The browsers used to pop up a dialog on fresh installs when a site tried to set a cookie asking you if you wanted YOUR BROWSER to accept (save and re-send) the cookie.
Whaddya mean, "used to"? I have Firefox still do this. (Preferences - Privacy - Keep until: ask me every time). I deny most cookies, allow them for session if needed, and let my bank and a few others store permanent cookies.
We need a rule that if you want to enact a new law it must repeal five old ones as well as whatever else it is supposed to do.
It is a serious error to think that "number of laws" correlates to "liberty" or "quality of government". Repealing Amendments I-V of the U.S. Constitution, for example, would give us fewer laws. Replacing current tax laws (as hideously complex as they are) with "send in all your dough" would give us fewer laws.
This should be paid for by the individuals, not out of RCMP funds - several thousand $ is a lot to individual members of the RCMP, but not to the RCMP as an organisation.
Which is why you don't sue police forces/political jurisdictions for just a few k$. M$ suits are necessary to make them change their behavior. It's not solely the individual officer's responsible for this, it's also those who hired them, trained them, and developed the standards for the department.
Personally, I think we need to recognize the princple that the SCOTUS (yes, I know this case is Canadian) laid out in the Bad Elk decision -- unlawful arrest is assault, and you have the right to resist assault by any means necessary
....and I allow a maximum page width of 120 characters
Please don't. 80 columns allows code to be read or printed anywhere at a reasonable font-size. There's a reason printed text has margins and keeps to 50-70 characters per line. Wrap your long lines.
Vertical touchscreens are a recipe for RSI like you would not believe. I predict we will see severely damaged wrists and shoulders (at the very least) in people that try the new "interface" of Win8 in a desktop-setting with touchscreen for the majority of their work-day.
Had a vertical touchscreen on a word processing box back around 1990. It grew wearisome after a few hours' use. Does MS not employ at least a few hackers who might read the Jargon File and hear about gorilla arm?
If he has a secret kill list and "disposition matrix" then how do you know about it? If you know about it, then it must not be secret.
Non sequitur. I know that the U.S. has nukes; that does not mean that their designs and placement are not secret.
The existence of the kill list is public knowledge; its contents, and the methods by which people can be places on it, are not. It is therefore accurately described as a "secret kill list."
To be fair, it IS illegal to play a dvd on an unlicensed system
No, it isn't, because playing is not copying. The argument that you need a "licensed" system to read data has no merit.
Of course, meritless legal arguments won't stop the feds from pointing guns at you. They've been carrying the unconstitutional "War On Drugs" forward for decades, and I expect the "War on Reading" and "War on Sharing" to just get worse and worse. Stallman was right.
Except the US has this thing called The Constitution.
Indeed it does. And that document says that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." Which, contrary to the way it's probably read in Texas, does not mean control by the GOP, but control by a fairly elected state government. Having neutral international observers present at elections is a valid way for the U.S. to make sure that states are respecting the people's right to republican (in the old meaning) government.
If you're going to invoke the Constitution, don't be an Ee'd Plebnista-er -- actually read the damn thing.
Teasing.;-) A quick look at your posts shows English isn't your first language, so you're excused. I don't think I could name a modern French SF writer (Verne not counting).
Heinlein's stuff runs the gamut from juvenile adventure stories to space opera with a good claim to being classic SF to self-indulgent, sexist, authoritarian crap that some say borders on fascism. I recommend reading Stranger In A Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Double Star. That last one isn't as well-known as those others or considered classic but I like it (modulo the sexism, but it's a product of its time). Love or hate his stuff, you ought to read a bit of it.
With the exception of Tivo, I've yet to see any of these new DVR's I keep hearing about lately even mention if they work with cablecards or switched digital video....WTF good does a DVR do me if all I can get on it are a handful of over-the-air channels?
More than a decade ago, my ReplayTV had a IR transmitter to control my Dish TV box by faking remote control signals. I assume today's DVRs have something similar.
Or better yet, honor her memory by doing something with your life that would make her proud of you. You probably had a hard time explaining to her what you even do, why would you memorialize her with it?
I'm pretty sure my grandfather, who had a 9th grade education and never owned a computer, never understood what I do in my day job as a software geek. But I think he was proud of me for it nonetheless. I was an educated professional working in a highly skilled and reasonably creative field. Indeed, it's partly because of his support for my education that I got where I am-- IIRC, he helped pay to send me to the summer program for "gifted" students where I wrote my very first software.
As I think about it, it seems it would be entirely appropriate to dedicate a bit of software to him. Yes, that software would probably only be around a few years, but all things are impermanent. The program will be gone in 10 years, a gravestone will be gone in 1,000; both a blink in geological time.
Tracking what I like or don't like is idea since I don't care about viagra or sports cars. So I would much rather get an advertisement telling me to go buy a family guy dvd box set or an anime that I like than stuff I don't like.
This attitude continues to astound me. "I would like marketers to know more about me, so that they can use more effective mind control techniques to influence my purchasing behavior."
...the government is essentially lawless (its "laws" are not laws by any reasonable Constitutional interpretation)...
What sort of bizarre and twisted use of language makes the government "lawless"? Please, tell us more.
the real point behind such DRM legislation, which is not to protect intellectual property but rather to protect human property owned by government..
All property (as we know it) rests upon an act of government. Indeed, all that "property" means is the ability to call on government force to restrict others from access to something. (Or if you prefer vigilante enforcement of "property", the ability to initiate force against someone and be exempt from the usual penalties the government would apply.)
It seems like you're saying it would be acceptable for MasterCard to be forced to transact, or serve as an intermediary to transactions for, business with Assange or WikiLeaks. Is this what you're saying?
I don't know what the original posters intent was. But as for me, given that MasterCard 1) is a corporation, that is an artificial entity created by government fiat, and therefore not possessed of any natural rights; and 2) is a financial institution, and therefore should be subject to a higher level of scrutiny and regulation than other businesses; and 3) enjoys such market dominance that it has long raised anti-trust concerns, my conclusion is that fsck yes, MasterCard should be forced (upon pain of having its corporate charter and/or its privilege to conduct interstate and international commerce revoked) to transact, or serve as an intermediary to transactions, for any business or individual not convicted by a court of some relevant crime.
but imagine if I had said "iPhone is the shit". Oh, gee, I'd be a stupid fanboy, right?
If iOS was free and flexible enough for a project like this, you'd have a point. It would be "the shit". But it's not, it's locked-down proprietary garbage meant to keep Apple in control of every device that runs it.
The idea that a cat is both alive and dead is ludicrous.
That was Schrï½dinger's point with the cat example, it was meant as a refutation of certain ideas about the interpretation of quantum physics.
But the fact that something is "ludicrous" to our intuition doesn't mean it's not true.
The question of how to interpret quantum physics -- what "reality" the various mathematical artifacts possess -- remains open, and may be more of a philosophical one about what we agree to call "real" than something that can be resolved by physics.
Can someone explain to me why "storing, retrieving, and analyzing molecular biology data" is considered to be its own field, where people actually get degrees specifically in bioinformatics, while storing, retrieving, and analyzing any other sort of data is just software engineering/computer science?
Not trying to troll or bait flames, I'm genuinely wondering if there's something I'm missing, or if there's just hype about "biochemistry, now with *computers*!" I've taken my plain vanilla CS degree to a wide array of fields including information security, space science, telephony, and e-commerce. What makes processing strings of ACTG different than processing other strings? Thanks.
I thought best practice was not to rely so much on "something only you are".
Yes, biometrics are gibberish. They don't measure "something you are", they measure "something you have" -- i.e., something that makes the fingerprint/palmprint/iris/voice/whatever scanner go "ok". Plus, people's bodies change: cut your thumb, and lose access? That's just dumb.
Part of the problem is that it's possible that wearing helmets may provide impact protection in the event of an accident, and yet make someone more likely to get into an accident in the first place. There are several possible mechanisms whereby that could occur:
putting a weight on your head affects your balance
helmets affect vision and hearing
people wearing helmets may unconsciously take greater risks
helmets affect sweating and temperature regulation, and thus could affect fatigue and reaction time
drivers and pedestrians may behave differently around helmeted vs. non-helmeted cyclists.
Also, helmet laws and/or the perception created by helmet campaigns that biking is dangerous leads to fewer people biking; and making cycling rarer changes driver behavior and road planning strategies in a way that can raise accident risk
I used to wear a helmet, but lost the habit after spending a few months in Japan -- over there, almost everyone bikes and no one wears a helmet. (Also, bike lanes there are on the sidewalk, not the road.)
Since when has classified material ever been included under free speech?
Since forever. The idea that the state can declare information "classified" and threaten you if you speak it, is a clear violation of free speech.
As Justices Douglas and Black noted in New York Time Co. v. United States, "Secrecy in government is fundamentally anti-democratic, perpetuating bureaucratic errors. Open debate and discussion of public issues are vital to our national health. On public questions there should be 'uninhibited, robust, and wide-open' debate."
Racism, hate, right-wing rhetoric, Islamophobia, all these have been banned at one time or another, with the approval of the courts and to the applause of the American public.
And eventually the courts and the people come around and shamefacedly reverse their mistakes. It's a pattern that goes back to the Alien and Sedition Acts passed only a few years after the Bill of Rights. (I also note the right-wing victim mythology in your choice of examples: bans on socialist and anti-war speech have landed orders of magnitude more people in jail over our history than bans on right-wing rhetoric.)
Heck, just last week the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon called Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones and told him to shut up. Here's another one: "We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others." Spoken by the US State Department.
Generals and diplomats can *ask* someone to shut up, the same as any other citizens can; that's an exercise of their own free speech. It's when they threaten someone with arrest that free speech is endangered.
The presidents power to be commander and chief comes from the constitution. You can't pass a law that constrains the presidents power under the constitution without changing the constitution.
The power of the commander in chief is the power to decide *how* to fight a war -- and even there, he or she is restrained by the Constitution's granting to Congress the power to create military law ("To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces").
A military commander does not get to decide when or with whom or for what cause the nation goes to war, that is reserved to Congress's power to declare war. But once Congress has decided to go to war, it's impractical to have 535 people deciding on strategy.
Slashdot Mirror
Whaddya mean, "used to"? I have Firefox still do this. (Preferences - Privacy - Keep until: ask me every time). I deny most cookies, allow them for session if needed, and let my bank and a few others store permanent cookies.
It is a serious error to think that "number of laws" correlates to "liberty" or "quality of government". Repealing Amendments I-V of the U.S. Constitution, for example, would give us fewer laws. Replacing current tax laws (as hideously complex as they are) with "send in all your dough" would give us fewer laws.
Let me Duck that for you.
Seriously, are you alleging that kill list doesn't exist? That Obama is not killing people with drones?
Which is why you don't sue police forces/political jurisdictions for just a few k$. M$ suits are necessary to make them change their behavior. It's not solely the individual officer's responsible for this, it's also those who hired them, trained them, and developed the standards for the department.
Personally, I think we need to recognize the princple that the SCOTUS (yes, I know this case is Canadian) laid out in the Bad Elk decision -- unlawful arrest is assault, and you have the right to resist assault by any means necessary
Please don't. 80 columns allows code to be read or printed anywhere at a reasonable font-size. There's a reason printed text has margins and keeps to 50-70 characters per line. Wrap your long lines.
Let me Duck that for you.
Had a vertical touchscreen on a word processing box back around 1990. It grew wearisome after a few hours' use. Does MS not employ at least a few hackers who might read the Jargon File and hear about gorilla arm?
Non sequitur. I know that the U.S. has nukes; that does not mean that their designs and placement are not secret.
The existence of the kill list is public knowledge; its contents, and the methods by which people can be places on it, are not. It is therefore accurately described as a "secret kill list."
No, it isn't, because playing is not copying. The argument that you need a "licensed" system to read data has no merit.
Of course, meritless legal arguments won't stop the feds from pointing guns at you. They've been carrying the unconstitutional "War On Drugs" forward for decades, and I expect the "War on Reading" and "War on Sharing" to just get worse and worse. Stallman was right.
Indeed it does. And that document says that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." Which, contrary to the way it's probably read in Texas, does not mean control by the GOP, but control by a fairly elected state government. Having neutral international observers present at elections is a valid way for the U.S. to make sure that states are respecting the people's right to republican (in the old meaning) government.
If you're going to invoke the Constitution, don't be an Ee'd Plebnista-er -- actually read the damn thing.
Sacrilege! Turn in your geek card.
Teasing. ;-) A quick look at your posts shows English isn't your first language, so you're excused. I don't think I could name a modern French SF writer (Verne not counting).
Heinlein's stuff runs the gamut from juvenile adventure stories to space opera with a good claim to being classic SF to self-indulgent, sexist, authoritarian crap that some say borders on fascism. I recommend reading Stranger In A Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Double Star. That last one isn't as well-known as those others or considered classic but I like it (modulo the sexism, but it's a product of its time). Love or hate his stuff, you ought to read a bit of it.
More than a decade ago, my ReplayTV had a IR transmitter to control my Dish TV box by faking remote control signals. I assume today's DVRs have something similar.
I'm pretty sure my grandfather, who had a 9th grade education and never owned a computer, never understood what I do in my day job as a software geek. But I think he was proud of me for it nonetheless. I was an educated professional working in a highly skilled and reasonably creative field. Indeed, it's partly because of his support for my education that I got where I am-- IIRC, he helped pay to send me to the summer program for "gifted" students where I wrote my very first software.
As I think about it, it seems it would be entirely appropriate to dedicate a bit of software to him. Yes, that software would probably only be around a few years, but all things are impermanent. The program will be gone in 10 years, a gravestone will be gone in 1,000; both a blink in geological time.
This attitude continues to astound me. "I would like marketers to know more about me, so that they can use more effective mind control techniques to influence my purchasing behavior."
What sort of bizarre and twisted use of language makes the government "lawless"? Please, tell us more.
All property (as we know it) rests upon an act of government. Indeed, all that "property" means is the ability to call on government force to restrict others from access to something. (Or if you prefer vigilante enforcement of "property", the ability to initiate force against someone and be exempt from the usual penalties the government would apply.)
I don't know what the original posters intent was. But as for me, given that MasterCard 1) is a corporation, that is an artificial entity created by government fiat, and therefore not possessed of any natural rights; and 2) is a financial institution, and therefore should be subject to a higher level of scrutiny and regulation than other businesses; and 3) enjoys such market dominance that it has long raised anti-trust concerns, my conclusion is that fsck yes, MasterCard should be forced (upon pain of having its corporate charter and/or its privilege to conduct interstate and international commerce revoked) to transact, or serve as an intermediary to transactions, for any business or individual not convicted by a court of some relevant crime.
On /.? I hope not.
If iOS was free and flexible enough for a project like this, you'd have a point. It would be "the shit". But it's not, it's locked-down proprietary garbage meant to keep Apple in control of every device that runs it.
That was Schrï½dinger's point with the cat example, it was meant as a refutation of certain ideas about the interpretation of quantum physics.
But the fact that something is "ludicrous" to our intuition doesn't mean it's not true.
The question of how to interpret quantum physics -- what "reality" the various mathematical artifacts possess -- remains open, and may be more of a philosophical one about what we agree to call "real" than something that can be resolved by physics.
Can someone explain to me why "storing, retrieving, and analyzing molecular biology data" is considered to be its own field, where people actually get degrees specifically in bioinformatics, while storing, retrieving, and analyzing any other sort of data is just software engineering/computer science?
Not trying to troll or bait flames, I'm genuinely wondering if there's something I'm missing, or if there's just hype about "biochemistry, now with *computers*!" I've taken my plain vanilla CS degree to a wide array of fields including information security, space science, telephony, and e-commerce. What makes processing strings of ACTG different than processing other strings? Thanks.
Yes, biometrics are gibberish. They don't measure "something you are", they measure "something you have" -- i.e., something that makes the fingerprint/palmprint/iris/voice/whatever scanner go "ok". Plus, people's bodies change: cut your thumb, and lose access? That's just dumb.
Also know as "anecdote", also known as "a poor substitute for evidence".
A statistical analysis of the evidence shows little if any benefit to head injury rates due to helmet laws. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1410838/
Part of the problem is that it's possible that wearing helmets may provide impact protection in the event of an accident, and yet make someone more likely to get into an accident in the first place. There are several possible mechanisms whereby that could occur:
Also, helmet laws and/or the perception created by helmet campaigns that biking is dangerous leads to fewer people biking; and making cycling rarer changes driver behavior and road planning strategies in a way that can raise accident risk
I used to wear a helmet, but lost the habit after spending a few months in Japan -- over there, almost everyone bikes and no one wears a helmet. (Also, bike lanes there are on the sidewalk, not the road.)
Since forever. The idea that the state can declare information "classified" and threaten you if you speak it, is a clear violation of free speech.
As Justices Douglas and Black noted in New York Time Co. v. United States, "Secrecy in government is fundamentally anti-democratic, perpetuating bureaucratic errors. Open debate and discussion of public issues are vital to our national health. On public questions there should be 'uninhibited, robust, and wide-open' debate."
And eventually the courts and the people come around and shamefacedly reverse their mistakes. It's a pattern that goes back to the Alien and Sedition Acts passed only a few years after the Bill of Rights. (I also note the right-wing victim mythology in your choice of examples: bans on socialist and anti-war speech have landed orders of magnitude more people in jail over our history than bans on right-wing rhetoric.)
Generals and diplomats can *ask* someone to shut up, the same as any other citizens can; that's an exercise of their own free speech. It's when they threaten someone with arrest that free speech is endangered.
The power of the commander in chief is the power to decide *how* to fight a war -- and even there, he or she is restrained by the Constitution's granting to Congress the power to create military law ("To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces").
A military commander does not get to decide when or with whom or for what cause the nation goes to war, that is reserved to Congress's power to declare war. But once Congress has decided to go to war, it's impractical to have 535 people deciding on strategy.
I forget what it was like to be constantly bombarded with ads, thank goodness. Since I ignore any ads I do see -- I never click -- they might as well be for products I cannot use.