and did bad things despite their parents being good people. So what, you're going to toss the parents in jail? It's not always their fault.
Re:This would be cooler if it was a Databank...
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Wristwatch USB Drive
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· Score: 1
I've been using Casio Databank watches for at least a dozen years. I'm on my third one now: The VDB200 touch screen version. I love it. No physical buttons, just a big display. Totally cool.
I thought nobody would buy those remote control watches.
I had one of those. I loved it. When eating at restaurants, I could easily change the channels on their televisions to watch whatever I wanted to watch.
Re:Watch is better! Nyer-nyer-ne-nyer-nyeh!
on
Wristwatch USB Drive
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· Score: 2, Interesting
www.ibutton.com
They'll run java and can handle encryption/pass keys/etc. They can be built into watch bands, rings, or just carried with you. Use one to unlock all of your doors doors, login to your PC, etc.
About the size of a really thick dime and incredibly cheap. ~$3 - $50 each depending on type, $10 for a computer interface, $8 for a reader.
"Mr. President". I bought the CD for that Coco Jamboo song. The rest of it was total and complete shit. $18 for one song that I got tired of after a week.
Maynard, when asked about p2p networks and such, replied "My music is not yours to give".
If Maynard doesn't want people sharing his music, then he shouldn't have put it out for all to hear. If that's his attitude, he should have simply kept the music to himself.
I could understand his anger if someone got ahold of private music he created for himself and his immediate family. But he put the music out for everyone to listen to and now he's bitching because people are sharing it with one another?
Except definition 1 of theft in the dictionary supports that it is.
Really? Would you care to post that definition, because I don't see it.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=theft 6 entries found for theft. theft ( P ) Pronunciation Key (thft) n. 1. The act or an instance of stealing; larceny. 2. Obsolete. Something stolen. Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Downloading an MP3 wasn't larceny, the last time I checked.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary further defines the word:
Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Hmm. Taking and removing of personal property. Not intellectual property. Looks like the same definition as above, only more descriptive.
common terminology reveals that taking mp3s that you do not have a license or permission to take is theft.
That doesn't mean it is. As an example:
People say insane constantly, where it is only a legal term
And the word is used incorrectly 99% of the time. I've labeled someone "insane" plenty of times. Never was the person in question actually insane. The word is simply used to express shock at what someone has done or said.
Likewise with MP3s and the word "theft". The simple fact that a large number of people call it "theft" does not make it so.
But my point is that smart people usually have better things to do with their brains than learning the constantly changing intricacies of their system.
I always thought smart people exercised their brains constantly. I enjoy learning and changing the intricacies of my system as much as I enjoy the solving complex computing problems at work as a research scientist. I've never known a smart person to put their brain on hold because "it's better used elsewhere"... Seems silly.
So, I can solve your problem for you. My father constantly opens everything under the sun, no matter how much I tell him he shouldn't. The fix?
1. Explained file extensions to him. He doesn't listen, but I explained them anyway.
2. Reconfigured his computer to show all extensions.
3. Installed some auto-updating anti-virus software.
4. Installed the latest Office service pack. This patched Outlook, which now hides "questionable" attachments by default.
I'm not warping anything, I'm taking what it says and using it to build my belief system.
Before doing so, you might consider taking everything it says. If you base your belief system regarding this subject on the definition of a word, it might be a good idea to base it on the entire definition.
Even putting the dictionary aside, legally copyright infringement is not theft nor stealing. People aren't being sued for theft, they're being sued for copyright infringement. The law sees a rather large difference there.
... and can't tell the difference between exe and jpg? Please. My six year old knows which attachments are safe to open and which are not. How come your PhD, embedded multitasking OS writing mom can't figure it out?
steal: 1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
The definition of "steal" is also: To commit theft. And the definition of "theft" clearly states:
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.
Which obviously does not apply to copyright infringement.
Next time you want to throw out the definition of a word, don't leave out entire sections for the purpose of warping it into your own belief system.
Slashdot Mirror
Money spreads disease, has an administrative cost, is vunerable to forgery.
And these aren't vulnerable to forgery? Sounds to me like the cash is actually stored in the device (if you lose it, you lose that money). How long before some geek hacks it and loads it up with free cash?
Seems much more vulnerable to forgery from my point of view. It's anonymous and you don't have to convince some clerk that it's real - just buy whatever you want, and nobody will know the difference (until the company who makes the device tries to balance their budget).
You could get rid of this problem by linking all readers to a database to validate transactions ala Visa, but then it isn't really anonymous anymore...
This is silly. They should be using iButtons. Totally waterproof & nearly indestructible. About the size of a thick dime, can be made into jewelery, etc. The Java versions are only slightly larger and can hold public & private keys and perform detailed transactions.
And they're cheap! Less than a buck each in bulk. A little more spendy for the Java iButtons. They aren't contactless. They automatically transfer data at 140 some odd Kb/s when you tap them onto a reader. One quick tap is enough to complete the transaction.
I've bought some and am having one built into a ring to use for access control for my home (unlock doors, etc) so I don't have to carry keys anymore.
I have no idea why Visa/etc haven't signed on to this idea. iButtons are the best thing since sliced bread.
I think it adds a nice dimension to the game. Especially when a "good" wizard/god comes and fights the bad one :)
Not quite the same thing, but we used to have SysOp wars "back in the day". I had 7 incoming lines to my BBS & 300 users. Very large board for the area, and I had several CoSysOps to help me run the place.
Inevitably, a few of us would be chatting, and someone's text would change from blue to red (indicating another SysOp had just changed his sex to female). That would spark a war of powers, with each online sysop doing obnoxious things to the others, while simultaneously trying to undo what was being done to him. Changing names, online status information, setting "time left for the day" to 10 seconds to see if the other guy can type fast enough to give himself more time before he's booted off, etc...
Meanwhile the users would sit on the sidelines and laugh their asses off. Some would make comments and get themselves dragged into the battle. Others would be dragged in whether they liked it or not, either for fun, or for use as pawns against another sysop.
Ahh, good times...
Of course, you can legally sue him,
As opposed to illegally suing him?
Then it will probably refuse to boot at all.
Boy, that's going to suck when your company's ISP is down one morning and several hundred employees can't boot their computers up.
I sample, and I buy if I like what I hear - this may be illegal, but I don't give a shit. As far as I'm concerned the law is a crock.
You got it. I download - and archive - Enterprise episodes. Why? I can't pick it up over the air, my local cable company doesn't have it, and even if they did I wouldn't subscribe for one show. So I download them. Illegal? Sure. Do I care? Hell no. What's the difference between downloading them and taping them with my VCR? There isn't any. Morally I have zero problems with my actions.
Oh, and to take this one step further, I downloaded American Pie 2 before it was in theaters. I thought the first one was so hilarious I watched it nearly a dozen times in theaters, and then bought the DVD. I just had to have a sneak preview of part 2. I still saw it (part 2) in theaters, and I still bought the DVD. Now tell me how I'm a crook? They got their money from me. I'm one of their most loyal customers.
You go to the base of the hill, put your car in neutral, and your car will roll up the hill. Its an optical illusion, you are actually rolling downhill, but you look and it looks uphill, no amount of thinking its downhill dispells that.
There's also one in Grangeville, Idaho. Tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. The effect is perfect: The hill looks quite steep, and you roll up it slowly. Way cool.
Odd. Where I live, debit cards are actually your regular banking cards. Hand it over, type in your PIN, and you're done.
Right, it's the same way here. They're an ATM & Visa in one. You can swipe it and use your pin, or you can also run it as a normal Visa without a pin. Instead of coming off of credit, the charge comes out of your checking account.
I think they're great as they allow anyone (including kids) who can't get credit to still have a Visa.
Yup. I grew up and attended school in Washington State. My last year in high school, I spent the vast majority of the year suspended. First, Big Johnson shirts were outlawed because they might offend somebody. Then it was for a "Richard Noggin: Don't be one, wear one!" shirt. Then they attempted to take my pager away (which I used to run a successful, LEGAL business out of my home) on multiple occasions and suspended me for insubordination for refusing to hand it over to them each time.
I now have children of my own who are home-schooled. It will be a cold day in hell before my kids will spend a minute in a public school here.
Uh, lots of kids have "credit cards". They're called "debit cards". You can open a checking account at my credit union when you're 12 and get a free Visa tied to your account. Put your lawnmowing/babysitting money in it and you can buy anywhere Visa is accepted.
I take it you've never driven a nice car in a questionable neighbourhood, or a sports car on a highway? Well, if you ever wanna experience the thrill, there's plenty of people desperate to sell them cheaply wherever cops have taken some profiling classes.
The AC has a very valid point.
I own a nice sports car. I've owned it since I was 17. Worked my ass off at Burger King for years to afford it and the insane insurance rates (my parents financed the car, but I had to make the payments, buy my own gas, insurance, etc).
I drove through a bad neighborhood once. Picked up a friend in a so-so area and the quickest way to the freeway and the affluent area we were heading was through the 'hood. I was pulled over and harassed for being a young white male driving a nice car after dark in a poor, mostly hispanic neighborhood. Cop wanted to know what I was doing, where I was heading, where I worked, how much money I made, how I could afford the car, etc. I told him it was none of his damn business, which simply resulted in him detaining us longer. We were 45 minutes late to the party we were heading to because of him.
It's complete and total bullshit. Or at least that's what I thought until now:
The original poster also had a great point:
Here is a question though: if a group of bald white men were slowly cruising around predominately African-American neighborhoods, wouldn't you want the police to make sure it was not a bunch of skinheads looking for a target? Listen to the heart of what I am saying: it is out of the ordinary.
After reading this, I am torn between how I feel on this issue. The post makes sense. Am I willing to tolerate profiling for the good of the community as a whole? As far as that cop was concerned, I was probably a drug dealer finishing a sale. That section of town was full of users. Quite frankly, the next kid in a fancy sports car that came through there probably was dealing.
In a free society, I should have been able to drive my nice car through any neighborhood without being harassed. On the other hand, if I were one of the poor residents who lived there, I'd appreciate the police stopping the kid in the fancy car to ensure he isn't contributing to the sad state of affairs in my neighborhood.
I have subsequently added "Badmovies" to my friends list for his excellent post. Thank you for making me think.
There ought to be punishment for parents whose kids break laws.
That's bullshit. I knew kids in high school who had good parents who did their best to raise them up right. The kids fell in with the wrong crowd and did bad things despite their parents being good people. So what, you're going to toss the parents in jail? It's not always their fault.
I've been using Casio Databank watches for at least a dozen years. I'm on my third one now: The VDB200 touch screen version. I love it. No physical buttons, just a big display. Totally cool.
I thought nobody would buy those remote control watches.
I had one of those. I loved it. When eating at restaurants, I could easily change the channels on their televisions to watch whatever I wanted to watch.
www.ibutton.com
They'll run java and can handle encryption/pass keys/etc. They can be built into watch bands, rings, or just carried with you. Use one to unlock all of your doors doors, login to your PC, etc.
About the size of a really thick dime and incredibly cheap. ~$3 - $50 each depending on type, $10 for a computer interface, $8 for a reader.
"Mr. President". I bought the CD for that Coco Jamboo song. The rest of it was total and complete shit. $18 for one song that I got tired of after a week.
Maynard, when asked about p2p networks and such, replied "My music is not yours to give".
If Maynard doesn't want people sharing his music, then he shouldn't have put it out for all to hear. If that's his attitude, he should have simply kept the music to himself.
I could understand his anger if someone got ahold of private music he created for himself and his immediate family. But he put the music out for everyone to listen to and now he's bitching because people are sharing it with one another?
Except definition 1 of theft in the dictionary supports that it is.
:)
Really? Would you care to post that definition, because I don't see it.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=theft
6 entries found for theft.
theft ( P ) Pronunciation Key (thft) n.
1. The act or an instance of stealing; larceny.
2. Obsolete. Something stolen.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Downloading an MP3 wasn't larceny, the last time I checked.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary further defines the word:
Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Hmm. Taking and removing of personal property. Not intellectual property. Looks like the same definition as above, only more descriptive.
BTW, thanks for the polite debate.
common terminology reveals that taking mp3s that you do not have a license or permission to take is theft.
That doesn't mean it is. As an example:
People say insane constantly, where it is only a legal term
And the word is used incorrectly 99% of the time. I've labeled someone "insane" plenty of times. Never was the person in question actually insane. The word is simply used to express shock at what someone has done or said.
Likewise with MP3s and the word "theft". The simple fact that a large number of people call it "theft" does not make it so.
But my point is that smart people usually have better things to do with their brains than learning the constantly changing intricacies of their system.
... Seems silly.
I always thought smart people exercised their brains constantly. I enjoy learning and changing the intricacies of my system as much as I enjoy the solving complex computing problems at work as a research scientist. I've never known a smart person to put their brain on hold because "it's better used elsewhere"
So, I can solve your problem for you. My father constantly opens everything under the sun, no matter how much I tell him he shouldn't. The fix?
1. Explained file extensions to him. He doesn't listen, but I explained them anyway.
2. Reconfigured his computer to show all extensions.
3. Installed some auto-updating anti-virus software.
4. Installed the latest Office service pack. This patched Outlook, which now hides "questionable" attachments by default.
Saved me a lot of headaches.
I'm not warping anything, I'm taking what it says and using it to build my belief system.
Before doing so, you might consider taking everything it says. If you base your belief system regarding this subject on the definition of a word, it might be a good idea to base it on the entire definition.
Even putting the dictionary aside, legally copyright infringement is not theft nor stealing. People aren't being sued for theft, they're being sued for copyright infringement. The law sees a rather large difference there.
she wrote an embedded multitasking OS
... and can't tell the difference between exe and jpg? Please. My six year old knows which attachments are safe to open and which are not. How come your PhD, embedded multitasking OS writing mom can't figure it out?
steal:
1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
The definition of "steal" is also: To commit theft. And the definition of "theft" clearly states:
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.
Which obviously does not apply to copyright infringement.
Next time you want to throw out the definition of a word, don't leave out entire sections for the purpose of warping it into your own belief system.
Favorite bumper sticker:
Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken!
I know, I'm one of them.
Of course, only friends & family use my server...