What if the statement you're trying to make is "Hey, everybody - maybe we should re-think this whole Two Party System thing?" Perhaps a (as in "one of several") major reason we consistently get doucheba^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsubstandard political leaders is because there's a general belief that we have to pick from the choices we're given by the big money interests that run the show. Or put another way, that we're individually powerless to change anything. One way to combat this is to indicate to everyone else, "You're not the only one that's dissatisfied - and it's o.k. to speak your mind." Basically, I'm saying there's a tipping point - 8%? 15%? 22%? - after which the less bold will feel empowered to vote their conscience.
Caveat: I do agree with your statement about bottom-up change. I remember someone else posting on slashdot a while back that everyone should stop wasting their energy mouthing off on the internet, and get out and run for local office. +5 sharp reminder that the government is supposed to belong to us.
Pseudo-related anecdote - I've actually avoided wearing the donation t-shirt the Ron Paul campaign sent me to work, due to my reluctance to be seen as a "Republican," and subsequently being on the receiving end of the attendant bias. (I work in the entertainment / arts industry in NYC - nearly everyone I come in contact with thinks Republicans eat their young. Correction - think that *all* Republicans eat their young.)
Detractors fear that this provision could result in protracted lawsuits.
...I don't think it'll be an issue. The only entities with enough money to use the legal system to protect their God-given intellectual property from rampant immoral thievery are giant corporations - which are not only accustomed, but in fact designed to process enormous numbers of transactions on a daily basis. I'm sure they'll be willing to cooperate with the newly-formed Ministry of Copyright to streamline the process. Perhaps judgments could be entered in batches of several thousand at a time, then deducted directly from the offending citizen's tax refund? Though I suppose this would be hardly fair to the victimized corp, since it would lose all the potential interest not earned on that money while waiting for the IRS to process the refund. Much better to withhold damages from each citizen's paycheck, a la Social Security tax, and allow those who are innocent to claim it back at the end of the year. (Assuming they can prove their innocence, of course.)
On a more serious note - perhaps we should all take a cue from Paul Anka: "Just don't look." (Or listen, or purchase.)
At the risk of sounding like the cliche ego-centric, globally ignorant American... Is there anybody trying to blow up Sweden? (No, seriously - if there are any Swedes out there who know, please speak up.)
Things are pretty rough if a country that doesn't even suffer from the/illusion/ of terrorist threat* can go to such lengths to violate their people's privacy in the name of security. Makes one think that maybe it's a part of human nature to overreact, or something.
Random statistics from the internet, demonstrating I at least made a half-assed attempt to research this comment: Terrorist "Incidents" in the past 40 years. Sweden is way down at #60, U.S. at #15. Interestingly, per-capita stats place Sweden at the same rank, but the U.S. way down at #93. Of course, this statistic may be entirely meaningless - but I guess it does show something, in terms of the tax base supporting the respective anti-terrorism efforts vs. actual risk.
* - (such as the illusion of threat we have in the U.S. At least people hate us here. Who hates the Swedes? The Finns, I guess... Or the Geats.)
Is there something in their TOS that prevents a group of people from signing up for a single account? Seems like they'd want to allow this, e.g. for families, but assuming that you don't care about incoming calls, you could provide free calling to a small nation for $15 a year. Sort of like a VOIP Sally Struthers.
(And yes, I know it wouldn't be hard to track this. Just wondering if it's explicitly verboten.)
Re:Boxen Is Not A Word
on
Free Geek Robbed
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
I wonder how the airlines are going to keep inappropriate video (i.e. porn or even just movies like "Snakes on a Plane" or "Alive") from appearing on the seat-back displays."
How about by/asking/ people not to? Or a little sign that says, "Please be aware of your neighbors and/or their children, and do not watch video that may disturb them." Sheesh.
Offtopic, but - who's up for a "no kids" airline? I'd definitely pay an extra $10 per flight to ensure there aren't any crying babies onboard.
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses ( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it ( ) Users of email will not put up with it (*) Microsoft will not put up with it ( ) The police will not put up with it ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once ( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it ( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email ( ) Open relays in foreign countries ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses ( ) Asshats (*) Jurisdictional problems (*) Unpopularity of weird new taxes ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack (*) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email (*) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches ( ) Extreme profitability of spam ( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft ( ) Technically illiterate politicians ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers ( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering ( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation ( ) Blacklists suck ( ) Whitelists suck ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually ( ) Sending email should be free ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers? ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome ( ) I don't want the government reading my email ( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough (*) Referencing the Slashdot Spam Form-Letter Response in your spam-related post will not save you from its wrath.
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(*) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work. ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
They represent the worst side of human nature. They are pigs... we must fight against them at every turn.
Am I correct in assuming that "+5 Interesting" is shorthand for "+5 Interesting how there are binary-thinking simpletons on both sides of the aisle who insist on undercutting their own arguments by reducing otherwise compelling evidence to, 'Yay our team, boo their team'" ?
I must say, I have a newfound respect for the subtlety and broad utility of the slashdot moderation system.
Whatever, Intel. AMD's got four-eleven positrack out back. Seven-fifty double pumper. Edelbrock intake, bored over thirty, eleven to one pop up pistons. Turbo jet, three ninety horse power. We're talking some *fucking muscle*.
Is it just me, or are there some stories that don't sound particularly interesting, but the headline makes you scan the comments anyway - just to make sure that someone made the requisite Soviet Russia joke?
This is spot on, imho. I had my laptop "searched" by Canadian customs as well. The guy went through my porn collection (he said he was checking for kiddie porn). He also swab-tested it, and told me there were traces of cocaine on it. I asked him why I would do lines off of my expensive laptop, and not just use the table like everyone else?
On another occasion, the sprightly, freedom-loving Canadians kept me tied up (figuratively) in customs for several hours. Stand up, sit down, call the person you're staying with for us, did you know I can see your criminal record on my terminal?, etc. Basically, some guy had a chip on his shoulder, thought I was a likely target, and figured he'd hassle me until I broke down and admitted to smuggling contraband Celine Dion CD's up my butthole.
Looked at another way - cops (and anyone else) will use the tools they're given to do what they perceive to be their jobs. If they're not allowed strip search at will, they'll try to trip you up by inconveniencing you. If you give them sleep deprivation and the naked pyramid, they'll use that. Just imagine if someone told you, "You're hired! One half of one percent of the people in this room have illegal items - to keep your job, you must find them. Go!"
For those who haven't already, check out Beautiful Soup, which is a great python module for web-scraping - particularly when used together with ClientCookie... the results are shockingly elegant in many cases.
I've personally written functionally equivalent scripts of 100-200 lines to search MySpace for underag... oops, I've said too much.
Check out her Attorney's blog here. Some of the comments are pretty rough.
This doesn't exactly sound like what you said a month ago "We will fight to the end. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't take on something unless I am prepared to fight to the end. Also, anyone who knows me knows that the one thing I can't stand is a bully. The RIAA will give up long before we do, because sooner or later it will dawn upon them that their attorneys are taking them for a ride."
So if you feel the case is so airtight, are you abandoning Ms. Santangelo in order to save the RIAA money? I mean since you said she would get damages involving the RIAA paying her legal costs once she wins. I'd still like to believe in you, but the fish stinks at the head.
Much as I think this sort of legislation is bullshit - isn't this exactly the sort of bullshit that state & local government is *for*? i.e. smaller subsets of the country deciding what is or is not acceptable within their own communities. Of course, Cali is slightly too large to be called a "community"... but I'd think this would be the sort of thing that should be left alone by the federal gov't. Game manufacturers will lose revenue in one state, kids will "borrow" the car & buy their games in Nevada, and anyone who really hates the law that much will campaign to repeal it, or move to another state. B. F. D.
C'mon - didn't you RTFA? Eat healthy, exercise (your body and your brain), don't abuse yourself, and MASSIVE, MASSIVE DOSES OF MODAFINIL & RITALIN - at least 2,000mg a day.
Friggin' spinach and crossword puzzles aren't going to help you figure out which satellites Major League Baseball is using to spy on you, hippie.
The thought of threatening people with jail because they shared copies of my movies absolutely revulses me. People will watch and pay or not watch and pay but it's a lot more important to me that they WATCH than anything else....
Additionally, I encourage people who think I did the documentary "wrong" to use the documentary as source material and make a new one....
By the way, a lot of the raw footage will be released to the public under the same license. That will result in a body of work well into the dozens (and perhaps hundreds) of hours.
The above makes me want to just send the guy fifty bucks, period.
(Technically, I'd be taking Option #2 - although I think maybe he meant "Watch and pay or watch and not pay.;P )"
Slashdot Mirror
What if the statement you're trying to make is "Hey, everybody - maybe we should re-think this whole Two Party System thing?" Perhaps a (as in "one of several") major reason we consistently get doucheba^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsubstandard political leaders is because there's a general belief that we have to pick from the choices we're given by the big money interests that run the show. Or put another way, that we're individually powerless to change anything. One way to combat this is to indicate to everyone else, "You're not the only one that's dissatisfied - and it's o.k. to speak your mind." Basically, I'm saying there's a tipping point - 8%? 15%? 22%? - after which the less bold will feel empowered to vote their conscience.
Caveat: I do agree with your statement about bottom-up change. I remember someone else posting on slashdot a while back that everyone should stop wasting their energy mouthing off on the internet, and get out and run for local office. +5 sharp reminder that the government is supposed to belong to us.
Pseudo-related anecdote - I've actually avoided wearing the donation t-shirt the Ron Paul campaign sent me to work, due to my reluctance to be seen as a "Republican," and subsequently being on the receiving end of the attendant bias. (I work in the entertainment / arts industry in NYC - nearly everyone I come in contact with thinks Republicans eat their young. Correction - think that *all* Republicans eat their young.)
...I don't think it'll be an issue. The only entities with enough money to use the legal system to protect their God-given intellectual property from rampant immoral thievery are giant corporations - which are not only accustomed, but in fact designed to process enormous numbers of transactions on a daily basis. I'm sure they'll be willing to cooperate with the newly-formed Ministry of Copyright to streamline the process. Perhaps judgments could be entered in batches of several thousand at a time, then deducted directly from the offending citizen's tax refund? Though I suppose this would be hardly fair to the victimized corp, since it would lose all the potential interest not earned on that money while waiting for the IRS to process the refund. Much better to withhold damages from each citizen's paycheck, a la Social Security tax, and allow those who are innocent to claim it back at the end of the year. (Assuming they can prove their innocence, of course.)
On a more serious note - perhaps we should all take a cue from Paul Anka: "Just don't look." (Or listen, or purchase.)
Part 4 - Analysis.
Things are pretty rough if a country that doesn't even suffer from the /illusion/ of terrorist threat* can go to such lengths to violate their people's privacy in the name of security. Makes one think that maybe it's a part of human nature to overreact, or something.
Random statistics from the internet, demonstrating I at least made a half-assed attempt to research this comment: Terrorist "Incidents" in the past 40 years. Sweden is way down at #60, U.S. at #15. Interestingly, per-capita stats place Sweden at the same rank, but the U.S. way down at #93. Of course, this statistic may be entirely meaningless - but I guess it does show something, in terms of the tax base supporting the respective anti-terrorism efforts vs. actual risk.
* - (such as the illusion of threat we have in the U.S. At least people hate us here. Who hates the Swedes? The Finns, I guess... Or the Geats.)
Don't sweat it - I totally know what you mean... sometimes it just feels like we've been stuck here together that long.
...I'm immortal!
(And yes, I know it wouldn't be hard to track this. Just wondering if it's explicitly verboten.)
It's a perfectly cromulent word.
How about by /asking/ people not to? Or a little sign that says, "Please be aware of your neighbors and/or their children, and do not watch video that may disturb them." Sheesh.
Offtopic, but - who's up for a "no kids" airline? I'd definitely pay an extra $10 per flight to ensure there aren't any crying babies onboard.
Your post advocates a
( ) technical (*) legislative (*) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
(*) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
(*) Jurisdictional problems
(*) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
(*) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(*) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
(*) Referencing the Slashdot Spam Form-Letter Response in your spam-related post will not save you from its wrath.
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(*) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Am I correct in assuming that "+5 Interesting" is shorthand for "+5 Interesting how there are binary-thinking simpletons on both sides of the aisle who insist on undercutting their own arguments by reducing otherwise compelling evidence to, 'Yay our team, boo their team'" ?
I must say, I have a newfound respect for the subtlety and broad utility of the slashdot moderation system.
Whatever, Intel. AMD's got four-eleven positrack out back. Seven-fifty double pumper. Edelbrock intake, bored over thirty, eleven to one pop up pistons. Turbo jet, three ninety horse power. We're talking some *fucking muscle*.
Is it just me, or are there some stories that don't sound particularly interesting, but the headline makes you scan the comments anyway - just to make sure that someone made the requisite Soviet Russia joke?
Way to drop the ball, guys.
This is spot on, imho. I had my laptop "searched" by Canadian customs as well. The guy went through my porn collection (he said he was checking for kiddie porn). He also swab-tested it, and told me there were traces of cocaine on it. I asked him why I would do lines off of my expensive laptop, and not just use the table like everyone else?
On another occasion, the sprightly, freedom-loving Canadians kept me tied up (figuratively) in customs for several hours. Stand up, sit down, call the person you're staying with for us, did you know I can see your criminal record on my terminal?, etc. Basically, some guy had a chip on his shoulder, thought I was a likely target, and figured he'd hassle me until I broke down and admitted to smuggling contraband Celine Dion CD's up my butthole.
Looked at another way - cops (and anyone else) will use the tools they're given to do what they perceive to be their jobs. If they're not allowed strip search at will, they'll try to trip you up by inconveniencing you. If you give them sleep deprivation and the naked pyramid, they'll use that. Just imagine if someone told you, "You're hired! One half of one percent of the people in this room have illegal items - to keep your job, you must find them. Go!"
"Take this object, but beware, it carries a terrible curse"
"Ooo, that's bad"
"But it comes with a free frogurt!"
"That's good"
"The frogurt is also cursed"
"That's bad"
"But you get your choice of toppings!"
"That's good"
"The toppings contain potassium benzoate..."
For those who haven't already, check out Beautiful Soup, which is a great python module for web-scraping - particularly when used together with ClientCookie... the results are shockingly elegant in many cases.
I've personally written functionally equivalent scripts of 100-200 lines to search MySpace for underag... oops, I've said too much.
Even easier than that - all they need is to be able to predict where they are when they *stop* flying.
Now if only there were some sort of System that could tell them the Position of those rockets, Globally.
mitch
Ouch!
mitch
Much as I think this sort of legislation is bullshit - isn't this exactly the sort of bullshit that state & local government is *for*? i.e. smaller subsets of the country deciding what is or is not acceptable within their own communities. Of course, Cali is slightly too large to be called a "community"... but I'd think this would be the sort of thing that should be left alone by the federal gov't. Game manufacturers will lose revenue in one state, kids will "borrow" the car & buy their games in Nevada, and anyone who really hates the law that much will campaign to repeal it, or move to another state. B. F. D.
mitch
Yes, because this time the Good Guys have the most money.
If his server crashes, he could be killed!
Friggin' spinach and crossword puzzles aren't going to help you figure out which satellites Major League Baseball is using to spy on you, hippie.
mitch
The above makes me want to just send the guy fifty bucks, period.
(Technically, I'd be taking Option #2 - although I think maybe he meant "Watch and pay or watch and not pay. ;P )"
mitch
mitch