It doesn't have to be a PhD - but if someone who doesn't have experience in the area is ridiculing someone who works and researches in the area, they have every right to tell them to STFU.
The point you are missing is that many of these people have spent time carefully explaining it to people who don't have a clue. And it doesn't work one bit.
And the fact that you reduce the argument to lay people having just as valid a say, then that tells me all I need to know. If you presented evidence about a scientific theory that was alternate to human caused climate change, then I would consider it of interest. But since it's just "Any old guy should be able to challenge what scientists say, they're just people walled up in Universities, obviously someone who works in the Real World knows better than scientists", it's made it clear that we're actually just talking about the same issues as we see with Intelligent Design, Homeopathy, other kinds of pseudo-science, and the guy who insists that 0.9 recurring isn't equal to 1.
But in both cases, the reality is, you are putting your information in someone else's hands. You are posting your information to the Internet. Even if the companies involved had the best of intentions, and even if those intentions could never change, you are now trusting their ability to protect your information in a complex security environment.
So I take it you never put information into someone else's hands - using email, IM, shopping online, online banking? Well why stop at online - the same argument applies in the real world. Everytime you tell someone something, you're putting the information in someone else's hands, there's nothing special about "the Internet", let alone "social networking" sites.
Of course I fully agree that people should minimise what information they share (and is why I oppose various Government data sharing plans that sometimes rear their heads), but that doesn't mean it's useful to go to the extreme of not sharing any information at all with anyone.
What happens when management changes and decides to change the deal? What happens when they get hacked? When their server backups get misplaced? When they receive a court order demanding your information?
And you think that these issues only apply to "social networking" sites?
Thank you Captain Obvious - it's so easy to make a prediction about how trustworthy a "social networking web site" is (as opposed to many other kinds of online services, such as email or IM), after the fact that it's happened.
No doubt if Google ever accidently leak people's details or messages, you'll be along here right after the fact to tell people how any information put into an email web site is bound to leak one way or another.
So the real question is, do you not reveal any information online? Well to be fair, since you don't even have a Slashdot account, at least you're consistent...
We're not talking about people making their data public for everyone to see - the issue is people who marked their data to be viewed by a restricted set of people, and that's now been made public without their consent.
Now if you're saying you shouldn't do anything online that you don't want public, I don't think this is a valid argument - by that argument, people shouldn't discuss anything using email or IM (which typically rely on free services), and they certainly shouldn't be doing online banking.
Okay sure, I trust my bank far more than Facebook, but that's another matter - there's no intrinsic reason why one should expect private data to suddenly become public. And in general, I'm not sure that the so called "social networking" companies are less trustworthy than companies offering email or IM.
And Slashdot falls into this category too - we make profiles, we provide the content that attracts users, sorry, ad-viewers, and the advertisers are the customers who pay for it.
I'll start my own store, but what good does that do me if all the malls are owned by private companies? My customers will be subject to their rules whether I want them to or not, because they have to walk through the mall to reach my store.
The only reason local bars cannot install cameras in the girls bathroom is the expectation of privacy. When you go to the mall you have no expectation of privacy outside of the bathroom.
Says who? Remember, you said "It's their property they can do what they want with it." You never qualified that with expectations of privacy.
The point is that there's no black and white issue here. Anyone can assert that you either do or don't have an "expectation of privacy" in a particular location - you're just making it up as you go along.
You first made the argument "It's their property they can do what they want with it." - the example of the bathrooms shows that this isn't true. So do you now concede that you are wrong? If so, what is your argument?
In which case, there's a problem if vast swathes of open land are actually privately owned, with no way of public access.
If a shop owner doesn't want me in his shop, fine. But if the land owner who grants access to all the shops decides to refuse me permission onto the land - even though the shops might want my custom - that's a problem. It's no better than a troll stopping people walking across his bridge - even if it is his bridge, it's a problem if all your bridges are owned by trolls.
There are various ways round this, for example right of way laws (in the UK in some cases, people have a right of access, even if you own the land - it stops people buying up a load of land and blocking access), or simply regulating the amount of land in shopping areas that can be sold privately. The local authorities regulate all sorts of other things, such as who can sell alcohol, or needing planning permission to build - the idea that the authorities should sit by and let people's ability to access shops selling basic necessities be taken away, just because "it's a private corporation", seems mad.
It's no different from me running facial recognition against people who walk up my stairs. (which i dont do btw..)
It's not at all the same. We don't consider all "private" lands to be equal - there are all sorts of laws that apply in "private" areas such as shops (e.g., no smoking bans, discrimination laws, employment laws), that would never apply in your private home.
Indeed, and it's good to see this response here on Slashdot. The forum Gamedev.net is a great forum for games development, but it's depressing to see that there's a lot of people there who jerk their knee at any hobby project that remotely resembles a clone. ("It's probably illegal, you'll have to get a lawyer!") Despite the fact that commercial games do it all the time.
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Civilization - it had the commercial clones such as Call To Power, and then of course there's games like FreeCiv that no one has a problem with. And Civilization itself borrowed ideas from earlier games such as Empire...
(There's was also that recent uproar over Civony, now Evony, about its bad advertising practices - the criticisms were valid, but it was a shame to see some people also deciding to add to the criticism that it was a "rip off" of Civilization. If someone brings us an online Civilization, preferably without the bad advertising, then good luck to them I say.)
If that's your attitude, then don't - the rest of the world will happily tick along, with people having ideas and getting along fine, without worrying about them getting sued because you claim you had the idea first.
It's sad that some people and companies behave like 12 year olds - "Wah! You can't do that, that's my idea!" said the schoolkid.
Indeed - Samsung are the 2nd largest phone company in terms of market share (second only to Nokia), and they have plenty of "smart"phones (especially if you use a definition broad enough to include the Iphone - that would include most phones).
Of course, perhaps to Slashdot and the media they've "entered", because they seem to have some distorted idea that the mobile phone market consists of Apple in the lead, with the only competition being from Blackberry and Android. The reality is nothing of the sort. (E.g., this random page I found gives Nokia at 35%, Samsung 2nd at 31%, basically a whole load of companies who virtually never get Slashdot coverage - and Apple, who get Daily Iphone Slashvertisements, at 4% - and that's one of the higher estimates I've seen for Apple.)
Presumably what the article meant to say is that they've entered the smartphone OS wars, in that I believe that previously they'd used off the shelf OSs like Windows Mobile and Android? Comparing to the Iphone or the Droid doesn't make sense, since this is a new OS, it should be compared to OSs such as Symbian and Android (and if they were going to compare to products rather than OS, please, at least pick some of the major sellers rather than ones with small market share).
At $0.99 per song, and even accepting the ludicrous assertion that every copy is a lost sale, that works out to every song having been downloaded from him an average of almost 22,000 complete times. Do you seriously think that's likely? That's one hell of a seeder!
but to another point they should be a deterrent to the crime
Sure, if someone is convicted of a crime, with proof beyond reasonable doubt, extra measures for deterrence and punishment are fine.
But in a civil case? No way. Especially when the burden of proof is on the balance of probabilities.
This reminds me of a story I read today, about UK shops suing suspected shoplifters rather than prosecuting, and going after RIAA-style damages. Much like the RIAA cases, there's the problem that they can request outrageous amounts (e.g., £87.50 for a 60p item, or £1207 for a suspected £7 discrepency in takings against a cashier), and people may be pressured into giving in without a fight (especially with the pressure from heavy handed debt collector thugs).
Worse, even if they do take it to court, they are now facing a battle not beyond reasonable doubt, but "on the balance of probabilities". Now sure, if what happened was "well we're not sure who's telling the truth, so tell you what, pay 30p / £3.50", then fine. But it's ludicrous that excessive punititive damages are lumped in, when the person has not been convicted of a crime, or otherwise had the case proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Related examples include downloading a TV programme that aired on a TV channel you pay for (or otherwise legally access) - surely this kind of timeshifting should be no different to videotaping it?
Or for those in the UK, what about a TV licence payer downloading material paid for by the BBC?
Or if you're Lily Allen, what about making a mix tape of copyrighted material without permission, and sharing it on a EMI's website for the purpose of advertising your own commercial work?
The current situation seems to be that that first two would risk you getting sued (or disconnected when new laws come in in the UK), whilst the third is just fine...
There are some attempts - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOAF_(software) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID (the latter being a great way to comment on a friend's page who uses a different server to the one you're registered with - unfortunately it has a bad reputation here on Slashdot by clueless people who mistakenly think it's supposed to be something to replace your bank account login method with).
There's a place for both ways, but I still think streaming is done not because it's better, simply because there's often no legal choice at that level of cost. Certainly I've had the experience of paying for my "video streaming" service, only to have the TV series cut off half way through: when Virgin Media and Sky had a petty fight a few years ago, and VM decided to cut the Sky channels because they couldn't afford the 3p a day (was I as a customer even offered if I wanted to pay that 3p a day? Nope. Did I get a 3p a day reduction in my bill? Nope.)
TV is okay for background noise or when you just want something to randomly watch, but it's not something to rely on to watch a series.
Indeed - someone could spend 10 years constructing by hand a custom new smartphone from scratch, to build into a Christmas card that had its own AI to greet the recipient, and it would get lost in the Firehose. Yet take some double sided sticky tape thing you made earlier, put the magic words "With An Iphone" on it, and bam, instant Front Page News. I'm surprised the BBC haven't picked it up.
Since everyone here raves about it. In the Real World by comparison, it's only about a few percent market share. (Although yes, I agree with this post - I'd say that Slashdot seems a lot less of a geek place these days, when the support and coverage is thrown towards the most closed systems on the market; a far cry from the Slashdot of years ago.)
Be fair though, everyone knows that before Apple came along with this Iphone card, no one was able to send Christmas cards to each other. Sure, Christmas cards existed, but but - well Apple did it better, in a way that I can't actually explain, so therefore it is Apple who invented and popularised the Christmas card.
In fact, even Christmas as we know it wouldn't exist without the Jesus phone.
Therefore it's as newsworthy as every other Daily Iphone story we get here on Iphonedot.
Indeed - and it would surely make sense for everyone else to opt out of this settlement, since none of us gain anything from it. At worst, there's no difference, and at best, maybe another class action from people who opt out will do better:)
Of course, since I haven't received an email, I don't even have a clue how to opt out - I don't see how that can be legal.
That would make sense if everyone in that class was receiving some of the settlement, but in fact only those who sued them are receiving anything, according to TFA. How can I give up my right to sue, because someone else sues, profits from it, when I'm not even aware of it?
If I'm included by default, I'll have my share of the settlement. If not, then Facebook agree to pay me $1,000 unless they opt out...
Slashdot Mirror
Wait - are you seriously suggesting that if the relationship between two variables isn't directly linear, then the relationship must be insignificant?
This obviously doesn't have to be true, even if there are no other factors involved.
It doesn't have to be a PhD - but if someone who doesn't have experience in the area is ridiculing someone who works and researches in the area, they have every right to tell them to STFU.
The point you are missing is that many of these people have spent time carefully explaining it to people who don't have a clue. And it doesn't work one bit.
And the fact that you reduce the argument to lay people having just as valid a say, then that tells me all I need to know. If you presented evidence about a scientific theory that was alternate to human caused climate change, then I would consider it of interest. But since it's just "Any old guy should be able to challenge what scientists say, they're just people walled up in Universities, obviously someone who works in the Real World knows better than scientists", it's made it clear that we're actually just talking about the same issues as we see with Intelligent Design, Homeopathy, other kinds of pseudo-science, and the guy who insists that 0.9 recurring isn't equal to 1.
But in both cases, the reality is, you are putting your information in someone else's hands. You are posting your information to the Internet. Even if the companies involved had the best of intentions, and even if those intentions could never change, you are now trusting their ability to protect your information in a complex security environment.
So I take it you never put information into someone else's hands - using email, IM, shopping online, online banking? Well why stop at online - the same argument applies in the real world. Everytime you tell someone something, you're putting the information in someone else's hands, there's nothing special about "the Internet", let alone "social networking" sites.
Of course I fully agree that people should minimise what information they share (and is why I oppose various Government data sharing plans that sometimes rear their heads), but that doesn't mean it's useful to go to the extreme of not sharing any information at all with anyone.
What happens when management changes and decides to change the deal? What happens when they get hacked? When their server backups get misplaced? When they receive a court order demanding your information?
And you think that these issues only apply to "social networking" sites?
Thank you Captain Obvious - it's so easy to make a prediction about how trustworthy a "social networking web site" is (as opposed to many other kinds of online services, such as email or IM), after the fact that it's happened.
No doubt if Google ever accidently leak people's details or messages, you'll be along here right after the fact to tell people how any information put into an email web site is bound to leak one way or another.
So the real question is, do you not reveal any information online? Well to be fair, since you don't even have a Slashdot account, at least you're consistent...
We're not talking about people making their data public for everyone to see - the issue is people who marked their data to be viewed by a restricted set of people, and that's now been made public without their consent.
Now if you're saying you shouldn't do anything online that you don't want public, I don't think this is a valid argument - by that argument, people shouldn't discuss anything using email or IM (which typically rely on free services), and they certainly shouldn't be doing online banking.
Okay sure, I trust my bank far more than Facebook, but that's another matter - there's no intrinsic reason why one should expect private data to suddenly become public. And in general, I'm not sure that the so called "social networking" companies are less trustworthy than companies offering email or IM.
And Slashdot falls into this category too - we make profiles, we provide the content that attracts users, sorry, ad-viewers, and the advertisers are the customers who pay for it.
I'll start my own store, but what good does that do me if all the malls are owned by private companies? My customers will be subject to their rules whether I want them to or not, because they have to walk through the mall to reach my store.
The only reason local bars cannot install cameras in the girls bathroom is the expectation of privacy. When you go to the mall you have no expectation of privacy outside of the bathroom.
Says who? Remember, you said "It's their property they can do what they want with it." You never qualified that with expectations of privacy.
The point is that there's no black and white issue here. Anyone can assert that you either do or don't have an "expectation of privacy" in a particular location - you're just making it up as you go along.
You first made the argument "It's their property they can do what they want with it." - the example of the bathrooms shows that this isn't true. So do you now concede that you are wrong? If so, what is your argument?
In which case, there's a problem if vast swathes of open land are actually privately owned, with no way of public access.
If a shop owner doesn't want me in his shop, fine. But if the land owner who grants access to all the shops decides to refuse me permission onto the land - even though the shops might want my custom - that's a problem. It's no better than a troll stopping people walking across his bridge - even if it is his bridge, it's a problem if all your bridges are owned by trolls.
There are various ways round this, for example right of way laws (in the UK in some cases, people have a right of access, even if you own the land - it stops people buying up a load of land and blocking access), or simply regulating the amount of land in shopping areas that can be sold privately. The local authorities regulate all sorts of other things, such as who can sell alcohol, or needing planning permission to build - the idea that the authorities should sit by and let people's ability to access shops selling basic necessities be taken away, just because "it's a private corporation", seems mad.
It's no different from me running facial recognition against people who walk up my stairs. (which i dont do btw..)
It's not at all the same. We don't consider all "private" lands to be equal - there are all sorts of laws that apply in "private" areas such as shops (e.g., no smoking bans, discrimination laws, employment laws), that would never apply in your private home.
Indeed, and it's good to see this response here on Slashdot. The forum Gamedev.net is a great forum for games development, but it's depressing to see that there's a lot of people there who jerk their knee at any hobby project that remotely resembles a clone. ("It's probably illegal, you'll have to get a lawyer!") Despite the fact that commercial games do it all the time.
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Civilization - it had the commercial clones such as Call To Power, and then of course there's games like FreeCiv that no one has a problem with. And Civilization itself borrowed ideas from earlier games such as Empire...
(There's was also that recent uproar over Civony, now Evony, about its bad advertising practices - the criticisms were valid, but it was a shame to see some people also deciding to add to the criticism that it was a "rip off" of Civilization. If someone brings us an online Civilization, preferably without the bad advertising, then good luck to them I say.)
If that's your attitude, then don't - the rest of the world will happily tick along, with people having ideas and getting along fine, without worrying about them getting sued because you claim you had the idea first.
It's sad that some people and companies behave like 12 year olds - "Wah! You can't do that, that's my idea!" said the schoolkid.
Indeed - Samsung are the 2nd largest phone company in terms of market share (second only to Nokia), and they have plenty of "smart"phones (especially if you use a definition broad enough to include the Iphone - that would include most phones).
Of course, perhaps to Slashdot and the media they've "entered", because they seem to have some distorted idea that the mobile phone market consists of Apple in the lead, with the only competition being from Blackberry and Android. The reality is nothing of the sort. (E.g., this random page I found gives Nokia at 35%, Samsung 2nd at 31%, basically a whole load of companies who virtually never get Slashdot coverage - and Apple, who get Daily Iphone Slashvertisements, at 4% - and that's one of the higher estimates I've seen for Apple.)
Presumably what the article meant to say is that they've entered the smartphone OS wars, in that I believe that previously they'd used off the shelf OSs like Windows Mobile and Android? Comparing to the Iphone or the Droid doesn't make sense, since this is a new OS, it should be compared to OSs such as Symbian and Android (and if they were going to compare to products rather than OS, please, at least pick some of the major sellers rather than ones with small market share).
At $0.99 per song, and even accepting the ludicrous assertion that every copy is a lost sale, that works out to every song having been downloaded from him an average of almost 22,000 complete times. Do you seriously think that's likely? That's one hell of a seeder!
but to another point they should be a deterrent to the crime
Sure, if someone is convicted of a crime, with proof beyond reasonable doubt, extra measures for deterrence and punishment are fine.
But in a civil case? No way. Especially when the burden of proof is on the balance of probabilities.
This reminds me of a story I read today, about UK shops suing suspected shoplifters rather than prosecuting, and going after RIAA-style damages. Much like the RIAA cases, there's the problem that they can request outrageous amounts (e.g., £87.50 for a 60p item, or £1207 for a suspected £7 discrepency in takings against a cashier), and people may be pressured into giving in without a fight (especially with the pressure from heavy handed debt collector thugs).
Worse, even if they do take it to court, they are now facing a battle not beyond reasonable doubt, but "on the balance of probabilities". Now sure, if what happened was "well we're not sure who's telling the truth, so tell you what, pay 30p / £3.50", then fine. But it's ludicrous that excessive punititive damages are lumped in, when the person has not been convicted of a crime, or otherwise had the case proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Related examples include downloading a TV programme that aired on a TV channel you pay for (or otherwise legally access) - surely this kind of timeshifting should be no different to videotaping it?
Or for those in the UK, what about a TV licence payer downloading material paid for by the BBC?
Or if you're Lily Allen, what about making a mix tape of copyrighted material without permission, and sharing it on a EMI's website for the purpose of advertising your own commercial work?
The current situation seems to be that that first two would risk you getting sued (or disconnected when new laws come in in the UK), whilst the third is just fine...
There are some attempts - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOAF_(software) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID (the latter being a great way to comment on a friend's page who uses a different server to the one you're registered with - unfortunately it has a bad reputation here on Slashdot by clueless people who mistakenly think it's supposed to be something to replace your bank account login method with).
It's non-nonsensical
You're right - it isn't nonsensical.
There's a place for both ways, but I still think streaming is done not because it's better, simply because there's often no legal choice at that level of cost. Certainly I've had the experience of paying for my "video streaming" service, only to have the TV series cut off half way through: when Virgin Media and Sky had a petty fight a few years ago, and VM decided to cut the Sky channels because they couldn't afford the 3p a day (was I as a customer even offered if I wanted to pay that 3p a day? Nope. Did I get a 3p a day reduction in my bill? Nope.)
TV is okay for background noise or when you just want something to randomly watch, but it's not something to rely on to watch a series.
But I'm from Scunthorphe, and I was merely trying to talk about my pet raccoon!
Indeed - someone could spend 10 years constructing by hand a custom new smartphone from scratch, to build into a Christmas card that had its own AI to greet the recipient, and it would get lost in the Firehose. Yet take some double sided sticky tape thing you made earlier, put the magic words "With An Iphone" on it, and bam, instant Front Page News. I'm surprised the BBC haven't picked it up.
Since everyone here raves about it. In the Real World by comparison, it's only about a few percent market share. (Although yes, I agree with this post - I'd say that Slashdot seems a lot less of a geek place these days, when the support and coverage is thrown towards the most closed systems on the market; a far cry from the Slashdot of years ago.)
And there I was wondering why they chose an Apple product - good point.
Be fair though, everyone knows that before Apple came along with this Iphone card, no one was able to send Christmas cards to each other. Sure, Christmas cards existed, but but - well Apple did it better, in a way that I can't actually explain, so therefore it is Apple who invented and popularised the Christmas card.
In fact, even Christmas as we know it wouldn't exist without the Jesus phone.
Therefore it's as newsworthy as every other Daily Iphone story we get here on Iphonedot.
But, but, but ... it's an Iphone! It's on the Iphone! It's some trivial activity, but it was done with an Iphone, so it's front page news!
You see, it's not a slow news day, it's just that they couldn't find anything else for today's Daily Iphone Slashvertisement.
Anyhow, I approve - best use I've seen for an Iphone.
Indeed - and it would surely make sense for everyone else to opt out of this settlement, since none of us gain anything from it. At worst, there's no difference, and at best, maybe another class action from people who opt out will do better :)
Of course, since I haven't received an email, I don't even have a clue how to opt out - I don't see how that can be legal.
That would make sense if everyone in that class was receiving some of the settlement, but in fact only those who sued them are receiving anything, according to TFA. How can I give up my right to sue, because someone else sues, profits from it, when I'm not even aware of it?
If I'm included by default, I'll have my share of the settlement. If not, then Facebook agree to pay me $1,000 unless they opt out...