Yep. I assume she wasn't forced to go there, either.
No, but it's reasonable to assume that food they serve won't cause you physical damage. You wouldn't expect their meat-like burgers to contain discarded hypodermic needles, either. If the coffee was normal hot-coffee temperature, I'm sure she would have taken responsibility for it.
This particular MacDonald's had gotten many complaints about their scalding hot coffee, and had refused to do anything about it.
It's funny, as anti-corporate as the typical/.er seems to be, they sure buy the corporate propaganda, hook, line, and sinker.
Oh yes, the "if you disagree with me, you must be a tool of The Man" argument. Give it a rest.
No, he's just saying that you're buying into this corporate propaganda that MacDonald's spread so effectively. I used to believe this coffee lawsuit was ridiculous too, until I learned the details about it. (I do agree with you that Slashdot has diverse opinions.)
Third, some of us may not support the encroaching 'nanny culture' of this country where - instead of taking responsibility for your own actions - you shift the blame elsewhere and possibly make some cash in the process...
I agree that our lawsuit process is often abused. But sometimes there is no other recourse. What would you do if Mickey D's served you a hamburger with used needles in it? Would you still consider yourself "responsible for your own action" of buying and eating the burger? Or what if your employer or client withheld thousands of dollars of payment from you for no good reason? What would you do?
Lawsuits in our culture have a bad reputation, often deserved. BUT be careful about condemning them as a whole, because one day you'll wish you had the option when someone screws you over. The source of most anti-lawsuit PR these days large corporations who want to screw over the public and not get sued-- think of HMO's, insurance companies, etc. They've manipulated the public's mistrust of lawyers (again, often deserved) into a general condemnation of lawsuits.
Like it or not, lawsuits are a fundamental element of the US legal system; they're how our civil code (as opposed to criminal code) is enforced. A lawsuit should only be used as a last resort after all other negotiation fails, but without that option, many basic rights we take for granted would be effectively lost, because they would be unenforceable. I used to loudly condemn lawsuits and anyone who would bring them, until I had a couple of eye-opening experiences that made me realize the critical part they play in our legal system.
You're missing what wobblie is saying
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wobblie made a one-sentence statement that is rich in meaning for someone who knows what s/he (wobblie) is talking about. It went right over your head. wobblie isn't saying that companies shouldn't make money; wobblie is saying that you seem to be wearing very large blinders (nothing personal, a lot of people wear the same blinders). Ironically, your response seems to confirm this. You somewhat crassly dismissed an AC response above, one that offered a broader world view that you might have learned from.
A company may fall apart if it can't earn a profit. This does not imply that a company's primary purpose is to earn money for its owners, any more than a human's primary purpose is to find air to breathe.
The purpose of a company really does depend on your perspective. If you're an owner, then perhaps its purpose is indeed to earn you money. But if you're an employee, its purpose is to provide you with a paycheck. If you're a customer, its purpose is to provide you with a good product. If the company fails at any of these three, then the company will eventually fail, at least in "normal" market conditions.
Put another way, if employees are a resource used by the company to make money, then companies are the same to employees. How can either statement be more correct than the other? Even money itself is a meaningless number, until it is used to purchase something worthwhile. In the end, it's people that matter. Our economic system is in place because supposedly it results in people's maximum well-being. It exists within our democratic system, not the other way around.
If a company does some great R&D but then goes out of business, has its existence been worthless? Or if it keeps a bunch of employees off the street for ten years? Or if it profits for ten years, but then stops profiting? It may have to close down, but that doesn't mean it's been a waste of time.
You might profit from studying a little philosophy; you'd be surprised how much it applies to real life. In particular, the concept of "objective truth" is a tricky one. I don't think you've examined it, or have a clear idea of what "perspective" means, based on your responses to that AC and to wobblie. No one person knows everything a priori; you have to combine what you know with what others know, to get a fuller picture. It's like those ten blind men and the elephant.
What you're overlooking is that the existing implementations of censorware are all corrupt. They typically censor any sites critical of them. They promote certain political agendas by censoring sites that contain opposing views. They certainly censor anti-censorship sites.
Parents may innocently think they're protecting their children with a censorware package, but they don't realize how the content is being filtered by these censorware vendors, and how their children are being manipulated. Censorware vendors don't disclose the list of sites they block, claiming it's a "trade secret". Thus, they can block anything they want, and all the customer sees is a "site blocked" page. It's more cost-effective for them to block a thousand innocent sites that their users will never know are innocent, than to let one page about AIDS slip through, and bring the wrath of a parent down upon them. Thus, some popular censorware products have something like a 75% false positive rate.
This is all well-documented. I think peacefire.org has a lot of links.
Me: Removing rent control won't build more apartments,
You: Here the argument falls apart. Of course higher rents will make building (or otherwise make availabe) apartments more profitable.
You need to investigate rent control more (that's advice, not an accusation). Rent control normally only prevents rents from being raised on occupied units. Any newly built units can be rented at market rates. Thus, the financial incentive is still there.
Again, I assert that removing rent control won't build more apartments.
You critizise people who just assert that supply and demand mechanisms apply. And that's a valid point. But just asserting that they don't work is no better. I'd even say it's worse, since those basic economic laws do apply quite well in most situations. So the burden of proof would seem to be on those claiming that housing is an exception.
Read my last paragraph again. I'm not saying S&D never works, or even that it doesn't usually work. I'm saying that many times it doesn't, and that it's dangerous to ignore those cases. From observation and specific analysis, I've concluded that it doesn't work for the housing market. (By "doesn't work", I mean that it operates to the sum detriment of the population.) I think S&D breaks down for any human necessity in limited supply, like housing. In effect, property owners as a group are a broad oligopoly, having cornered the market on housing. I believe free market theory relies on the notion that you can produce something yourself if you don't like the existing producers, but you can't make more land. Also, you can't really choose to not buy housing, thus some free market principles are skewed.
Imagine someone or a group cornered the market on food, and on the production of food (let's pretend you can't even grow a vegetable garden). They could charge whatever they want, and would get a larger and larger percentage of everyone's income, and people's disposable income would approach subsistence level. Society would in effect turn back into a feudal system within a supposed free market. That is effectively what would happen in San Francisco without rent control; to some extent it's already happened.
People could move away, but then you have disintegration of communities, endlessly. And in 50 years, I'm not convinced people will have anywhere to move to.
Ultimately, I think we need to move toward home ownership for more people. The less that people own more properties than they need (i.e. landlords), the more affordable housing would be for everyone to buy. In the extreme, if no one owned more than their dwelling, then supply and demand would mean that everyone could afford housing for one, almost by definition. The least desirable houses would sell the cheapest to those who could afford the least, but everyone would end up with something (assuming there's roughly equal amounts of housing needed and housing available).
I must disagree with your characterization of rent control. It's a complex issue, but to summarize: after a few years deeply involved in San Francisco housing issues, I don't believe that housing falls under normal "free market" rules. Nor is it responsible for any housing shortage, although heavy advertising by landlord groups would have you believe otherwise.
You said it yourself. Landlords will demand whatever they can get. Removing rent control won't build more apartments, it will just make more available to those with a lot of money, and fewer available to those without. It means that you, as someone highly-paid, will still be putting a large percentage of your income toward rent. It means that those who have lived there for years, who have invested much personal energy in the community, and who may even have caused your prosperity, will be kicked out. This includes teachers, social workers, artists, and all those waiters the high-tech lifestyle requires.
"So," you say, "since I can pay more money I deserve to live there more." However, it's a basic human (even animal) social rule that one's right to stay put outweighs another's right to move anywhere they want. If someone can't find housing where they want to move to, they shouldn't move there. They don't have a right to kick someone else out. To think that rich people should have more rights than poor people is analogous to the moral code of "might makes right", which isn't very sophisticated. Unfortunately, our economy doesn't reflect this, but rent control is one attempt to keep communities from falling apart. It's one thing if we're talking about luxuries, but housing is not a luxury. If you don't have housing, you're screwed.
I don't think rent control should be subject to any "means test". Remember, it's ultimately the residents who improve a neighborhood, not the owners (unless they're also residents). Low crime and booming business is more valuable than fresh paint jobs. So if residents are responsible for the improvements, it's reasonable that they should enjoy them for as long as they live there. The owners will get their profits when they sell.
Here in San Francisco, do you know how the Internet industry took hold? For most of its history, SF has fostered a creative and tolerant culture, which means that new ideas can be explored. In the early 90's, a few tech-savvy artists started working for themselves doing image manipulation services, etc. They set up shop south of Market because that's where cheap warehouse space was. Soon the area had a critical mass of talent and the SOMA multimedia industry took shape. It was in perfect position when the Web exploded. Now, the very artists and other people who fostered the culture and attitudes in the first place are being kicked out, by people prospering from the industry they helped create. So much for gratitude.
I'm speaking as someone who's made a good living in Internet tech for a long time, but who's sad to see much of San Francisco's culture and communities fall apart (I've lived here 10 years), not to mention everyone who's losing their home. I don't blame the individual immigrants; it's more of a collective effect coupled with insufficient rent control. We have rent control, but it has loopholes that have been exploited to illegally evict thousands of residents recently, and the DA won't prosecute. If we had no rent control, the problem would be far worse. A housing market driven purely by free market forces doesn't make a fun or interesting place to live, and you can just forget about real community.
"Simple supply and demand" may be an elegant theoretical system, but it falls apart in many real-life situations. Ignoring those situations and pretending the free market can solve everything has dire consequences. We adopt this economic system because it's supposed to be the best for people, but we need to recognize when it's not. We shouldn't let ourselves be slaves to columns of numbers.
More and more, good randomness is critical for important computing functions such as encryption. I think it's entirely reasonable for CPU's or other hardware components to include an analog source of randomness, like a tiny white-noise generator. Do any big chipmakers plan to do something like this? If not, why not?
Yeah, who ever heard of self regulation working? And some people are even talking about forming some kind of self regulated nation, where leaders are elected by the people and laws are passed based on the people's needs! How could that possibly work? Every nation needs a dictator or monarch, don't you agree?
Now now, calm down. Of course I'm not saying that. I'm saying that purely self-interested parties can't be trusted to regulate themselves regarding their actions toward others. Corporations, almost by definition, are purely self-interested. Much of law enforcement has become that way, tragically.
A dictator or monarch is self-regulated, so that scenario does not follow from my comments. A nation controlling itself is great, as long as it doesn't try to control others. Self-regulation is good for internal stuff that doesn't affect others, whether on a national or personal scale. I was talking about actions which do affect others; maybe I should have been more specific.
The way I see it, the trick is to balance the power: The less powerful need oversight (regulation) over the more powerful. Otherwise, the powerful few get more powerful and fewer, and everyone else suffers. In many ways, this is the goal of democracy-- without it, monarchs would rule. In the US today, corporations are far more powerful than citizens. Without regulation, they'd walk all over us and any rights we had.
So, you don't commit crimes just because there are laws and law enforcement personell around? I do self-regulate myself. I don't need police or laws to do it.
Actually, I do regulate myself, pretty strongly. (My own rules don't always match the government's rules, though.) I'm ALL FOR a society where everybody treats each other with compassion and respect, and there's no need for laws.
I'm asking the question-- what is the difference between self-regulation for these companies, and self-regulation for individuals? Once again, corporations end up with more civil liberties than citizens. Who let that happen? Courts, Congress?
Be careful when using the word "crime". Crime according to whom?
Many privacy policies sound good, and give you that comfortable warm feeling that makes you trust them. HOWEVER, somewhere in the small print is a line like
"Any info we collect about you will
only be used by Foo Inc. or its carefully selected business partners."
Yeah, carefully selected to give Foo Inc. the most money per demographic datum.
Such a privacy policy can be worse than nothing, because it gives the user a false sense of security (much like bad encryption). These days, I simply don't trust any privacy policy; I figure there's always some loophole I missed.
I'm not saying that every company means to deceive; I know for a fact that some companies truly value consumer privacy. Clauses like the one above may be needed to allow for outside contractors, etc. (but they should be more specific in that case). All I'm saying is that most privacy policies look a lot stronger than they really are, and that you could be screwed if you count on their protection.
The idea of self-regulation is a crock of shit, foisted upon us by self-interested parties who want to get away with bad stuff. The CIA investigating itself. The police providing their own oversight. Profit-seeking companies promising they'll act in consumers' best interest. How can anyone honestly believe any of these can work?
I mean, I don't like excessive laws either, but consumer protection laws are to protect you and me. There wouldn't be any demand for these laws if companies had behaved in the past. They had their chance, they blew it. I have no sympathy for them. If they don't like it, then they should remove the need for these laws, not complain about them.
I don't like your insult to an AC, I personally hate the way/. discriminates against AC's.
Well, I didn't like his insults to me. Why do you condemn my response instead of his unprovoked insults? If you knew me, you'd know I strongly support the right to anonymity and I put my money where my mouth is. However, it is truly a coward who uses anonymity merely to hide behind insults, as this AC did. Don't defend every troll just because they're an AC.
This is what I did to test if/. was down, or if it was me:
Thank you, this is useful information, unlike the AC before you. This is actually what I do most of the time. My point is that if Slashdot told us what was happening, even one sentence's worth, we wouldn't all have to do this. It's very inefficient for thousands of people to do this instead of one person posting a quick informative note.
I've allowed exceptions for genuine trade secrets. If they're truly trade secrets, then I'm not very interested in them anyway-- I would only want to retain the more general purpose routines which I invented, which by nature aren't really trade secrets.
Some problems with restricting extensions to a programmer's libraries are that
Often, the programmer had planned or pondered the functionality before the job, and merely typed it in while employed;
forever restricting a function from being added to a library is like cutting off a limb;
if a function is truly integrated with the library, it's probably not much good on its own anyway; and
again, the employer/client needs to understand that they are benefitting from work done for previous clients, and if those had made restrictions, the current employer couldn't use the libraries at all-- kind of like a social contract, where they benefit from others and in return let others benefit from them.
If you have a good reputation and a string of happy clients and good references, employers are more willing to trust that you won't take advantage of them in the end, and are more likely to resolve issues by being "reasonable" (a common-sense term which actually has a lot of weight in court, should it ever come to that).
I realize this is too late for your current situation, but:
I do only contract work. At the start of every contract, there is a set of papers to sign, usually including an agreement that anything I write while employed by the company is owned by them. I almost always modify this, and employers have always agreed so far.
When signing employment agreements, always review them carefully and never be afraid to modify parts that make you uncomfortable. Don't sign things you don't agree with (anywhere in your life, not just employment). Contracts are supposed to protect both sides, not just one. Very often, employers have no problem with reasonable changes, but you have to ask. Of course, you should try to come across as reasonable and friendly, not argumentative or problematic.
The change I normally make is to protect a) software or routines I've already written, that I may use or extend in the current project, and b) general-purpose routines I may write while on the job, even if they're brand new (I frame those as "extending my existing libraries"). To make the employer comfortable, I grant them a permanent license to use, modify, or distribute what I write (there may be exceptions depending on the situation), but I retain ownership. If they think they're giving something away for free, I make it clear that they're benefitting from the work I've done at past employers, and that the tradeoff to them is more than worth it-- they get immediate benefit from my past work, while their own potential loss is questionable at best. It's reasonable to argue that the best arrangement for all parties (you and multiple clients) is for you to retain ownership of it all while granting liberal licenses to each client.
Note that IANAL, and none of my agreements have been tested in court, and I hope they never are.
Aw, heck... here's the actual addendum text I added to my most recent contract:
Section 6.B is subject to the following exceptions and conditions:
Agency_Foo and Client understand that Employee brings to this job various software tools, libraries, and the like ("Tools"), which have been previously developed by Employee, either while working for previous clients, or on Employee's own. During and after this Agreement, Employee will retain all ownership, right, title, and/or interest in these Tools. Client will retain a permanent license to use, distribute, and modify these Tools as needed, including but not limited to the use of Tools in everything Employee worked on during this Agreement, and for all related development subsequent to this Agreement. It is understood that Employee may extend or modify Tools during this Agreement, and this addendum holds true for those extensions and modifications, i.e. that Employee retains rights over them but Client retains a permanent license for them.
The intent of this addendum is to ensure that both Employee and Client can use these Tools during or after this Agreement, without restriction.
I used words and phrases defined elsewhere in the agreement, so modify the language to fit the existing contract in your situation (a smooth fit with existing language makes it sound less agressive too). You might change it to grant more or less to your client. I never had this reviewed by a lawyer, but it might be worth it at some point.
You're obviously new to manners and probability, buttmunch, so let me dumb this down for you: AC was not suggesting a guranteed method of debugging the connection but something that will give you an answer within reasonable probability bounds.
Read it again, flameboy. He wasn't trying to be helpful, he was being insulting and sarcastic. I could find no other way to interpret it, and I tried. I was a lot more informative to him than he was to me. Do you care? Probably not. I think you're just looking for an argument.
I guess you're new to the Internet, not knowing how to log in and all. Let me dumb this down for you:
Net connectivity is not always predictable. Often, network problems can cause inaccessibility to some sites but not others. There are many points between two computers where a problem could happen, and many involved systems. For example, DNS or routing problems could easily make only certain sites inaccessible. If that makes your brain hurt, then take a shower (with soap), learn about "social skills", and use them to ask someone familiar with computers to explain it to you.
They had a job to do, they did their best and have been found wanting, a terribly unpleasant feeling I can assure you, and I have little doubt that most other people know just how unpleasant it is.
I appreciate your compassion and consideration. However, in this case, I think the party who did a bad job was whichever executive made the decision to co-opt Kerberos, in the sleazy way Microsoft normally does things. Whoever made that decision DOES deserve scolding and a virtual slap, and more. Since they're already lying to us, stealing from us, and otherwise treating us with such dismissal, I doubt their feelings would be hurt no matter how many names we call them. Which is too bad, because I wish there was a way to correct their antisocial behaviour, just as we try to correct a child's antisocial behaviour.
We're not (or at least I'm not) trying to look over anyone's shoulder. I just want to know what's happening, so I don't spend time trying to debug my own network. A short simple communique from anyone at Slashdot would help a lot. Basic communication. This is a team effort, we're supposed to be working together.
My own connection is flaky. For all I know, when I can't reach Slashdot, my local network is screwed up, or any number of other problems between me and slashdot.org. I'll keep trying to fix it until I know it's out of my hands.
Being attacked is nothing to be ashamed of, but keeping it hidden from friendly parties is the wrong way to deal with it. I would think it's easier to post a short note once than deal with hundreds of emails asking what's going on. You're sitting there at Andover, but the rest of us are in the dark.
Anyway, good luck in fixing it. Afterwards, please tell us what happened so we can a) offer insight on how to avoid it in the future, and b) guard against it on our own sites. You know, the old open-source approach.
Or do you really need want us to state the obvious?
It may be obvious to you at Slashdot, but it's far less obvious to everyone else. We're not there.
I have a fast but flaky Net connection. For all I know, when I can't reach Slashdot, there's something screwed up with the network I'm on, or a problem at MAE West, or something else. Yes, network problems sometimes prevent access to certain sites and not others. With testing/proxies/etc. I can formulate a better guess of what's going on, but why not just give us the answer if you have it? You may not realize it, but you're keeping us in the dark.
Please communicate with us. Having network problems is nothing to be ashamed of, but it's much better handling to keep people informed. If you were a network admin at a company, wouldn't you let staff know when the file server has crashed? Even utility companies tell the public when there are outages, so everyone knows it's not a problem in their individual homes. A simple memo from Slashdot would go a long way, doesn't need to be fancy.
I recall something like this from another forum: If Slashdot edits or removes any posts, it may then be legally responsible for the content of all posts. As long as it stays entirely hands-off, it bears no liability for any posts, just like newsgroups. But as soon as it exercises any editorial control, it becomes responsible for all of it.
Can any lawyer here confirm or deny this?
Wow, these look really fun to program
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Something about it seems like a really neat software project, the various objects and structures you'd create-- how they move, how they break apart and get back together, maybe make different forms like starfish or T's (are they useful?). You could make up all sorts of cool stuff for them to do, and the routines would be fun to write. Lots of segment lists. Dunno, that was just the first thing that struck me.
Do not trust press releases, or greenwashing
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Take for example this press release:...
... but I think the industry does make a real effort to keep it under control.
Not to pick on you, but... Press releases are carefully-crafted documents to show a company in the most positive light possible. Do not ever, ever take them as fact, without doing other research. Press releases are essentially advertising.
Maybe Applied Materials is doing something good, maybe not. A press release alone can't tell you.
Does everyone here know what "greenwashing" is? It's the PR practice of trying to make a company look pro-environment, and there's a LOT of money being spent on it. Greenwashing became widespread in the 90's, with the increase of public awareness of environmental issues. Many millions of dollars are spent each year on advertising that fosters pro-environmental images of companies, more money than is actually spent on pro-environmental activities by those same companies. Advertising conferences conduct sessions on greenwashing, and hire speakers who are experts at it. Corporations hire professional greenwashing consultants.
Be aware that greenwashing is all around you, and avoid being fooled by it. Watch for it yourself, the next time you see one of those disgusting "People Do" commercials for Chevron, which is one of the single most environmentally destructive corporations on the planet.
Some companies are pro-environment, some aren't. As with everything else, decide which is which only with care and research. Be leery of information that comes (even indirectly) from the company or person you're investigating.
Refrigeration was quite a revolutionary invention. Think of life without it-- for starters, you don't get a freezer or a refrigerator, so all food must either be preserved somehow or eaten quickly. No frozen foods at all, of course. Ice must be bought in expensive blocks at a store, who ships it in from up north (or stores it from winter). Perishable food cannot be transported far without refrigeration, so it has to be produced close to where it is eaten. This could limit the size of cities, and they would need to be ringed with farmland.
This is true, but it doesn't change the dangerous result. Some would argue it's even more insidious, since it's a bad effect that arose unintentionally. Sometimes things that happen as a result of large social patterns can be the most dangerous, because they're harder to change or undo.
Slashdot Mirror
No, but it's reasonable to assume that food they serve won't cause you physical damage. You wouldn't expect their meat-like burgers to contain discarded hypodermic needles, either. If the coffee was normal hot-coffee temperature, I'm sure she would have taken responsibility for it.
This particular MacDonald's had gotten many complaints about their scalding hot coffee, and had refused to do anything about it.
It's funny, as anti-corporate as the typical /.er seems to be, they sure buy the corporate propaganda, hook, line, and sinker.
Oh yes, the "if you disagree with me, you must be a tool of The Man" argument. Give it a rest.
No, he's just saying that you're buying into this corporate propaganda that MacDonald's spread so effectively. I used to believe this coffee lawsuit was ridiculous too, until I learned the details about it. (I do agree with you that Slashdot has diverse opinions.)
Third, some of us may not support the encroaching 'nanny culture' of this country where - instead of taking responsibility for your own actions - you shift the blame elsewhere and possibly make some cash in the process...
I agree that our lawsuit process is often abused. But sometimes there is no other recourse. What would you do if Mickey D's served you a hamburger with used needles in it? Would you still consider yourself "responsible for your own action" of buying and eating the burger? Or what if your employer or client withheld thousands of dollars of payment from you for no good reason? What would you do?
Lawsuits in our culture have a bad reputation, often deserved. BUT be careful about condemning them as a whole, because one day you'll wish you had the option when someone screws you over. The source of most anti-lawsuit PR these days large corporations who want to screw over the public and not get sued-- think of HMO's, insurance companies, etc. They've manipulated the public's mistrust of lawyers (again, often deserved) into a general condemnation of lawsuits.
Like it or not, lawsuits are a fundamental element of the US legal system; they're how our civil code (as opposed to criminal code) is enforced. A lawsuit should only be used as a last resort after all other negotiation fails, but without that option, many basic rights we take for granted would be effectively lost, because they would be unenforceable. I used to loudly condemn lawsuits and anyone who would bring them, until I had a couple of eye-opening experiences that made me realize the critical part they play in our legal system.
A company may fall apart if it can't earn a profit. This does not imply that a company's primary purpose is to earn money for its owners, any more than a human's primary purpose is to find air to breathe.
The purpose of a company really does depend on your perspective. If you're an owner, then perhaps its purpose is indeed to earn you money. But if you're an employee, its purpose is to provide you with a paycheck. If you're a customer, its purpose is to provide you with a good product. If the company fails at any of these three, then the company will eventually fail, at least in "normal" market conditions.
Put another way, if employees are a resource used by the company to make money, then companies are the same to employees. How can either statement be more correct than the other? Even money itself is a meaningless number, until it is used to purchase something worthwhile. In the end, it's people that matter. Our economic system is in place because supposedly it results in people's maximum well-being. It exists within our democratic system, not the other way around.
If a company does some great R&D but then goes out of business, has its existence been worthless? Or if it keeps a bunch of employees off the street for ten years? Or if it profits for ten years, but then stops profiting? It may have to close down, but that doesn't mean it's been a waste of time.
You might profit from studying a little philosophy; you'd be surprised how much it applies to real life. In particular, the concept of "objective truth" is a tricky one. I don't think you've examined it, or have a clear idea of what "perspective" means, based on your responses to that AC and to wobblie. No one person knows everything a priori; you have to combine what you know with what others know, to get a fuller picture. It's like those ten blind men and the elephant.
Parents may innocently think they're protecting their children with a censorware package, but they don't realize how the content is being filtered by these censorware vendors, and how their children are being manipulated. Censorware vendors don't disclose the list of sites they block, claiming it's a "trade secret". Thus, they can block anything they want, and all the customer sees is a "site blocked" page. It's more cost-effective for them to block a thousand innocent sites that their users will never know are innocent, than to let one page about AIDS slip through, and bring the wrath of a parent down upon them. Thus, some popular censorware products have something like a 75% false positive rate.
This is all well-documented. I think peacefire.org has a lot of links.
You: Here the argument falls apart. Of course higher rents will make building (or otherwise make availabe) apartments more profitable.
You need to investigate rent control more (that's advice, not an accusation). Rent control normally only prevents rents from being raised on occupied units. Any newly built units can be rented at market rates. Thus, the financial incentive is still there.
Again, I assert that removing rent control won't build more apartments.
You critizise people who just assert that supply and demand mechanisms apply. And that's a valid point. But just asserting that they don't work is no better. I'd even say it's worse, since those basic economic laws do apply quite well in most situations. So the burden of proof would seem to be on those claiming that housing is an exception.
Read my last paragraph again. I'm not saying S&D never works, or even that it doesn't usually work. I'm saying that many times it doesn't, and that it's dangerous to ignore those cases. From observation and specific analysis, I've concluded that it doesn't work for the housing market. (By "doesn't work", I mean that it operates to the sum detriment of the population.) I think S&D breaks down for any human necessity in limited supply, like housing. In effect, property owners as a group are a broad oligopoly, having cornered the market on housing. I believe free market theory relies on the notion that you can produce something yourself if you don't like the existing producers, but you can't make more land. Also, you can't really choose to not buy housing, thus some free market principles are skewed.
Imagine someone or a group cornered the market on food, and on the production of food (let's pretend you can't even grow a vegetable garden). They could charge whatever they want, and would get a larger and larger percentage of everyone's income, and people's disposable income would approach subsistence level. Society would in effect turn back into a feudal system within a supposed free market. That is effectively what would happen in San Francisco without rent control; to some extent it's already happened.
People could move away, but then you have disintegration of communities, endlessly. And in 50 years, I'm not convinced people will have anywhere to move to.
Ultimately, I think we need to move toward home ownership for more people. The less that people own more properties than they need (i.e. landlords), the more affordable housing would be for everyone to buy. In the extreme, if no one owned more than their dwelling, then supply and demand would mean that everyone could afford housing for one, almost by definition. The least desirable houses would sell the cheapest to those who could afford the least, but everyone would end up with something (assuming there's roughly equal amounts of housing needed and housing available).
I must disagree with your characterization of rent control. It's a complex issue, but to summarize: after a few years deeply involved in San Francisco housing issues, I don't believe that housing falls under normal "free market" rules. Nor is it responsible for any housing shortage, although heavy advertising by landlord groups would have you believe otherwise.
You said it yourself. Landlords will demand whatever they can get. Removing rent control won't build more apartments, it will just make more available to those with a lot of money, and fewer available to those without. It means that you, as someone highly-paid, will still be putting a large percentage of your income toward rent. It means that those who have lived there for years, who have invested much personal energy in the community, and who may even have caused your prosperity, will be kicked out. This includes teachers, social workers, artists, and all those waiters the high-tech lifestyle requires.
"So," you say, "since I can pay more money I deserve to live there more." However, it's a basic human (even animal) social rule that one's right to stay put outweighs another's right to move anywhere they want. If someone can't find housing where they want to move to, they shouldn't move there. They don't have a right to kick someone else out. To think that rich people should have more rights than poor people is analogous to the moral code of "might makes right", which isn't very sophisticated. Unfortunately, our economy doesn't reflect this, but rent control is one attempt to keep communities from falling apart. It's one thing if we're talking about luxuries, but housing is not a luxury. If you don't have housing, you're screwed.
I don't think rent control should be subject to any "means test". Remember, it's ultimately the residents who improve a neighborhood, not the owners (unless they're also residents). Low crime and booming business is more valuable than fresh paint jobs. So if residents are responsible for the improvements, it's reasonable that they should enjoy them for as long as they live there. The owners will get their profits when they sell.
Here in San Francisco, do you know how the Internet industry took hold? For most of its history, SF has fostered a creative and tolerant culture, which means that new ideas can be explored. In the early 90's, a few tech-savvy artists started working for themselves doing image manipulation services, etc. They set up shop south of Market because that's where cheap warehouse space was. Soon the area had a critical mass of talent and the SOMA multimedia industry took shape. It was in perfect position when the Web exploded. Now, the very artists and other people who fostered the culture and attitudes in the first place are being kicked out, by people prospering from the industry they helped create. So much for gratitude.
I'm speaking as someone who's made a good living in Internet tech for a long time, but who's sad to see much of San Francisco's culture and communities fall apart (I've lived here 10 years), not to mention everyone who's losing their home. I don't blame the individual immigrants; it's more of a collective effect coupled with insufficient rent control. We have rent control, but it has loopholes that have been exploited to illegally evict thousands of residents recently, and the DA won't prosecute. If we had no rent control, the problem would be far worse. A housing market driven purely by free market forces doesn't make a fun or interesting place to live, and you can just forget about real community.
"Simple supply and demand" may be an elegant theoretical system, but it falls apart in many real-life situations. Ignoring those situations and pretending the free market can solve everything has dire consequences. We adopt this economic system because it's supposed to be the best for people, but we need to recognize when it's not. We shouldn't let ourselves be slaves to columns of numbers.
More and more, good randomness is critical for important computing functions such as encryption. I think it's entirely reasonable for CPU's or other hardware components to include an analog source of randomness, like a tiny white-noise generator. Do any big chipmakers plan to do something like this? If not, why not?
Now now, calm down. Of course I'm not saying that. I'm saying that purely self-interested parties can't be trusted to regulate themselves regarding their actions toward others. Corporations, almost by definition, are purely self-interested. Much of law enforcement has become that way, tragically.
A dictator or monarch is self-regulated, so that scenario does not follow from my comments. A nation controlling itself is great, as long as it doesn't try to control others. Self-regulation is good for internal stuff that doesn't affect others, whether on a national or personal scale. I was talking about actions which do affect others; maybe I should have been more specific.
The way I see it, the trick is to balance the power: The less powerful need oversight (regulation) over the more powerful. Otherwise, the powerful few get more powerful and fewer, and everyone else suffers. In many ways, this is the goal of democracy-- without it, monarchs would rule. In the US today, corporations are far more powerful than citizens. Without regulation, they'd walk all over us and any rights we had.
Actually, I do regulate myself, pretty strongly. (My own rules don't always match the government's rules, though.) I'm ALL FOR a society where everybody treats each other with compassion and respect, and there's no need for laws.
I'm asking the question-- what is the difference between self-regulation for these companies, and self-regulation for individuals? Once again, corporations end up with more civil liberties than citizens. Who let that happen? Courts, Congress?
Be careful when using the word "crime". Crime according to whom?
Many privacy policies sound good, and give you that comfortable warm feeling that makes you trust them. HOWEVER, somewhere in the small print is a line like
Yeah, carefully selected to give Foo Inc. the most money per demographic datum.
Such a privacy policy can be worse than nothing, because it gives the user a false sense of security (much like bad encryption). These days, I simply don't trust any privacy policy; I figure there's always some loophole I missed.
I'm not saying that every company means to deceive; I know for a fact that some companies truly value consumer privacy. Clauses like the one above may be needed to allow for outside contractors, etc. (but they should be more specific in that case). All I'm saying is that most privacy policies look a lot stronger than they really are, and that you could be screwed if you count on their protection.
I mean, I don't like excessive laws either, but consumer protection laws are to protect you and me. There wouldn't be any demand for these laws if companies had behaved in the past. They had their chance, they blew it. I have no sympathy for them. If they don't like it, then they should remove the need for these laws, not complain about them.
Hey officer, can I self-regulate too?
Not to mention Presidential candidates.
Well, I didn't like his insults to me. Why do you condemn my response instead of his unprovoked insults? If you knew me, you'd know I strongly support the right to anonymity and I put my money where my mouth is. However, it is truly a coward who uses anonymity merely to hide behind insults, as this AC did. Don't defend every troll just because they're an AC.
This is what I did to test if /. was down, or if it was me:
Thank you, this is useful information, unlike the AC before you. This is actually what I do most of the time. My point is that if Slashdot told us what was happening, even one sentence's worth, we wouldn't all have to do this. It's very inefficient for thousands of people to do this instead of one person posting a quick informative note.
Some problems with restricting extensions to a programmer's libraries are that
If you have a good reputation and a string of happy clients and good references, employers are more willing to trust that you won't take advantage of them in the end, and are more likely to resolve issues by being "reasonable" (a common-sense term which actually has a lot of weight in court, should it ever come to that).
I do only contract work. At the start of every contract, there is a set of papers to sign, usually including an agreement that anything I write while employed by the company is owned by them. I almost always modify this, and employers have always agreed so far.
When signing employment agreements, always review them carefully and never be afraid to modify parts that make you uncomfortable. Don't sign things you don't agree with (anywhere in your life, not just employment). Contracts are supposed to protect both sides, not just one. Very often, employers have no problem with reasonable changes, but you have to ask. Of course, you should try to come across as reasonable and friendly, not argumentative or problematic.
The change I normally make is to protect a) software or routines I've already written, that I may use or extend in the current project, and b) general-purpose routines I may write while on the job, even if they're brand new (I frame those as "extending my existing libraries"). To make the employer comfortable, I grant them a permanent license to use, modify, or distribute what I write (there may be exceptions depending on the situation), but I retain ownership. If they think they're giving something away for free, I make it clear that they're benefitting from the work I've done at past employers, and that the tradeoff to them is more than worth it-- they get immediate benefit from my past work, while their own potential loss is questionable at best. It's reasonable to argue that the best arrangement for all parties (you and multiple clients) is for you to retain ownership of it all while granting liberal licenses to each client.
Note that IANAL, and none of my agreements have been tested in court, and I hope they never are.
Aw, heck... here's the actual addendum text I added to my most recent contract:
I used words and phrases defined elsewhere in the agreement, so modify the language to fit the existing contract in your situation (a smooth fit with existing language makes it sound less agressive too). You might change it to grant more or less to your client. I never had this reviewed by a lawyer, but it might be worth it at some point.
Read it again, flameboy. He wasn't trying to be helpful, he was being insulting and sarcastic. I could find no other way to interpret it, and I tried. I was a lot more informative to him than he was to me. Do you care? Probably not. I think you're just looking for an argument.
Net connectivity is not always predictable. Often, network problems can cause inaccessibility to some sites but not others. There are many points between two computers where a problem could happen, and many involved systems. For example, DNS or routing problems could easily make only certain sites inaccessible. If that makes your brain hurt, then take a shower (with soap), learn about "social skills", and use them to ask someone familiar with computers to explain it to you.
I appreciate your compassion and consideration. However, in this case, I think the party who did a bad job was whichever executive made the decision to co-opt Kerberos, in the sleazy way Microsoft normally does things. Whoever made that decision DOES deserve scolding and a virtual slap, and more. Since they're already lying to us, stealing from us, and otherwise treating us with such dismissal, I doubt their feelings would be hurt no matter how many names we call them. Which is too bad, because I wish there was a way to correct their antisocial behaviour, just as we try to correct a child's antisocial behaviour.
My own connection is flaky. For all I know, when I can't reach Slashdot, my local network is screwed up, or any number of other problems between me and slashdot.org. I'll keep trying to fix it until I know it's out of my hands.
Being attacked is nothing to be ashamed of, but keeping it hidden from friendly parties is the wrong way to deal with it. I would think it's easier to post a short note once than deal with hundreds of emails asking what's going on. You're sitting there at Andover, but the rest of us are in the dark.
Anyway, good luck in fixing it. Afterwards, please tell us what happened so we can a) offer insight on how to avoid it in the future, and b) guard against it on our own sites. You know, the old open-source approach.
It may be obvious to you at Slashdot, but it's far less obvious to everyone else. We're not there.
I have a fast but flaky Net connection. For all I know, when I can't reach Slashdot, there's something screwed up with the network I'm on, or a problem at MAE West, or something else. Yes, network problems sometimes prevent access to certain sites and not others. With testing/proxies/etc. I can formulate a better guess of what's going on, but why not just give us the answer if you have it? You may not realize it, but you're keeping us in the dark.
Please communicate with us. Having network problems is nothing to be ashamed of, but it's much better handling to keep people informed. If you were a network admin at a company, wouldn't you let staff know when the file server has crashed? Even utility companies tell the public when there are outages, so everyone knows it's not a problem in their individual homes. A simple memo from Slashdot would go a long way, doesn't need to be fancy.
Can any lawyer here confirm or deny this?
Reminds me of the constructor at soda.
... but I think the industry does make a real effort to keep it under control.
Not to pick on you, but... Press releases are carefully-crafted documents to show a company in the most positive light possible. Do not ever, ever take them as fact, without doing other research. Press releases are essentially advertising.
Maybe Applied Materials is doing something good, maybe not. A press release alone can't tell you.
Does everyone here know what "greenwashing" is? It's the PR practice of trying to make a company look pro-environment, and there's a LOT of money being spent on it. Greenwashing became widespread in the 90's, with the increase of public awareness of environmental issues. Many millions of dollars are spent each year on advertising that fosters pro-environmental images of companies, more money than is actually spent on pro-environmental activities by those same companies. Advertising conferences conduct sessions on greenwashing, and hire speakers who are experts at it. Corporations hire professional greenwashing consultants.
Be aware that greenwashing is all around you, and avoid being fooled by it. Watch for it yourself, the next time you see one of those disgusting "People Do" commercials for Chevron, which is one of the single most environmentally destructive corporations on the planet.
Some companies are pro-environment, some aren't. As with everything else, decide which is which only with care and research. Be leery of information that comes (even indirectly) from the company or person you're investigating.
Refrigeration was quite a revolutionary invention. Think of life without it-- for starters, you don't get a freezer or a refrigerator, so all food must either be preserved somehow or eaten quickly. No frozen foods at all, of course. Ice must be bought in expensive blocks at a store, who ships it in from up north (or stores it from winter). Perishable food cannot be transported far without refrigeration, so it has to be produced close to where it is eaten. This could limit the size of cities, and they would need to be ringed with farmland.
It's way too late and I'm not reading right.
This is true, but it doesn't change the dangerous result. Some would argue it's even more insidious, since it's a bad effect that arose unintentionally. Sometimes things that happen as a result of large social patterns can be the most dangerous, because they're harder to change or undo.