Nah man, it's easier to tell other people what they should be doing than to do it yourself.
I watched a tv program the other day (that's easy too) about a guy who just woke up one day and said "I'm going to quit my job and start a charity". He told his wife and she said "if you think we can, I'll do everything I can to help". So they did. They took all the food out of their kitchen pantry, put it in a cane basket and went down the pub to raffle it off. People bought the tickets because it was "for charity". With the money they bought more cane baskets and more food and did it again, and again.
I live in Australia, and like many parts of the world we're going through a drought. This guy went out to farms and gave farmers some food to keep them going, etc. He went out to cattle farms where the cattle were getting really skinny due to a lack of grass and bought them hay. One of the farms he went out to was struggling not just because of lack of feed, but also because of lack of labour. I thought his solution to this was phenomonal.. he went back to the city and found a half dozen homeless young guys and convinced them to come out and work on the farm.
My point is.. everyone who says "there's nothing I can do" and has a big bleeding heart for all the pain and suffering in the world then goes back to posting on Slashdot.. there is something you can do. You can dedicate your life to helping people and making it easy for other people to help people. You choose not to. So don't cry about it, live with it.
I really can't help but feel that you're quibbling details here. The amount of fuel and wear and tear that you make on a car on a 5 minute joy ride is just as insignificant as the bandwidth and electricity you use by accessing someone's AP. There's lots and lots of situations where you can definitely know that someone will not need their car in the next 5 minutes. It seems the only reason you've seriously put forward for why taking someone's car for a 5 minute joy ride is the "violation" they will feel if they find out. I don't think I'm out of line to suggest that a lot of people would feel a similar violation if they found out you were using their AP without their permission.
So.. it seems to me.. that the difference between light usage of someone else's car such that it doesn't prevent them from using their car and light usage of someone else's wireless access point such that it doesn't prevent them from using it is that they are less likely to find out about you using their AP than they are likely to find out about you borrowing their car.
Which leads me to ask.. what if you were guarenteed that they would find out.. would you still use their AP without their permission? And, when they confronted you about it, what would you say? "It's your own fault for leaving it unlocked" perhaps?
The AP is a computer.. you're accessing it without permission. That's a crime in most countries with computer crimes.
Anyway, I find it more interesting why you feel this isn't wrong.
I mean, if someone left their car unlocked (yes, this is Slashdot) and you took it for a little drive, then put it back exactly where you found it, would that be ok? You haven't caused anyone any harm.. and they left it unlocked, after all.
It's a great question.. it strikes to the very heart of what we feel about property.
If someone doesn't give you explicit permission to use their wireless access point, you should not be surprised when you get dragged off for accessing a wireless access point without permission.
If my friend was to play at his maximum ability, we'd all go home. We'd say "thanks a lot of asking us to come play with you then trouncing us, does it make you feel like a big man?"
Similarly, if you wanna play with people who don't mind being head shot every 15 seconds, you should go find some players at the same level as you or you should tone down your play.
Huge breakthrough my ass. All you gotta do is give the system a way to measure the performance of workers and datamine for protocol changes that result in better performance. There's been dozens of systems made by college students that do exactly this.
I conclude that the whole Manna story is rather implausible and a gratuitous scare attempt. No, it's a story for purposes of entertainment and philosophical reflection.. but yes, you do have to get more than half way through it before you can appeciate the message.
Oh boy. I tell ya. The concept of patent clearly isn't part of the education system.
Imagine I invent a new kind of lawn mower. I file a patent to protect my invention for 20 years so I can commercialize it without having to worry about the existing lawn mower companies snapping up my invention and beating me to market. What's the title on the patent going to be? That's right:
"A mechanism for the automated trimming of grass."
In the patent I will describe how the mechanism works. What prior art there has been in automatted trimming of grass, why my invention is novel and how hard/easy it is to manufacture.
So will get posted to Slashdot about it?
"Man Patents Lawnmower."
Then everyone will have a bit of a moan about how the patent office doesn't know what they're doing anymore and maybe they'll quote a few lines from the patent where I'm outlining what a lawnmower is with the intention of claiming that this is what I am patenting.
My friend is really good a volleyball. He's a national champion. Every now and then he suggests we go down to the beach and have a game. It's a lot of fun. One thing he never does with us is spike the ball over the net like he does when he's playing competitively. When he serves, he does it nice and easy and doesn't pick on the one person who always misses the serve, like he would do in a competitive game. He reserves his "A game" for the competition.
Yeah man. I don't know why people don't encrypt their telephone lines, or put alarm systems on their power box. It's their own fault if people use their phoneline to make calls or leech power.
Shame about the file fragments (or whole files) they'll find on your harddrive.. which the court will compell you to produce to a forensic expert. You're better off planting a worm infection on your computer.. then claim you were part of a botnet.
Some players do stuff entirely to piss off other players. It doesn't matter if you don't give them any score for it. These are the so called "griefers".
Or, ya know, you could find a server with harder players instead of just beating up on people who are not as good as you. Conceivably, the server software could detect when someone is significantly better than the other players and shuffle them off to a server with more advanced people.. but you'd probably complain about that too.
"being good" or "cheating" he is ruining the game for other players. The company has a duty to provide the best experience to the majority of their customers, not find the guy with the best head shot skills. Sometimes "playing fair" means letting other people win too. It's supposed to be fun.
Yep, we have to just wait and see. Personally I think Musk is more interesting. Actually building rockets that can put things into space. Making real money, and planning his Dragon space vehicle for humans.
People in third world countries with little to no infrastructure hand wash their clothes and hand crank their radios.
People in first world countries who have built an infrastructure have higher personal energy usage. This is a good thing. The damage we're doing to the environment is a bad thing, but it's something we can solve without giving up our personal energy usage. It's a problem that technology can solve.
People who believe otherwise are luddites. That's what they are called.
Slashdot Mirror
Nah man, it's easier to tell other people what they should be doing than to do it yourself.
I watched a tv program the other day (that's easy too) about a guy who just woke up one day and said "I'm going to quit my job and start a charity". He told his wife and she said "if you think we can, I'll do everything I can to help". So they did. They took all the food out of their kitchen pantry, put it in a cane basket and went down the pub to raffle it off. People bought the tickets because it was "for charity". With the money they bought more cane baskets and more food and did it again, and again.
I live in Australia, and like many parts of the world we're going through a drought. This guy went out to farms and gave farmers some food to keep them going, etc. He went out to cattle farms where the cattle were getting really skinny due to a lack of grass and bought them hay. One of the farms he went out to was struggling not just because of lack of feed, but also because of lack of labour. I thought his solution to this was phenomonal.. he went back to the city and found a half dozen homeless young guys and convinced them to come out and work on the farm.
My point is.. everyone who says "there's nothing I can do" and has a big bleeding heart for all the pain and suffering in the world then goes back to posting on Slashdot.. there is something you can do. You can dedicate your life to helping people and making it easy for other people to help people. You choose not to. So don't cry about it, live with it.
I really can't help but feel that you're quibbling details here. The amount of fuel and wear and tear that you make on a car on a 5 minute joy ride is just as insignificant as the bandwidth and electricity you use by accessing someone's AP. There's lots and lots of situations where you can definitely know that someone will not need their car in the next 5 minutes. It seems the only reason you've seriously put forward for why taking someone's car for a 5 minute joy ride is the "violation" they will feel if they find out. I don't think I'm out of line to suggest that a lot of people would feel a similar violation if they found out you were using their AP without their permission.
So.. it seems to me.. that the difference between light usage of someone else's car such that it doesn't prevent them from using their car and light usage of someone else's wireless access point such that it doesn't prevent them from using it is that they are less likely to find out about you using their AP than they are likely to find out about you borrowing their car.
Which leads me to ask.. what if you were guarenteed that they would find out.. would you still use their AP without their permission? And, when they confronted you about it, what would you say? "It's your own fault for leaving it unlocked" perhaps?
The AP is a computer.. you're accessing it without permission. That's a crime in most countries with computer crimes.
Anyway, I find it more interesting why you feel this isn't wrong.
I mean, if someone left their car unlocked (yes, this is Slashdot) and you took it for a little drive, then put it back exactly where you found it, would that be ok? You haven't caused anyone any harm.. and they left it unlocked, after all.
It's a great question.. it strikes to the very heart of what we feel about property.
Does it really matter if is set in 2030 or 2080 or 2150?
It's still an interesting read.
Dumb++
If someone doesn't give you explicit permission to use their wireless access point, you should not be surprised when you get dragged off for accessing a wireless access point without permission.
Sheesh.
If my friend was to play at his maximum ability, we'd all go home. We'd say "thanks a lot of asking us to come play with you then trouncing us, does it make you feel like a big man?"
Similarly, if you wanna play with people who don't mind being head shot every 15 seconds, you should go find some players at the same level as you or you should tone down your play.
I don't think I can make this any clearer.
Oh boy. I tell ya. The concept of patent clearly isn't part of the education system.
Imagine I invent a new kind of lawn mower. I file a patent to protect my invention for 20 years so I can commercialize it without having to worry about the existing lawn mower companies snapping up my invention and beating me to market. What's the title on the patent going to be? That's right:
"A mechanism for the automated trimming of grass."
In the patent I will describe how the mechanism works. What prior art there has been in automatted trimming of grass, why my invention is novel and how hard/easy it is to manufacture.
So will get posted to Slashdot about it?
"Man Patents Lawnmower."
Then everyone will have a bit of a moan about how the patent office doesn't know what they're doing anymore and maybe they'll quote a few lines from the patent where I'm outlining what a lawnmower is with the intention of claiming that this is what I am patenting.
And you're presenting this as prior art?
Just reenforces how little the average Slashdotter knows about the novelty test of patent law.
Nothing is patent worthy on Slashdot.
Someone could invent a way to turn shit into rocket fuel and Slashdot residents would say it wasn't novel.
It's not a job, it's a game.
Blah.. vitamin supplements are safe, going out in the sun isn't.
I actually think I'd be more happy going to court and saying some things on the record that should be said:
You're fuckin' kiding me right? Everyone does this. Today they're suing me, tomorrow they could be suing you, your honour.
My friend is really good a volleyball. He's a national champion. Every now and then he suggests we go down to the beach and have a game. It's a lot of fun. One thing he never does with us is spike the ball over the net like he does when he's playing competitively. When he serves, he does it nice and easy and doesn't pick on the one person who always misses the serve, like he would do in a competitive game. He reserves his "A game" for the competition.
Why should online gaming be any different?
In this era of skin cancer awareness, why would you want to expose yourself to MORE sunlight?
Yeah man. I don't know why people don't encrypt their telephone lines, or put alarm systems on their power box. It's their own fault if people use their phoneline to make calls or leech power.
Shame about the file fragments (or whole files) they'll find on your harddrive.. which the court will compell you to produce to a forensic expert. You're better off planting a worm infection on your computer.. then claim you were part of a botnet.
Some players do stuff entirely to piss off other players. It doesn't matter if you don't give them any score for it. These are the so called "griefers".
Or, ya know, you could find a server with harder players instead of just beating up on people who are not as good as you. Conceivably, the server software could detect when someone is significantly better than the other players and shuffle them off to a server with more advanced people.. but you'd probably complain about that too.
So, from your subjective perspective.. what would you consider a good thing they could be doing with the data?
I'll ask the question you seem to be asking but can't for some reason:
Is it possible to do anything good with this data, or is the fact that it is collected at all make any use of it intrinsically evil?
"being good" or "cheating" he is ruining the game for other players. The company has a duty to provide the best experience to the majority of their customers, not find the guy with the best head shot skills. Sometimes "playing fair" means letting other people win too. It's supposed to be fun.
Yep, we have to just wait and see. Personally I think Musk is more interesting. Actually building rockets that can put things into space. Making real money, and planning his Dragon space vehicle for humans.
It's all evil. That's my understanding.
Perhaps you're right though.. I doubt Google is buying the baby eating division (that was probably the part that Microsoft was interested in).
Yeah.. that's what I said, slavery.
People in third world countries with little to no infrastructure hand wash their clothes and hand crank their radios.
People in first world countries who have built an infrastructure have higher personal energy usage. This is a good thing. The damage we're doing to the environment is a bad thing, but it's something we can solve without giving up our personal energy usage. It's a problem that technology can solve.
People who believe otherwise are luddites. That's what they are called.