Because you don't always need some response within 15 secs, nor do you want to always be responding to some questions that take away your time and concentration. Even if you have your email client open all the time, you can leave writing a reply to it for later time.
I recently got into the whole Getting Things Done fad. One piece of advice I saw on a famous web site oriented towards being organized was that you should set your software to check email no more frequently than once every half hour.
One of the best pieces of advice I've seen and implemented. I no longer frequently check email, because I know I can't have received any if 30 minutes hasn't passed. Fewer interruptions, and it's unlikely anyone wanted a reply that quickly.
We've had a number of US-based law enforcement bodies over the year try to get hold of our data without going via the appropriate Australian bodies, and it doesn't work out for them. In the end, they have always ended up submitting a request for cooperation via the Australian Federal Police, as they are required to do, and we respond to that request in line with Australian law.
Since people were asking, this is one of the things that makes Fastmail.fm great.
OK - Feature-wise all the other big dogs have caught up in some form or other. Fastmail.fm, though, was a pioneer in many aspects. I think they may have been the first reliable free email provider that offered POP/IMAP - years before the major ones did. Heck, I'd bet that's why they got so many customers. And their excellent customer service was why they stayed.
I've never been a member, but I've always recommended them to friends looking to pay for hassle-free email. Looking across the years, they have had the best service (in terms of customer service, etc) for folks who need it. It may be a somewhat largish operation, but they've always maintained the mom & pop attitude.
I get my current email served via my web hosting account. I'm thinking of changing hosts, and if the new place has crappy email, then Fastmail.fm's going to be the place I'll look to.
Sure it doesn't have to be browser based but it has to be hosted by something that speaks HTML well enough to understand the contents of the messages (which are far from just being text).. so for the time being that means browser.
And most email clients - including text only ones.
Stuff like Javascript being key to a wave may prove a more browser dependent issue. HTML - not quite.
International students from certain branches are allowed to work for 29 months (which was 12 months previously) during which they can quite easily obtain a H1B visa.
True - forgot about that.
However, even that has caveats. The company has to participate in the STEM program to be eligible for that. Probably all the big companies engage in it, but many intermediate ones don't. I know quite a few people who worked for an employer (technology/science jobs) that were not part of the program, and so their OPT's would not be extended (most got the H1, so it wasn't an issue).
Every employer that hired me during this process paid for all required taxes, even the university themselves when I worked on campus with my F visa.
It's not stupid. You can opt out of social security payments (and thus the company doesn't pay them) until you apply for a green card.
However, some institutions (like certain universities) simply have a policy that all employees will pay those taxes. Perhaps you always worked at one of those. Furthermore, most companies will pay by default, and you have to be the one informing them that you don't want to pay and do the paperwork. As a result, most foreigners working here pay because they don't know they can opt out.
The fact that the U.S. workplace law system has devolved to a point where there are significant disadvantages to hiring a citizen is a problem with the system, not with the universities who point out this fact.
That's misleading. If you're a tiny company, and want to hire a foreigner, there's a lot of paperwork to do. What the documents are saying is that if you hire them only temporarily (i.e. they don't need to apply for a green card and will leave in 6 years), then there is little work. But if you want to keep that employee, you need to sponsor him. And that takes money and paperwork and can be a headache compared to simply hiring an American.
Furthermore, if they hire for a job that simply requires a BS, they run the risk of the H1-B cap (FYI, if they hire a student, they apply for an H1 after hiring). Two years ago, roughly half of those who applied didn't get it. So now they lose the relatively new hire and have to go through the headache of finding another person.
i thought the US needed to encourage more and better American citizens to go to college and become scientists and engineers...
looks like our educational institutions have said, "f that".
Most of these documents are from the International Offices of universities.
They're not saying "Hire foreign students instead". They're merely informing companies regarding what is involved if they do want to hire a foreign student. It's part of the job of the international office to give such information.
But doesn't the intent to create an increased amount of damage imply an additional moral decision? The phrase "beyond the pale" comes to mind. It's one thing to do something with malicious intent where the harm done is negligible. It's another thing to do something maliciously with the intent to cause serious harm or damage. While both might be looked at as points along the same scale (intentional malicious action), it takes a considerable leap in judgment to go from one point along that scale to another.
Yes, and I don't disagree. It's precisely what I said. The more extreme case should incur a greater punishment.
My point in this whole thread is that both are wrong for the same reasons. If I steal $10 vs $10,000, we can both agree that they're both wrong because stealing is wrong (and I'm not referring to the legality here). That doesn't mean the punishment is equal. You simply don't have to invoke a different set of moral rules for each to point out their wrongness.
No, the main difference is that one guy got people to break windows and throw TVs out of them and drive cars into building and and strip naked and redirects the phone numbers of businesses to his number and caused actual significant harm. The other, not so much.
My friend has misplaced the keys to his car. I lie and tell him I don't know where they are. He has to take a taxi home.
Another friend has misplaced $10,000 in cash. I lie and tell him I don't know where they are. He gets evicted from his house.
Morally, they're pretty much equivalent. Both times I'm lying to cause problems for someone else. One just happens to be more extreme than the other, and were it illegal, would secure a greater punishment.
The fact that Borat did not produce much physical harm is fairly insignificant with regards to morality.
And if you're suggesting that Borat did not produce harm, you have a fairly poor understanding of psychology. A number of his victims in the movie were harmed psychologically. And I'm sure a number of them would be willing to pay quite a bit of money to undo that harm.
Nice try there. You said "morality" in your original post, not "morality aspect" or any such thing. Subtly changing your wording to significantly change your stance and hoping nobody will notice is not a valid argument tactic.
You're arguing about a non-difference. If it makes you feel better, replace "morality aspect" with morality. What I meant is still the same.
This wasn't just done for the attention (and it certainly wasn't done for money), (and it certainly wasn't done for money), things like his claim that he thinks he's doing a "public service" by his actions
I beg to differ. This was probably almost entirely about getting attention. The "public service" comments were just his being defensive. If he was sincere about doing a public service, he could do it in a much more effective manner, with little criminal elements. And that money had little to do with it is relevant, how?
demonstrate a maliciousness to this case that significantly sets it apart from a fucking comedy movie that lied to some people to make fun of them.
I guess the difference between you and me is that I feel putting people in positions that they do not want to be seen by the world, filming it, and then embarrassing the guy by showing it to the world just to make money, is malicious. I do believe Cohen was being malicious in his goals.
It's like saying, "There's no difference between jaywalking and blowing up train tracks. Both of them are disruptive to traffic. One just happens to be more extreme." Because some things are deemed allowable, and some things are deemed not, and so we have the law to decide what people can do and what people can't.
Well, yes. If the motivation was to disrupt traffic, then they are of the same morality. One is just a lot worse than the other. In this particular case, the law has decided that both are not allowable. Your point?
I didn't say it's not a huge difference. I repeatedly pointed out that one is more extreme than the other. However, both are morally questionable for precisely the same reasons.
In Borat's case, he exploited laws meant to protect journalism. Not everyone signed a release form allowing themselves to be in the movie. One person who hadn't decided to sue, and the court ruled that because he appeared for only a brief period (less than 30s, or something similar), no release form was necessary. This allowance wasn't so that people like Borat can legitimately do what they did - it was to allow journalists and documentary makers to do their tasks without much difficulty. Cohen exploited those laws. The fact that what he did was allowed by the law was merely legal maneuvering: It satisfied the letter of the law, but not the intent. It certainly wasn't because the law had decided that his scenario is OK.
Whether a prank like this is successful is definitely a matter of authentication. That is, it depends on whether the target believes that the caller is who he claims to be. That's true whether it's as sophisticated as rerouting telephone calls, or whether it's as unsophisticated as using a payphone and dialing *67 (or similar) to block the callerID. So, I don't see how the sophistication of the prankster changes this situation.
So let's say you run a pizza delivery business. You have a phone number for people to make orders.
They reroute that number to one of theirs.
A potential customer calls the number that's in the yellow pages to make an order. The pranksters pick up and spoil the whole business (you know, asking if they want feces as a topping). The customer hangs up and never orders from your business again.
So in what way could this possibly be your fault? Or the customer's fault?
Wow, I think I'd find your neighborhood kind of eerily idyllic. We lock and bolt our doors at night, and if your package gets delivered to your neighbor's house by accident... let it go, man because it's gone. And the few remaining stores that actually have return policies get taken advantage of mercilessly.
And because of it, your neighborhood sucks, and mine doesn't.
I didn't mean to suggest the whole US was the way I described, but much of where I've lived in it is. Suggesting people become mistrustful will likely turn my neighborhood into one like yours.
There are a lot of comments here suggesting that the victims should take most of the blame.
As food for thought, I'd recommend those commenters watch this fascinating TED talk.
He gives a number of examples where we feel that we're in control of our decisions, but the designer of the systems/situations have measurably a greater influence in what you'll do than you yourself may. His point at the end is (paraphrased):
When it comes to the physical world, we're acutely aware of our limitations, and we build systems to overcome them (e.g. stairs to climb vertically, wheels for easy transport, etc). When it comes to the mental world, we have this unreasonable view of ourselves as supermen. We think we are always in control, and that we are always responsible. We need to understand our mental limitations so that we can design systems (e.g. public/company policy, transportation systems, etc) to overcome them (and make the world a better place).
If you'll do anything someone tells you to just because they put "or you're going to die" at the end of their request, or preface it with "I'm in authority, trust me", you're going to get taken advantage of by scammers and "pranksters" like those in the article.
That's somewhat of a strawman. I didn't say "anything". You do a cost benefit analysis and take a risk. They took the risks and in one sense paid the price. That doesn't make the pranksters not liable.
The more common situation is that you're at work and someone calls making some claim of authority and requesting information, or knocks on the door claiming to be an HVAC tech your boss requested.
In a sense, that's another strawman. Your scenarios are much more benign than what Pranknet were involved in. Someone falling for yours perhaps should get much of the blame, but it has little to do with the article at hand.
If you see little difference between the two, then quite frankly you scare the fuck out of me and I'd feel about as comfortable trapped alone in a room with you as the guy in TFA.
The only operational difference is that one stayed mostly within the bounds of the law, and the other didn't.
The goal of both was to profit (financially or otherwise) by fooling others, and poking fun at them. Both strive for bigger audiences.
The morality of it is the same in much the same way as the morality of slapping someone and repeatedly stabbing them are the same; which is to say, not at all.
Actually, if both were done maliciously for similar reasons, then the morality aspect is the same. One may incur a greater punishment because the damage done was greater.
By saying the morality is the same, I'm not suggesting the crimes are of equal magnitudes. Just that they are on the same "scale", with one being much further along that scale.
I also disagree that our society is based on mutual trust. Volumes and volumes of laws backed up by lawyers, police, and jails show otherwise.
That's called selection/observation bias. You're looking at only one side of the coin.
I've lived in countries where there's a lot less trust than here. The notion of returning an opened product to a store and getting a full refund is based on trust (yes, there's a profit incentive, and some people do screw the retailers, but the system works overall). In some countries I've been to, this would be unfeasible: Almost everyone will try to exploit such a retailer.
When a storm knocks out the electricity and the traffic lights stop working, I've always seen everyone obeying the rules. I doubt it's because they're worried about cops. It's about trust that the other drivers will do likewise. Simply unworkable in other places I've lived in.
I've had neighbors whom I don't know receive UPS/FedEx packages for me. Again, trust. I don't think they're afraid of me beating them up.
There are loads of examples. Society, at least in the US, is fairly nice and a lot of that has to do with a common trust.
Which is why someone exploiting that trust is a despised person.
Slashdot Mirror
Because you don't always need some response within 15 secs, nor do you want to always be responding to some questions that take away your time and concentration. Even if you have your email client open all the time, you can leave writing a reply to it for later time.
I recently got into the whole Getting Things Done fad. One piece of advice I saw on a famous web site oriented towards being organized was that you should set your software to check email no more frequently than once every half hour.
One of the best pieces of advice I've seen and implemented. I no longer frequently check email, because I know I can't have received any if 30 minutes hasn't passed. Fewer interruptions, and it's unlikely anyone wanted a reply that quickly.
We've had a number of US-based law enforcement bodies over the year try to get hold of our data without going via the appropriate Australian bodies, and it doesn't work out for them. In the end, they have always ended up submitting a request for cooperation via the Australian Federal Police, as they are required to do, and we respond to that request in line with Australian law.
Since people were asking, this is one of the things that makes Fastmail.fm great.
OK - Feature-wise all the other big dogs have caught up in some form or other. Fastmail.fm, though, was a pioneer in many aspects. I think they may have been the first reliable free email provider that offered POP/IMAP - years before the major ones did. Heck, I'd bet that's why they got so many customers. And their excellent customer service was why they stayed.
I've never been a member, but I've always recommended them to friends looking to pay for hassle-free email. Looking across the years, they have had the best service (in terms of customer service, etc) for folks who need it. It may be a somewhat largish operation, but they've always maintained the mom & pop attitude.
I get my current email served via my web hosting account. I'm thinking of changing hosts, and if the new place has crappy email, then Fastmail.fm's going to be the place I'll look to.
Sure it doesn't have to be browser based but it has to be hosted by something that speaks HTML well enough to understand the contents of the messages (which are far from just being text).. so for the time being that means browser.
And most email clients - including text only ones.
Stuff like Javascript being key to a wave may prove a more browser dependent issue. HTML - not quite.
The NSF administers funding for basic research, but doesn't conduct it directly.
Many NSF admins are scientists - or were prior to taking on their position at the NSF.
All at the same time, in real time, in your browser.
And there's no constraint that it has to be browser based. It's open, and Google encourages others to set up their own servers, and/or clients.
If this actually happened there would almost certainly be a massive increase in depression and suicides.
Dearth of sleep may actually be a main reason for depression and suicide. If they eliminate the dearth, you may get happier!
Lemme guess. Your diff eq book was written by Boyce & DiPrima?
International students from certain branches are allowed to work for 29 months (which was 12 months previously) during which they can quite easily obtain a H1B visa.
True - forgot about that.
However, even that has caveats. The company has to participate in the STEM program to be eligible for that. Probably all the big companies engage in it, but many intermediate ones don't. I know quite a few people who worked for an employer (technology/science jobs) that were not part of the program, and so their OPT's would not be extended (most got the H1, so it wasn't an issue).
Every employer that hired me during this process paid for all required taxes, even the university themselves when I worked on campus with my F visa.
It's not stupid. You can opt out of social security payments (and thus the company doesn't pay them) until you apply for a green card.
However, some institutions (like certain universities) simply have a policy that all employees will pay those taxes. Perhaps you always worked at one of those. Furthermore, most companies will pay by default, and you have to be the one informing them that you don't want to pay and do the paperwork. As a result, most foreigners working here pay because they don't know they can opt out.
The fact that the U.S. workplace law system has devolved to a point where there are significant disadvantages to hiring a citizen is a problem with the system, not with the universities who point out this fact.
That's misleading. If you're a tiny company, and want to hire a foreigner, there's a lot of paperwork to do. What the documents are saying is that if you hire them only temporarily (i.e. they don't need to apply for a green card and will leave in 6 years), then there is little work. But if you want to keep that employee, you need to sponsor him. And that takes money and paperwork and can be a headache compared to simply hiring an American.
Furthermore, if they hire for a job that simply requires a BS, they run the risk of the H1-B cap (FYI, if they hire a student, they apply for an H1 after hiring). Two years ago, roughly half of those who applied didn't get it. So now they lose the relatively new hire and have to go through the headache of finding another person.
They get even more money from out of country students than in-country students.
Nope. In both public universities I went to, the fee structure did not differentiate between an out of state student and an international student.
i thought the US needed to encourage more and better American citizens to go to college and become scientists and engineers...
looks like our educational institutions have said, "f that".
Most of these documents are from the International Offices of universities.
They're not saying "Hire foreign students instead". They're merely informing companies regarding what is involved if they do want to hire a foreign student. It's part of the job of the international office to give such information.
You're mistaken.
Most have an F-1 visa, with which they get one year of employment after graduation. During that year, they apply for an H1.
Splitting an article over four pages.
What were they thinking?
But doesn't the intent to create an increased amount of damage imply an additional moral decision? The phrase "beyond the pale" comes to mind. It's one thing to do something with malicious intent where the harm done is negligible. It's another thing to do something maliciously with the intent to cause serious harm or damage. While both might be looked at as points along the same scale (intentional malicious action), it takes a considerable leap in judgment to go from one point along that scale to another.
Yes, and I don't disagree. It's precisely what I said. The more extreme case should incur a greater punishment.
My point in this whole thread is that both are wrong for the same reasons. If I steal $10 vs $10,000, we can both agree that they're both wrong because stealing is wrong (and I'm not referring to the legality here). That doesn't mean the punishment is equal. You simply don't have to invoke a different set of moral rules for each to point out their wrongness.
No, the main difference is that one guy got people to break windows and throw TVs out of them and drive cars into building and and strip naked and redirects the phone numbers of businesses to his number and caused actual significant harm. The other, not so much.
My friend has misplaced the keys to his car. I lie and tell him I don't know where they are. He has to take a taxi home.
Another friend has misplaced $10,000 in cash. I lie and tell him I don't know where they are. He gets evicted from his house.
Morally, they're pretty much equivalent. Both times I'm lying to cause problems for someone else. One just happens to be more extreme than the other, and were it illegal, would secure a greater punishment.
The fact that Borat did not produce much physical harm is fairly insignificant with regards to morality.
And if you're suggesting that Borat did not produce harm, you have a fairly poor understanding of psychology. A number of his victims in the movie were harmed psychologically. And I'm sure a number of them would be willing to pay quite a bit of money to undo that harm.
Nice try there. You said "morality" in your original post, not "morality aspect" or any such thing. Subtly changing your wording to significantly change your stance and hoping nobody will notice is not a valid argument tactic.
You're arguing about a non-difference. If it makes you feel better, replace "morality aspect" with morality. What I meant is still the same.
This wasn't just done for the attention (and it certainly wasn't done for money), (and it certainly wasn't done for money), things like his claim that he thinks he's doing a "public service" by his actions
I beg to differ. This was probably almost entirely about getting attention. The "public service" comments were just his being defensive. If he was sincere about doing a public service, he could do it in a much more effective manner, with little criminal elements. And that money had little to do with it is relevant, how?
demonstrate a maliciousness to this case that significantly sets it apart from a fucking comedy movie that lied to some people to make fun of them.
I guess the difference between you and me is that I feel putting people in positions that they do not want to be seen by the world, filming it, and then embarrassing the guy by showing it to the world just to make money, is malicious. I do believe Cohen was being malicious in his goals.
It's like saying, "There's no difference between jaywalking and blowing up train tracks. Both of them are disruptive to traffic. One just happens to be more extreme." Because some things are deemed allowable, and some things are deemed not, and so we have the law to decide what people can do and what people can't.
Well, yes. If the motivation was to disrupt traffic, then they are of the same morality. One is just a lot worse than the other. In this particular case, the law has decided that both are not allowable. Your point?
I didn't say it's not a huge difference. I repeatedly pointed out that one is more extreme than the other. However, both are morally questionable for precisely the same reasons.
In Borat's case, he exploited laws meant to protect journalism. Not everyone signed a release form allowing themselves to be in the movie. One person who hadn't decided to sue, and the court ruled that because he appeared for only a brief period (less than 30s, or something similar), no release form was necessary. This allowance wasn't so that people like Borat can legitimately do what they did - it was to allow journalists and documentary makers to do their tasks without much difficulty. Cohen exploited those laws. The fact that what he did was allowed by the law was merely legal maneuvering: It satisfied the letter of the law, but not the intent. It certainly wasn't because the law had decided that his scenario is OK.
I stand corrected.
Whether a prank like this is successful is definitely a matter of authentication. That is, it depends on whether the target believes that the caller is who he claims to be. That's true whether it's as sophisticated as rerouting telephone calls, or whether it's as unsophisticated as using a payphone and dialing *67 (or similar) to block the callerID. So, I don't see how the sophistication of the prankster changes this situation.
So let's say you run a pizza delivery business. You have a phone number for people to make orders.
They reroute that number to one of theirs.
A potential customer calls the number that's in the yellow pages to make an order. The pranksters pick up and spoil the whole business (you know, asking if they want feces as a topping). The customer hangs up and never orders from your business again.
So in what way could this possibly be your fault? Or the customer's fault?
Wow, I think I'd find your neighborhood kind of eerily idyllic. We lock and bolt our doors at night, and if your package gets delivered to your neighbor's house by accident... let it go, man because it's gone. And the few remaining stores that actually have return policies get taken advantage of mercilessly.
And because of it, your neighborhood sucks, and mine doesn't.
I didn't mean to suggest the whole US was the way I described, but much of where I've lived in it is. Suggesting people become mistrustful will likely turn my neighborhood into one like yours.
There are a lot of comments here suggesting that the victims should take most of the blame.
As food for thought, I'd recommend those commenters watch this fascinating TED talk.
He gives a number of examples where we feel that we're in control of our decisions, but the designer of the systems/situations have measurably a greater influence in what you'll do than you yourself may. His point at the end is (paraphrased):
When it comes to the physical world, we're acutely aware of our limitations, and we build systems to overcome them (e.g. stairs to climb vertically, wheels for easy transport, etc). When it comes to the mental world, we have this unreasonable view of ourselves as supermen. We think we are always in control, and that we are always responsible. We need to understand our mental limitations so that we can design systems (e.g. public/company policy, transportation systems, etc) to overcome them (and make the world a better place).
What they really need is a good hard ass kicking and to be kicked to the curb. Not much else will likely wake their asses up.
Lots of homeless people and psychologists can testify otherwise.
Sure, it works for some folks. It's also a strategy that fails for a comparable amount.
Of course, kicking them on to the street would solve the Pranknet problem. I'll concede that.
If you'll do anything someone tells you to just because they put "or you're going to die" at the end of their request, or preface it with "I'm in authority, trust me", you're going to get taken advantage of by scammers and "pranksters" like those in the article.
That's somewhat of a strawman. I didn't say "anything". You do a cost benefit analysis and take a risk. They took the risks and in one sense paid the price. That doesn't make the pranksters not liable.
The more common situation is that you're at work and someone calls making some claim of authority and requesting information, or knocks on the door claiming to be an HVAC tech your boss requested.
In a sense, that's another strawman. Your scenarios are much more benign than what Pranknet were involved in. Someone falling for yours perhaps should get much of the blame, but it has little to do with the article at hand.
If you see little difference between the two, then quite frankly you scare the fuck out of me and I'd feel about as comfortable trapped alone in a room with you as the guy in TFA.
The only operational difference is that one stayed mostly within the bounds of the law, and the other didn't.
The goal of both was to profit (financially or otherwise) by fooling others, and poking fun at them. Both strive for bigger audiences.
The morality of it is the same in much the same way as the morality of slapping someone and repeatedly stabbing them are the same; which is to say, not at all.
Actually, if both were done maliciously for similar reasons, then the morality aspect is the same. One may incur a greater punishment because the damage done was greater.
By saying the morality is the same, I'm not suggesting the crimes are of equal magnitudes. Just that they are on the same "scale", with one being much further along that scale.
I also disagree that our society is based on mutual trust. Volumes and volumes of laws backed up by lawyers, police, and jails show otherwise.
That's called selection/observation bias. You're looking at only one side of the coin.
I've lived in countries where there's a lot less trust than here. The notion of returning an opened product to a store and getting a full refund is based on trust (yes, there's a profit incentive, and some people do screw the retailers, but the system works overall). In some countries I've been to, this would be unfeasible: Almost everyone will try to exploit such a retailer.
When a storm knocks out the electricity and the traffic lights stop working, I've always seen everyone obeying the rules. I doubt it's because they're worried about cops. It's about trust that the other drivers will do likewise. Simply unworkable in other places I've lived in.
I've had neighbors whom I don't know receive UPS/FedEx packages for me. Again, trust. I don't think they're afraid of me beating them up.
There are loads of examples. Society, at least in the US, is fairly nice and a lot of that has to do with a common trust.
Which is why someone exploiting that trust is a despised person.