I completely agree. There is no disrespect in this. They are covering their arses, sure. But you are still on site and interacting with staff. If they thought you were a problem, they wouldn't want you there infecting staff with vicious gossip or whatever.
Dude, you have skills that don't rely on access privileges. Something terminally tunnel-visioned techs don't appreciate.
Take the opportunity to do a real handover. So few companies, in my experience, bother with it. Document, explain, teach, mentor. Leave the place more enriched than you found it. Let that be your legacy.
If they are changing the interface this far for general "click here" office types, how can they still assert that retraining to use something like Open Office is a significant TCO inhibitor for switching?
This is not like telling students some new theory that someone thought up 5 minutes ago. People have believed in Christ for over 2000 years. It seems like it should be mentioned in the biology class.
Maybe I dropped off for a moment. Where does Christ come into this?
Oh yeah. That's the Christian religious agenda that this ID stuff is supposed to be spearheading. But didn't you get the memo? You're not supposed to say that out aloud. It's still in the infiltration phase.
Some would be inclined to agree, but on the other hand, what about "give Caesar what is Caesar's" (Luke 20:25; see also Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17), which some have read to encourage deference to man's law, however corrupt it may be, unless it directly contradicts God's law?
Some might read these as deference to man's law, but I doubt you'll get any serious theologians in that mix. The KJB variant is along the lines of "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Render unto God, that which is God's."
Doesn't sound quite so deferential to me, in context. Sounds a little more about setting robust delineations. The "Lamb of God", for all the suggestions towards meekness, was not so meek himself. Let's also remember that the comment was made in reference to money (coins). Jesus noted Caesar's head embossed on the coin and uttered the comment. He was not seeking monetary wealth but the salvation of souls.
In this context, how would you spin his comments as being supportive of wealthy industrialists ripping off the cultural work of millenia in researching, reviewing and compiling (in written form in this case, let's not forget) comprehensive and detailed treatment methodologies and pharmacopeias by simply asserting that they should have sole rights to the tech developed by others? How do you spin this as being consistent with Christian values?
Not that I, personally, care about Christian values, but I am sickened by hypocrites.
I'm not suggesting that you agree with it, but, seriously, would you be convinced by such an argument? How narcissistically engaged with your own profit strategies would you have to be to cling to that?
If someone has an early image, you can do a comparison with the current image. Keep the pixels that have changed and black (or white) out the ones that haven't.
I agree that people do those things that they experience benefit from. Nothing unreasonable about that. If your actions do not promote something that you value, or oppose something you have aversion to, then what the fuck is your motivation? This does not limit the benefit of the transaction, even if it does advise us to count our fingers and toes afterwards.
However, the specific attributions made should have rendered the mods for this post funny, surely.
You can say what you like about Stallman politically or personally. However, I insist that he is far too intelligent to believe that he does what he does to impress the ladies.
Maybe this is just badly referenced. I don't have any sources for this poster's comments but since it has been moderated 5 "interesting" I can only hope that people with sources have at least checked the assertions.
For my part, I have a serious problem with the underlying perception.
Might I ask how the fsck a patent can be held under a non disclosure contract? Patents are public documents. They must be disclosed for the purposes of patenting so that they can be assessed and recorded and so that it is clear what the patented item is in order to enforce it.
This is not the same thing as proprietary secrets, which are not protected by law and therefore must be kept secret to prevent exploitation by other parties.
If there are these many patent violations, apparent pending court rulings, they must be available to public scrutiny as with any public document.
Sorry, I just had to vent that. If I'm mistaken in my understanding of the US patent process, please enlighten me, because this sounds like FUD.
So I fail to see the reasoning behind the suggestion that I should be expected to provide the fruits of my labor to the world for no financial reward. How did that happen? Well, it's easy to see the foundations for it, which are perfectly noble and valid - this all started because some people (RMS et al, for whom I have nothing but respect) wanted to share code with fellow developers, which also has its basis in the longstanding scientific traditions of sharing knowledge
Perhaps I have been out of the "inner" loop for too long and I know that RMS is not everyone's favourite guy, but based on his early talks and papers I am not aware of anything which even suggests that "free" software needs to be provided without payment.
RMS himself had a successful mail order situation going with emacs. He just didn't require people to get it from him for payment. If you could get it from a friend for no charge, then by all means go for it. This seems, to me to be similar to the approach taken by any number of musicians who responded to the "dentistry music playing" topic elsewhere when they say that they just want to produce music and have people hear it.
Sure, people could obtain emacs from a friend or associate but it was surprising how many chose to buy it from RMS.
I could also direct the reader to Bittorrent (no requirement for payment) or even Winzip. These items do not absolutely require payment for use although there is some degeee of nag involved - less for Bittorrent, more for Winzip. But ultimately, the thing doesn't die on you nor render itself crippled if you don't pay.
Both, however, give the user an opportunity to "contribute to the providers of the product" one way or another and both have now gone through several versions and are still being developed. If purchases aren't being made then the income is coming from somewhere and I can only assume that that income source sees a good reason to support it.
Sourceforge, on the other hand, provides little information on how to contribute. Sure there may be a link to a homepage where a request might exist but to a downloader, they will only tend to see the pages on sourceforge. Finding out how to contribute requires extra work in seeking it out. This, in itself, doesn't help that process.
I have put any number of clients (individuals, small businesses and corporate) onto items such as PDF Creator because it is such a bloody good and useful thing which directly supports their business needs. However, I'm pretty sure that several of my corporate clients have not chosen to take it up because it was seen as "freeware". Something as simple as a voluntary registration would have put it on the same footing as Winzip, which they have absolutely no problem with paying for.
Businesses are used to paying for services and products and include these payments on their assets, profit and loss and taxation statements. If it is worthwhile, they seem to be fine with paying for it. (Many businesses, that is. I am very aware of others who will even bring legal actions against providers who have delivered in order to screw them over and avoid payment. Just in case anyone thinks I am a complete professional ignoramus.)
The article seems to have fallen into the FUD propagated by some companies I will not mention in conflating "free" as in beer and "free" as in freedom. I was very pleased to read the response from Dr Nunez of Peru which explicitly demonstrates that this linguistic trick / sleight of hand is a specific problem of the English language and that trying to use it in Spanish (for example) is a fool's errand.
Let's not be fools. If RMS can handle the idea of receiving payment for software and could demonstrate that it was economically useful, then it appears that it can be both viable and ideologically watertight. I'm not sure why this article chooses to propagate FUD. Unless the Open Source community has already fallen for it, of course.
In general, I agree. However, in practical terms I am moved to contextualise the question from one of "couldn't a C implementation of the same function outperform an equivalent Perl function under all conceivable circumstances?" to "could a C function written by me outperform an equivalent Perl function as written by Larry Wall?"
This is the rub, as it were. And, I believe the core of the article's message.
It is not merely an issue of what level language the implementation is written in but the ability and skill of the programmer based on their underlying knowledge and ability with the medium.
Optimising C code or Perl can be done until the cows come home, but in each case it will depend on the efficiency and power of the compiler or interpreter that it depends on to render it into something the machine can understand.
In human languages it is similar to reading a foreign text based on our own fluency with that language or reading it via babelfish. Any given processor only knows its own language. It relies on how good babelfish is at converting what we write.
An ability to write in assembler puts us much closer to the needs of the target audience. In this case, the processor.
Even if we then choose to write in a higher level language, we will, at least, be able to "massage" the function to the processor's requirements where that is possible in our chosen language.
Code optimisation will be based on making things as efficient for the thing actually doing the work, in this case the processor, rather than making things easier for us. This requires us to have an understanding of what it is doing and writing to that objective and end.
Since the MPAA and the RIAA seem to have been attempting to demonise the very nature of P2P networking as, somehow, innately bad (rather than the specific instances in which individual users may have used the technologies for less than legal ends), this might very well act as a wake up call that a technology is, in itself, not an appropriate target for a moral, ethical or legal crusade.
A technology is purely a means for achieving any number of ends. The specific ends for which it is used are individual and not directly the responsibility nor the scope of that technology.
The specific uses it is employed for are the issue for anyone taking offence at the incursions on their business model.
That the government is using that very same technology as a means to counter terrorism will make their rhetoric much more difficult to promote. Instantly any question of "how could this technology be used excapt for illegal purposes?" has been answered and with resounding implications for the security of the nation.
Deal with the specific actions. Don't try to suppress the technology.
Perhaps its adoption by the Department of Homeland Security will, once and for all, demonstrate that there are legitimate uses for the technology.
By extension, perhaps this will also serve to undermine the RIAA and MPAA's rhetoric that they have some sort of right to monitor the private communications of citizens using this technology.
Perhaps the Department of Homeland Security has genuinely made a move which will uphold the privacy rights of its own citizens.
Maybe I'm a rose coloured glasses type of idealist or a romantic, but I'd like to think so.
If the article puts full blame on the programmer, then I don't think that is unreasonable. I seem to recall reading one point in the article in which one of his respondents on the site actually advised him that posting the data was questionable, ethically. Our friend then acknowledged his mistake and then proceeded to post it again (with another question?) the very next day.
Now, to leaven the argument out, I don't think he should have had any access to real data in any case. Argue with me if you will about differences between test data and live data. That's what I've been dealing with day in and day out for the last six years. I don't believe that there is ever any need to hand an outside developer sensitive internal data. Perhaps a better abstraction through the data structure layer might have been employed. That way the developer only needs to know the absolutes of the structure. Getting the data into that structure would then be a separate task and could be more closely monitored.
I have never come up with a case where actual live data was needed for basic development. Fine tuning during parallel testing still does not require a developer to see any more of the data than what exists in the current process which generated the fault.
This is great stuff. It really speaks to the underlying economic model which the study uses but does not acknowledge. Economic interests and activity are never based on a purely personal viewpoint (unless that person is seriously narcisstic).
1. Perhaps we even need to ask whether the "private" information is even private? Social engineering and data mining render even issues not explicitly revealed as interpretable or inferable. What value on personal information which I can extrapolate from your patterns?
2. How much did I receive, I believe I have already addressed. This is an economic game which requires a careful assessment on the value I place on the remuneration vs my perceived value on the information. This, clearly does not necessarily match reality. One reason why ignorant traders lose money on sale of shares.
3. Once again, the transaction may have been made because technology already has the means to get what it needs without disclosure from the individual. As another poster pointed out, bodyweight can be easily assessed just by looking at someone. To use this "secret" as a metric assumes that the subjects are so ignorant of such a simple act that they can still believe that their information is worth something. The same can be said of the vast majority of our personal data once we interact with the public data mechanisms. "Sure I buy stuff from Amazon, but so do millions of others. How could they possibly find out anything about me?"
4. Hmmmm. Political statement. (obviously any political statement made on slashdot couldn't be data mined....)
However, I agree with the argument on the purpose of the data gathering.
What might be held sacred and private, generally, might still be yielded willingly in a given context. Possibly without regard for what other purposes it might be held for, once obtained legitimately.
Issues, like the one you mentioned, can modify, not the value of the information itself, but rather the value of concealing that information.
I agree that research, in all disciplines, including the hard sciences, tends to proceed in small steps.
Further, perhaps the idea of measuring the value of "privacy" in monetary terms might very well be a new idea.
However, unless we can standardise the value of money, emotionally to an individual (and let's be honest, the value of personal data, even something as spuriously secret as body weight, is individual), basically we are measuring an unquantified value system against another unquantified value system.
To assert that this method works is suggestive that it supports the hypothesis, and little more. It proves nothing, but may be suggestive that further, more sophisticated tests (as you suggest - hopefully not so culturally biased though) might be warranted.
It is news to those who have not considered this. For example, people who do exist well within the "normal" part of the statistical curve.
For this reason, if no other, broadcast of such findings may be at least educational and may provide some small measure of understanding. Not necessarily a bad thing.
As to the conditioning aspect, my experience is that, although social conditioning does genuinely occur, it will only take where there is already a predisposition to that set of judgements, on a broad social level. Conditioning reinforces beliefs and fears but tends not to be able to create new ones. Unless you are very good at it and can conflate the new belief with one which is already held. Piggy-backing it on the emotional force of the old one.
This is also becoming less uncommon with increased sophistication in manipulating communication coupled with an increased capacity to reach larger audiences.
Humans are social animals and tend to cluster into groups. The formation of groups involves the creation of memes which define the nature of that group. Norms and margins are then set around the degree of closeness to or divergence from those memes.
Slashdot subscribers hold certain patterns as central to our presence here. These may be very different to those of three year olds in a kindergarten (although maybe not - you tell me).
The degree to which we conform to the norms is a direct measure of our conformance with the memes of that social group and by extension a reflection of to what degree we belong to that structure, are accepted by it or even our acceptance of it.
To diverge by more than, say, two standard deviations from the mean, begins to put us into the marginal area.
A desire to be a member of the group, under those circumstances, can bring with it a tension regarding that association. If I interpret my membership as some sort of moral imperative, and if I am predisposed to self criticism, then, yes, I may feel embarrassed by my lack of conformity.
On the other hand, if I am aware of the necessary diversity of a statistical distribution, I may, instead, revel in my individual differences, realising that I am representing a boundary on that group.
All conditions across the spectrum of a distribution will have psychological baggage associated with it. However, the further we move into the margins, the less we experience support from the group - as a part of it rather than as, say compassion, sympathy or even, to take the other end of things, adoration as the other.
I don't see these things as representing a false ideal. Rather an accepted ideal but limited to the context of a given group.
(1) "Audiovisual recording function" means the capability of a device to record or transmit a motion picture or any part of a motion picture by means of any technology existing on, or developed after, the effective date of this section.
(2) "Facility" includes all retail establishments and movie theaters.
(B) No person, without the written consent of the owner or lessee of the facility and of the licensor of the motion picture, shall knowingly operate an audiovisual recording function of a device in a facility in which a motion picture is being shown.
Now, I am not a lawyer but this doesn't seem to include the copying of media by staff of a theatre or retail outlet while the film is not being displayed publicly.
So what is the purpose of this legislation? To ensure that pirate videos are at least of telecine quality?
Maybe the legislators are sick and tired of downloading crappy cam quality ripoffs from Kazaa.
It's good to see that some politicians are prepared to stand up and be counted to ensure Quality In Piracy!
I've read the article. I've read the Ohio governor's website and I've read the EFF site and I can't find a trace of the issue except on the original yahoo site.
Does anyone have a link I could use to verify the actual nature of the legislation, specifically its scope?
However as a software provider, rather than a hardware provider, I have clients who have a single IT administrator required to administer several sites with over two hundred users. Yes, he could hunt around for a bare bones machine, on which he could install any number of OS's, providing he has current licences, but we are also dealing with support issues.
This is a real area of concern for a professional IT manager, particularly when he has a large number of servers and users distributed over multiple sites.
This person is not me, thankfully, or I would be immediately migrating to either Linux or BSD for server operations, at least. Workstations, however will only be migratable based on what users can be expected to handle without retraining.
So, although I agree with you, in general, in terms of actual deployment, where I, myself, have no delegated authority in the issue, commercial limitations persist, at least in the short to medium term.
We provide a specialist application to our client but this goes no way to predisposing them as to which word processor or spreadsheet application they use.
If a product experiences a loss of support from a commercial distributor, which continues to have issues, for no better reason than to support their bottom line either to upgrade (for a fee to the company which produced the problem in the first place) or as a new install (as is the case for many of my clients who could have otherwise kept their previous systems and licences without upgrading) then what we have is a situation where a user is required to pay to have bugs fixed (or not, since what we have is a new system with its own potential issues).
This results in the aforementioned "Microsoft Tax".
I admit that I use the term less than precisely, however, in the context of my requirements, there is strong business impetus to migrate on a regular basis, based on the vendors requirements, not mine or my clients'.
Hence, as a "tax" is a levy exacted to continue operations without any necessary addition to service provision, I stand by my original terminology.
If you disagree with my usage, I can only offer my support for your right to express your viewpoint. I disagree and welcome your responses.
There are a number of applications which I run,and I'm not just talking about games, which will not run under Win NT or 2000 at all.
On top of that I find myself unwilling to submit myself to the Windows XP world. There is just too much overhead involved, financially and ethically.
Although Win 98 SE is as buggy and unstable as they come, it will run my apps reasonably well without having to bend over for the new Microsoft tax. Until Linux supports them or someone ports them over, I'll continue to use 98 of those machines until they literally fall over and die.
Slashdot Mirror
I completely agree. There is no disrespect in this. They are covering their arses, sure. But you are still on site and interacting with staff. If they thought you were a problem, they wouldn't want you there infecting staff with vicious gossip or whatever.
Dude, you have skills that don't rely on access privileges. Something terminally tunnel-visioned techs don't appreciate.
Take the opportunity to do a real handover. So few companies, in my experience, bother with it.
Document, explain, teach, mentor. Leave the place more enriched than you found it. Let that be your legacy.
If that is the case, then the argument that they are only in RAM is probably valid. They're probably only held for the duration of the session.
Is she expecting them to be able to produce historical records from RAM storage?
If they are changing the interface this far for general "click here" office types, how can they still assert that retraining to use something like Open Office is a significant TCO inhibitor for switching?
Maybe I dropped off for a moment. Where does Christ come into this?
Oh yeah. That's the Christian religious agenda that this ID stuff is supposed to be spearheading. But didn't you get the memo? You're not supposed to say that out aloud. It's still in the infiltration phase.
Not sure if we need proof, but I, for one, don't want proof of this one, thank you very much.
Some might read these as deference to man's law, but I doubt you'll get any serious theologians in that mix. The KJB variant is along the lines of "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Render unto God, that which is God's."
Doesn't sound quite so deferential to me, in context. Sounds a little more about setting robust delineations. The "Lamb of God", for all the suggestions towards meekness, was not so meek himself. Let's also remember that the comment was made in reference to money (coins). Jesus noted Caesar's head embossed on the coin and uttered the comment. He was not seeking monetary wealth but the salvation of souls.
In this context, how would you spin his comments as being supportive of wealthy industrialists ripping off the cultural work of millenia in researching, reviewing and compiling (in written form in this case, let's not forget) comprehensive and detailed treatment methodologies and pharmacopeias by simply asserting that they should have sole rights to the tech developed by others? How do you spin this as being consistent with Christian values?
Not that I, personally, care about Christian values, but I am sickened by hypocrites.
I'm not suggesting that you agree with it, but, seriously, would you be convinced by such an argument? How narcissistically engaged with your own profit strategies would you have to be to cling to that?
Peace and all that goes with it. Okay?
That should tidy things up a bit.
However, the specific attributions made should have rendered the mods for this post funny, surely.
You can say what you like about Stallman politically or personally. However, I insist that he is far too intelligent to believe that he does what he does to impress the ladies.
For my part, I have a serious problem with the underlying perception.
Might I ask how the fsck a patent can be held under a non disclosure contract? Patents are public documents. They must be disclosed for the purposes of patenting so that they can be assessed and recorded and so that it is clear what the patented item is in order to enforce it.
This is not the same thing as proprietary secrets, which are not protected by law and therefore must be kept secret to prevent exploitation by other parties.
If there are these many patent violations, apparent pending court rulings, they must be available to public scrutiny as with any public document.
Sorry, I just had to vent that. If I'm mistaken in my understanding of the US patent process, please enlighten me, because this sounds like FUD.
So I fail to see the reasoning behind the suggestion that I should be expected to provide the fruits of my labor to the world for no financial reward. How did that happen? Well, it's easy to see the foundations for it, which are perfectly noble and valid - this all started because some people (RMS et al, for whom I have nothing but respect) wanted to share code with fellow developers, which also has its basis in the longstanding scientific traditions of sharing knowledge
Perhaps I have been out of the "inner" loop for too long and I know that RMS is not everyone's favourite guy, but based on his early talks and papers I am not aware of anything which even suggests that "free" software needs to be provided without payment.
RMS himself had a successful mail order situation going with emacs. He just didn't require people to get it from him for payment. If you could get it from a friend for no charge, then by all means go for it. This seems, to me to be similar to the approach taken by any number of musicians who responded to the "dentistry music playing" topic elsewhere when they say that they just want to produce music and have people hear it.
Sure, people could obtain emacs from a friend or associate but it was surprising how many chose to buy it from RMS.
I could also direct the reader to Bittorrent (no requirement for payment) or even Winzip. These items do not absolutely require payment for use although there is some degeee of nag involved - less for Bittorrent, more for Winzip. But ultimately, the thing doesn't die on you nor render itself crippled if you don't pay.
Both, however, give the user an opportunity to "contribute to the providers of the product" one way or another and both have now gone through several versions and are still being developed. If purchases aren't being made then the income is coming from somewhere and I can only assume that that income source sees a good reason to support it.
Sourceforge, on the other hand, provides little information on how to contribute. Sure there may be a link to a homepage where a request might exist but to a downloader, they will only tend to see the pages on sourceforge. Finding out how to contribute requires extra work in seeking it out. This, in itself, doesn't help that process.
I have put any number of clients (individuals, small businesses and corporate) onto items such as PDF Creator because it is such a bloody good and useful thing which directly supports their business needs. However, I'm pretty sure that several of my corporate clients have not chosen to take it up because it was seen as "freeware". Something as simple as a voluntary registration would have put it on the same footing as Winzip, which they have absolutely no problem with paying for.
Businesses are used to paying for services and products and include these payments on their assets, profit and loss and taxation statements. If it is worthwhile, they seem to be fine with paying for it. (Many businesses, that is. I am very aware of others who will even bring legal actions against providers who have delivered in order to screw them over and avoid payment. Just in case anyone thinks I am a complete professional ignoramus.)
The article seems to have fallen into the FUD propagated by some companies I will not mention in conflating "free" as in beer and "free" as in freedom. I was very pleased to read the response from Dr Nunez of Peru which explicitly demonstrates that this linguistic trick / sleight of hand is a specific problem of the English language and that trying to use it in Spanish (for example) is a fool's errand.
Let's not be fools. If RMS can handle the idea of receiving payment for software and could demonstrate that it was economically useful, then it appears that it can be both viable and ideologically watertight. I'm not sure why this article chooses to propagate FUD. Unless the Open Source community has already fallen for it, of course.
Maybe I should stick to HTML then?
This is the rub, as it were. And, I believe the core of the article's message.
It is not merely an issue of what level language the implementation is written in but the ability and skill of the programmer based on their underlying knowledge and ability with the medium.
Optimising C code or Perl can be done until the cows come home, but in each case it will depend on the efficiency and power of the compiler or interpreter that it depends on to render it into something the machine can understand.
In human languages it is similar to reading a foreign text based on our own fluency with that language or reading it via babelfish. Any given processor only knows its own language. It relies on how good babelfish is at converting what we write.
An ability to write in assembler puts us much closer to the needs of the target audience. In this case, the processor.
Even if we then choose to write in a higher level language, we will, at least, be able to "massage" the function to the processor's requirements where that is possible in our chosen language.
Code optimisation will be based on making things as efficient for the thing actually doing the work, in this case the processor, rather than making things easier for us. This requires us to have an understanding of what it is doing and writing to that objective and end.
A technology is purely a means for achieving any number of ends. The specific ends for which it is used are individual and not directly the responsibility nor the scope of that technology.
The specific uses it is employed for are the issue for anyone taking offence at the incursions on their business model.
That the government is using that very same technology as a means to counter terrorism will make their rhetoric much more difficult to promote. Instantly any question of "how could this technology be used excapt for illegal purposes?" has been answered and with resounding implications for the security of the nation.
Deal with the specific actions. Don't try to suppress the technology.
Perhaps its adoption by the Department of Homeland Security will, once and for all, demonstrate that there are legitimate uses for the technology.
By extension, perhaps this will also serve to undermine the RIAA and MPAA's rhetoric that they have some sort of right to monitor the private communications of citizens using this technology.
Perhaps the Department of Homeland Security has genuinely made a move which will uphold the privacy rights of its own citizens.
Maybe I'm a rose coloured glasses type of idealist or a romantic, but I'd like to think so.
The ability to read the next version of the .doc format, of course.
Just much smaller, less dangerous and far less mobile.
Now, to leaven the argument out, I don't think he should have had any access to real data in any case. Argue with me if you will about differences between test data and live data. That's what I've been dealing with day in and day out for the last six years. I don't believe that there is ever any need to hand an outside developer sensitive internal data. Perhaps a better abstraction through the data structure layer might have been employed. That way the developer only needs to know the absolutes of the structure. Getting the data into that structure would then be a separate task and could be more closely monitored.
I have never come up with a case where actual live data was needed for basic development. Fine tuning during parallel testing still does not require a developer to see any more of the data than what exists in the current process which generated the fault.
1. Perhaps we even need to ask whether the "private" information is even private? Social engineering and data mining render even issues not explicitly revealed as interpretable or inferable. What value on personal information which I can extrapolate from your patterns?
2. How much did I receive, I believe I have already addressed. This is an economic game which requires a careful assessment on the value I place on the remuneration vs my perceived value on the information. This, clearly does not necessarily match reality. One reason why ignorant traders lose money on sale of shares.
3. Once again, the transaction may have been made because technology already has the means to get what it needs without disclosure from the individual. As another poster pointed out, bodyweight can be easily assessed just by looking at someone. To use this "secret" as a metric assumes that the subjects are so ignorant of such a simple act that they can still believe that their information is worth something. The same can be said of the vast majority of our personal data once we interact with the public data mechanisms. "Sure I buy stuff from Amazon, but so do millions of others. How could they possibly find out anything about me?"
4. Hmmmm. Political statement. (obviously any political statement made on slashdot couldn't be data mined....)
However, I agree with the argument on the purpose of the data gathering.
What might be held sacred and private, generally, might still be yielded willingly in a given context. Possibly without regard for what other purposes it might be held for, once obtained legitimately.
Issues, like the one you mentioned, can modify, not the value of the information itself, but rather the value of concealing that information.
Further, perhaps the idea of measuring the value of "privacy" in monetary terms might very well be a new idea.
However, unless we can standardise the value of money, emotionally to an individual (and let's be honest, the value of personal data, even something as spuriously secret as body weight, is individual), basically we are measuring an unquantified value system against another unquantified value system.
To assert that this method works is suggestive that it supports the hypothesis, and little more. It proves nothing, but may be suggestive that further, more sophisticated tests (as you suggest - hopefully not so culturally biased though) might be warranted.
For this reason, if no other, broadcast of such findings may be at least educational and may provide some small measure of understanding. Not necessarily a bad thing.
As to the conditioning aspect, my experience is that, although social conditioning does genuinely occur, it will only take where there is already a predisposition to that set of judgements, on a broad social level. Conditioning reinforces beliefs and fears but tends not to be able to create new ones. Unless you are very good at it and can conflate the new belief with one which is already held. Piggy-backing it on the emotional force of the old one.
This is also becoming less uncommon with increased sophistication in manipulating communication coupled with an increased capacity to reach larger audiences.
Humans are social animals and tend to cluster into groups. The formation of groups involves the creation of memes which define the nature of that group. Norms and margins are then set around the degree of closeness to or divergence from those memes.
Slashdot subscribers hold certain patterns as central to our presence here. These may be very different to those of three year olds in a kindergarten (although maybe not - you tell me).
The degree to which we conform to the norms is a direct measure of our conformance with the memes of that social group and by extension a reflection of to what degree we belong to that structure, are accepted by it or even our acceptance of it.
To diverge by more than, say, two standard deviations from the mean, begins to put us into the marginal area.
A desire to be a member of the group, under those circumstances, can bring with it a tension regarding that association. If I interpret my membership as some sort of moral imperative, and if I am predisposed to self criticism, then, yes, I may feel embarrassed by my lack of conformity.
On the other hand, if I am aware of the necessary diversity of a statistical distribution, I may, instead, revel in my individual differences, realising that I am representing a boundary on that group.
All conditions across the spectrum of a distribution will have psychological baggage associated with it. However, the further we move into the margins, the less we experience support from the group - as a part of it rather than as, say compassion, sympathy or even, to take the other end of things, adoration as the other.
I don't see these things as representing a false ideal. Rather an accepted ideal but limited to the context of a given group.
Sec. 2913.07. (A) As used in this section:
(1) "Audiovisual recording function" means the capability of a device to record or transmit a motion picture or any part of a motion picture by means of any technology existing on, or developed after, the effective date of this section.
(2) "Facility" includes all retail establishments and movie theaters.
(B) No person, without the written consent of the owner or lessee of the facility and of the licensor of the motion picture, shall knowingly operate an audiovisual recording function of a device in a facility in which a motion picture is being shown.
Now, I am not a lawyer but this doesn't seem to include the copying of media by staff of a theatre or retail outlet while the film is not being displayed publicly.
So what is the purpose of this legislation? To ensure that pirate videos are at least of telecine quality?
Maybe the legislators are sick and tired of downloading crappy cam quality ripoffs from Kazaa.
It's good to see that some politicians are prepared to stand up and be counted to ensure Quality In Piracy!
I found the amendment here
Thanks all the same.
Does anyone have a link I could use to verify the actual nature of the legislation, specifically its scope?
Thanks in advance.
However as a software provider, rather than a hardware provider, I have clients who have a single IT administrator required to administer several sites with over two hundred users. Yes, he could hunt around for a bare bones machine, on which he could install any number of OS's, providing he has current licences, but we are also dealing with support issues.
This is a real area of concern for a professional IT manager, particularly when he has a large number of servers and users distributed over multiple sites.
This person is not me, thankfully, or I would be immediately migrating to either Linux or BSD for server operations, at least. Workstations, however will only be migratable based on what users can be expected to handle without retraining.
So, although I agree with you, in general, in terms of actual deployment, where I, myself, have no delegated authority in the issue, commercial limitations persist, at least in the short to medium term.
We provide a specialist application to our client but this goes no way to predisposing them as to which word processor or spreadsheet application they use.
If only we had such a mandate!!!
If a product experiences a loss of support from a commercial distributor, which continues to have issues, for no better reason than to support their bottom line either to upgrade (for a fee to the company which produced the problem in the first place) or as a new install (as is the case for many of my clients who could have otherwise kept their previous systems and licences without upgrading) then what we have is a situation where a user is required to pay to have bugs fixed (or not, since what we have is a new system with its own potential issues).
This results in the aforementioned "Microsoft Tax".
I admit that I use the term less than precisely, however, in the context of my requirements, there is strong business impetus to migrate on a regular basis, based on the vendors requirements, not mine or my clients'.
Hence, as a "tax" is a levy exacted to continue operations without any necessary addition to service provision, I stand by my original terminology.
If you disagree with my usage, I can only offer my support for your right to express your viewpoint. I disagree and welcome your responses.
There are a number of applications which I run,and I'm not just talking about games, which will not run under Win NT or 2000 at all.
On top of that I find myself unwilling to submit myself to the Windows XP world. There is just too much overhead involved, financially and ethically.
Although Win 98 SE is as buggy and unstable as they come, it will run my apps reasonably well without having to bend over for the new Microsoft tax. Until Linux supports them or someone ports them over, I'll continue to use 98 of those machines until they literally fall over and die.