Don't kid yourself, 99.9% of these searchers are going to be something along the lines of.. "Girls with mutual friends who became single in the last month" "Single girls near me whose status contains 'drunkkk' more than twice a week" Combine this with imaging searching = awesome "Girls that have dated guys that look like me"
"Hot drunk girls near me who have dated ugly guys like me" No Results Found? Doh!
For the record, Columbine had *armed guards*. But, hey, don't let facts get in the way of a good story...
For the record, Columbine did not have "armed guards". It had a "community resource officer" (singular). Who was sitting in his car at the edge of campus having lunch at the time. Why was he doing this instead of guarding the school? Answer: Because he wasn't a guard.
No - and I'd be really REALLY surprised if he didn't end up with a plea deal for less than 4 years and end up getting out on probation in 2 or less.
To take such a plea deal, if it were offered, would require he plead guilty to a felony. That he admit he was wrong, and express remorse. So, even once he gets out, his life's over -- he has surrendered his principles by pleading guilty and lost all societal opportunity through the felony conviction.
Were he to not take such a deal, the prosecutor would go through with the other side of the deal -- decades in one of the nastier federal prisons, to make an example out of those who won't play ball. He'd likely never get out of that, certainly not physically or psychologically intact.
So I see why suicide looked like a rational decision. It was less of a surrender than the first option, and a less horrible death than the second.
so... how about seeing a doctor, nutritionist and figuring out just what diet (and exercise regimen) is likely to work?
Because they have no clue either? And further when you're fooling yourself, you can fool your doctor or nutritionist just as easily. (Well, they might not believe you, but contradicting you won't help).
The White House Petition to fire US Attorney Carmen Ortiz for her misconduct in this case already has 9,026 signatures - please sign!
This petition thing has really been effective at wasting people's efforts. You do realize the only thing which happens if this gets enough signatures is there's a response which boils down to "No", right?
I don't disagree with you in general. If he won, however, he would have had a possibility of furthering the cause of changing this broken system using his visibility and story.
Had this gone to court, he had no chance of winning. Zero. The prosecutor would say scary things about him, the jurors would take the "the law is the law" attitude (because anyone who doesn't, doesn't get on a jury) and convict him. Then the judge would go ahead and give him a high sentence, on the recommendation of the prosecutor, who would assure the judge that Swartz was a dangerous cyberterrorist or whatever.
His conviction might make page 2 of the technology section of a few newspapers (and, of course, Slashdot). Mostly, nobody would hear about it at all.
Look, I'm not saying that it would be easy, but if this was an act of civil disobedience, criminal charges are a possible outcome of anything like that. The goal of doing something technically illegal is often to show the world how unfair the current situation is.
The world doesn't give a shit. They could have sentenced him to 35 years and all he'd get is a mention on Slashdot (and the world at large doesn't give a shit what us geeks think) and maybe a footnote in a newspaper.
Were these potentially unreasonable charges and sentences for this kind of "computer/copyright crime" where no one was physically hurt? Hell, yes. If guilty, I think this whole thing deserves little more than a trespassing sentence. But I still don't understand why suicide was the way he took out of a daunting legal situation while there were any other options. And I don't mean he should have caved in to a guilty plea on lesser charges, or accepted that he was going to have to spend millions of dollars of his own money to fight the charges.
I guarantee you the prosecutor made perfectly clear what was going to happen to him if he didn't take whatever deal was offered. And that's probably why he killed himself.
I'm sure a lot of people would have helped him -- IF they had known. It was a principled stand on his part, and many people would support him financially and otherwise because of that.
Again, nobody with any power was on his side. Even half of slashdot is willing to consign him to Hades for violating the law. Lawrence Lessig says what he did was morally wrong. With friends like that, you don't even need enemies.
Like I said, I just don't understand why it played out this way, and I also think people are heaping a bit too much blame on prosecutors for not realizing that Swartz would pick suicide over facing these inflated charges in court. If not even his friends and family realized that possibility, then how the hell could the prosecutors? It's tragic not only for what happened, but because apparently nobody had any inkling this would be the outcome.
Prosecutors give you two choices -- take what they offer, or accept torture and rape for decades in prison. When they come across someone too principled to deal who believes the other option is real (and it is), what else would they expect?
Oh please, federal prisons--especially the ones that rich white people accused of white collar crimes go to--are safe.
If you're co-operative, you might go to such a prison. If you insist on standing up for yourself, they make an example out of you by putting you in the pound-you-in-the-ass variety.
If he didn't want to be labeled a felon for the rest of his life, he shouldn't have committed something that he KNEW was a felony as a form of civil disobedience.
And so the tactic of civil disobedience is neutralized, simply by the other side raising the stakes.
It's a terrible tragedy, but I can't get beyond this feeling in my gut that what he did -- if true -- was still wrong, and there should have been some kind of legal repercussions. 30 years? No, that's utterly ridiculous. But the police and prosecutors were probably applying pressure in the hopes of getting a guilty plea to a lesser charge as the most reasonable way out.
He was probably unwilling to yield to such pressure. And do you know what happens when you don't? They go through with the maximum threatened and crush you like a bug. And everyone blames you for not accepting the lesser bargain.
According to Lessig, one of the hang-ups in negotiations was the potential label "felon". That's a big word with serious implications that last for years if convicted, but it also isn't the end of the world.
Actually, it pretty much is. Not for someone who makes a living committing crimes, of course. But for anyone who wants to ever make a good living honestly. Few companies hire felons for any but the most menial positions, and many companies even vet contractors for felonies as well.
And of course, there's always the question of whether he'd have survived prison. People willing to stand up for themselves, but without the personal physical strength to back it up, nor the social ability to assemble a gang of followers, are unlikely to do well in prison
Isn't that exactly what Google Music is doing now?
Not with CDs though, it supposedly will scan your music library, and add it to your "cloud" for free, without actually uploading anything.
Right, that's Music Match. The difference with Amazon is that they're not scanning anything; they're adding to your cloud library based on what you buy.
I haven't tried it yet, since I'm a bit paranoid that something that I didn't obtain legally back in college might still be hiding in my library, which will magically flag me as a bad person, so the RIAA can take all my money and leave me in a cardboard box... out of the spirit of fairness, of course.
"Magically" is right; unless you've got a never-released track, how could the RIAA possibly know it was illegal?
(Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on Music Match)
But the OS's own processes are regarded as sacrosanct, so the user interface just has to wait until they condescend to allow the user a few of their precious cycles.
You do understand, don't you, that the reason the user interface has to wait isn't because developers think our processes are more important than the users.... but because the user interface DEPENDS ON THOSE PROCESSES TO BE ABLE TO DISPLAY!
Car analogy: You're complaining the the engine management computer insists on doing its fuel map calculations before responding to the throttle.
Headline: "ASIO is already breaking into third-party computers unlawfully, but is tired of covering it up."
''The purpose of this power is to allow ASIO to access the computer of suspected terrorists and other security interests,'' : "The purpose of this power is power".
''(It would be used) in extremely limited circumstances and only when explicitly approved by the Attorney-General through a warrant.": "We'll use it whenever and order several redundant sets of rubber stamps for the warrants"
'The Attorney-General's Department refused to explain yesterday how third-party computers would be used, ''as this may divulge operationally sensitive information and methods used by ASIO in sensitive national security investigations.''' : "We use them for all sorts of things no one in their right mind would approve of"
Running would suck, but it would suck less than thirty years in a medieval federal prison. It probably wouldn't suck less than six months or a year, though, which is what he was realistically looking at.
How long do you think a geek lasts with his asshole unruptured in a medieval federal prison? Six months might as well be a death sentence in any case.
Would people quit using this as an example of doubt? Show a real, honest to God, in the wild example of a widely used backdoor inserting compiler, or just STFU about it because while it might be possible it isn't in anyway practical or plausible enough to mention.
Ken Thompson actually did that, it wasn't just a concept. So yes, it is both practical and plausible.
"For every case of self-protection homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 suicides involving firearms."
So self protection doesn't count if the attacker is shot but lives? Or if the defender fires but misses and the attacker runs away before the defender fires again? Or if the defender pulls the gun and points at the attacker, who discovers he has a pressing engagement elsewhere before the defender pulls the trigger?
Smart people know that we are never going to reduce gun violence unless we start filtering out the nutters and criminals right at the source, i.e. the gun shop or any other place where you can legally buy guns
Yeah, yeah. We know where that leads because anti-gun advocates have tipped their hands so many times, suggesting that anyone who wants a gun must be mentally unbalanced and therefore not allowed to have one.
and start making it mandatory for gun owners to undergo serious training before getting to own a gun.
Serious training? It's a gun. The original point and shoot interface (it has a point and click mode too, but only for certain types of training). Follow the simple rule of not pointing the thing at anything you don't want to put a hole in, and you're good.
How many gun crimes would have been prevented if the shooter had "serious training"?
Something like 90% of murders, the two people know each other because because of previous criminal involvement with each other.
This figure is false for the USA. Using the FBI figures for 2010, 12.5% of murders were committed by people who were strangers to one another. In 44% of murders, the relationship was unknown. 21% were "acquaintances", which would include but not be limited to people who know each other due to criminal involvement. The rest were family, friends, neighbors, and employer/employee relationships.
Verizon FIOS TV is actually the ONLY (that I know of anyway) TV provider that does NOT re-compress HDTV signals! They broadcast EXACTLY what the TV channel sends them. Comcast, Time Warner (and probably the other major cable companies) DO re-compress the signal, squeezing 3 channels into the space normally allocated for 2, in order to deliver more channels over their antiquated copper networks.
Comcast in the Philadelphia area gets a very high rate feed from the major stations, and compresses that to fit into a channel. They provide the same bit rate as the broadcast stations do. But this likely varies from system to system from the same providers.
On my current 37" LCD (capable of 720p, 1080i), I notice only a minimal difference between SD DVD's (480i) and HD Blu-rays.
DVDs are usually 480p (sometimes called EDTV), which is a lot better than the 480i broadcast SD.
And the difference between 480p DVD and 720p is quite visible if the source material is up to it -- compare a broadcast version of LOST against the DVD some day.
We're ok with all that because Saudi-Arabia has a whole lot of oil.
Um, Saudi Arabia. Sovereign nation and all that nonsense. Unlike, say, Texas, no matter what they think. Would you prefer we defended the freedom of Saudi Arabia's women by, say, invading the country and installing a puppet government headed by Hillary Clinton?
...is that it doesn't solve the division problem Gregory House once described: 5 doesn't go into 8. Internet dating does not make hot women attracted or in any way receptive to ugly guys. Since no matter how dim the lighting is, a fake profile picture will be found out, that leaves lying about your income... and if you were any good at lying convincingly, you could probably handle the bar scene.
Slashdot Mirror
"Hot drunk girls near me who have dated ugly guys like me"
No Results Found? Doh!
For the record, Columbine did not have "armed guards". It had a "community resource officer" (singular). Who was sitting in his car at the edge of campus having lunch at the time. Why was he doing this instead of guarding the school? Answer: Because he wasn't a guard.
To take such a plea deal, if it were offered, would require he plead guilty to a felony. That he admit he was wrong, and express remorse. So, even once he gets out, his life's over -- he has surrendered his principles by pleading guilty and lost all societal opportunity through the felony conviction.
Were he to not take such a deal, the prosecutor would go through with the other side of the deal -- decades in one of the nastier federal prisons, to make an example out of those who won't play ball. He'd likely never get out of that, certainly not physically or psychologically intact.
So I see why suicide looked like a rational decision. It was less of a surrender than the first option, and a less horrible death than the second.
Because they have no clue either? And further when you're fooling yourself, you can fool your doctor or nutritionist just as easily. (Well, they might not believe you, but contradicting you won't help).
This petition thing has really been effective at wasting people's efforts. You do realize the only thing which happens if this gets enough signatures is there's a response which boils down to "No", right?
Had this gone to court, he had no chance of winning. Zero. The prosecutor would say scary things about him, the jurors would take the "the law is the law" attitude (because anyone who doesn't, doesn't get on a jury) and convict him. Then the judge would go ahead and give him a high sentence, on the recommendation of the prosecutor, who would assure the judge that Swartz was a dangerous cyberterrorist or whatever.
His conviction might make page 2 of the technology section of a few newspapers (and, of course, Slashdot). Mostly, nobody would hear about it at all.
The world doesn't give a shit. They could have sentenced him to 35 years and all he'd get is a mention on Slashdot (and the world at large doesn't give a shit what us geeks think) and maybe a footnote in a newspaper.
I guarantee you the prosecutor made perfectly clear what was going to happen to him if he didn't take whatever deal was offered. And that's probably why he killed himself.
Again, nobody with any power was on his side. Even half of slashdot is willing to consign him to Hades for violating the law. Lawrence Lessig says what he did was morally wrong. With friends like that, you don't even need enemies.
Prosecutors give you two choices -- take what they offer, or accept torture and rape for decades in prison. When they come across someone too principled to deal who believes the other option is real (and it is), what else would they expect?
If you're co-operative, you might go to such a prison. If you insist on standing up for yourself, they make an example out of you by putting you in the pound-you-in-the-ass variety.
And so the tactic of civil disobedience is neutralized, simply by the other side raising the stakes.
He was probably unwilling to yield to such pressure. And do you know what happens when you don't? They go through with the maximum threatened and crush you like a bug. And everyone blames you for not accepting the lesser bargain.
Actually, it pretty much is. Not for someone who makes a living committing crimes, of course. But for anyone who wants to ever make a good living honestly. Few companies hire felons for any but the most menial positions, and many companies even vet contractors for felonies as well.
And of course, there's always the question of whether he'd have survived prison. People willing to stand up for themselves, but without the personal physical strength to back it up, nor the social ability to assemble a gang of followers, are unlikely to do well in prison
Right, that's Music Match. The difference with Amazon is that they're not scanning anything; they're adding to your cloud library based on what you buy.
"Magically" is right; unless you've got a never-released track, how could the RIAA possibly know it was illegal? (Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on Music Match)
You do understand, don't you, that the reason the user interface has to wait isn't because developers think our processes are more important than the users.... but because the user interface DEPENDS ON THOSE PROCESSES TO BE ABLE TO DISPLAY!
Car analogy: You're complaining the the engine management computer insists on doing its fuel map calculations before responding to the throttle.
Headline: "ASIO is already breaking into third-party computers unlawfully, but is tired of covering it up."
''The purpose of this power is to allow ASIO to access the computer of suspected terrorists and other security interests,'' : "The purpose of this power is power".
''(It would be used) in extremely limited circumstances and only when explicitly approved by the Attorney-General through a warrant.": "We'll use it whenever and order several redundant sets of rubber stamps for the warrants"
'The Attorney-General's Department refused to explain yesterday how third-party computers would be used, ''as this may divulge operationally sensitive information and methods used by ASIO in sensitive national security investigations.''' : "We use them for all sorts of things no one in their right mind would approve of"
How long do you think a geek lasts with his asshole unruptured in a medieval federal prison? Six months might as well be a death sentence in any case.
Ken Thompson actually did that, it wasn't just a concept. So yes, it is both practical and plausible.
In the US? Seems unlikely, since the Diamond Rio case explicitly found that to be fair use.
So self protection doesn't count if the attacker is shot but lives? Or if the defender fires but misses and the attacker runs away before the defender fires again? Or if the defender pulls the gun and points at the attacker, who discovers he has a pressing engagement elsewhere before the defender pulls the trigger?
Yeah, yeah. We know where that leads because anti-gun advocates have tipped their hands so many times, suggesting that anyone who wants a gun must be mentally unbalanced and therefore not allowed to have one.
Serious training? It's a gun. The original point and shoot interface (it has a point and click mode too, but only for certain types of training). Follow the simple rule of not pointing the thing at anything you don't want to put a hole in, and you're good.
How many gun crimes would have been prevented if the shooter had "serious training"?
This figure is false for the USA. Using the FBI figures for 2010, 12.5% of murders were committed by people who were strangers to one another. In 44% of murders, the relationship was unknown. 21% were "acquaintances", which would include but not be limited to people who know each other due to criminal involvement. The rest were family, friends, neighbors, and employer/employee relationships.
Comcast in the Philadelphia area gets a very high rate feed from the major stations, and compresses that to fit into a channel. They provide the same bit rate as the broadcast stations do. But this likely varies from system to system from the same providers.
DVDs are usually 480p (sometimes called EDTV), which is a lot better than the 480i broadcast SD.
And the difference between 480p DVD and 720p is quite visible if the source material is up to it -- compare a broadcast version of LOST against the DVD some day.
I called one a pig in the 90s.
Of course he then called his buddies over to clobber me and pepper spray me, but what do you expect from a pig?
That's not a "mental health breakdown". That's "resisting arrest" and "assaulting an officer" by damaging his knuckles over and over with your face.
Linux developers too!
Um, Saudi Arabia. Sovereign nation and all that nonsense. Unlike, say, Texas, no matter what they think. Would you prefer we defended the freedom of Saudi Arabia's women by, say, invading the country and installing a puppet government headed by Hillary Clinton?
...is that it doesn't solve the division problem Gregory House once described: 5 doesn't go into 8. Internet dating does not make hot women attracted or in any way receptive to ugly guys. Since no matter how dim the lighting is, a fake profile picture will be found out, that leaves lying about your income... and if you were any good at lying convincingly, you could probably handle the bar scene.