Many scientists would say that "life" begins in the third-trimester. You'd have to look it up but I believe it's for human biological and anatomical reasons.
As far as the death penalty goes, I think that's a completely different argument. To me, there's no transparency when comparing abortion and the death penalty. The reason is because a fetus has done nothing against a law and has committed no crime while someone convicted to for death penalty has. To me, this makes the biggest difference when arguing the two.
I'm not saying I'm a proponent or opponent of death penalty, but I really don't think the two are comparable.
An argument for this technology strictly from the perspective that it "could save lives" is a weak argument. The human research conducted by Nazi Germany could "save lives". Shoving hot spikes in people's toenails would no doubt teach us alot about pain and perhaps lead to better pain relievers.
I'm sorry but I find this to be a weak relativist argument.
If you read anything about stem-cell research you'd know of the vast array of ways it could help mankind. (In case you didn't know, that's why they want to clone human embryos because they are the best source of stem cells.) Stem-cell research has offered the most promise in terms of being able to grow new human organs. That alone would save millions of people and those waiting for transplants would no longer need to suffer and/or die. It also sheds much light in degenerative nerve damage. If you could regenerate stem cells into new nerves, people like Cristopher Reeves (and other paraplegics and quadraplegics) would be able to walk again.
So this is NOT like sticking "hot spikes under people's toenails". That's simply ludicrous. Please educate yourself and read more about why stem-cells are, by far, the best and most promising way to do any sort of cell generation. I'd rather not get to technical here.
With that said, I agree there is an ethical argument here. But you're simply wrong when you compare embryo cloning and the promise of stem-cell research with hot spikes under people's toe nails.
One thing you should not is that contractual agreements do not override the law. I'm not sure what the law is regarding these matters, but if the law says that it's not legal for companies to take rights of owner of projects created before being employed by that company then EVEN IF you signed a contract saying you did you could take it to court and that part of the contract would be nullified.
The same goes for any clause in a contract that is against the law. So even if you've signed something and your lawyer says it's illegal then you'd win if they ever did take you to court.
Yeah, the problem is that kids are immature and don't knwo what they are doing. That's why kids continue to find their parents' gun and shoot and accidently kill their siblings. The key is to not make objects of easy destruction so available.
The other response was correct. The correct analogy would be placing a bomb out because once you've released code you've made it very easy for some to put it out there. Like I said, maybe they could put out a white paper with code samples and not make it so every script kiddie could let this stuff out.
Anyway, take this analogy in mind. What if it wasn't a formula for dynamite but the secrets, formulas, and exact specifications for a nuclear bomb? SHoudl we just release that to everyone and if someone gets nuked then tough luck?
In principle it's easy to say information should be free but to not look at the realistic consequences is just being blind.
The method by which the virus is delivered is interesting. Quote:
"These days, many elite writers do not spread their works at all. Instead, they ''publish'' them, posting their code on Web sites, often with detailed descriptions of how the program works."
And, while there exists this "loophole" now, I find this disturbing. Now don't get me wrong. I grew up with Sneakers and I've always been a proponent of computer education and making the security flaws known.
However, at some point if you're leaving material (whether tangible or electronic) out in public whose main purpose is crime and destruction I do think those people should be liable. I'll call it "hacking, in the 2nd degree" or "involuntary hacking".
Let's take guns for example. Let's say a gun seller illegally sold guns to 12 year old children and also sold them bullets. Now let's say that the kids accidently shot each other up. Shouldn't the gun seller be liable? Maybe not liable for first-degree murder, but maybe second degree.
I think that if the hackers want to educate others should perhaps do it in a more educational, and in a way that doesn't make it easy for script kids to copy and paste. Perhaps they can put out white papers with snipets of code... but, for the love of God, don't give the programs away. By doing that you have only yourself to blame with the script kiddies start spreading viruses like there's no tomorrow.
To tell yourself that you're completely innocent would be denial.
If I enjoyed work I would probably be sitting in my office working. What good does that do me?
We are a sad society when we put work in front of our "real lives".
That sounds like a catch-22 to me. So you say that if you enjoyed work you'd be working weekends and then you claim that we are a sad society because we put work in front of our real lives?
The solution's simple. Don't put work in front of your real lives so that even if you did have a job you enjoyed you would NOT work weekends. What's so hard about that?
Re:dream jobs and being subjective ..
on
Dream Jobs of 2004
·
· Score: 1
You definitely have very good points and I agree.
However, I think the thing we should all remember is that it's called a "dream job" not just a "dream". Meaning, it still is a job.
That doesn't mean that it has to suck, you have to be doing boring things, that you have to hate it or that you have to work with assholes. But, what it does mean is that there is going to be an element of responsibility with it. Which responsibilities you choose is up to you but it will often require some sort of sacrifice which, if you accept, can still be your dream job.
For instance, you may love coding but perhaps you don't want to spend 14 hours a day coding. Some peole actually do. Maybe you want to help people but it demands you be on call all hours a day. Sometimes the sacrifice is worth it. Maybe you want to work 5 hours a day.. that could work out but don't be surprised when other people start passing your up promotionally.
I think the concept of "grass is greener" is definitely true but I think it's based on people being unrealistic with themselves. They have to realize that everything comes at some sort of opportunity cost and that the real people who are happy are those that have accepted their personal decision in life to go after what they want (whether it's large amounts of money, free time with the family, or hacking at cool, fun projects).
This is just lame. The amount of "infrastructure" required is totally ridiculous.
They ignore the fact that email is a general communications media / People who do not like eachother do email because it's practical / but under this nutty system, people would only email people they trust not to "steal" their money in escrow.
So? What's wrong with that. This will prevent people who hate you from spamming your inbox with filth. Furthermore it'll deter people who hate you from sending hate email. Sounds good to me.
I see one scenario where it would be adopted and, perhaps, create two "worlds" of email.
The one scenario where it would get wide adoption is business email. Business left and right are losing money to spam. Whether it's time, hardware or quality of service they are losing money. I can see many companies banding together to promote such a system for business email.
This doesn't mean misterhacker4231@aol.com is going to use it, but at least your work email would be spam free. And if there was wide adoption across the business world it might only mean a matter of time until it spreads into the consumer world.
The way to stop spam that doesn't require messing with STMP is to use web-forms.
I'm sorry, but a solution that involves making technology harder to use and less versatile doesn't sound too much like a good solution to me.
If you use a non-generic web-form with a unique filename and unique variables, it makes it quite impossible for spammers to make bots to whore their spam automatically.
I think this is debatable. If you have a master of regular expressions and some serious text-scraping in combination with some low-level AI, you could get around unique filename and unique variables. The CS dept at UC Berkeley currently uses a program analyzer to look for plagiarism and it works irregardless of variable names, method name, etc. It looks at the structure of the program itself.
What would be really clever if you want to prevent bots entirely you just have an array of images. And an array of questions, one for each picture. And the user has to answer the question like "what color is the apple?"
This is also a messy solution. 1) Who wants to answer 3 questions everytime you send an email? 2) AI is clearly advanced enough to handle this. Already they have programs that can "read" those distorted pictures asked to be read when registering.
Ultimately, you have to remember that AI exists and the power of computers is to take a menial task and execute it endlessly until a problem is solved. Solving the color of the apple would be a temporary solution until the AI would be programmed to recognize the image of an apple (which wouldn't be too difficult with edge detection) and finding the color would simply involve checking the bitmap colors.
No amount of image scanning by a bot is going to figure that out.
I haven't had a chance to RTFA but it sounds similar to an idea I've had before.
Along the lines of the other poster I, too, think it's a non-starter. In general, I think consumer computers could use more protection. I don't think you can use the argument "What if someone's computer gets hacked and.." because that will always be an issue. Why buy things online? Why do online banking? Why trust ecommerce? Hacking will always be a worry and I don't think it's enough of an argument to completely stop a system unless there is clearly total vulnerability of the system (like voting).
But the scenario you point out is all too real. However, this only makes me think that we need greater security from viruses and worms (which I think most people would agree with).
Also, I think it would be "better" this way in that if some funds were stolen to send emails then it would be easier to prosecute spammers. Whenever there is large amounts of money involved it's easier to put people away in prison. Consequently, it'll be easier to deter criminals from hacking for spam knowing that clear loss of millions of dollars will lead to some serious time in the slammer.
Yeah, but the difference is is that when you write a summary or review on the back cover it didn't appear as if it were from a third party did it? You didn't your review as being written by "Oprah's book club" or something right?
The thing is is that on Slashdot I think it's taken for granted that reviews and/or praise for things sold are always a third-party independent.
You may be right in terms of my comments applying to the editors. I'll accept that. But the thing is is that I've been reading Slashdot for about 7 years now and, in all this time, I've never heard much about the editorial review process. In fact I really didn't know there was much of one. I thought stories/books/reviews were posted whenever one of the main moderators (the ones who run Slashdot) thought it was interesting.
That said, there's also no saying of your affiliation with the creators of Slashdot. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but it happens all the time, especially in media and especially when someone is trying to sell something.
The article's worth does rest in the content. In this case the worth rests in the content of the book you wrote.
Personally, I have nothing against you. I don't even know you. In fact I hope your book sells well if it's a good book so that people will become more educated. But I have this same sentiment towards every other person trying to write an assembly book and accomplish the same thing as you. And, because of this, I feel like it should be a fair playing ground. (But I understand that you thought you did nothing wrong.:))
Anyway, next time this all simply could've been avoided had you noted, in one sentence, that you're also the author. I think people would heed that honesty and actually influence them to take a closer look at your book.
Actually, I initially didn't think you were "tricking" anybody. I merely said that I wouldn't choose to support an individual who did this in this situation. It was only the responses by the trolls here did I get defensive.
In my original response I clearly say it's not personal, just something I wouldn't support simply because of the conflict of interest. If there's an indication that a favorable response is given because of the affiliation then at least I feel there's more honesty behind what the person is selling.
Maybe you didn't intentionally do this but you have to admit that if people see it as trickey or deception that's completely justified. It's the same reason why Cheney is suspect of pushing the war because of his affiliation with Halliburton who just happen to be rewarded all of this lucrative contracts.
It's the same reason why news channels disclose their affiliation with parent companies or subsidiaries whenever they report news on them.
You didn't offend me. The jackasses here who think I'm trolling, however, do offend me because I'm clearly here trying to advocate fairness for everyone.
Why would I be mad at him or anyone else? He's promoting his book. Good for him. I hope it makes the NY Times Best Seller List. I'm pissed when people look for shit to bitch about.
Why should you be mad at him? Because clearly you're angry that the job market is shit. Right? So you should be mad when someone is trying to use the system, unfairly, to their advantage. What about all the other honest people who are trying to write books about Assembly and make a living but don't have a chance to sell it on Slashdot by writing an awesome review about their own book? The question of whether it is a "review" or not doesn't matter either. The point is that it's propaganda.
You should be mad because there are people out there, like you, who are unemployed so you should be angry that this person is unfairly trying to get a leg-up on you.
Anyway, if you look at my original comment I was "looking for shit to bitch about". If you seriously think that way you have a serious attitude problem and I really recommend (no joking here) you see a therapist. Obviously you have angst issues.
Let me remind you what I said: I calmly wrote that Slashdot should write a disclosure in these situations. Did I say people shouldn't advertise their own books? NO. Did I say it was WRONG when they did? NO. I simply said that they should make it known to the readers that they are promoting their own book. PEOPLE DO THIS ALL THE TIME IN ANY INDUSTRY TO MAKE IT FAIR. They do it on news stations, they do it in the media, and they even do it here on Slashdot. They just didnt' do it with this book.
In case you haven't noticed I have not ONCE written anything against people selling books here. I said that I'm against people who don't disclose their affiliation because it only serves to make people suspect. Really, who can trust a review/propaganda by someone who's also the creator of the work? Shit, we weren't born yesterday.
If the guy opens his mouth, he's a biased scam artist.
When you say something is totally awesome and worth buying and you don't reveal that you will benefit from the purchase, then YES he is a "biased scam artist". If you don't realize this I hope you never have to buy a used car.
No, it's not complete enough for a review. But he clearly, in the description, is trying to convince the readers to buy his book because "the key difference between mediocre and excellent programmers is whether or not they know assembly language."
And, no, he didn't post his story AC but he also didn't disclose that he's the author. And, hey, I'm just one person. Everyone else has their right to buy (into) it if they want. I didn't bad mouth him. I simply said I don't buy things that are self-advertised when I find out on my own that the person advertising is also the person who made whatever it is they are selling. It's just principle.
Don't whine to me about trying to make a living or trying to pay the bills. I've been unemployed for over 12 months within the past 2 years.
Oh, please. I've been unemployed for three years straight. I couldn't get a job painting shit buckets after watching my "skills" and "experience" lightly dipped in piss batter and skillfully tossed into a shit swamp.
Perhaps I should've mentioned that I've only been in the work force for 3 years (instead of the 10 you've had to build up savings).
And I'm FUCKING tired of seeing people who work their ASS OFF being called "scam artists" because they set up a cash register somewhere.
Look, if you're not johnnyb I really don't see why you're mad at me. If anything you should be mad at HIM because he's trying to get an edge-up on you by promoting his own book on Slashdot. That's one less opportunity for you.
"Break the rules." What rules? Who made up the rules? Where can someone refer to them? I think it's "oh, it's got a price tag on it, therefore it's a scam."
Simple. People come here thinking that books that are reviewed are have open, honest and unbiased reviews. Clearly this review is questionably open or honest, and most definitely biased. Why? Umm perhaps because the person writing the review IS ALSO THE FUCKING AUTHOR. C'mon dude. Open your eyes. Quit being so blind. We know it's you johnnyb.
Slashdot Mirror
This issue has widely been addressed.
Many scientists would say that "life" begins in the third-trimester. You'd have to look it up but I believe it's for human biological and anatomical reasons.
As far as the death penalty goes, I think that's a completely different argument. To me, there's no transparency when comparing abortion and the death penalty. The reason is because a fetus has done nothing against a law and has committed no crime while someone convicted to for death penalty has. To me, this makes the biggest difference when arguing the two.
I'm not saying I'm a proponent or opponent of death penalty, but I really don't think the two are comparable.
An argument for this technology strictly from the perspective that it "could save lives" is a weak argument. The human research conducted by Nazi Germany could "save lives". Shoving hot spikes in people's toenails would no doubt teach us alot about pain and perhaps lead to better pain relievers.
I'm sorry but I find this to be a weak relativist argument.
If you read anything about stem-cell research you'd know of the vast array of ways it could help mankind. (In case you didn't know, that's why they want to clone human embryos because they are the best source of stem cells.) Stem-cell research has offered the most promise in terms of being able to grow new human organs. That alone would save millions of people and those waiting for transplants would no longer need to suffer and/or die. It also sheds much light in degenerative nerve damage. If you could regenerate stem cells into new nerves, people like Cristopher Reeves (and other paraplegics and quadraplegics) would be able to walk again.
So this is NOT like sticking "hot spikes under people's toenails". That's simply ludicrous. Please educate yourself and read more about why stem-cells are, by far, the best and most promising way to do any sort of cell generation. I'd rather not get to technical here.
With that said, I agree there is an ethical argument here. But you're simply wrong when you compare embryo cloning and the promise of stem-cell research with hot spikes under people's toe nails.
Wow. Sounds like you could create a new X-men (urr X-man?). He could be named Stinkoman!
One thing you should not is that contractual agreements do not override the law. I'm not sure what the law is regarding these matters, but if the law says that it's not legal for companies to take rights of owner of projects created before being employed by that company then EVEN IF you signed a contract saying you did you could take it to court and that part of the contract would be nullified.
The same goes for any clause in a contract that is against the law. So even if you've signed something and your lawyer says it's illegal then you'd win if they ever did take you to court.
Yeah, the problem is that kids are immature and don't knwo what they are doing. That's why kids continue to find their parents' gun and shoot and accidently kill their siblings. The key is to not make objects of easy destruction so available.
The other response was correct. The correct analogy would be placing a bomb out because once you've released code you've made it very easy for some to put it out there. Like I said, maybe they could put out a white paper with code samples and not make it so every script kiddie could let this stuff out.
Anyway, take this analogy in mind. What if it wasn't a formula for dynamite but the secrets, formulas, and exact specifications for a nuclear bomb? SHoudl we just release that to everyone and if someone gets nuked then tough luck?
In principle it's easy to say information should be free but to not look at the realistic consequences is just being blind.
The method by which the virus is delivered is interesting. Quote:
"These days, many elite writers do not spread their works at all. Instead, they ''publish'' them, posting their code on Web sites, often with detailed descriptions of how the program works."
And, while there exists this "loophole" now, I find this disturbing. Now don't get me wrong. I grew up with Sneakers and I've always been a proponent of computer education and making the security flaws known.
However, at some point if you're leaving material (whether tangible or electronic) out in public whose main purpose is crime and destruction I do think those people should be liable. I'll call it "hacking, in the 2nd degree" or "involuntary hacking".
Let's take guns for example. Let's say a gun seller illegally sold guns to 12 year old children and also sold them bullets. Now let's say that the kids accidently shot each other up. Shouldn't the gun seller be liable? Maybe not liable for first-degree murder, but maybe second degree.
I think that if the hackers want to educate others should perhaps do it in a more educational, and in a way that doesn't make it easy for script kids to copy and paste. Perhaps they can put out white papers with snipets of code... but, for the love of God, don't give the programs away. By doing that you have only yourself to blame with the script kiddies start spreading viruses like there's no tomorrow.
To tell yourself that you're completely innocent would be denial.
If I enjoyed work I would probably be sitting in my office working. What good does that do me? We are a sad society when we put work in front of our "real lives".
That sounds like a catch-22 to me. So you say that if you enjoyed work you'd be working weekends and then you claim that we are a sad society because we put work in front of our real lives?
The solution's simple. Don't put work in front of your real lives so that even if you did have a job you enjoyed you would NOT work weekends. What's so hard about that?
You definitely have very good points and I agree.
However, I think the thing we should all remember is that it's called a "dream job" not just a "dream". Meaning, it still is a job.
That doesn't mean that it has to suck, you have to be doing boring things, that you have to hate it or that you have to work with assholes. But, what it does mean is that there is going to be an element of responsibility with it. Which responsibilities you choose is up to you but it will often require some sort of sacrifice which, if you accept, can still be your dream job.
For instance, you may love coding but perhaps you don't want to spend 14 hours a day coding. Some peole actually do. Maybe you want to help people but it demands you be on call all hours a day. Sometimes the sacrifice is worth it. Maybe you want to work 5 hours a day.. that could work out but don't be surprised when other people start passing your up promotionally.
I think the concept of "grass is greener" is definitely true but I think it's based on people being unrealistic with themselves. They have to realize that everything comes at some sort of opportunity cost and that the real people who are happy are those that have accepted their personal decision in life to go after what they want (whether it's large amounts of money, free time with the family, or hacking at cool, fun projects).
This is just lame. The amount of "infrastructure" required is totally ridiculous. They ignore the fact that email is a general communications media / People who do not like eachother do email because it's practical / but under this nutty system, people would only email people they trust not to "steal" their money in escrow.
So? What's wrong with that. This will prevent people who hate you from spamming your inbox with filth. Furthermore it'll deter people who hate you from sending hate email. Sounds good to me.
I see one scenario where it would be adopted and, perhaps, create two "worlds" of email.
The one scenario where it would get wide adoption is business email. Business left and right are losing money to spam. Whether it's time, hardware or quality of service they are losing money. I can see many companies banding together to promote such a system for business email.
This doesn't mean misterhacker4231@aol.com is going to use it, but at least your work email would be spam free. And if there was wide adoption across the business world it might only mean a matter of time until it spreads into the consumer world.
Why wouldn't it work?
I think you're completely missing the concept of escrow.
The way to stop spam that doesn't require messing with STMP is to use web-forms.
I'm sorry, but a solution that involves making technology harder to use and less versatile doesn't sound too much like a good solution to me.
If you use a non-generic web-form with a unique filename and unique variables, it makes it quite impossible for spammers to make bots to whore their spam automatically.
I think this is debatable. If you have a master of regular expressions and some serious text-scraping in combination with some low-level AI, you could get around unique filename and unique variables. The CS dept at UC Berkeley currently uses a program analyzer to look for plagiarism and it works irregardless of variable names, method name, etc. It looks at the structure of the program itself.
What would be really clever if you want to prevent bots entirely you just have an array of images. And an array of questions, one for each picture. And the user has to answer the question like "what color is the apple?"
This is also a messy solution. 1) Who wants to answer 3 questions everytime you send an email? 2) AI is clearly advanced enough to handle this. Already they have programs that can "read" those distorted pictures asked to be read when registering.
Ultimately, you have to remember that AI exists and the power of computers is to take a menial task and execute it endlessly until a problem is solved. Solving the color of the apple would be a temporary solution until the AI would be programmed to recognize the image of an apple (which wouldn't be too difficult with edge detection) and finding the color would simply involve checking the bitmap colors.
No amount of image scanning by a bot is going to figure that out.
Wanna bet? This has been done by AI long ago.
I haven't had a chance to RTFA but it sounds similar to an idea I've had before.
Along the lines of the other poster I, too, think it's a non-starter. In general, I think consumer computers could use more protection. I don't think you can use the argument "What if someone's computer gets hacked and.." because that will always be an issue. Why buy things online? Why do online banking? Why trust ecommerce? Hacking will always be a worry and I don't think it's enough of an argument to completely stop a system unless there is clearly total vulnerability of the system (like voting).
But the scenario you point out is all too real. However, this only makes me think that we need greater security from viruses and worms (which I think most people would agree with).
Also, I think it would be "better" this way in that if some funds were stolen to send emails then it would be easier to prosecute spammers. Whenever there is large amounts of money involved it's easier to put people away in prison. Consequently, it'll be easier to deter criminals from hacking for spam knowing that clear loss of millions of dollars will lead to some serious time in the slammer.
Yeah, but the difference is is that when you write a summary or review on the back cover it didn't appear as if it were from a third party did it? You didn't your review as being written by "Oprah's book club" or something right?
The thing is is that on Slashdot I think it's taken for granted that reviews and/or praise for things sold are always a third-party independent.
I don't think you're a scam artist. The other guy was just pushing my buttons with his nonsequiters and it pissed me off. :)
You may be right in terms of my comments applying to the editors. I'll accept that. But the thing is is that I've been reading Slashdot for about 7 years now and, in all this time, I've never heard much about the editorial review process. In fact I really didn't know there was much of one. I thought stories/books/reviews were posted whenever one of the main moderators (the ones who run Slashdot) thought it was interesting.
:))
That said, there's also no saying of your affiliation with the creators of Slashdot. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but it happens all the time, especially in media and especially when someone is trying to sell something.
The article's worth does rest in the content. In this case the worth rests in the content of the book you wrote.
Personally, I have nothing against you. I don't even know you. In fact I hope your book sells well if it's a good book so that people will become more educated. But I have this same sentiment towards every other person trying to write an assembly book and accomplish the same thing as you. And, because of this, I feel like it should be a fair playing ground. (But I understand that you thought you did nothing wrong.
Anyway, next time this all simply could've been avoided had you noted, in one sentence, that you're also the author. I think people would heed that honesty and actually influence them to take a closer look at your book.
Actually, I initially didn't think you were "tricking" anybody. I merely said that I wouldn't choose to support an individual who did this in this situation. It was only the responses by the trolls here did I get defensive.
In my original response I clearly say it's not personal, just something I wouldn't support simply because of the conflict of interest. If there's an indication that a favorable response is given because of the affiliation then at least I feel there's more honesty behind what the person is selling.
Maybe you didn't intentionally do this but you have to admit that if people see it as trickey or deception that's completely justified. It's the same reason why Cheney is suspect of pushing the war because of his affiliation with Halliburton who just happen to be rewarded all of this lucrative contracts.
It's the same reason why news channels disclose their affiliation with parent companies or subsidiaries whenever they report news on them.
You didn't offend me. The jackasses here who think I'm trolling, however, do offend me because I'm clearly here trying to advocate fairness for everyone.
Why would I be mad at him or anyone else? He's promoting his book. Good for him. I hope it makes the NY Times Best Seller List. I'm pissed when people look for shit to bitch about.
Why should you be mad at him? Because clearly you're angry that the job market is shit. Right? So you should be mad when someone is trying to use the system, unfairly, to their advantage. What about all the other honest people who are trying to write books about Assembly and make a living but don't have a chance to sell it on Slashdot by writing an awesome review about their own book? The question of whether it is a "review" or not doesn't matter either. The point is that it's propaganda.
You should be mad because there are people out there, like you, who are unemployed so you should be angry that this person is unfairly trying to get a leg-up on you.
Anyway, if you look at my original comment I was "looking for shit to bitch about". If you seriously think that way you have a serious attitude problem and I really recommend (no joking here) you see a therapist. Obviously you have angst issues.
Let me remind you what I said: I calmly wrote that Slashdot should write a disclosure in these situations. Did I say people shouldn't advertise their own books? NO. Did I say it was WRONG when they did? NO. I simply said that they should make it known to the readers that they are promoting their own book. PEOPLE DO THIS ALL THE TIME IN ANY INDUSTRY TO MAKE IT FAIR. They do it on news stations, they do it in the media, and they even do it here on Slashdot. They just didnt' do it with this book.
In case you haven't noticed I have not ONCE written anything against people selling books here. I said that I'm against people who don't disclose their affiliation because it only serves to make people suspect. Really, who can trust a review/propaganda by someone who's also the creator of the work? Shit, we weren't born yesterday.
If the guy opens his mouth, he's a biased scam artist.
When you say something is totally awesome and worth buying and you don't reveal that you will benefit from the purchase, then YES he is a "biased scam artist". If you don't realize this I hope you never have to buy a used car.
Spread the mediocrity.
Son, in your case it's already been done.
You remind me of GWB. ;) Yeah, sure, the WMDs just haven't been found yet. Yeah, right.
The last thing we need here is more FUD.
No, it's not complete enough for a review. But he clearly, in the description, is trying to convince the readers to buy his book because "the key difference between mediocre and excellent programmers is whether or not they know assembly language."
And, no, he didn't post his story AC but he also didn't disclose that he's the author. And, hey, I'm just one person. Everyone else has their right to buy (into) it if they want. I didn't bad mouth him. I simply said I don't buy things that are self-advertised when I find out on my own that the person advertising is also the person who made whatever it is they are selling. It's just principle.
Don't whine to me about trying to make a living or trying to pay the bills. I've been unemployed for over 12 months within the past 2 years. Oh, please. I've been unemployed for three years straight. I couldn't get a job painting shit buckets after watching my "skills" and "experience" lightly dipped in piss batter and skillfully tossed into a shit swamp.
Perhaps I should've mentioned that I've only been in the work force for 3 years (instead of the 10 you've had to build up savings).
And I'm FUCKING tired of seeing people who work their ASS OFF being called "scam artists" because they set up a cash register somewhere.
Look, if you're not johnnyb I really don't see why you're mad at me. If anything you should be mad at HIM because he's trying to get an edge-up on you by promoting his own book on Slashdot. That's one less opportunity for you.
"Break the rules." What rules? Who made up the rules? Where can someone refer to them? I think it's "oh, it's got a price tag on it, therefore it's a scam."
Simple. People come here thinking that books that are reviewed are have open, honest and unbiased reviews. Clearly this review is questionably open or honest, and most definitely biased. Why? Umm perhaps because the person writing the review IS ALSO THE FUCKING AUTHOR. C'mon dude. Open your eyes. Quit being so blind. We know it's you johnnyb.
True that. Thx.
I never said it was a question of interesting. Just think of it this way; cheating the system and getting junk back is the same reason behind spam.