I've never clicked on an internet advertisement in my life and probably wouldn't for many of the same reasons that I wouldn't respond to spam in my email, but I have occasionally clicked through to a sponsors website. If a business is willing to support a website that I like then when I need to buy something related to the site's content I am happy to consider them first and let them know that I found them through that web site. That is a civilized way to do things. Of course that only works for specialized web sites.
If I had to pay slashdot even $1 a month, I would be happy to stop coming here. Of course slashdot gives me the option to turn off the ads that I never even realized existed, but if they didn't and I couldn't block them I would just go do something else with my time. Probably something a hell of a lot more productive than reading or posting on slashdot.
Well then the internet is doomed. Too bad. I will continue to run adblockers even on sites that I like (I am running one right now and have never seen a slashdot ad) and I will not stop. Ever. So the internet is just going to have to suck it up. Or figure out a way to defeat the blockers and then watch their traffic drop. Some, perhaps even many, people are only browsing the site because it's free. If it's not free they'll just go to some other site that is.
This is an excellent point. If there were a fast, streamlined way to pay something like 10 cents to view an article (or the remainder of an article after a teaser to see what you are buying) I would probably pay it if I thought the article was worth it. But if paying that 10 cents is cumbersome then I would have to really, really want to view it. Enough even that I might be willing to pay a dollar to view it.
If it is shareware then it wasn't a free offer. Perhaps you are thinking of freeware. Shareware is commercial software and in fact most of it has time limits or other limitations. If you crack the software and do not pay the author you are going against the gentleman's agreement that he intended to make with you. Go ahead and do it, but don't rationalize it based on the fact that he offered it for free. He didn't. He just offered you the chance to try it for free for a limited time.
Everyone who isn't attached to a university or willing to shell out hundreds of dollars a month is gonna get forced back into an AOL style walled garden were the provider can collect payment up front and then divy it out to the providers in a cable TV style system.
Why do you say that? That is not how it was before. If anything ISPs have gotten more expensive as the number of customers have grown. It used to be easy to find a 'full service' as you call it ISP for less than $10 per month. It was dialup, but dialup was all that existed at that time. I hate the commercialization of the internet. If some guy is running a site because he doesn't want to work a real job, well I sure as hell am not going to pay him for it.
Provide a service and people who want that service pay to use it.
There are degrees of want. People have to want it enough to pay for it and very often that is not going to be true. I cannot think of many sites I would even pay $1/month to view. If they set up a pay wall or had intrusive advertising that I had no way to block I would just stop visiting the site.
This is a fairly recent 'innovation'. It used to be that the whole point of paid TV was to avoid ads. I would never pay for something that is being ad-funded anyway.
It will not damage their careers in the slightest. His department will clear him of all wrongdoing and claim that he acted appropriately no matter what the video says.
Lashes wouldn't cut it when the police inflict head injuries, which they have a fondness for doing. And the charges filed to prevent charges from being filed against your officer for brutality, civil rights violations etc are commonly known as "cover charges".
The strategy generally works perfectly too. As long as the charges are serious enough. The charges against me completely prevented me from suing them, which I probably would have done otherwise. The cops know that they can beat and even kill people with impunity.
I'm an American. Surely you wouldn't be expecting anything else. You have to at least admit that seeing mushroom clouds in the distance like in the Battlestar Galactica pilot would be interesting. A nice fix for a boring life.
But the US is not warmongering in this case. NK has said stuff like this a lot and the US hasn't gone after them. The only correct response to this sort of talk is to just ignore it. Until and unless it becomes more than words. Then the world would have a war on its hands unmatched in recent history. Maybe even nuclear, although I doubt NK would really use its nukes even if they were attacked (with conventional weapons).
Yes, there is. Just ignore them. Talk is cheap and these sorts of threats are nothing new. If they want their threats to be taken seriously they will have to actually start doing something, but they won't because their leaders are too comfy and rich. And, no, they are not in fact insane. It's just business as usual for their silly foreign policy.
Ooh. We are so scared. Now we will change our ways. Someone with nuclear weapons says they will attack us just because they can and because they don't like us. If we are going to stop being the world's policeman this would be an idiotic time to start: because North Korea says what they always say, except this time they mean it. You can only call wolf so many times before no one even listens to you let alone believes you.
You sound like an extrovert. Have you considered the idea that some people may not want to interact with others for reasons other than anxiety, fear, or just the lack of ability (whatever that means) to do it?
I avoid human interaction, especially in the US because I don't much like people in general and Americans in particular. I simply prefer machines. It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with me that needs to be fixed.
Yes. You do have to be careful with it and use it intelligently. Try to lie in such a way that it is almost impossible to prove that you've lied. Ideally, you would never have to use rule 2, but in some cases (as in this case) there is no practical alternative. And of course if you are not the suspect then lying presents little risk because in practice perjury convictions are rare. Usually, "I don't know" or "I don't recall" are safe enough. I think we all have a responsibility to do what we think is right and the right thing in this case would be to avoid helping the prosecution in their politically motivated witch hunt.
Generally speaking a police officer is indistinguishable from a criminal gang member. If you are going to do something you would not do in the presence of a gang member you might want to think twice about it. Again, ask yourself the question,"Is this something I would do if I were being detained by a violent street gang member with a gun?"
Any form of challenge, disagreement, lack of cooperation, hostility, anger, or anything that could be interpreted even as the most mild form of disrespect is highly dangerous. These are people who are often completely amoral sociopaths. They will not feel guilt or remorse about injuring or killing you or anyone else. They could frame you for even the most serious of crimes and not feel even a hint of guilt afterward. Whether a particular cop happens to interpret silence as disrespect depends on the individual in question. Some will and some won't. It's a roll of the dice. Same as with an armed street gang member.
If the cop dealing with you looks mean or violent or angry you may have no choice but to answer if you want to avoid a long hospital stay or getting zipped up in a body bag or just old fashioned brain damage. Keep in mind that some cops simply will not take no for an answer. They may keep repeating the question until they get worked up enough to throw you down or start choking you or beating you or using their tazer on you until you comply. You have to know when to change tactics by dropping the assumption that they will obey the law. In this case trying to answer their questions without incriminating yourself is the key. Keep in mind that the cops can claim that you said a particular thing and a jury is more likely to believe him than you. They don't really need you to confess to a crime. They can do that for you and will not mind it. They are used to lying in court all the time and their police reports are often more fiction than fact. This is the unfortunate reality. Most people don't realize it until they or someone they know are thrown into the system themselves. Even then few people truly want to believe it.
You don't have to believe that lying is always a good thing to want to avoid helping to put someone you love in prison. Sometimes lying is the right thing to do and sometimes it is not. If a thief asks you where you keep your money you can choose to do so, but you certainly have no moral obligation to tell the truth in that case. If an immoral or amoral prosecutor is looking for someone to hang in order to forward her career cooperating with them by telling the truth is the wrong thing to do. If you cooperate with them then you bear some responsibility for the lynching that follows.
I find his story 100% plausible. Cops don't become cops because they are nice guys. Only a tiny percentage of them actually care about and follow the law. The rest of them are indistinguishable from any other gang members. They are violent sociopaths with no sense of right or wrong. If I had to choose between being at the mercy of a random cop or a random gang member, I'd choose the gang member. I think the odds are higher of surviving the encounter unscathed.
Bullshit. The vast majority of cops get into the line of work because they want to help people.
That hasn't been my experience. From what I have seen they are mostly angry, sadistic, sociopaths and bullies who see their job as fucking with the public and at the very least ruining your day. If you annoy or anger or disrespect them in any way you risk being beaten, brought up on false charges, or even murdered. The kind of people who become cops are not the kinds of people who want to help people. The whole idea seems laughable to me.
Slashdot Mirror
I've never clicked on an internet advertisement in my life and probably wouldn't for many of the same reasons that I wouldn't respond to spam in my email, but I have occasionally clicked through to a sponsors website. If a business is willing to support a website that I like then when I need to buy something related to the site's content I am happy to consider them first and let them know that I found them through that web site. That is a civilized way to do things. Of course that only works for specialized web sites.
If I had to pay slashdot even $1 a month, I would be happy to stop coming here. Of course slashdot gives me the option to turn off the ads that I never even realized existed, but if they didn't and I couldn't block them I would just go do something else with my time. Probably something a hell of a lot more productive than reading or posting on slashdot.
Well then the internet is doomed. Too bad. I will continue to run adblockers even on sites that I like (I am running one right now and have never seen a slashdot ad) and I will not stop. Ever. So the internet is just going to have to suck it up. Or figure out a way to defeat the blockers and then watch their traffic drop. Some, perhaps even many, people are only browsing the site because it's free. If it's not free they'll just go to some other site that is.
This is an excellent point. If there were a fast, streamlined way to pay something like 10 cents to view an article (or the remainder of an article after a teaser to see what you are buying) I would probably pay it if I thought the article was worth it. But if paying that 10 cents is cumbersome then I would have to really, really want to view it. Enough even that I might be willing to pay a dollar to view it.
If it is shareware then it wasn't a free offer. Perhaps you are thinking of freeware. Shareware is commercial software and in fact most of it has time limits or other limitations. If you crack the software and do not pay the author you are going against the gentleman's agreement that he intended to make with you. Go ahead and do it, but don't rationalize it based on the fact that he offered it for free. He didn't. He just offered you the chance to try it for free for a limited time.
Everyone who isn't attached to a university or willing to shell out hundreds of dollars a month is gonna get forced back into an AOL style walled garden were the provider can collect payment up front and then divy it out to the providers in a cable TV style system.
Why do you say that? That is not how it was before. If anything ISPs have gotten more expensive as the number of customers have grown. It used to be easy to find a 'full service' as you call it ISP for less than $10 per month. It was dialup, but dialup was all that existed at that time. I hate the commercialization of the internet. If some guy is running a site because he doesn't want to work a real job, well I sure as hell am not going to pay him for it.
Proxy based ad blockers? You mean like proxomitron?
Provide a service and people who want that service pay to use it.
There are degrees of want. People have to want it enough to pay for it and very often that is not going to be true. I cannot think of many sites I would even pay $1/month to view. If they set up a pay wall or had intrusive advertising that I had no way to block I would just stop visiting the site.
You can pay for Pay TV, you'll still get ads.
This is a fairly recent 'innovation'. It used to be that the whole point of paid TV was to avoid ads. I would never pay for something that is being ad-funded anyway.
It will not damage their careers in the slightest. His department will clear him of all wrongdoing and claim that he acted appropriately no matter what the video says.
Lashes wouldn't cut it when the police inflict head injuries, which they have a fondness for doing. And the charges filed to prevent charges from being filed against your officer for brutality, civil rights violations etc are commonly known as "cover charges".
The strategy generally works perfectly too. As long as the charges are serious enough. The charges against me completely prevented me from suing them, which I probably would have done otherwise. The cops know that they can beat and even kill people with impunity.
I'm an American. Surely you wouldn't be expecting anything else. You have to at least admit that seeing mushroom clouds in the distance like in the Battlestar Galactica pilot would be interesting. A nice fix for a boring life.
But the US is not warmongering in this case. NK has said stuff like this a lot and the US hasn't gone after them. The only correct response to this sort of talk is to just ignore it. Until and unless it becomes more than words. Then the world would have a war on its hands unmatched in recent history. Maybe even nuclear, although I doubt NK would really use its nukes even if they were attacked (with conventional weapons).
You mean like actually setting off nuclear bombs and launching long-distance rockets?
For a start, but I'd be satisfied with any attack that kills a large number of people.
At least admit that it is a good setup for a scifi novel.
There's no easy solution here
Yes, there is. Just ignore them. Talk is cheap and these sorts of threats are nothing new. If they want their threats to be taken seriously they will have to actually start doing something, but they won't because their leaders are too comfy and rich. And, no, they are not in fact insane. It's just business as usual for their silly foreign policy.
Ooh. We are so scared. Now we will change our ways. Someone with nuclear weapons says they will attack us just because they can and because they don't like us. If we are going to stop being the world's policeman this would be an idiotic time to start: because North Korea says what they always say, except this time they mean it. You can only call wolf so many times before no one even listens to you let alone believes you.
That is not what the linked article says they said. Do you have a link?
You sound like an extrovert. Have you considered the idea that some people may not want to interact with others for reasons other than anxiety, fear, or just the lack of ability (whatever that means) to do it?
I avoid human interaction, especially in the US because I don't much like people in general and Americans in particular. I simply prefer machines. It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with me that needs to be fixed.
Yes. You do have to be careful with it and use it intelligently. Try to lie in such a way that it is almost impossible to prove that you've lied. Ideally, you would never have to use rule 2, but in some cases (as in this case) there is no practical alternative. And of course if you are not the suspect then lying presents little risk because in practice perjury convictions are rare. Usually, "I don't know" or "I don't recall" are safe enough. I think we all have a responsibility to do what we think is right and the right thing in this case would be to avoid helping the prosecution in their politically motivated witch hunt.
Generally speaking a police officer is indistinguishable from a criminal gang member. If you are going to do something you would not do in the presence of a gang member you might want to think twice about it. Again, ask yourself the question,"Is this something I would do if I were being detained by a violent street gang member with a gun?"
Any form of challenge, disagreement, lack of cooperation, hostility, anger, or anything that could be interpreted even as the most mild form of disrespect is highly dangerous. These are people who are often completely amoral sociopaths. They will not feel guilt or remorse about injuring or killing you or anyone else. They could frame you for even the most serious of crimes and not feel even a hint of guilt afterward. Whether a particular cop happens to interpret silence as disrespect depends on the individual in question. Some will and some won't. It's a roll of the dice. Same as with an armed street gang member.
If the cop dealing with you looks mean or violent or angry you may have no choice but to answer if you want to avoid a long hospital stay or getting zipped up in a body bag or just old fashioned brain damage. Keep in mind that some cops simply will not take no for an answer. They may keep repeating the question until they get worked up enough to throw you down or start choking you or beating you or using their tazer on you until you comply. You have to know when to change tactics by dropping the assumption that they will obey the law. In this case trying to answer their questions without incriminating yourself is the key. Keep in mind that the cops can claim that you said a particular thing and a jury is more likely to believe him than you. They don't really need you to confess to a crime. They can do that for you and will not mind it. They are used to lying in court all the time and their police reports are often more fiction than fact. This is the unfortunate reality. Most people don't realize it until they or someone they know are thrown into the system themselves. Even then few people truly want to believe it.
Did you mean to imply that the police only ever arrest guilty people? Because that is what it sounds like.
You don't have to believe that lying is always a good thing to want to avoid helping to put someone you love in prison. Sometimes lying is the right thing to do and sometimes it is not. If a thief asks you where you keep your money you can choose to do so, but you certainly have no moral obligation to tell the truth in that case. If an immoral or amoral prosecutor is looking for someone to hang in order to forward her career cooperating with them by telling the truth is the wrong thing to do. If you cooperate with them then you bear some responsibility for the lynching that follows.
I find his story 100% plausible. Cops don't become cops because they are nice guys. Only a tiny percentage of them actually care about and follow the law. The rest of them are indistinguishable from any other gang members. They are violent sociopaths with no sense of right or wrong. If I had to choose between being at the mercy of a random cop or a random gang member, I'd choose the gang member. I think the odds are higher of surviving the encounter unscathed.
Bullshit. The vast majority of cops get into the line of work because they want to help people.
That hasn't been my experience. From what I have seen they are mostly angry, sadistic, sociopaths and bullies who see their job as fucking with the public and at the very least ruining your day. If you annoy or anger or disrespect them in any way you risk being beaten, brought up on false charges, or even murdered. The kind of people who become cops are not the kinds of people who want to help people. The whole idea seems laughable to me.