...which is why we ran out of letters for them for the first time, too, right?
Keep your eyes closed all you want, but things are changing for the worse, and if you don't like that, maybe you should stop your "lalala-I-can't-hear-you" and try to change something (a process that necessarily has to start with understanding why there is a problem).
It's probably not the right time to rant about this, but... could people *please* take care to actually spell names correctly? It's Ivarsøy, not Ivarsoy; you'd think that at *least* his Slashdot obituary would get this right.
It's not difficult, either. If you can't type the ø character directly, use a HTML entity, ø (ø), or ø (ø) - it's really simple.
But don't just substitute another letter that looks vaguely similar. Would you like it if somebody whose native language doesn't have a "d" substituted a "b" in your name for it because the two letters look quite similar? Of course not. So please, do the same thing and try to spell other people's names correctly. With HTML entities, it's not hard, and it's a sign of respect - doubly so on an obituary.
Common sense? That's actually exactly what I find to be severely lacking on the judge's part in this case. If he *really* had some common sense, he would've said, in essence, "there's no legal basis for requiring Google to hand out *any* data if there's not a criminal investigation going on, so go away, n00bs".
If the government demanded that you pay an extra 1000 USD in taxes even though there's no legal reason for them to ask for that, and if a judge then decided that 1000 is too much but that 500 is OK, would you also say that's reasonable? Of course not. There's no middle ground here - you either stick to the law or you don't. Sadly, in this case, neither the government nor the judge did; the former's not surprising, of course, but the latter is.
Considering that many good bands still release their new albums on vinyl, too, I'd say that yes, the CD definitely has a future. Maybe not for Bitchney Spears (or, in ten years, her latest clone); maybe not even for the RIAA and similar syndicates, but overall, it does.
"certain reasons"? I think you have it backwards there - it's the US-Americans [1] that have an irrational hatred for the French, not the other way around.
1. Yes, not all of them, of course, but the percentage of those who do is surprisingly high even on Slashdot, which supposedly is a site for the more intelligent (who should thus also have less prejudices and stereotypes).
That one at least *is* shallow, yes. If the name of the product or how "catchy" it is is one of the deciding factors when you try to figure out which product you're going to use, then you've got a bigger problem at hand than the potential loss of productivity due to choosing the inferior product...
The Nuremberg defense, isn't it? There's a grain of truth in it, of course - those higher-up in the hierarchy are at least as guilty as those who actually do the grunt work -, but that doesn't meant that the grunts aren't guilty as well. If you kill a rival mob member because Al Capone ordered you to, you're still a murderer, and the fact that Al Capone is one as well doesn't save you from being responsible for your actions.
Think of it this way. Refusing to participate in a war is like voting - you may say that you won't make a difference, and it's understandable, in a way (you're just one among tens of millions of voters, and just one among hundreds of thousands if not millions of soldiers), but it still isn't true: you *do* make a difference. If enough people acted like you, things *would* change, and if everybody refused to go to war, there simply wouldn't be one (this may seem like a naive statement, but it's true - think about it).
You've got to do what you got to do. Mistakes can (and should) be forgiven, but you have to admit that they were mistakes, and you should do what you can in order to prevent others from making the same mistakes.
If they *really* cared about the sanctity of life (and that means all life, not just their own or that of the members of the same unit/army/nation/religion/political party/...), they wouldn't become soldiers - it's as simple as that.
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity - a worn-out phrase, admittedly, but still true. Soldiers and people who advocate violent conflict either don't get that [1] or choose to ignore it; I can understand that you may not like that conclusion, but, well... life ain't fair. You can't have your cake and eat it, too - if you want to be seen or remembered as someone who *really* cares about the sanctity of life, for example, then act accordingly.
And if you don't act accordingly, deal with the fact that people don't praise you all the time. There's a lot of things you can get forcefully, but respect is not one of them.
1. This doesn't necessarily mean they're stupid or uneducated, but it *does* mean they're thintelligent at best - that they're not able to see the bigger picture or consider the long(er)-term implications and effects of their actions.
The GP has a point, actually, but he has it backwards. The solution is not that Google should just give in and give the US administration what it wants - the solution would've been for Google to not work with the Chinese government in this area, either.
From a moral (as opposed to a legal or business) point of views, Google's actions in China are condemnable. But the solution is not to do even more condemnable things - two wrongs aren't better than one wrong and one right.
I'm not sure if that's a good argument - aren't you essentially saying that we cannot exercise our rights and do what's legal because then our rights might be taken away and what we do might be made illegal? It might be true, but where's the big difference between not doing something because it's illegal and not doing something out of fear even when it *is* legal?
At the very least, let them pass laws that make things illegal and take away your rights before you give them up voluntarily.
Rubbish. You could just as well argue that deciding not to buy a CD is theft, because the copyright holder doesn't get any money for it from you then, either.
Stick to condemning people for what they do; condemning them for something hypothetical that they do NOT do is both counter-productive and dangerous.
It still is crying wolf, though. You don't actually have to *say* "this blog was closed due to the evil Chinese government censor" to be lying; if you *deliberately* put up information that you *know* will lead the observer to reaching a wrong conclusion, you're lying, too.
Of course it's true that these things shouldn't have been reported without some further investigation, but then, who says the BBC didn't do that? Suppose that a blog actually *is* shut down by the Chinese government - do you think that if the local BBC correspondent phones them, they'll say "oh, yes, right, we closed that one in the latest crackdown because it contained words like "democracy" and "falun gong", and the author has been sent to a labour camp for the next ten years"?
I'd expect them to just say "we can't comment on that" - no matter whether the story is actually true or not. After all, what interest does the Chinese government have in having western media report about impingements on human rights (freedom of expression and opinion *is* a human right - look it up)?
I myself have little sympathy for these pranksters. I'm not sure whether they acted out of a misguided sense of patriotism/brainwashing, or whether the whole thing really is a black op to undermine the trust people in western nations place in the media (at least when it comes to reporting about China), but they did lie, and if they should get shut down for real, don't expect too much sympathy from me, either.
BTW, replace the above link to that German website with an http://www.umweltjournal.de/fp/archiv/AFA_umweltna tur/8022.php">Internet Archive version. It seems that the video was not saved, though, so you unfortunately won't be able to see it - or fortunately, maybe, depending on one's point of view.
Maybe it's just me, but before we think about human rights for hypothetical sentient computers... shouldn't we think about human rights for animals? Not all of them make sense, of course (the right to an education, for example, or freedom of religion etc., or freedom of expression and opinion), but others do.
We routinely mistreat animals in ways that are almost too horrible to describe. I'm not even talking about killing them for meat or similar products; but we kill them brutally, slowly, and painfully, we kill them just for the fun of it, for the perverse pleasure of having absolute power over another being, and in fact, we have driven thousands of entire species to extinction already, and will most likely do the same to several thousand more.
Human rights for sentient computers are fine and dandy. But shouldn't we solve the problems we already have in today's world before we think the problems that would arise in a hypothetical future that may or may not ever come?
The Great Firewall is meant to keep the Chinese people from freely accessing Internet resources outside of China, not to keep everyone else from accessing Internet resources in China.
What it really comes down to is establishing a policy and what sanction will be forthcoming on violations. I knew one company that had zero tolerance. A couple sackings and everyone left was quite clear on proper behaviour.
Ah, yes... nothing like creating an atmosphere of fear to motivate your employees and maintain productivity.
Slashdot Mirror
...which is why we ran out of letters for them for the first time, too, right?
Keep your eyes closed all you want, but things are changing for the worse, and if you don't like that, maybe you should stop your "lalala-I-can't-hear-you" and try to change something (a process that necessarily has to start with understanding why there is a problem).
Depending on who you ask, copyright infringement is a much more serious crime than murder...
It's probably not the right time to rant about this, but... could people *please* take care to actually spell names correctly? It's Ivarsøy, not Ivarsoy; you'd think that at *least* his Slashdot obituary would get this right.
It's not difficult, either. If you can't type the ø character directly, use a HTML entity, ø (ø), or ø (ø) - it's really simple.
But don't just substitute another letter that looks vaguely similar. Would you like it if somebody whose native language doesn't have a "d" substituted a "b" in your name for it because the two letters look quite similar? Of course not. So please, do the same thing and try to spell other people's names correctly. With HTML entities, it's not hard, and it's a sign of respect - doubly so on an obituary.
Coral porn? Oh my god! That's just sick.
Common sense? That's actually exactly what I find to be severely lacking on the judge's part in this case. If he *really* had some common sense, he would've said, in essence, "there's no legal basis for requiring Google to hand out *any* data if there's not a criminal investigation going on, so go away, n00bs".
If the government demanded that you pay an extra 1000 USD in taxes even though there's no legal reason for them to ask for that, and if a judge then decided that 1000 is too much but that 500 is OK, would you also say that's reasonable? Of course not. There's no middle ground here - you either stick to the law or you don't. Sadly, in this case, neither the government nor the judge did; the former's not surprising, of course, but the latter is.
"We'll put you in prison indefinitely until you turn them over."
Considering that many good bands still release their new albums on vinyl, too, I'd say that yes, the CD definitely has a future. Maybe not for Bitchney Spears (or, in ten years, her latest clone); maybe not even for the RIAA and similar syndicates, but overall, it does.
"certain reasons"? I think you have it backwards there - it's the US-Americans [1] that have an irrational hatred for the French, not the other way around.
1. Yes, not all of them, of course, but the percentage of those who do is surprisingly high even on Slashdot, which supposedly is a site for the more intelligent (who should thus also have less prejudices and stereotypes).
Here's a hint: Mandriva is not based in the USA.
It seems that they do give you a notice: see http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=stormfront&btn G=Suche&meta= , for example.
That one at least *is* shallow, yes. If the name of the product or how "catchy" it is is one of the deciding factors when you try to figure out which product you're going to use, then you've got a bigger problem at hand than the potential loss of productivity due to choosing the inferior product...
The Nuremberg defense, isn't it? There's a grain of truth in it, of course - those higher-up in the hierarchy are at least as guilty as those who actually do the grunt work -, but that doesn't meant that the grunts aren't guilty as well. If you kill a rival mob member because Al Capone ordered you to, you're still a murderer, and the fact that Al Capone is one as well doesn't save you from being responsible for your actions.
Think of it this way. Refusing to participate in a war is like voting - you may say that you won't make a difference, and it's understandable, in a way (you're just one among tens of millions of voters, and just one among hundreds of thousands if not millions of soldiers), but it still isn't true: you *do* make a difference. If enough people acted like you, things *would* change, and if everybody refused to go to war, there simply wouldn't be one (this may seem like a naive statement, but it's true - think about it).
You've got to do what you got to do. Mistakes can (and should) be forgiven, but you have to admit that they were mistakes, and you should do what you can in order to prevent others from making the same mistakes.
If they *really* cared about the sanctity of life (and that means all life, not just their own or that of the members of the same unit/army/nation/religion/political party/...), they wouldn't become soldiers - it's as simple as that.
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity - a worn-out phrase, admittedly, but still true. Soldiers and people who advocate violent conflict either don't get that [1] or choose to ignore it; I can understand that you may not like that conclusion, but, well... life ain't fair. You can't have your cake and eat it, too - if you want to be seen or remembered as someone who *really* cares about the sanctity of life, for example, then act accordingly.
And if you don't act accordingly, deal with the fact that people don't praise you all the time. There's a lot of things you can get forcefully, but respect is not one of them.
1. This doesn't necessarily mean they're stupid or uneducated, but it *does* mean they're thintelligent at best - that they're not able to see the bigger picture or consider the long(er)-term implications and effects of their actions.
The GP has a point, actually, but he has it backwards. The solution is not that Google should just give in and give the US administration what it wants - the solution would've been for Google to not work with the Chinese government in this area, either.
From a moral (as opposed to a legal or business) point of views, Google's actions in China are condemnable. But the solution is not to do even more condemnable things - two wrongs aren't better than one wrong and one right.
Thank you. I really wish mod points so I could spend one on this comment - it's probably the most insightful I've read on /. today.
Doesn't that actually make finding them easier?
I'm not sure if that's a good argument - aren't you essentially saying that we cannot exercise our rights and do what's legal because then our rights might be taken away and what we do might be made illegal? It might be true, but where's the big difference between not doing something because it's illegal and not doing something out of fear even when it *is* legal?
At the very least, let them pass laws that make things illegal and take away your rights before you give them up voluntarily.
Rubbish. You could just as well argue that deciding not to buy a CD is theft, because the copyright holder doesn't get any money for it from you then, either.
Stick to condemning people for what they do; condemning them for something hypothetical that they do NOT do is both counter-productive and dangerous.
It still is crying wolf, though. You don't actually have to *say* "this blog was closed due to the evil Chinese government censor" to be lying; if you *deliberately* put up information that you *know* will lead the observer to reaching a wrong conclusion, you're lying, too.
Of course it's true that these things shouldn't have been reported without some further investigation, but then, who says the BBC didn't do that? Suppose that a blog actually *is* shut down by the Chinese government - do you think that if the local BBC correspondent phones them, they'll say "oh, yes, right, we closed that one in the latest crackdown because it contained words like "democracy" and "falun gong", and the author has been sent to a labour camp for the next ten years"?
I'd expect them to just say "we can't comment on that" - no matter whether the story is actually true or not. After all, what interest does the Chinese government have in having western media report about impingements on human rights (freedom of expression and opinion *is* a human right - look it up)?
I myself have little sympathy for these pranksters. I'm not sure whether they acted out of a misguided sense of patriotism/brainwashing, or whether the whole thing really is a black op to undermine the trust people in western nations place in the media (at least when it comes to reporting about China), but they did lie, and if they should get shut down for real, don't expect too much sympathy from me, either.
And finally, fuck Slashdot/-code for being too stupid to handle proper URLs, and just use this (I hope this one will FINALLY work):
e ltjournal.de/fp/archiv/AFA_umweltnatur/8022.php
http://web.archive.org/web/20050308014526/www.umw
BTW, replace the above link to that German website with an http://www.umweltjournal.de/fp/archiv/AFA_umweltna tur/8022.php">Internet Archive version. It seems that the video was not saved, though, so you unfortunately won't be able to see it - or fortunately, maybe, depending on one's point of view.
Maybe it's just me, but before we think about human rights for hypothetical sentient computers... shouldn't we think about human rights for animals? Not all of them make sense, of course (the right to an education, for example, or freedom of religion etc., or freedom of expression and opinion), but others do.
We routinely mistreat animals in ways that are almost too horrible to describe. I'm not even talking about killing them for meat or similar products; but we kill them brutally, slowly, and painfully, we kill them just for the fun of it, for the perverse pleasure of having absolute power over another being, and in fact, we have driven thousands of entire species to extinction already, and will most likely do the same to several thousand more.
Human rights for sentient computers are fine and dandy. But shouldn't we solve the problems we already have in today's world before we think the problems that would arise in a hypothetical future that may or may not ever come?
The Great Firewall is meant to keep the Chinese people from freely accessing Internet resources outside of China, not to keep everyone else from accessing Internet resources in China.
Ah, yes... nothing like creating an atmosphere of fear to motivate your employees and maintain productivity.
Führer.