If you break the Patent Fiasco, you will pull the rug from under the medical equipment companies' racket. You will also bring down the drug manufacturing companies' racketeering. Both of those will go a long way towards fixing healthcare.
Sorry, but your argument fell flat as soon as you claimed that monarchies were liberal. Nobody cares if King X in country Y was half as ruthless as his father before him. Monarchs have no business existing in a modern society.
The point, surely, is not that I am necessarily a cryptographer, but that the
source is available to those who are. It's not necessary for every user to
independently audit the code, because the skilled individuals who do audit
the code can then communicate their findings.
Yes. Let me just add a nitpick. It is necessary that *any* user can *initiate* an independent audit of the code he personally received.
Merely trusting a community of experts who choose to publish their audits as they please is another form of argument from authority. It's a slippery slope to a world where the source code is only available to qualified experts, since there would be no point in making it available to nonqualified individuals.
Instead, the point of open source is that any user can hire an expert of their choosing, to work on source code as given to them (not source code the expert downloaded from a presumably equivalent source). AND THE PROBABILITY THAT SOME USERS ACTUALLY DO SO MUST BE STRICTLY POSITIVE.
because I find
it unlikely that all the world's cryptographers are conspiring to keep quiet
about any vulnerabilities they find the code.
Like nearly everybody, cryptographers tend to act in the best interests of their employers. That is why it is necessary for random users to hire such cryptographers every once in a while, as outlined above.
We cannot trust that the usual employers won't keep quiet about the findings for selfish reasons, eg large companies like Microsoft or Google sitting on discoveries until they can create and deploy a patch.
LOL. What the French revolution actually resulted in was a Europe wide change in the systems of laws, the empowerment of the middle classes, and a lot more social justice in the long term. It took the whole 19th century, and repeated revolutions in many countries for the full change to take effect.
Britain was the only successful hold out among the major European nations, and guess which country still has a class system and an idiosyncratic common law system to this day?
Blaming the French revolution for Napoleon doesn't do it justice. The French revolution caused so much, much more than just a short lived French Empire. And thank God for that.
I'm not sure how google is forcing you to broadcast private stuff; I don't
think they're forcing you to comment, are they? If you comment, and you know
that the comment will be tagged with your real name, then there is no force,
you just make a choice.
Easy. They are forcing you to choose between all your comments being around forever, or keeping quiet forever.
See, if one day you make a comment in real life to a friend, they probably won't remember next year what you said, and even so, nobody else is likely to even know what you said that day.
But Google spies on you all the time, and if you make a comment to a friend within range of a Google service, they will remember what you said in 10 years, and they will tell what you said to everybody who wants to snoop on you, for the rest of your life.
So your choice is: comment while being very careful what you say, or keep quiet. Better not use the internet while drunk, either.
Homer: On the water, under the water. On the water, under the water. Hey, this pentagon operations coordinator gig isn't so difficult at all. On the water, under the water. On the water, on the water. D'Oh!
Mathematically, having limits means you're dealing with compact manifolds.
If you're looking for reasons that systems evolve within a compact manifold, the idea that the system is being simulated isn't very likely. There are many other alternatives that can cause compactness. For example, constant positive curvature can indicate compactness.
You're a bit confused. Physics makes use of mathematical accounting devices a lot, but that doesn't mean those devices are necessarily taken as the literal truth (well, maybe by *some* physicists).
Take the many worlds hypothesis. It's existed for a _long_ time before quantum mechanics, at least since the first time somebody analysed a random walk. When you think about a random walk, at any moment there are two possibilities, eg go left or right, repeat at the next moment, etc. Technically, it's convenient to think of all possible paths as existing in parallel universes. The math turns out simpler than if you try to account for all the possible splits across time.
It's an accounting device, like using positive numbers for profit, and negative numbers for losses. That doesn't mean people believe negative money exists.
The copenhagen interpretation is also a device. It helps to say that there's a low level of reality where our current models cannot be used, as opposed to not acknowledging such a level at all (as in classical physics). We call it random because that literally encapsulates the idea that _none_ of our models can peek inside (Kolmogorov's definition of randomness comes to mind).
The above models are helpful, they let us do calculations. A model where we exist inside some matrix like computer simulation has no mathematical accounting value I can think of. What calculations are simplified?
Why do you quote that two faced asshole Schmidt? What he actually believes is that this only applies to the little people, ie you. If you try to publish data about _his_ life for all to see, like some journalists from CNET did in 2005, he'll try to punish you for it, and all those connected with you. Look it up.
The truth is that everybody likes privacy, but shits like Schmidt will say anything to convince people to give up their rights so that they can be exploited. Don't drink the cool-aid.
That's not *quite* true. You don't feel like you're being forced because the decision isn't yours to see.
Google is an advertising company, and acts like an advertising company. That means, you the end-user are being horse traded at a higher level, among the companies that supply your service.
For example, if you're an average Firefox user, you're using Google. Why? Because Google pays Mozilla to force (statistically) the users to use Google's search engine. Sure, any savvy user can go out of his way to use some other engine if he wants to, but statistically that's a tiny number of users. Statistically, the vast majority have no choice, they aren't being consulted and they use what's setup by default. And both Google and Mozilla know this, and horse trade $X per user.
Microsoft horse trades users with OEMs, by requiring Windows to be installed on their machines. Sure, any savvy user can wipe the drive and install Linux, but statistically, the vast majority have no choice but to use it.
Advertising companies horse trade with website operators to statistically force their users/readers to see ads. Sure any savvy user can install adblock, etc.
Antitrust issues have to do with barriers to entry and leveraging dominance.
Any time some company makes huge deals worth millions with all the big players in a market, that distorts competition. Any other company that wants to get in on the action is forced to match incentives on the same scale, which is impossible for most small companies trying to enter the market. So they don't.
It can only put to poverty people investing in it and only a part of it,
And these days that's practically *everybody*. In all major advanced countries, pension funds are linked to the stock market. So when a crash happens as it did a few years ago, people lose many years of their pension money, causing misery, longer working lives, and burdening their children.
It's to prevent a blitz-attack by spaceballs. The more ludicrous the shape of the safety zone around the space station, the slower the spaceball attack must be. Due to quantum conservation of ludicrousness. Well known fact.
It all started when the Underpants Gnomes escaped from their Rocky Mountains hideaway. To save the world, we must all learn their song, and sing it at midnight CET on 17 November simultaneously across four timezones. Don't forget, EVERYBODY must sing it, or it won't work!
For guys like Obama, Jobs or Zuckerberg, they could easily afford a butler who would make those kinds of decisions for them, lay out their clothes for the day, prepare varied breakfasts and lunches, set out diary appointments etc.
For normal guys there's always the wife, and mom for the basement dwelling types.
It helps by not wasting time on this charade that advertisers are somehow willing to cut back on their abuses (who exactly? There are lots of advertisers, and they all have independent free will).
If a voluntary, arbitrarily interpretable "do not track" system is adopted, we'll spend years arguing back and forth "did they or didn't they" for every new abuse. It's much better to stand firm against the industry, until we get some real privacy laws in place, with teeth and proper guarantees.
But if 43 percent of American households were
removed from the television advertising audience, consumers collectively
would suffer because network television as we know it would no longer be a
viable business model.
Am I the only one who is disturbed by the implied assumption that "network television as we know it" is the best of all possible network television models?
What nonsense is this? It's _useless_ because you say so? Let's review.
Legally, there's no difficulty. If any website wants to know if they can track someone, all they need to do is put up a popup window asking "Pretty please, can I track your every move?". Of course they already do that with all users, right? No? Well, they should, it's common sense.
Now, DNT is quite useful. If "DNT: yes", then the website should disable tracking, no need to popup the window at all. If "DNT: no", then the user indicates that he would like to answer the popup window question directly, separately for each website he visits. That's perfectly logical. So the website should popup the window and ask.
It makes zero sense to give absolutely every stranger on earth the default right to track your every move, which would be what your hypothetical case (i) is all about.
So DNT is not useless, and Microsoft's implementation is actually sane.
Slashdot Mirror
If you break the Patent Fiasco, you will pull the rug from under the medical equipment companies' racket. You will also bring down the drug manufacturing companies' racketeering. Both of those will go a long way towards fixing healthcare.
John Gilmore
Sorry, but your argument fell flat as soon as you claimed that monarchies were liberal. Nobody cares if King X in country Y was half as ruthless as his father before him. Monarchs have no business existing in a modern society.
Yes. Let me just add a nitpick. It is necessary that *any* user can *initiate* an independent audit of the code he personally received.
Merely trusting a community of experts who choose to publish their audits as they please is another form of argument from authority. It's a slippery slope to a world where the source code is only available to qualified experts, since there would be no point in making it available to nonqualified individuals.
Instead, the point of open source is that any user can hire an expert of their choosing, to work on source code as given to them (not source code the expert downloaded from a presumably equivalent source). AND THE PROBABILITY THAT SOME USERS ACTUALLY DO SO MUST BE STRICTLY POSITIVE.
Like nearly everybody, cryptographers tend to act in the best interests of their employers. That is why it is necessary for random users to hire such cryptographers every once in a while, as outlined above.
We cannot trust that the usual employers won't keep quiet about the findings for selfish reasons, eg large companies like Microsoft or Google sitting on discoveries until they can create and deploy a patch.
Blaming the French revolution for Napoleon doesn't do it justice. The French revolution caused so much, much more than just a short lived French Empire. And thank God for that.
Easy. They are forcing you to choose between all your comments being around forever, or keeping quiet forever.
See, if one day you make a comment in real life to a friend, they probably won't remember next year what you said, and even so, nobody else is likely to even know what you said that day.
But Google spies on you all the time, and if you make a comment to a friend within range of a Google service, they will remember what you said in 10 years, and they will tell what you said to everybody who wants to snoop on you, for the rest of your life.
So your choice is: comment while being very careful what you say, or keep quiet. Better not use the internet while drunk, either.
Homer: On the water, under the water. On the water, under the water. Hey, this pentagon operations coordinator gig isn't so difficult at all. On the water, under the water. On the water, on the water. D'Oh!
Mathematically, having limits means you're dealing with compact manifolds. If you're looking for reasons that systems evolve within a compact manifold, the idea that the system is being simulated isn't very likely. There are many other alternatives that can cause compactness. For example, constant positive curvature can indicate compactness.
Take the many worlds hypothesis. It's existed for a _long_ time before quantum mechanics, at least since the first time somebody analysed a random walk. When you think about a random walk, at any moment there are two possibilities, eg go left or right, repeat at the next moment, etc. Technically, it's convenient to think of all possible paths as existing in parallel universes. The math turns out simpler than if you try to account for all the possible splits across time.
It's an accounting device, like using positive numbers for profit, and negative numbers for losses. That doesn't mean people believe negative money exists.
The copenhagen interpretation is also a device. It helps to say that there's a low level of reality where our current models cannot be used, as opposed to not acknowledging such a level at all (as in classical physics). We call it random because that literally encapsulates the idea that _none_ of our models can peek inside (Kolmogorov's definition of randomness comes to mind).
The above models are helpful, they let us do calculations. A model where we exist inside some matrix like computer simulation has no mathematical accounting value I can think of. What calculations are simplified?
The truth is that everybody likes privacy, but shits like Schmidt will say anything to convince people to give up their rights so that they can be exploited. Don't drink the cool-aid.
That's not *quite* true. You don't feel like you're being forced because the decision isn't yours to see.
Google is an advertising company, and acts like an advertising company. That means, you the end-user are being horse traded at a higher level, among the companies that supply your service.
For example, if you're an average Firefox user, you're using Google. Why? Because Google pays Mozilla to force (statistically) the users to use Google's search engine. Sure, any savvy user can go out of his way to use some other engine if he wants to, but statistically that's a tiny number of users. Statistically, the vast majority have no choice, they aren't being consulted and they use what's setup by default. And both Google and Mozilla know this, and horse trade $X per user.
Microsoft horse trades users with OEMs, by requiring Windows to be installed on their machines. Sure, any savvy user can wipe the drive and install Linux, but statistically, the vast majority have no choice but to use it.
Advertising companies horse trade with website operators to statistically force their users/readers to see ads. Sure any savvy user can install adblock, etc.
Antitrust issues have to do with barriers to entry and leveraging dominance. Any time some company makes huge deals worth millions with all the big players in a market, that distorts competition. Any other company that wants to get in on the action is forced to match incentives on the same scale, which is impossible for most small companies trying to enter the market. So they don't.
Like where? Inquiring minds want to know.
Or some civic minded government worker could leak the documents to Wikileaks. That's what it's there for.
[pro-hft trolling]
And these days that's practically *everybody*. In all major advanced countries, pension funds are linked to the stock market. So when a crash happens as it did a few years ago, people lose many years of their pension money, causing misery, longer working lives, and burdening their children.
Let's make one thing clear. Of course it does.
It's to prevent a blitz-attack by spaceballs. The more ludicrous the shape of the safety zone around the space station, the slower the spaceball attack must be. Due to quantum conservation of ludicrousness. Well known fact.
It all started when the Underpants Gnomes escaped from their Rocky Mountains hideaway. To save the world, we must all learn their song, and sing it at midnight CET on 17 November simultaneously across four timezones. Don't forget, EVERYBODY must sing it, or it won't work!
Sucker! $640 should be enough to buy *any* SSD drive.
Or they could just, you know, blow up the detectors?
You're not dictating what slashdot does, you're dictating what your hardware/software sends to slashdot. Such as the value of the DNT flag.
For guys like Obama, Jobs or Zuckerberg, they could easily afford a butler who would make those kinds of decisions for them, lay out their clothes for the day, prepare varied breakfasts and lunches, set out diary appointments etc. For normal guys there's always the wife, and mom for the basement dwelling types.
If a voluntary, arbitrarily interpretable "do not track" system is adopted, we'll spend years arguing back and forth "did they or didn't they" for every new abuse. It's much better to stand firm against the industry, until we get some real privacy laws in place, with teeth and proper guarantees.
Am I the only one who is disturbed by the implied assumption that "network television as we know it" is the best of all possible network television models?
Legally, there's no difficulty. If any website wants to know if they can track someone, all they need to do is put up a popup window asking "Pretty please, can I track your every move?". Of course they already do that with all users, right? No? Well, they should, it's common sense.
Now, DNT is quite useful. If "DNT: yes", then the website should disable tracking, no need to popup the window at all. If "DNT: no", then the user indicates that he would like to answer the popup window question directly, separately for each website he visits. That's perfectly logical. So the website should popup the window and ask.
It makes zero sense to give absolutely every stranger on earth the default right to track your every move, which would be what your hypothetical case (i) is all about.
So DNT is not useless, and Microsoft's implementation is actually sane.