> It is posts like this that make censorship look like a good idea.
Respectfully, I don't agree. The photos show a truth: a truth about what happens when we speed at 100mph on cocaine and fly off the road. They show a truth about how incredibly fragile we are. That we are mortal.
I don't need reality sanitised for me by censorship. I don't need or want polite euphemisms covering up the gory realities of life. The only thing that censorship can result in is ignorance, and ignorance leads to an inaccurate view of reality (delusion) which leads to bad decisions.
Unless you work in emergency services or the army, it's unlikely that you'll ever see such a brutal example of our own fragility and mortality. Why should we be shielded from the truth about our own nature? How can this lead to anything good?
When I saw the head of a tiny Iraqi child, cracked open like a bloody egg by 'coalition' bombs I didn't wish that some asshole hadn't posted that to the internet, I wished that some assholes with bombs hadn't killed the child. I saw the ugly reality of war in a way that I couldn't have unless I'd been there.
It's important to know the truth, and an ugly truth is ALWAYS more beautiful than a pleasing lie.
I'll qualify that by saying that the (real) asshole in this story - the person who sent the image to the family (not the people who took the images in the first place) did them no favours at all and deserve to be prosecuted and punished (in the UK, I imagine it would be an easy case of 'causing alarm or distress'). What they did was an act of singular cruelty, and what I have said should not be misconstrued as a defence of them or their actions.
For the rest of us, there's no good reason not to know that travelling at high speeds whith out proper control of our vehicle will result in such a thing - and to see it. Reading a few words describing the gore does not leave the same impression. If anything, I think it would do all teenage drivers a favour to know exactly what can happen to them, their freinds and their families if they don't exercise proper control of their vehicle.
with a little act of solidarity with the Pirate Bay (assisting in the dissemination of copyright infringing material) whilst simultaneously making a wry comment on the dastardly Copyright Cartels and all their nefarious shennanigans.
I wonder what the Office of Fair Trading or Trading Standards would have to say about Amazon UK banning people's accounts for returning defective goods.
I know companies are free to serve people or not at their own discretion, but that right is not absolute (racial discrimination etc.).
If a company were explicitly banning a person because they were a victim of that company's repeated shipping of defective goods, I'd like to think that would be unlawful. Perhaps I'm being too idealistic.
They say they respect robots.txt but their scraper will only respect it if it also blocks google and yahoo. If it allows Google and Yahoo, they say it's fair game for Phorm. That's not respecting it at all.
But what do you expect from the sort of people who would conduct illegal surveillance on people to test their spyware system and claim that letting opt opt out would have been impossible because it would have been too difficult for them to understand the complicated computery stuff they were doing.
This is a relatively common misunderstanding of what Phorm does.
Phorm does NOT replace adverts on websites, it only places adverts where a website owner has signed up for Phorm as an advert provider, it then uses its spying data to decide which adverts are provided to which visitor.
It's not the privacy and security aspects of having Googel Update always running in the background that concerns me, it's that a process that is only needed once in a while is constantly running using up resources unnecessarily.
Adobe seems to have got it right with its latest version of Adobe Updater - only launch when an Adobe product is launched and in addition allow the user to modify the schedule. I can set Adobe Updater to never check for updates (do it manually) only once a month, or every time, but the crucial part is that it only runs when I run Photoshop (or whatever).
No need to have an updater constantly running in the background at all.
It's great publicity for his site which is similar in functionality to Twitter. I guess his idea was that users of Twitter would try it out and eventually switch.
Unfortunately the publicity also says 'I'm an unethical douchebag, (who knows what other shit I might pull)' so I imagine the take-up will be in negative numbers, if anything.
Seems like a great way to shoot himself in the foot.
Twitter's @oblique says "Honour thy error as a hidden intention". Good luck to Mr. Mooney in making that one work for him.
It's true you can claim it back (though the charities don't have to give the cash back). My point was, that Google is essentially doing the same thing for books.
If for real actual abandoned money, why not even more so for abandoned literature?
"So if Google scanned in a bunch of public domain books and distributed in their own format, they'd probably have a copyright on those digital files."
I don't think simply scanning something is enough to secure copyright - there has to be a creative artistic component before someone can secure copyright. I think the bar is set quite low, but it has to be there.
In the UK, and a few other countries, if you have cash in a bank account and don't touch it for 15 years, the government will seize it and give it away to charity.
That's real actual CASH. Tangible (erm... ok... not entirely) but it's actual property. So why the hell not do that with Imaginary Property that's been 'abandoned'?
I was looking for a general do-it-all-pretty-reasonably sound card. 5.1, used for a few games, movies, and playing music. EAX not really a piority, but nice to have.
Do you mean the stupid and annoying Googleupdate, that sits there. All the time. Running even when you aren't using any Google software? And that even when it runs on a schedule, will sit there all the time anyway, doing nothing?
Definitely a negative side to using any of Google's apps.
I don't know a great deal about Australia or its political system, but isn't the prevailing view that the Australian people *are* laid back and pretty decent people, but their politicians are a bunch of scumbag fucknuts? (I know... that last part could apply anywhere.)
I saw a documentary about small scale (I think, local) Australian politics several years ago - fly-on-the-wall style - and the stuff they got up to was remarkable: lying, back-stabbing little bastards - you wouldn't dream of buying a second-hand car from any of them.
Slashdot Mirror
> It is posts like this that make censorship look like a good idea.
Respectfully, I don't agree. The photos show a truth: a truth about what happens when we speed at 100mph on cocaine and fly off the road. They show a truth about how incredibly fragile we are. That we are mortal.
I don't need reality sanitised for me by censorship. I don't need or want polite euphemisms covering up the gory realities of life. The only thing that censorship can result in is ignorance, and ignorance leads to an inaccurate view of reality (delusion) which leads to bad decisions.
Unless you work in emergency services or the army, it's unlikely that you'll ever see such a brutal example of our own fragility and mortality. Why should we be shielded from the truth about our own nature? How can this lead to anything good?
When I saw the head of a tiny Iraqi child, cracked open like a bloody egg by 'coalition' bombs I didn't wish that some asshole hadn't posted that to the internet, I wished that some assholes with bombs hadn't killed the child. I saw the ugly reality of war in a way that I couldn't have unless I'd been there.
It's important to know the truth, and an ugly truth is ALWAYS more beautiful than a pleasing lie.
I'll qualify that by saying that the (real) asshole in this story - the person who sent the image to the family (not the people who took the images in the first place) did them no favours at all and deserve to be prosecuted and punished (in the UK, I imagine it would be an easy case of 'causing alarm or distress'). What they did was an act of singular cruelty, and what I have said should not be misconstrued as a defence of them or their actions.
For the rest of us, there's no good reason not to know that travelling at high speeds whith out proper control of our vehicle will result in such a thing - and to see it. Reading a few words describing the gore does not leave the same impression. If anything, I think it would do all teenage drivers a favour to know exactly what can happen to them, their freinds and their families if they don't exercise proper control of their vehicle.
Surely a good reason to oppose censorship.
with a little act of solidarity with the Pirate Bay (assisting in the dissemination of copyright infringing material) whilst simultaneously making a wry comment on the dastardly Copyright Cartels and all their nefarious shennanigans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvP0uwl3Q6A
(perhaps their new theme tune?)
>I wish those nine out ten good cops wouldn't cover for that one bad cop.
The thing is, it's that collusion that makes them all bad cops.
Well, it's said the Devil always has the best tunes.
I'm hoping the BBC will be next.
I wonder what the Office of Fair Trading or Trading Standards would have to say about Amazon UK banning people's accounts for returning defective goods.
I know companies are free to serve people or not at their own discretion, but that right is not absolute (racial discrimination etc.).
If a company were explicitly banning a person because they were a victim of that company's repeated shipping of defective goods, I'd like to think that would be unlawful. Perhaps I'm being too idealistic.
Well, I LOLed.
Phorm are liars when it comes to robots.txt.
They say they respect robots.txt but their scraper will only respect it if it also blocks google and yahoo. If it allows Google and Yahoo, they say it's fair game for Phorm. That's not respecting it at all.
But what do you expect from the sort of people who would conduct illegal surveillance on people to test their spyware system and claim that letting opt opt out would have been impossible because it would have been too difficult for them to understand the complicated computery stuff they were doing.
Phraudsters.
This is a relatively common misunderstanding of what Phorm does.
Phorm does NOT replace adverts on websites, it only places adverts where a website owner has signed up for Phorm as an advert provider, it then uses its spying data to decide which adverts are provided to which visitor.
So you have nothing to worry on that account.
Phorm is an evil, but it's not that kind of evil.
It's not the privacy and security aspects of having Googel Update always running in the background that concerns me, it's that a process that is only needed once in a while is constantly running using up resources unnecessarily.
Adobe seems to have got it right with its latest version of Adobe Updater - only launch when an Adobe product is launched and in addition allow the user to modify the schedule. I can set Adobe Updater to never check for updates (do it manually) only once a month, or every time, but the crucial part is that it only runs when I run Photoshop (or whatever).
No need to have an updater constantly running in the background at all.
It's great publicity for his site which is similar in functionality to Twitter. I guess his idea was that users of Twitter would try it out and eventually switch.
Unfortunately the publicity also says 'I'm an unethical douchebag, (who knows what other shit I might pull)' so I imagine the take-up will be in negative numbers, if anything.
Seems like a great way to shoot himself in the foot.
Twitter's @oblique says "Honour thy error as a hidden intention". Good luck to Mr. Mooney in making that one work for him.
Well played, sir.
I'm concerned that my blue-sky thinking will be obscured by your cloud computing. Any advice?
It's true you can claim it back (though the charities don't have to give the cash back). My point was, that Google is essentially doing the same thing for books.
If for real actual abandoned money, why not even more so for abandoned literature?
Citation as requested: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7086572.stm
"So if Google scanned in a bunch of public domain books and distributed in their own format, they'd probably have a copyright on those digital files."
I don't think simply scanning something is enough to secure copyright - there has to be a creative artistic component before someone can secure copyright. I think the bar is set quite low, but it has to be there.
In the UK, and a few other countries, if you have cash in a bank account and don't touch it for 15 years, the government will seize it and give it away to charity.
That's real actual CASH. Tangible (erm ... ok ... not entirely) but it's actual property. So why the hell not do that with Imaginary Property that's been 'abandoned'?
John Henry, is that you?
Maybe you need a law that will lock up anyone who writes a law that goes against the constitution - define it as treason.
Is it too late?
I was looking for a general do-it-all-pretty-reasonably sound card. 5.1, used for a few games, movies, and playing music. EAX not really a piority, but nice to have.
I'll be sure to check out Asus's offerings.
Thanks! :)
So ... did you find a good sound card? I'm looking for one and although I know to avoid Creative, otherwise I don't have a clue.
Get them used to it ... or radicalise them.
Do you mean the stupid and annoying Googleupdate, that sits there. All the time. Running even when you aren't using any Google software? And that even when it runs on a schedule, will sit there all the time anyway, doing nothing?
Definitely a negative side to using any of Google's apps.
At least Slashdot never does anything like that.
The 'admit the incendary story they posted on the front page is nonsense' bit, I mean.
I don't know a great deal about Australia or its political system, but isn't the prevailing view that the Australian people *are* laid back and pretty decent people, but their politicians are a bunch of scumbag fucknuts? (I know ... that last part could apply anywhere.)
I saw a documentary about small scale (I think, local) Australian politics several years ago - fly-on-the-wall style - and the stuff they got up to was remarkable: lying, back-stabbing little bastards - you wouldn't dream of buying a second-hand car from any of them.