Just once I'd like to read a Slashdot article about software or robots or something that hasn't been used to make a smug political statement about the evils of America's foreign policy.
I wonder if the MPAA and its hired goons consider the fact that some people break copy protection because it's fun. It's an interesting challenge, like a big logic puzzle.
And once more:
Dear MPAA and friends, If it's perceivable, it's copyable. I know your brains are tiny, but it's important that you understand this for your own sake.
Signed,
The Rest of Us
How do we know economics is not awful and vindictive? After all, it keeps food out of peoples mouths. So much for your simple economics...
What in god's name are you talking about? You haven't logically demonstrated anything. All you've said is that economics itself is vindictive because people starving can be explained in economic terms.
But wait, you are an expert and authority in this area.
Ok, what's worse: to introduce an unnecessary URL-coding scheme and all the security problems it brings, or to simply expect everyone to use the already-existing Latin-character-only system (which they were probably using anyway)?
A number of important problems with what you said:
"The numbers....come down to milliseconds"
At 70mph, 50 milliseconds is more than 5 feet, which is enough to make the difference between a bad accident and a close call.
"Simply put...I see tons of people driving on the cell phones - and driving fine. Sometimes a momentary reaction issue...yes."
Um. A "momentary reaction issue", if you want to call it that, is all that's required for death to occur. What does "momentary" mean, anyway? Like, 50 milliseconds or so?
"Well, 1.5% compared 11.4% for CD players. Sure seems like car CD players should be banned before cell phones does it not. Let's ban whiny babies from cars as well."
You're misusing statistics to try to prove your point. If a driver using a CD player is more common an occurance than a driver talking on the phone, then these statistics are meaningless because they're unweighted.
How can you tell, from the statistics quoted here, that using a cell phone is less likely to cause an accident than using a CD player? There could just be fewer people using cell phones than CD players, which would account for the lower percentage of the total number of accidents that were caused by this.
"The key? is to know if you can multi-task or not."
You're right, that is the key. Unfortunately, it would seem that most people can't do that. It would take something like a cellphone ban to take the choice away from them and err on the side of safety.
In my view, this is more like suing people for just being generally despicable, which I would support.
Clearly, you don't have to install any particular software that you don't want, but spyware isn't something that should even exist in the first place. If suing all over the place makes life harder for spyway/malware authors, so be it.
Also, if you go to buy illegal drugs and your dealer kills you by intentionally giving you poison instead, he's still guilty of murder, regardless of the fact that you were violating the law in the first place.
"If it weren't explicitly illegal, they'd even poison a town's water supply just for some money."
They wouldn't "poison a town's water supply" to save money. They'd "discard their waste in the cheapest way possible" to save money. That may result in the poisoning of a town's water supply, but don't try to imply different motives.
*NOTHING* justifies the abridgement of civil rights.
You say this as if it's a fundamental truth woven into the fabric of the universe. It's not. "Civil rights" are simply a human invention and some humans happen to think that some situations do justify the abridgement of civil rights. I'm not saying they're right, but it's so subjective that you can't really "prove" that your position is correct any more than they can for theirs.
I'd just like to take this opportunity to save my words forever in the archives of Slashdot:
Catastrophe is not imminent. "Global warming" is overhyped by people who like to think that they're gifted with knowledge and vision, but in reality have the same extremely limited and largely meaningless small set of data that everyone else has.
(Mods can ignore this post; it's only here for see-I-told-you-so purposes. Or you can mod it down, up... whatever.)
The next logical question is: How did they get there if they're assholes? If our society isn't at fault, wouldn't it have put the above-average people in the positions of power?
Ok, I was just giving that as a possible example. Calm down. My point is: It's probably very likely that one sex is better at a given task than the other sex. Why couldn't it be that (to give another example) men are better at differential calculus?
Why would you agree that women are probably better at child-raising, but claim it's "sexist" to suggest that men might be better at something?
Note: When I say "men" or "women", of course I mean "the average man" and "the average woman".
Correct. If you're above average in some ways, life can totally suck because you're working against the below-average people in your demographic group. But the sad truth is that our society isn't competent enough to specially tailor everyone's situation to meet their needs. Sorry.
Seems to me that you'd have a much more efficient system if people did what they already knew they'd be more likely to succeed at instead of pretending that everybody's equal.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll assume that was a joke.
In all seriousness, IE7 had really better be god damn amazing if it's to be seriously considered at all.
Just once I'd like to read a Slashdot article about software or robots or something that hasn't been used to make a smug political statement about the evils of America's foreign policy.
Mod parent up.
I wonder if the MPAA and its hired goons consider the fact that some people break copy protection because it's fun. It's an interesting challenge, like a big logic puzzle.
And once more:
Dear MPAA and friends,
If it's perceivable, it's copyable. I know your brains are tiny, but it's important that you understand this for your own sake.
Signed,
The Rest of Us
"All evidence seems against it"? That humans are more intelligent than a virus?
Give me a break. These comments couldn't be any more smugly self-righteous.
How do we know economics is not awful and vindictive? After all, it keeps food out of peoples mouths. So much for your simple economics...
What in god's name are you talking about? You haven't logically demonstrated anything. All you've said is that economics itself is vindictive because people starving can be explained in economic terms.
But wait, you are an expert and authority in this area.
And you're evidently a Down-syndrome monkey.
This is the worst thread ever.
...although you might not get great Google results with "Nivel" -- it's actually Larry Niven.
Why the fuck are we still burning COAL for energy?
Because there's an immense amount of coal available, and it's relatively simple to get power from it.
In conclusion, hippies totally suck.
"Better than this US-only shit..."
<sarcasm>
Yes, I'm sure the maps are US-only for awful, vindictive reasons, and not because of simple economics.
</sarcasm>
Grow up.
Ok, what's worse: to introduce an unnecessary URL-coding scheme and all the security problems it brings, or to simply expect everyone to use the already-existing Latin-character-only system (which they were probably using anyway)?
If it's hard to see, the reason is that both IE and the program above lack support.
The smug "Canned Slashdot Response" comment is now, itself, a canned slashdot response.
If it's perceivable, it's copyable. They never seem to learn.
A number of important problems with what you said:
"The numbers....come down to milliseconds"
At 70mph, 50 milliseconds is more than 5 feet, which is enough to make the difference between a bad accident and a close call.
"Simply put...I see tons of people driving on the cell phones - and driving fine. Sometimes a momentary reaction issue...yes."
Um. A "momentary reaction issue", if you want to call it that, is all that's required for death to occur. What does "momentary" mean, anyway? Like, 50 milliseconds or so?
"Well, 1.5% compared 11.4% for CD players. Sure seems like car CD players should be banned before cell phones does it not. Let's ban whiny babies from cars as well."
You're misusing statistics to try to prove your point. If a driver using a CD player is more common an occurance than a driver talking on the phone, then these statistics are meaningless because they're unweighted.
How can you tell, from the statistics quoted here, that using a cell phone is less likely to cause an accident than using a CD player? There could just be fewer people using cell phones than CD players, which would account for the lower percentage of the total number of accidents that were caused by this.
"The key? is to know if you can multi-task or not."
You're right, that is the key. Unfortunately, it would seem that most people can't do that. It would take something like a cellphone ban to take the choice away from them and err on the side of safety.
Cellphones + driving = no.
In my view, this is more like suing people for just being generally despicable, which I would support.
Clearly, you don't have to install any particular software that you don't want, but spyware isn't something that should even exist in the first place. If suing all over the place makes life harder for spyway/malware authors, so be it.
Also, if you go to buy illegal drugs and your dealer kills you by intentionally giving you poison instead, he's still guilty of murder, regardless of the fact that you were violating the law in the first place.
"If it weren't explicitly illegal, they'd even poison a town's water supply just for some money."
They wouldn't "poison a town's water supply" to save money. They'd "discard their waste in the cheapest way possible" to save money. That may result in the poisoning of a town's water supply, but don't try to imply different motives.
They're just corporations, not super-villains.
*NOTHING* justifies the abridgement of civil rights.
You say this as if it's a fundamental truth woven into the fabric of the universe. It's not. "Civil rights" are simply a human invention and some humans happen to think that some situations do justify the abridgement of civil rights. I'm not saying they're right, but it's so subjective that you can't really "prove" that your position is correct any more than they can for theirs.
"one of those cardboard replica PCs you find on furniture in the back of "Staples"."
Ah, the illustrious world of Proptronics!
I'd just like to take this opportunity to save my words forever in the archives of Slashdot:
Catastrophe is not imminent. "Global warming" is overhyped by people who like to think that they're gifted with knowledge and vision, but in reality have the same extremely limited and largely meaningless small set of data that everyone else has.
(Mods can ignore this post; it's only here for see-I-told-you-so purposes. Or you can mod it down, up... whatever.)
The next logical question is: How did they get there if they're assholes? If our society isn't at fault, wouldn't it have put the above-average people in the positions of power?
Ok, I was just giving that as a possible example. Calm down. My point is: It's probably very likely that one sex is better at a given task than the other sex. Why couldn't it be that (to give another example) men are better at differential calculus?
Why would you agree that women are probably better at child-raising, but claim it's "sexist" to suggest that men might be better at something?
Note: When I say "men" or "women", of course I mean "the average man" and "the average woman".
Correct. If you're above average in some ways, life can totally suck because you're working against the below-average people in your demographic group. But the sad truth is that our society isn't competent enough to specially tailor everyone's situation to meet their needs. Sorry.
Seems to me that you'd have a much more efficient system if people did what they already knew they'd be more likely to succeed at instead of pretending that everybody's equal.