Hey, you get in line behind MY government. The UK were putting their citizens at risk by poodling up to Bush before yours! You're not a real poodle until you've had at least 50 civilians killed on your own mainland by religious fanatics, displeased at misguided foreign policy.
Well, we had about 80 Australian tourists blown up in Bali by fanatics who wanted to protest against American policies, and thought we were close enough. Unfortunatley, while they were actually correct in that, the Americans themselves hardly noticed.
Making a central list of all children's email addresses must be a pervert's dream come true
Yes, because reading a list of email addresses is so stimulating.
Do you imagine a "pervert" would randomly send out solicitations? If he did, he'd be on the FBI's watch list within the hour, and arranging "meet ups" that would send him directly to jail.
You didn't answer any of that guy's legitimate questions.
The "theory" is as well-founded as Flat Earth. There are many qualified physicists who posted to that effect. I know enough science to detect the smell of bullshit.
Then, you slandered him
Check his posting history. New account, created just for this purpose. He's a troll; trolls provoke arguments about inane subjects just for the hell of it. Look at the whole tone of the submission "this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing". WTF is that except a deliberate attempt to start a flame war?
In the case of the quoted part about sexual 'preying' on minors, while disgusting...and I'm talking more about plain text, I'm not sure how it can be illegal? How could the person on the other end know it really was or was not a minor? If it was not a minor they were talking to (but, instead a cop), then what crime was commited since no minor was exposed to the content?
I find it hard to justify any prison time for such an act. It seems too much like precrime. Though having the "predator" know that he's being watched, and from now on will be on the suspect list should a real crime be committed, should considerably reduce his propensity to commit such acts.
Combined with sounds for guaranteed attention, and the value of your account identity (say, "Anshe Chung" or "Prokofy Neva" - two usernames with a lot of community knowledge), and you have yourself a legitimate reason for calling it "rape".
No you don't. I've had arguments online, been called names (and called people names). But when people try to threaten me as they would in real life "I'll beat the shit out of you", I just laugh. Even if they created an animation of themselves beating me up, it's not assault, it's just just patterns on my monitor. To call such things "rape" or "assault" trivialises the real crimes.
My first inclination would be to attempt to receive the fax, not only is there a lack of ways to do so in your situation
Presumably he has a PC. Connect the phone to a modem (you can get a used modem for very little or free now; especially a 28k or 14k, which are still fast enough for fax). Dig up some old fax software (a few minutes with Google; though many modems used to come with a bundle of software including Winfax or an equivalent). Set it to auto answer after a certain time.
I was talking about the editors' end, for checking stories. That's already there, but they don't use it. It'd be nice to have it for posts, but that would be a lot more load on the servers.
The troll himself speaks. You seem to have created this account a few days ago, no doubt specifically to post this story and enjoy the fallout.
Please don't pretend you believe this static electric universe nonsense. You got the result you wanted, lots of people buzizng anf made Cowboy Neal look like an fool.
I've used Slashcode, the backend of the site, elsewhere. It has a spellcheck built in. But they can't even be bothered to use it. So expecting any semblance of professionalism here is futile.
Not that I'm supporting it, but the argument here would be that your basic skill set determines your class in life and the types of jobs you can hold. If "office worker" isn't in that skill set, there's a whole job sector cut off from you
You don't learn to be an "office worker" by playing with a laptop for 4 years. You may notice than offices are for the most part, full of people who did not have laptops at school, or even university. I certainly didn't.
My daughter is nine, her school has a computer lab. They learn a little word processing, MSPaint, and spend most of their time playing online games. Basically, a complete waste of time. I'd much rather she was reading a book. Touch typing is about the only useful skill that will transfer, and that can be learnt in a few weeks.
This one is so bogus that it is suprising it slipped through
Obligatory: You must be new here.
There is no quality control on stories. No spellchecks, no dupe check, no URL check, no credibility checks. Obvious hoaxes and twisted interpretations are given full weight. The only questions asked are 1) Can I think of a funny "From-the-XXX-department" line?; 2) Will it stir up discussion?
If the submitter actually belived this bullshit, it would just be crackpottery. But more likely it's some bored geek trying to stir up controversy, the language suggests the latter. That's a troll. Of course, the "crippling ignorance" is Cowboy Neal's, for accepting it at face value.
Well, my wife is Chinese, and it's the experience she describes of her youth. Yes, that was pre-1978.
You did say "has long been a hive culture". The 70s were the Cultural Revolution: a decade-long nightmare. Though the youth of the time may have believed in it, most adults were playacting and reverted to rationality when Mao died and the Red Guards lost power. It wasn't representative of normal Chinese culture. Chinese have always put their families first, despite all the patriotic songs.
. ISTM that China has long been a "hive" culture, where everyone is expected to work for the good of all.
That's never been true, despite propaganda (Chinese and foreign). Most especially, not since about 1978 when Deng Xiaoping started his open door policy of economic reform: "to get rich is glorious". Now China is more like 19th C industrial revolution England, complete with "satanic mills", exploited workers and nouveau riche capitalists.
I find it ironic that copyright law was getting so much attention recently because of the AACS key being posted everywhere, and now we see this. While I am against the current length of copyright, this sort of blatant infringement (especially of newer characters such as Shrek) is outrageous.
It may be outrageous, but it's not much to do with copyright. You can't "copyright" a theme park, a character, costume, a voice, etc. You can copyright a work of art, like a book, a movie or a song. However, Disney surely has registered trademarks in China, which do cover all their characters. (Thus the ubiquitous (R) symbols on Disney products.) And trademarks last forever, if the owner keeps them in use.
Of course, every movie Disney has made is available in China on DVD for about 50 cents each, which certainly is copyright infringement, but that's another issue.
Long ago I found myself looking after the accounting system for a bookshop, purely because no one else in the company had half a clue. So I made a system to back up the large and expensive (for those days) database of inventory and sales; using a box of floppies with five sets. The staff would back up each day before shutting down. When the system booted it ran Norton Disk Doctor to check the integrity of the system.
One day I got a call that it wouldn't boot. Turns out the hard disk is corrupted. So time to get a new hard disk and restore the backup. EVERY backup set was corrupt. It turned out that for a few weeks, the Disk Doctor had come up with a series of warnings of disk errors. The staff had just clicked ignore. So damage in the file system grew until it was irretrievable, and after a week all the backups were of a corrupt database. Fortunately the company was going bankrupt by then so ultimately it didn't matter....
You must be new here... I've seen it three times on screen at once.
I used to comment on it, but Taco got pretty hostile, he called me an asshole for mentioning it. And there are plenty of fellow travellers who'll mod you troll as well. So I gave up. They're illiterate and proud of it. As hopeless as pointing out the dupes, the three-year-old blog messages promoted as "news", or the hoaxes taken at face value.
Slashdot Mirror
No.
Well, we had about 80 Australian tourists blown up in Bali by fanatics who wanted to protest against American policies, and thought we were close enough. Unfortunatley, while they were actually correct in that, the Americans themselves hardly noticed.
Yes, because reading a list of email addresses is so stimulating.
Do you imagine a "pervert" would randomly send out solicitations? If he did, he'd be on the FBI's watch list within the hour, and arranging "meet ups" that would send him directly to jail.
The "theory" is as well-founded as Flat Earth. There are many qualified physicists who posted to that effect. I know enough science to detect the smell of bullshit.
Then, you slandered him
Check his posting history. New account, created just for this purpose. He's a troll; trolls provoke arguments about inane subjects just for the hell of it. Look at the whole tone of the submission "this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing". WTF is that except a deliberate attempt to start a flame war?
I find it hard to justify any prison time for such an act. It seems too much like precrime. Though having the "predator" know that he's being watched, and from now on will be on the suspect list should a real crime be committed, should considerably reduce his propensity to commit such acts.
No you don't. I've had arguments online, been called names (and called people names). But when people try to threaten me as they would in real life "I'll beat the shit out of you", I just laugh. Even if they created an animation of themselves beating me up, it's not assault, it's just just patterns on my monitor. To call such things "rape" or "assault" trivialises the real crimes.
Presumably he has a PC. Connect the phone to a modem (you can get a used modem for very little or free now; especially a 28k or 14k, which are still fast enough for fax). Dig up some old fax software (a few minutes with Google; though many modems used to come with a bundle of software including Winfax or an equivalent). Set it to auto answer after a certain time.
I was talking about the editors' end, for checking stories. That's already there, but they don't use it. It'd be nice to have it for posts, but that would be a lot more load on the servers.
Please don't pretend you believe this static electric universe nonsense. You got the result you wanted, lots of people buzizng anf made Cowboy Neal look like an fool.
Fuck off now, please.
I've used Slashcode, the backend of the site, elsewhere. It has a spellcheck built in. But they can't even be bothered to use it. So expecting any semblance of professionalism here is futile.
Exactly. It was published regardless. So what's the point?
You don't learn to be an "office worker" by playing with a laptop for 4 years. You may notice than offices are for the most part, full of people who did not have laptops at school, or even university. I certainly didn't.
My daughter is nine, her school has a computer lab. They learn a little word processing, MSPaint, and spend most of their time playing online games. Basically, a complete waste of time. I'd much rather she was reading a book. Touch typing is about the only useful skill that will transfer, and that can be learnt in a few weeks.
If enough people do that it should show up.
Obligatory: You must be new here.
There is no quality control on stories. No spellchecks, no dupe check, no URL check, no credibility checks. Obvious hoaxes and twisted interpretations are given full weight. The only questions asked are 1) Can I think of a funny "From-the-XXX-department" line?; 2) Will it stir up discussion?
If the submitter actually belived this bullshit, it would just be crackpottery. But more likely it's some bored geek trying to stir up controversy, the language suggests the latter. That's a troll. Of course, the "crippling ignorance" is Cowboy Neal's, for accepting it at face value.
You should ask them.
Significant, yes. Dominant, no. People just pay lip service to communist ideals now.
Again, obviously.
You did say "has long been a hive culture". The 70s were the Cultural Revolution: a decade-long nightmare. Though the youth of the time may have believed in it, most adults were playacting and reverted to rationality when Mao died and the Red Guards lost power. It wasn't representative of normal Chinese culture. Chinese have always put their families first, despite all the patriotic songs.
Well, I thought that was obvious. As you know, the authorised ones sell for at least several times that.
That's never been true, despite propaganda (Chinese and foreign). Most especially, not since about 1978 when Deng Xiaoping started his open door policy of economic reform: "to get rich is glorious". Now China is more like 19th C industrial revolution England, complete with "satanic mills", exploited workers and nouveau riche capitalists.
It may be outrageous, but it's not much to do with copyright. You can't "copyright" a theme park, a character, costume, a voice, etc. You can copyright a work of art, like a book, a movie or a song. However, Disney surely has registered trademarks in China, which do cover all their characters. (Thus the ubiquitous (R) symbols on Disney products.) And trademarks last forever, if the owner keeps them in use.
Of course, every movie Disney has made is available in China on DVD for about 50 cents each, which certainly is copyright infringement, but that's another issue.
Did I say otherwise? It's just a related anecdote.
One day I got a call that it wouldn't boot. Turns out the hard disk is corrupted. So time to get a new hard disk and restore the backup. EVERY backup set was corrupt. It turned out that for a few weeks, the Disk Doctor had come up with a series of warnings of disk errors. The staff had just clicked ignore. So damage in the file system grew until it was irretrievable, and after a week all the backups were of a corrupt database. Fortunately the company was going bankrupt by then so ultimately it didn't matter....
You must be new here... I've seen it three times on screen at once.
I used to comment on it, but Taco got pretty hostile, he called me an asshole for mentioning it. And there are plenty of fellow travellers who'll mod you troll as well. So I gave up. They're illiterate and proud of it. As hopeless as pointing out the dupes, the three-year-old blog messages promoted as "news", or the hoaxes taken at face value.