Feel free to mod this off-topic, but... can't we *please* try to get the names right? The man's called Guðmundur Ómar Friðleifsson, not Gudmundur Omar Friedleifsson. (I've written about this before, too.)
Yeah, I know, the summary's just copied from the BBC article, and the BBC makes the same mistake (and even calls him "Friedleifsson" instead of "Fridleifsson"), but shouldn't Slashdot try to maintain a higher standard of quality than the BBC?...OK, I give up, I can't say that last line without laughing. But jokes aside, it still would be nice if the editors actually took the 30 seconds it takes to, y'know, *edit* a story.
I'd say yes, although Godwin's law is more confirmed than invoked, since in its basic form, it only talks about the probability of (Usenet|online)? discussions reaching certain topics. But nitpicking aside, I think a "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" mention of Nazism that doesn't actually *say* the word is pretty much the same as one that does. It's what's being said that matters, after all, not the exact words chosen (or not chosen).
Doesn't Germany have a grand coalition right now, though, which controls some 75% or so of the seats in parliament? *If* this is indeed pushed to parliament, I'm not sure I see how it'd fail - even with all the opposition parties voting against it, and even with a couple of defectors, there'd still be a rather large majority.
Actually, theft can get you up to five years. But yes, anyone who steals some chewing gum (a regular amount, that is - not an entire truckload) won't get a prison sentence, much less one of two years (and if you did, you could fight the verdict as being not appropriate for the offense). In fact, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even get a trial - it's just not worth it.
At least WalMart isn't slipping loyalty cards into your wallet without your knowledge that automatically "phone home" and collect data about all sorts of activities not related to shopping.
Juice is quite nice, for the most part. There's a bug in the current release which will cause trouble if you have filenames with non-7 bit ASCII characters in them, but outside of that, it works quite nicely.
FBI and Pentagon officials took exception to letting foreigners acquire the sensitive technology.
Ah, yes, nothing like some good old xenophobia, mixed with a nice measure of nationalism. You just can't trust those foreigners - many don't even speak English, or have funny skin colours, or similar things. The government is really just protecting you from these traitors, citizen.
You're missing the point. The question is not "why would anyone want to run windows?", but rather "why would anyone want to run windows ON A MAC?". If you do want to run windows, why not just get a regular PC, which is gonna be cheaper and which will (generally) have less compatibility issues?
But they aren't "beggers" [sic]; they're people who give you a great product for free. You may not use OpenBSD, but if you never used OpenSSH, then you probably need to have your geek license revoked (well, or issued an extra merit for using an obscure SSH implementation, maybe).
It's OK to say "not my problem" if you never used their tools. It's also OK to say "sorry, I'd like to help but I can't" when you only have a little money left yourself (or even none at all). But if you use tools like OpenSSH, and if you do have money, then it's only fair to give back a few bucks; and the OpenBSD crew certainly aren't beggars for informing you that they're in financial trouble and that the FREE tools you have been relying on forever might be impossible to develop further if they don't receive funding.
More or less - Wallace is the guy who filed lawsuits against the FSF, IBM, Red Hat and Novell because, according to him, the GPL is tantamount to price-fixing and deprives him of his dog-given right to part fools and their money.
In a way, I actually feel sorry for him - I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a lawsuit (with apologies to Charles Babbage). Or, phrased in a slightly different way... wtf was he thinking? It should've been clear to him from the beginning that the whole thing is entirely ridiculous and that he'll not only get thrown out of court but slapped on the wrists for filing a frivolous suit as well.
Ward Cunningham, creator of the wiki, has predicted an encouraging future for open source and collaborative development.
Dilbert summed it up quite perfectly:
DOGBERT: Nostradogbert predicts there will be turmoil in the Middle East. RATBERT: Wow! That's quite a prediction! You're really going out on a limb! DOGBERT: Is that sarcasm? I can't tell with you. RATBERT: Will there be any sand involved?
You might want to take a look at the Scandinavian countries and Finland. (And I'm not sure where the "Europe is [...] not nearly as free" part comes from, either - if you check the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, for instance, you'll find that many European countries rank higher than the USA. In particular, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland are tied for the first rank, and the first four of these have consistently been at the top in the past, too.)
Or you could just call it ("American football", that is) what it really is - Rugby with some extra armor worn by wussies who're not disciplined enough to play the game without needing it. ^_~
Indeed. But it seems to me that this is just one kind of false positive, anyway - filtering images that contain naked bodies (or body parts) even though they're not porn is one problem, but how do you make sure that images that don't contain naked body parts but still *are* porn are filtered? There's more of those than one might think.
Actually... to paraphrase a comment I heard a long time ago (not sure where from), "erotica is what I like, pornography is what people I don't know like, and filth is what people I dislike like".
I'm often surprised by how true this is - there's a surprising number of people out there whose sexuality would be considered "deviant" at best by mainstream society, and who will still berate you for being a sick pervert because you have some fetishes they don't have. Talk about cognitive dissonance...
Actually, a similar system works quite well in Ankh-Morpork.
Jokes aside, though, the problem is not that the conclusion reached based on the premises you gave is incorrect here - the problem is that the model of the world is flawed (i.e., over-simplified). Thieves don't act like that in reality (as you've demonstrated), so any conclusions reached based on this model must also be flawed.
Slashdot Mirror
Feel free to mod this off-topic, but... can't we *please* try to get the names right? The man's called Guðmundur Ómar Friðleifsson, not Gudmundur Omar Friedleifsson. (I've written about this before, too.)
...OK, I give up, I can't say that last line without laughing. But jokes aside, it still would be nice if the editors actually took the 30 seconds it takes to, y'know, *edit* a story.
Yeah, I know, the summary's just copied from the BBC article, and the BBC makes the same mistake (and even calls him "Friedleifsson" instead of "Fridleifsson"), but shouldn't Slashdot try to maintain a higher standard of quality than the BBC?
Actually, the 300,000th Icelander was born not long ago.
Given what you said above, I think the word you're looking for is "greed".
I'd say yes, although Godwin's law is more confirmed than invoked, since in its basic form, it only talks about the probability of (Usenet|online)? discussions reaching certain topics. But nitpicking aside, I think a "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" mention of Nazism that doesn't actually *say* the word is pretty much the same as one that does. It's what's being said that matters, after all, not the exact words chosen (or not chosen).
Doesn't Germany have a grand coalition right now, though, which controls some 75% or so of the seats in parliament? *If* this is indeed pushed to parliament, I'm not sure I see how it'd fail - even with all the opposition parties voting against it, and even with a couple of defectors, there'd still be a rather large majority.
Or am I missing something?
Actually, theft can get you up to five years. But yes, anyone who steals some chewing gum (a regular amount, that is - not an entire truckload) won't get a prison sentence, much less one of two years (and if you did, you could fight the verdict as being not appropriate for the offense). In fact, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even get a trial - it's just not worth it.
Darn. For a moment, I read that as "Germany accepts strict privacy law" and said "cool, some good news for a change"...
At least WalMart isn't slipping loyalty cards into your wallet without your knowledge that automatically "phone home" and collect data about all sorts of activities not related to shopping.
Juice is quite nice, for the most part. There's a bug in the current release which will cause trouble if you have filenames with non-7 bit ASCII characters in them, but outside of that, it works quite nicely.
Ah, yes, nothing like some good old xenophobia, mixed with a nice measure of nationalism. You just can't trust those foreigners - many don't even speak English, or have funny skin colours, or similar things. The government is really just protecting you from these traitors, citizen.
Given how Blair kisses up to Dubya, the UK could just as well be a colony of the USA...
You're missing the point. The question is not "why would anyone want to run windows?", but rather "why would anyone want to run windows ON A MAC?". If you do want to run windows, why not just get a regular PC, which is gonna be cheaper and which will (generally) have less compatibility issues?
A site for PayPal donations... you mean like this one?
But they aren't "beggers" [sic]; they're people who give you a great product for free. You may not use OpenBSD, but if you never used OpenSSH, then you probably need to have your geek license revoked (well, or issued an extra merit for using an obscure SSH implementation, maybe).
It's OK to say "not my problem" if you never used their tools. It's also OK to say "sorry, I'd like to help but I can't" when you only have a little money left yourself (or even none at all). But if you use tools like OpenSSH, and if you do have money, then it's only fair to give back a few bucks; and the OpenBSD crew certainly aren't beggars for informing you that they're in financial trouble and that the FREE tools you have been relying on forever might be impossible to develop further if they don't receive funding.
More or less - Wallace is the guy who filed lawsuits against the FSF, IBM, Red Hat and Novell because, according to him, the GPL is tantamount to price-fixing and deprives him of his dog-given right to part fools and their money.
In a way, I actually feel sorry for him - I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a lawsuit (with apologies to Charles Babbage). Or, phrased in a slightly different way... wtf was he thinking? It should've been clear to him from the beginning that the whole thing is entirely ridiculous and that he'll not only get thrown out of court but slapped on the wrists for filing a frivolous suit as well.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm not sure I'd trust financial information from a site called "fool.com" of all things.
"pro se" means "for himself" - in other words, he's arguing for himself, rather than having a lawyer argue for him.
Dilbert summed it up quite perfectly:
(1991-12-11)
You might want to take a look at the Scandinavian countries and Finland. (And I'm not sure where the "Europe is [...] not nearly as free" part comes from, either - if you check the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, for instance, you'll find that many European countries rank higher than the USA. In particular, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland are tied for the first rank, and the first four of these have consistently been at the top in the past, too.)
Or you could just call it ("American football", that is) what it really is - Rugby with some extra armor worn by wussies who're not disciplined enough to play the game without needing it. ^_~
It's definitely much more comprehensible than the automatically-generated changelog, at least.
Indeed. But it seems to me that this is just one kind of false positive, anyway - filtering images that contain naked bodies (or body parts) even though they're not porn is one problem, but how do you make sure that images that don't contain naked body parts but still *are* porn are filtered? There's more of those than one might think.
Actually, the fall of American civilisation will happen because of people who fail to realise that there's more to America than the USA.
Actually... to paraphrase a comment I heard a long time ago (not sure where from), "erotica is what I like, pornography is what people I don't know like, and filth is what people I dislike like".
I'm often surprised by how true this is - there's a surprising number of people out there whose sexuality would be considered "deviant" at best by mainstream society, and who will still berate you for being a sick pervert because you have some fetishes they don't have. Talk about cognitive dissonance...
Actually, a similar system works quite well in Ankh-Morpork.
Jokes aside, though, the problem is not that the conclusion reached based on the premises you gave is incorrect here - the problem is that the model of the world is flawed (i.e., over-simplified). Thieves don't act like that in reality (as you've demonstrated), so any conclusions reached based on this model must also be flawed.