I guess I was one of the few who actually paid attention in Civics.....
I think you missed a few classes. The Supreme Court has said that in order for the fourth amendment to apply, the person needs to have a reasonable expectation of privacy that was violated.
Now, yes, I agree with you: the bag searches may well be unconstitutional, and they are already being challenged in court. We'll see the outcome of that soon. ("Soon" in court reckoning, anyway.) Beyond that, since they are essentially optional, they are random, and they're not done at every station, I think it is a horribly ridiculous thing even if it's perfectly legal.
The premise that you have an expectation not to be watched while you are in a public place, however, is silly. Everybody is perfectly free to watch you. A cop standing there is free to watch you. Your fellow travelers are free to watch you. You're free to watch them. That is the nature of a public place. What is the legal difference if you're watched by a cop or a camera? If you want to talk about legalities involving who can view those tapes, how long they're stored, etc, fine--but their mere existence does not violate any of your rights.
Your problem is that you are either not even loosely up on the case law that evolves and shapes the legal realities we live in, or are simply ignoring it altogether. From an idealistic viewpoint, your interpretation of the 4th Amendment might be right. But guess what? The Constitution--that same document you're quoting from--names the Supreme Court (and such courts as Congress may create, blah blah) the interpreters of the law. Not isotope23. And until some subsequent court sees fit to reverse, they have spoken and you lose. As an aside, if you want to get real technical, the Constitution makes no mention of a Supreme Court authority to strike down any laws. John Marshall took that upon himself and it has stuck. But I digress.
Call me when they start pointing these cameras into your home window and we'll talk. While they're pointed in public places, whether your tax dollars built them or not, you're just blowing steam.
For the record, I don't claim to be a lawyer or any sort of legal expert, and I may have oversimplified the USSC rulings (you know they love exceptions in their legaleese), but I am fairly certain that the concept of what I said is accurate.
From what I understand, there's not a clear consensus on why we need sleep. I mean, it does a number of things, and we've figured many of them out, but as far as biology goes none of them seems to be a deal-breaker.
If I recall correctly, a psychology professor once mentioned that the very few people who literally do not dream--as opposed to those who simply don't remember their dreams--die in a relatively short period. Is this inaccurate? If it's true, that would seem to be a dealbreaker to me.
Punishing a media outlet for publishing freely available non-sensitive information sets a very bad precedent. Imagine if the government could get away with that.
They can, and do. Who says any government official HAS to talk to any news organisation?
Granted "the government" is so big that people would likely still do it as "an anonymous source," but that's beside the point.
In NSW it's now 3 points off your license for going over the speed limit by a single kilometer/hour, and 6 points for the same if it's a long weekend or holiday period.
I've got some friends in Australia and have heard them mention points as well, plus now several times in this thread and I've been meaning to ask: Could you explain the points system as it exists in NSW (and as it relates to different-level P's and such as well)?
I was just over in Newcastle in July, by the way. Beautiful place and nice people.
19 arab terrorists: killed over 3000, injured how many thousands more?
So I guess we should have let McVeigh waltz right past our searches. After all, if the best he can do is kill 168, he's hardly worth our time at all. Better to get that poor Arab student who came to America to get away from government interference in daily life because he happens to have been born in the wrong place. Correct?
How many terrorist attacks have occurred on American soil conducted by Arabs/Muslims? WTC 1993, WTC 2001. Two?
We've already listed two non-Arab terrorists who struck in the US. Let's add in Eric Rudolph. Three is certainly more than two. And yes, I'm sure I'm missing some--on both sides.
Let's step outside America, shall we? Poor Britain has gotten it lately. Not once, but TWICE! Fucking Arabs. Let's ignore the fact that the IRA operated in Britain for decades, they're too white-skinned to possibly cause any trouble besides the occasional drunken bar brawl.
It's just stupid to base these decisions on skin color or ethnicity. Worse than that, it's illegal and immoral. The United States should be better than that. If not, what the fuck are we fighting for? "Freedom and democracy" my ass. Freedom for WASPs, maybe. Only freedom for everybody else as we find it conveinient.
Why don't you go offer him some "therapy and understanding"?
You must be a Republican. That has become one of their favorite lines lately, and I have no idea why. I've never heard anybody say it. What was said is that the Republicans wanted to go to war over 9/11, kill people and treat the captured as "enemy combatents" subject to military tribunal, and the Democrats wanted to let them be handled within the domestic American legal system. Argue the merits and demerits of either position as you please, I'm not interested in doing so, but drop the moral superiority attitude about it. They're both valid responses that hope to acheive the same things.
That said, I hope you're not taking a lawyer's legal argument as some holy statement to rail against. You think American lawyers, or non-terrorism-related defenses are any better? A defense lawyer's job is not to seek truth. Frankly it's not to protect people either. It's to 1) ensure adequate legal representation as guaranteed by civilized countries, and 2) present the defense most likely to result in a favorable verdict. Reasonable doubt and all that.
We both know the argument isn't going to fly. Why are you trying to make something of it?
There should be a little switch on the side/botttom of every phone manufactured lately (last 30 years or so).
I think that's the grandparent's point -- every phone. In many (most?) households, that may be two, three, four phones in a single house in any number of places: Kitchen area, a family/rec room/, basement, bedrooms...
Anyway, not a direct reply to you, more to the grandparent (but what the hell?)
According to the NIST website, the oil savings for increasing DST by one month is 300,000 barrels per year.
If I recall correctly, the proposal increases it for three weeks (75%), meaning a savings of 225,000 barrels of oil. At $63 per barrel or so (and we all know that it is high right now), that amounts to a yearly savings of $14,175,000. Now, I mean, if you're going to hand me $14 million dollars, you'll instantly become my best friend in the whole world--but in the scope of a multi-trillion dollar yearly federal budget, it is less than spit in the bucket. $14 million out of ONE trillion dollars is roughly 0.0014%.
Incidentally, the pay for a congressman in 2004 was $158,100 per year. At 535 Congressmen (435 Congress + 100 Senators, and technically leaders and the speaker get more), if they gave up one month's pay each (hey, they're shifting DST roughly a month right?) it would save $7,048,625 Roughly half. And they just gave themselves a pay hike.
It's just an example of how simple $14 million is to come up with in the federal budget. I won't even get into pork projects or $75 screws. Anybody claiming this is anything but an extremely minor energy/money savings, or an extremely (extremely!) minor reduction in our "dependance on foreign oil"--that's the phrase of Bush's presidency, yes?--has an agenda.
I'm curious what Bush's is. That part I haven't quite figured out.
Since this article is about gadgets getting confused, potentially requiring new ones be purchased if it is that annoying enough, and/or new DST rules being included in things like operating systems, I would wager that the cost of fixing this "problem," to both companies and consumers, is likely far greater than doing nothing.
But the point is - we should only be discussing those hypothetical risks only after we've already done something, not now.
I don't support the implantable RFIDs and I have absolutely no plans on getting one, now or in the future. I was simply stating one value over a card-type system.
For me, the privacy implications would far outweigh any conveinience.
Instead of storing this data in an implanted chip, why not encode this data on re-writable magnetic strip on a credit-card-type card (with no personally identifiable info) that you can keep in your wallet/purse/keychain etc?
Because if you lose your wallet/purse/keychain, or forget it at home, or it gets damaged, or whatever, you're fucked.
With the chip implant, you can't forget it at home when you take that short drive to the grocery store that you don't need to put your seatbelt on for.
At the penalty of losing their job [. ..] [t]hey can't specifically say one product is better than another.
That's not necessarily so bad, depending on how it is enforced in practice rather than inferring from a statement.
For example, it could be as innocuous as forcing clerks to promote the positives and let the customers decide. Even if the clerk IS knowledgable about a subject, I don't necessarily want them telling me which is better. Then their opinion gets into it, and if there are sales commissions of any sort (hell, even if sales performance is used in consideration of future advancement) it gets even more interesting. Let them, for example, give me the specs on those two new computers I'm considering. If I don't understand what some metric means, or whether I'd get a better performance boost by changing A or B, I can simply ask.
Of course that assumes the clerks have any idea what they're talking about, but then again, them giving opinions outright does too.
I'm sure part of it is that they don't want to lose sales, too, and in my opinion that's a load of crap. To be honest, if I was buying an expensive new TV or something and the clerk was able to tell me that one had frequent problems or tended to die off quickly, I would be as likely or more to purchase something different from that store. And if there WERE sales commissions, I'd make sure that guy got them every time. Good for him, good for business.
Do they actually think that this will hurt their recruitment efforts? That some guy who is already of the mind to commit suicide for the cause is going to change his mind when his browser gives him a 404?
Oh, I don't know. If my terrorist cell can't even keep their website up I might reconsider my suicide bombing. If they can't even do that, how the hell can I have any faith in their ability to deliver my virgins?!
(Shit... does that mean Al Qaeda is trolling/. for women?)
I understand (and agree with) your gripe about poor writing skills, but I disagree that it is related to IM in any substantial, causal way. I also don't agree with your conclusions about why IM is popular.
To say that teenagers use IM because they think the world revolves around them, and right now, is going too far. The popularity of IM to them is almost certainly because of the same reasons that it is popular to me: Instant response. No, not in the "you'd better respond right now or you suck!" sense, but in the conversation sense. Email is a fine conversation tool, and I am highly likely to fire one off if I need to say something important to somebody who is not online, or if the subject is something that I am hoping for a more thoughtful response than a quick IM reply is likely to give. Still, on average, I am more likely to just say the "hello" type of thing (hi? How are you? What have you been up to?) on IM. It's far simpler and more immediate. It also, quite happily, has a tendency to branch off into other unexpected areas of conversation unrelated to the inquires, which may very well not have happened in email because there is a lag time between responses.
The group I talk to on IM isn't too bad with their writing skills. They're no experts and the occasional acronym definitely pops up, but for the most part they tend to speak in full words and the level of punctuation is at least sufficient not to cause misunderstandings. This may just be because the people I am likely to provide immediate access to myself, by giving them my IM name, have a tendency to be a bit above the curve. I can't speak intelligently to that. I can tell you that, on bulk, they tend to be of fairly average intelligence. Some, however, are downright smart, much smarter than they give themselves credit for, and at the same time wholly non-technical. That is not necessarily reflected in their IM writing. I often help them out with their school work (I'm 21, incidentally, and the particular group I speak of is a few years younger,) and can safely say that their formal writing tends to be considerably better. They type in IM, and like IM, because they don't have to be perfect. It's a conversation with friends.
Another point I would mention is that a lot of people use the excuse that they don't type fast enough as the reason that they use a lot of abbreviations and acronyms. It makes some modicum of sense. One only has so much time to be online (whether that's minutes or hours) and if the tasks be done quicker, it's far more efficient. Similarly, IM also lends itself to multi-tasking better. I can handle a half dozen IM conversations at the same time, but would only be able to do emails in serial--and if I was writing an email while trying to juggle those IM conversations at the same time, something wouldn't go well.
I planned on saying more, but it's time to go home from work now so I'm going to cut it here and leave this thought: Not all communication needs to be deep and complex. IM is more like a phone call while emails are like a letter. They both have their place. Perhaps we should take it as a GOOD thing that a kid is more likely to send grandma an email than an IM and be happy that THEY'RE happy to communicate with their friends through whatever medium they see as the best fit.
Hopefully this was somewhat sensical, I don't have time to go through and sanity check before submitting this time. You know, the whole going home thing.
The patent is for someone putting [vonagead] in a page and my computer displaying the file WITHOUT actually downloading it on the spot.
Maybe I'm wrong, but a glance at the section from the application posted in the great-grandparent seems to say otherwise.
My impression is they've done it two ways. Yes, you put "[vonagead]" (or whatever) in your message. But then they list two ways of dealing with that: 1) the image to replace [vonagead] is sent with that message, or 2) the local computer checks to see if it already has the appropriate image; if so, it uses it and if not, it sends a request to the original sender asking for it. (Sounds a lot like how a webpage works to me. "Is this image in my cache? Nope. Okay, let's grab it then.")
Some people seem confused about it being for CUSTOM emoticons. They don't mean:) into their version of the smiley that already exists when you downloaded MSN Messenger. They mean using their feature of the same name, using whatever image a person wants for an emoticon, assigning it some character sequence, and being able to use it with clients who never had that image on their system originally.
I think it's true that changing from M to AO wouldn't deter most people from buying it.
It DOES, however, deter many stores from selling it. Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart have already pulled it from their shelves. I know Wal-Mart refuses to stock ANY AO-rated game, I'm not sure if the others do as well or if they were just reacting to this present controversy.
So, it might increase (or hold steady the) DEMAND, but it will also make it harder to find. Since the ostensible goal is to keep it out of the hands of people under 18 now, online stores might not be an option (no credit card).
Personally, I think the whole thing is damn stupid.
An alternate theory is that the developer who wrote it DID intend to put it in, but that before it was released the higher-ups nixed it (probably to avoid the AO rating), it was made inaccessible and forgotten about.
The problem with AO versus M, as I understand it, is that some retailers (including Wal-Mart) refuse to sell AO games, so I can fully see a Rockstar manager or exec going, "if we leave in this mini-game, we're going to get an AO tag and lose $XXX million. Take it out."
Whatever the supreme court decides will already be benign when they reach a decision.
Tell that to the people sued into the ground if the Supreme Court decides that companies making this software are indeed liable for infringement from its use. The Supreme Court has amazing authority and can easily release a ruling--binding on the lower courts--that is so broad that it encompasses that new technology in addition to the two specific programs under consideration.
Yes, there will always be ways to swap music, but that hardly makes the decision benign. Usenet, FTP, IRC and the like are great for the/. crowd. Joe User, who makes Napster-style applications successful by his use of it, isn't likely to know about or deal with most of those. Not to mention the fact that anything that has become big enough for the average computer user to hear about it is probably big enough to be traced to somebody who can be sued into the ground.
No I didn't realize that, but that may be because Fair Use rights only come into play when you don't own the copyright!! Fair Use is when you use a copyrighted work without having to ask permission from the copyright owner.
Use is one thing, and in that sense I agree with your statement. However he said share, not use, and even the quote you provided only says that a consumer can make a copy for a fair use. So really, you've done nothing to clarify what constitutes as fair use and have said basically nothing. Certainly nothing to be smug about "pointing out" to the grandparent.
The rest mostly seems like you bitching about word choice. "Oh my GOSH!! HE SAID GENERALLY! ATTACK!!" There are reasons for softening down statements with words like "generally" aside from the literal interpretation meaning there are exceptions. Including so when you get flamed on Slashdot if somebody can provide a decent counter-example (which you do not), the heat is slightly lower.
Actually, subconsciously, I just did what I was talking about: I said "the rest mostly seems like you bitching." I mean "the rest is you bitching," but I dumbed it down to soften the abrasivenes (which I've just reinserted I guess, but at least now it goes to proving a point instead of simply being a prick).
I do find it somewhat ironic that you got modded "Informative" for a post that only says "you may not be right." I can get more information than that off of a cereal box.
When the majority of users either don't know how the system works or think it is fair, it is de facto censorship.
I do not buy that at all. Maybe on some other websites that could be argued, but this is a geek-oriented site. If anything resembling a "majority" of people can't figure out how to open their preferences and adjust their thresholds, or change how different moderations are scored, that is an extremely pitiful commentary on this site's readership.
If most people leave the setting on the default, that's probably because it works well enough for them. You have every power to determine what you read, not only by reading deeper into a thread (threshold-wise) but by setting up, essentially, your own scoring system. If you wish, you can essentially nullify all moderations or just say you want to see everything. Failure to do so is not a failure of the system, it is a failure of the users or an acknowledgement that they don't see a problem.
Having to re-set thresholds for each thread if you're not logged in is poor design, I think it should be persistant via a session cookie, but I don't call that censorship.
If I rip off your bicycle (to use the stupid IP as physical property analogy), am I less guilty because I thought I was ripping off somebody else's?
No, but that is a criminal case. In a civil case, YOU, as the copyright owner, must bring suit in court to receive any relief (injunctive, compensatory, punitive, etc).
The issue is that if they do not know that you have the rights to the software then they do not know that you have a right to bring the case, and while the other guy may be guilty as hell of infringement, a case can't be heard if it can't be brought.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I was one of the few who actually paid attention in Civics.....
I think you missed a few classes. The Supreme Court has said that in order for the fourth amendment to apply, the person needs to have a reasonable expectation of privacy that was violated.
Now, yes, I agree with you: the bag searches may well be unconstitutional, and they are already being challenged in court. We'll see the outcome of that soon. ("Soon" in court reckoning, anyway.) Beyond that, since they are essentially optional, they are random, and they're not done at every station, I think it is a horribly ridiculous thing even if it's perfectly legal.
The premise that you have an expectation not to be watched while you are in a public place, however, is silly. Everybody is perfectly free to watch you. A cop standing there is free to watch you. Your fellow travelers are free to watch you. You're free to watch them. That is the nature of a public place. What is the legal difference if you're watched by a cop or a camera? If you want to talk about legalities involving who can view those tapes, how long they're stored, etc, fine--but their mere existence does not violate any of your rights.
Your problem is that you are either not even loosely up on the case law that evolves and shapes the legal realities we live in, or are simply ignoring it altogether. From an idealistic viewpoint, your interpretation of the 4th Amendment might be right. But guess what? The Constitution--that same document you're quoting from--names the Supreme Court (and such courts as Congress may create, blah blah) the interpreters of the law. Not isotope23. And until some subsequent court sees fit to reverse, they have spoken and you lose. As an aside, if you want to get real technical, the Constitution makes no mention of a Supreme Court authority to strike down any laws. John Marshall took that upon himself and it has stuck. But I digress.
Call me when they start pointing these cameras into your home window and we'll talk. While they're pointed in public places, whether your tax dollars built them or not, you're just blowing steam.
For the record, I don't claim to be a lawyer or any sort of legal expert, and I may have oversimplified the USSC rulings (you know they love exceptions in their legaleese), but I am fairly certain that the concept of what I said is accurate.
From what I understand, there's not a clear consensus on why we need sleep. I mean, it does a number of things, and we've figured many of them out, but as far as biology goes none of them seems to be a deal-breaker.
If I recall correctly, a psychology professor once mentioned that the very few people who literally do not dream--as opposed to those who simply don't remember their dreams--die in a relatively short period. Is this inaccurate? If it's true, that would seem to be a dealbreaker to me.
If you want to be located when you call 911, maintain a land-line. Where is the goddamn rocket science here, people?
Because we all know that all situations that necessitate a 911 call happen in a person's home.
Punishing a media outlet for publishing freely available non-sensitive information sets a very bad precedent. Imagine if the government could get away with that.
They can, and do. Who says any government official HAS to talk to any news organisation?
Granted "the government" is so big that people would likely still do it as "an anonymous source," but that's beside the point.
Thanks much, that explains it.
In NSW it's now 3 points off your license for going over the speed limit by a single kilometer/hour, and 6 points for the same if it's a long weekend or holiday period.
I've got some friends in Australia and have heard them mention points as well, plus now several times in this thread and I've been meaning to ask: Could you explain the points system as it exists in NSW (and as it relates to different-level P's and such as well)?
I was just over in Newcastle in July, by the way. Beautiful place and nice people.
Ted Kaczynski: killed 3, injured 23
Timothy McVeigh: killed 168, injured "at least" 500
19 arab terrorists: killed over 3000, injured how many thousands more?
So I guess we should have let McVeigh waltz right past our searches. After all, if the best he can do is kill 168, he's hardly worth our time at all. Better to get that poor Arab student who came to America to get away from government interference in daily life because he happens to have been born in the wrong place. Correct?
How many terrorist attacks have occurred on American soil conducted by Arabs/Muslims? WTC 1993, WTC 2001. Two?
We've already listed two non-Arab terrorists who struck in the US. Let's add in Eric Rudolph. Three is certainly more than two. And yes, I'm sure I'm missing some--on both sides.
Let's step outside America, shall we? Poor Britain has gotten it lately. Not once, but TWICE! Fucking Arabs. Let's ignore the fact that the IRA operated in Britain for decades, they're too white-skinned to possibly cause any trouble besides the occasional drunken bar brawl.
It's just stupid to base these decisions on skin color or ethnicity. Worse than that, it's illegal and immoral. The United States should be better than that. If not, what the fuck are we fighting for? "Freedom and democracy" my ass. Freedom for WASPs, maybe. Only freedom for everybody else as we find it conveinient.
Why don't you go offer him some "therapy and understanding"?
You must be a Republican. That has become one of their favorite lines lately, and I have no idea why. I've never heard anybody say it. What was said is that the Republicans wanted to go to war over 9/11, kill people and treat the captured as "enemy combatents" subject to military tribunal, and the Democrats wanted to let them be handled within the domestic American legal system. Argue the merits and demerits of either position as you please, I'm not interested in doing so, but drop the moral superiority attitude about it. They're both valid responses that hope to acheive the same things.
That said, I hope you're not taking a lawyer's legal argument as some holy statement to rail against. You think American lawyers, or non-terrorism-related defenses are any better? A defense lawyer's job is not to seek truth. Frankly it's not to protect people either. It's to 1) ensure adequate legal representation as guaranteed by civilized countries, and 2) present the defense most likely to result in a favorable verdict. Reasonable doubt and all that.
We both know the argument isn't going to fly. Why are you trying to make something of it?
There should be a little switch on the side/botttom of every phone manufactured lately (last 30 years or so).
I think that's the grandparent's point -- every phone. In many (most?) households, that may be two, three, four phones in a single house in any number of places: Kitchen area, a family/rec room/, basement, bedrooms...
Much easier to turn one off than four.
Yes, 1% per day.
Anyway, not a direct reply to you, more to the grandparent (but what the hell?)
According to the NIST website, the oil savings for increasing DST by one month is 300,000 barrels per year.
If I recall correctly, the proposal increases it for three weeks (75%), meaning a savings of 225,000 barrels of oil. At $63 per barrel or so (and we all know that it is high right now), that amounts to a yearly savings of $14,175,000. Now, I mean, if you're going to hand me $14 million dollars, you'll instantly become my best friend in the whole world--but in the scope of a multi-trillion dollar yearly federal budget, it is less than spit in the bucket. $14 million out of ONE trillion dollars is roughly 0.0014%.
Incidentally, the pay for a congressman in 2004 was $158,100 per year. At 535 Congressmen (435 Congress + 100 Senators, and technically leaders and the speaker get more), if they gave up one month's pay each (hey, they're shifting DST roughly a month right?) it would save $7,048,625 Roughly half. And they just gave themselves a pay hike.
It's just an example of how simple $14 million is to come up with in the federal budget. I won't even get into pork projects or $75 screws. Anybody claiming this is anything but an extremely minor energy/money savings, or an extremely (extremely!) minor reduction in our "dependance on foreign oil"--that's the phrase of Bush's presidency, yes?--has an agenda.
I'm curious what Bush's is. That part I haven't quite figured out.
Since this article is about gadgets getting confused, potentially requiring new ones be purchased if it is that annoying enough, and/or new DST rules being included in things like operating systems, I would wager that the cost of fixing this "problem," to both companies and consumers, is likely far greater than doing nothing.
Hurray, Congress!
But the point is - we should only be discussing those hypothetical risks only after we've already done something, not now.
I don't support the implantable RFIDs and I have absolutely no plans on getting one, now or in the future. I was simply stating one value over a card-type system.
For me, the privacy implications would far outweigh any conveinience.
Instead of storing this data in an implanted chip, why not encode this data on re-writable magnetic strip on a credit-card-type card (with no personally identifiable info) that you can keep in your wallet/purse/keychain etc?
Because if you lose your wallet/purse/keychain, or forget it at home, or it gets damaged, or whatever, you're fucked.
With the chip implant, you can't forget it at home when you take that short drive to the grocery store that you don't need to put your seatbelt on for.
At the penalty of losing their job [. . .] [t]hey can't specifically say one product is better than another.
That's not necessarily so bad, depending on how it is enforced in practice rather than inferring from a statement.
For example, it could be as innocuous as forcing clerks to promote the positives and let the customers decide. Even if the clerk IS knowledgable about a subject, I don't necessarily want them telling me which is better. Then their opinion gets into it, and if there are sales commissions of any sort (hell, even if sales performance is used in consideration of future advancement) it gets even more interesting. Let them, for example, give me the specs on those two new computers I'm considering. If I don't understand what some metric means, or whether I'd get a better performance boost by changing A or B, I can simply ask.
Of course that assumes the clerks have any idea what they're talking about, but then again, them giving opinions outright does too.
I'm sure part of it is that they don't want to lose sales, too, and in my opinion that's a load of crap. To be honest, if I was buying an expensive new TV or something and the clerk was able to tell me that one had frequent problems or tended to die off quickly, I would be as likely or more to purchase something different from that store. And if there WERE sales commissions, I'd make sure that guy got them every time. Good for him, good for business.
Do they actually think that this will hurt their recruitment efforts? That some guy who is already of the mind to commit suicide for the cause is going to change his mind when his browser gives him a 404?
Oh, I don't know. If my terrorist cell can't even keep their website up I might reconsider my suicide bombing. If they can't even do that, how the hell can I have any faith in their ability to deliver my virgins?!
(Shit... does that mean Al Qaeda is trolling /. for women?)
I understand (and agree with) your gripe about poor writing skills, but I disagree that it is related to IM in any substantial, causal way. I also don't agree with your conclusions about why IM is popular.
To say that teenagers use IM because they think the world revolves around them, and right now, is going too far. The popularity of IM to them is almost certainly because of the same reasons that it is popular to me: Instant response. No, not in the "you'd better respond right now or you suck!" sense, but in the conversation sense. Email is a fine conversation tool, and I am highly likely to fire one off if I need to say something important to somebody who is not online, or if the subject is something that I am hoping for a more thoughtful response than a quick IM reply is likely to give. Still, on average, I am more likely to just say the "hello" type of thing (hi? How are you? What have you been up to?) on IM. It's far simpler and more immediate. It also, quite happily, has a tendency to branch off into other unexpected areas of conversation unrelated to the inquires, which may very well not have happened in email because there is a lag time between responses.
The group I talk to on IM isn't too bad with their writing skills. They're no experts and the occasional acronym definitely pops up, but for the most part they tend to speak in full words and the level of punctuation is at least sufficient not to cause misunderstandings. This may just be because the people I am likely to provide immediate access to myself, by giving them my IM name, have a tendency to be a bit above the curve. I can't speak intelligently to that. I can tell you that, on bulk, they tend to be of fairly average intelligence. Some, however, are downright smart, much smarter than they give themselves credit for, and at the same time wholly non-technical. That is not necessarily reflected in their IM writing. I often help them out with their school work (I'm 21, incidentally, and the particular group I speak of is a few years younger,) and can safely say that their formal writing tends to be considerably better. They type in IM, and like IM, because they don't have to be perfect. It's a conversation with friends.
Another point I would mention is that a lot of people use the excuse that they don't type fast enough as the reason that they use a lot of abbreviations and acronyms. It makes some modicum of sense. One only has so much time to be online (whether that's minutes or hours) and if the tasks be done quicker, it's far more efficient. Similarly, IM also lends itself to multi-tasking better. I can handle a half dozen IM conversations at the same time, but would only be able to do emails in serial--and if I was writing an email while trying to juggle those IM conversations at the same time, something wouldn't go well.
I planned on saying more, but it's time to go home from work now so I'm going to cut it here and leave this thought: Not all communication needs to be deep and complex. IM is more like a phone call while emails are like a letter. They both have their place. Perhaps we should take it as a GOOD thing that a kid is more likely to send grandma an email than an IM and be happy that THEY'RE happy to communicate with their friends through whatever medium they see as the best fit.
Hopefully this was somewhat sensical, I don't have time to go through and sanity check before submitting this time. You know, the whole going home thing.
The patent is for someone putting [vonagead] in a page and my computer displaying the file WITHOUT actually downloading it on the spot.
Maybe I'm wrong, but a glance at the section from the application posted in the great-grandparent seems to say otherwise.
My impression is they've done it two ways. Yes, you put "[vonagead]" (or whatever) in your message. But then they list two ways of dealing with that: 1) the image to replace [vonagead] is sent with that message, or 2) the local computer checks to see if it already has the appropriate image; if so, it uses it and if not, it sends a request to the original sender asking for it. (Sounds a lot like how a webpage works to me. "Is this image in my cache? Nope. Okay, let's grab it then.")
Some people seem confused about it being for CUSTOM emoticons. They don't mean :) into their version of the smiley that already exists when you downloaded MSN Messenger. They mean using their feature of the same name, using whatever image a person wants for an emoticon, assigning it some character sequence, and being able to use it with clients who never had that image on their system originally.
GTA:SA will sell no matter the age rating
I think it's true that changing from M to AO wouldn't deter most people from buying it.
It DOES, however, deter many stores from selling it. Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart have already pulled it from their shelves. I know Wal-Mart refuses to stock ANY AO-rated game, I'm not sure if the others do as well or if they were just reacting to this present controversy.
So, it might increase (or hold steady the) DEMAND, but it will also make it harder to find. Since the ostensible goal is to keep it out of the hands of people under 18 now, online stores might not be an option (no credit card).
Personally, I think the whole thing is damn stupid.
What would the reason be to put it in there then?
An alternate theory is that the developer who wrote it DID intend to put it in, but that before it was released the higher-ups nixed it (probably to avoid the AO rating), it was made inaccessible and forgotten about.
The problem with AO versus M, as I understand it, is that some retailers (including Wal-Mart) refuse to sell AO games, so I can fully see a Rockstar manager or exec going, "if we leave in this mini-game, we're going to get an AO tag and lose $XXX million. Take it out."
Just as a bit of a side note, the US Supreme Court just unanimously overturned the Arthur Anderson conviction.
50 Trexler Ave.
Kutztown, PA 19530
I originally read that as "Klutztown." I was laughing at the irony when I realized my mistake. What a let down.
Whatever the supreme court decides will already be benign when they reach a decision.
Tell that to the people sued into the ground if the Supreme Court decides that companies making this software are indeed liable for infringement from its use. The Supreme Court has amazing authority and can easily release a ruling--binding on the lower courts--that is so broad that it encompasses that new technology in addition to the two specific programs under consideration.
Yes, there will always be ways to swap music, but that hardly makes the decision benign. Usenet, FTP, IRC and the like are great for the /. crowd. Joe User, who makes Napster-style applications successful by his use of it, isn't likely to know about or deal with most of those. Not to mention the fact that anything that has become big enough for the average computer user to hear about it is probably big enough to be traced to somebody who can be sued into the ground.
No I didn't realize that, but that may be because Fair Use rights only come into play when you don't own the copyright!! Fair Use is when you use a copyrighted work without having to ask permission from the copyright owner.
Use is one thing, and in that sense I agree with your statement. However he said share, not use, and even the quote you provided only says that a consumer can make a copy for a fair use. So really, you've done nothing to clarify what constitutes as fair use and have said basically nothing. Certainly nothing to be smug about "pointing out" to the grandparent.
The rest mostly seems like you bitching about word choice. "Oh my GOSH!! HE SAID GENERALLY! ATTACK!!" There are reasons for softening down statements with words like "generally" aside from the literal interpretation meaning there are exceptions. Including so when you get flamed on Slashdot if somebody can provide a decent counter-example (which you do not), the heat is slightly lower.
Actually, subconsciously, I just did what I was talking about: I said "the rest mostly seems like you bitching." I mean "the rest is you bitching," but I dumbed it down to soften the abrasivenes (which I've just reinserted I guess, but at least now it goes to proving a point instead of simply being a prick).
I do find it somewhat ironic that you got modded "Informative" for a post that only says "you may not be right." I can get more information than that off of a cereal box.
When the majority of users either don't know how the system works or think it is fair, it is de facto censorship.
I do not buy that at all. Maybe on some other websites that could be argued, but this is a geek-oriented site. If anything resembling a "majority" of people can't figure out how to open their preferences and adjust their thresholds, or change how different moderations are scored, that is an extremely pitiful commentary on this site's readership.
If most people leave the setting on the default, that's probably because it works well enough for them. You have every power to determine what you read, not only by reading deeper into a thread (threshold-wise) but by setting up, essentially, your own scoring system. If you wish, you can essentially nullify all moderations or just say you want to see everything. Failure to do so is not a failure of the system, it is a failure of the users or an acknowledgement that they don't see a problem.
Having to re-set thresholds for each thread if you're not logged in is poor design, I think it should be persistant via a session cookie, but I don't call that censorship.
If I rip off your bicycle (to use the stupid IP as physical property analogy), am I less guilty because I thought I was ripping off somebody else's?
No, but that is a criminal case. In a civil case, YOU, as the copyright owner, must bring suit in court to receive any relief (injunctive, compensatory, punitive, etc).
The issue is that if they do not know that you have the rights to the software then they do not know that you have a right to bring the case, and while the other guy may be guilty as hell of infringement, a case can't be heard if it can't be brought.
But the number of people who loved "Firefly" is greater than those who loved "Everybody Loves Raymond", so it sold more DVDs.
But I thought everybody loved Raymond?
(I can't believe nobody took that one before me!)
does the 'liar warmongering' part also make you proud to be amerikan?
Awesome way of spelling "American," and so original. j00 r ub3r c001. I'm sure it goes a long way toward making your point.