I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling. In case you're serious:
Saying QR code is "a little more than an advanced barcode" is like saying a computer is like an advanced calculator. While technically true, the fact that QR codes can hold MUCH more data makes the comparison moot. While the barcode and QR code are related, they have different applications.
I have worked for a non-profit before. And I've had to issue DMCA noticed before. Not in the same job, mind you.
Speaking from the DMCA side, I always contacted the offending author first. I know most people just make mistakes and don't intend on copying something out of spite. The less "legal" action I take, the better it is. So in that light, Jay could have just send her an e-mail. But the DMCA does give him the right to just start the legal process right away.
I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that Jay has had a large number of copyright violators. I know I have and find it harder and harder to write to each individual person and say that they are copying my work. It's much easier to just submit a form to X company and have them deal with it. And I'm guessing this is why Jay just submitted the form.
From the non-profit side of things, I had to make every penny count. I could NOT afford risk. I would think that this lawyer, assuming she was indeed an angel sent from heaven to do the Lord's work, would not want to risk thousands of dollars in fines simply because she was too lazy. The fact that she was a lawyer makes this even worse. If the site had been "Help little Timmy get the life-saving surgery he needs", I'm sure it would have been a bit different. But an attorney running a website advertising services should have known better. If she wasn't up-to-speed on DMCA, she should have consulted an IP attorney, or at the very least, a techie.
Your sarcasm aside, the parent post is saying that times were different when the law was written. The Supreme Court, for the most part, have adapted the Constitutional meaning of the First Amendment to the times.
I agree with the Parent that Martin Luther King would not be as effective today hiding behind a pseudonym and a faceless blog as he was when he took the National Mall. This is not to say that anonymous messages don't have their place. Often anonymous commentators will offer ideas to the marketplace, which then spawn more ideas and contribute to the free speech of all people.
While I agree with the premise of the assemblyman (the premise being that bullies shouldn't get to hide behind the First Amendment), using a nuke to trim a tree is not the way to go.
My only problem with this is what makes it into a scientific journal? Since it's public, I would want as many studies included, but this may include junk science. But having a lower bar of entry could also be used for controversial subjects.
As rigorous as scientific method is, the definition of science has become fodder for political debate. (I initially had examples of good and bad science, but it seems that each person has their own idea of what they mean.) Whether this fodder will benefit humanity long term or even the country short term has yet to be determined. Perhaps ironically, science, like art, must push the boundaries of our own preconceptions and be willing to be bold, even when society does not wish it. Embryonic stem cell research comes to mind as a clear example between science and society (no "religious" war intended; just citing an example).
I'm hesitant of a government-backed publisher simply because science would then be defined by who is in office. Even if this was done by non-partisan people, politicians can still "withhold funding" until they get the results they want.
I think forcing studies that were paid for by taxpayers to be open is a great and important start. That way, any study, regardless of outcome, will have to be published and available for all taxpayers. To make it fully accountable, there would need to be a list of studies being conducted so that some senator/representative can't bury the results because it gets in the way of their political ideology. For added paranoia, several independent servers can archive the list and make sure every study conducted is published. For ultimate paranoia, provide a way to contact whomever is conducting the study.
While I love the great outdoors, my back has precluded this activity for me. So now, I "don't do computers" at home. DVR and phone is the maximum of what I'll do.
It usually while I'm mopping the floor or washing the dishes that I'll think of a solution to a problem I'm having. Maybe not so much of a solution as a different way to approach the problem. (e.g. iterating through a users list to find which of them belong to a group because I can't query the group.)
Many large corporations have moved from Customer Service to Customer Relations. The difference is that corporations are no longer interested in keeping customers happy. They only need customers to keep paying.
Verizon has a very large customer base. As long as they don't do something drastic, the majority of their customers will continue paying. They may have crappy customer service, but as long as people don't have problems, they will continue to pay.
I have no figures on the subject but I suspect that those with unlimited data plans may represent a smaller portion of their customer base...or at least a smaller profitable portion of their customer base. They may lose customers because of this, but they may be hedging that new customers may come to Verizon for it's coverage/speed/etc.
Completely agree. Outside your home, the dangers to your equipment is good-old-fashioned stealing. You having ALL of your stuff in ONE place in an EASY-TO-CARRY container is just setting yourself up for failure.
This is like having a handle on a safe. Yeah, a thief can't break into the safe NOW, but at least they can take it with them and break into the safe later.
You need to imagine what you would do if/when someone steals your stuff. If you carry it around as often as you say you do, likelihood of it getting stolen or lost approaches 1 very quickly.
This is going to sound troll-y but I hope that/.-ers will look past the thesis and read the arguments...
Public education has done a lot, but to a point. I grew up going to private school when I was younger and then public school for middle school or high. If memory serves me correctly (which it may not), is that my views when younger tended to be more conservative than in my later years. Of course, in college, it was a bit of a wild target but eventually settled right of the middle.
It's no mistake that a large portion of students that go to college tend to be moderate to liberal. Many of the teachers and professors, whether knowingly or unknowingly, teach from a liberal standpoint and thus this is what children are taught. There are many history lessons I learned when I was in high school that turned out to be either flat wrong or horribly one-sided.
The lesson here is that students don't get the full story. But teachers teach as if they do. Teachers have to do this because they need to get through a lesson plan and can't spend weeks on one topic. It's understandable. Unfortunately, when all students hear is "Lincoln freed the slaves", they think that's all there is. Very few of them go deeper into the material because they have assignments, projects, papers, math problems, etc. And what kid wants to spend his time reading for fun about the Civil War when Pokemon is on!
Children are taught it's more important to be correct than it is to know the full story. They learn through social pressure it's cooler to know who the Jersey Shore has on next season than the top writs in front of the SCOTUS. You're considered a jock if you can name ERAs of various baseball players and not know the atomic number of helium.
While I'm sure there are kids that know all of these things, they are in the minority. And until this changes, we'll always have a gap between elite and the General Population.
There are times when sending a text is more "appropriate" than calling. For example, if you're in a noisy environment and need to get someone's attention. Equally so, if you're in a very quiet environment and need to talk to some discretely.
Texts can be better than e-mails since they require the sender to be precise with his/her words and to be as short as possible.
That doesn't negate how expense texts really are verses how much they should be. Like many things, text fees are a fee of convenience, not of actual value. I'm pretty sure this is why the cost of texts haven't gone up in a while. I think the carriers don't want to rock the boat. Any increase is likely to result in more people seeking free alternatives.
This needs to be modded up because not only did you address the concern, but you made another excellent point about resale.
This is so important geeks may forget it. My parents new house came with cabling installed. They put the cables in an awful location, but not enough for me to complain about it. I'm so jealous of their set up that I go to my parents more often than I like to admit.
The geek in me wants to do the same thing in my house. But the investor in me knows that the work and effort in laying all the cable is not going to be worth the payout. Right now, I just have cables hugging the crown molding. It looks horrible, but I'm not married so I don't care.
I understand the premise, but isn't entirely accurate. People love the Big Mac, but getting the Big Mac would be difficult if the government shut down McDonald's all of the sudden.
But to help your point, TPB will live on. Just as another name. Until the ease of use of legitimate digital files is greater than the ease of pirating, the TPB and other services will live on.
The problem with X10 is that it was just a horrible piece of equipment. I had a roommate who played with this stuff all day and the control was unpredictable. I'm sure there's a way to configure it properly, but all-in-all, it just wasn't ready for prime-time.
I believe this is eventually where we will be headed, but we're just not there yet. RFIDs are helping bridge the devices gap. I don't think it will be long until we have fridges that can read RFIDs on everything from a bottle of milk (multiple embedded RFIDs could track how much milk is left) to the number of juice boxes left.
But how to get everything integrated is still up in the air. And let's not forget demand: will anyone want this enough to pay for it?
Back then, X10 and Microsoft was trying to solve a problem that didn't quite exist. I would say this is still true today. I don't think this type of connectivity will be accepted and/or expected by the general public until the price is so low that it just becomes included with anything we buy (think UPC codes).
I think what gweihir is trying to say is that if he sees a candy bar that's behind a locked glass and the same candy bar in an open tray, he'll take the candy bar in an open tray.
I do agree with what you said, however. If you hate DRM so much that you pirate, then you are ultimately contributing to the problem. But there are a quiet few, like myself and I suppose many on/., that given a choice, they would forgo buying a digital copy with DRM and even not buy anything at all. The store may not have lost a customer, but they did lose a sale.
If you're going to pirate, at least be honest about it. Don't disguise your cheapness with mock anger. But I'll admit to being frustrated by DRM sometimes to the point that I will do exactly what you suggest: buy a legal version then download a DRM-free version and register my complaint with the appropriate people.
DRM is a show-stopper for me too. If something I intend to buy has DRM, I won't buy it. I can do that because most things with DRM are things I don't NEED. Yes, it will still work on current devices. Yes to all the reasons you said. But it's my money and I get to decide how I spend it. If I don't want to buy beer from store X because they experiment on animals, that's my business. I can buy beer somewhere else or not buy it at all, regardless of how delicious it may be.
I vaguely recall that someone had developed a program that mimicked battle.net, so people could host their own Starcraft game servers. Blizzard eventually sued and shut down the program.
It sounds like the facts are similar, except that in the MapleStory case, the people were making money whereas the battle.net clone was just some developer who released his stuff open-source.
A few months ago, Congress was considering a bill known as SOPA & PIPA. While the sponsoring representatives said this legislation was necessary to stop copyright pirates, many technical people said it would cripple the internet. SOPA was pretty much going to pass, if it weren't for the "meddling nerds" who just painted the law in a negative light, forcing the representatives to table the bill for a non-election year.
There is a difference between how the world *SHOULD* be and how it actually is. If the last two administrations have taught us anything is that the Constitution is not worth the paper it's printed on when it comes to "national security" and "re-election".
The point is that what the UK is considering COULD happen here. We need to watch what they do carefully.
That's the difference between the RIAA and Goldman Sachs. The RIAA doesn't arrest anyone or even get the state to arrest anyone. They just file lawsuits. Goldman Sachs actually wanted criminal charges.
I'm sure that Goldman Sachs will now file a copyright infringement lawsuit.
But it begs the question if anyone has ever been jailed for copyright infringement. My google skills are lacking now that I'm in my post-lunch coma...
Obviously, having media that are able to explain things clearly and fairly are a necessity.
With the problems of media bias from ALL sides, I fear this would be the biggest political hurdle. The graph of actual funding is sad, but not surprising. The way that most people think about fusion technology, you might as well be talking about teleportation and warp drive.
Cards on the table, I'm a fiscal conservative. At the same time, I realize research like this really requires government funding because the profit of these ideas will not be realized for decades, if at all. Unfortunately, in a down economy, the People want hand outs and ultimately, this is what gets you elected. I hate the system, but that's how it works.
Maybe these guys can do what the Corn people have done and just spend money on commercials and ads. Get people to understand that fusion may still be a "pie in the sky" idea, but that pie is getting closer to earth.
It begs the question of whether you can not hire or even fire a person for non-protected reasons.
For example, could fire someone for being ugly? Could you fire someone for being attractive? They had their wisdom teeth removed? Pronounce specific "pacific"? Drink Budwiser instead of Coors? Drive a Ford instead of a Chevy?
For every illegal reason to fire someone, there's probably 10 legal (mostly petty) reasons. I don't know of any state or locality that requires employers to show that they fired someone for a specific reason. Most laws are to make sure that someone doesn't get fired for the wrong reason.
I understand why companies are asking for Facebook passwords. They don't want to hire someone who is clearly an ass.
But like you said, there are much better and more accurate ways to judge this than by looking through someone's facebook account.
But in Apple's defense, the permissions structure of Macs are inherently different than on a Windows machine.
Most mac users run at normal user level, a la Linux/Unix. When the computer needs to do something at the priveleged level, it asks for a password.
Most Windows users usually run as administrator by default. Anytime some virus/trojan wants to do something, it just prompts the user with a "Hey, Windows Explorer wants to do something. Continue?"
There is something different about having to type in a password than just clicking ok. Then again, Windows has so many random dialogue boxes that most users don't read them anymore.
TurboTax, et al could be made open source, but it there are major problems.
While the major deductions haven't changed (e.g. mortgage, charitable contributions, etc), a lot of other stuff change, expire, get extended, year to year. While I would love to see a stable, open-source TurboTax, there is just too much at stake.
When you install Linux on your computer, the overall cost is your system. If Linux somehow crashes and melts your motherboard, it sucks but you won't go to jail or get fined for it. Most, if not all open source software include clauses that absolve the authors of anything bad. Ultimately, you want to be able to say, "Linus Torvalds, that jerk, told me that I could claim my penis enlargement pills were tax-deductible!" and have the government hold him liable.
Since compromise is required for anyone to get behind SOPA/PIPA, I suggest the following concessions of the MPAA:
* Copyright is reduced from 75 years after authors death to 10 years after the creation of a protected work.
* No more software patents.
* Lobbying groups that donate more than $1 million dollars annually to politicians shall be taxable.
While I realize that this is purely a fantasy and likely to never happen, I think a compromise like this would help MPAA and others at least sell their snake oil.
Wondering what concessions others slashdotters would like to see in order for them to accept SOPA/PIPA in it's current form.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling. In case you're serious:
Saying QR code is "a little more than an advanced barcode" is like saying a computer is like an advanced calculator. While technically true, the fact that QR codes can hold MUCH more data makes the comparison moot. While the barcode and QR code are related, they have different applications.
Someone please mod this as +1 Informative.
The key here is that no one can claim copyright to work done by the US Government. This does not mean that it is accessible to the public.
I have worked for a non-profit before. And I've had to issue DMCA noticed before. Not in the same job, mind you.
Speaking from the DMCA side, I always contacted the offending author first. I know most people just make mistakes and don't intend on copying something out of spite. The less "legal" action I take, the better it is. So in that light, Jay could have just send her an e-mail. But the DMCA does give him the right to just start the legal process right away.
I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that Jay has had a large number of copyright violators. I know I have and find it harder and harder to write to each individual person and say that they are copying my work. It's much easier to just submit a form to X company and have them deal with it. And I'm guessing this is why Jay just submitted the form.
From the non-profit side of things, I had to make every penny count. I could NOT afford risk. I would think that this lawyer, assuming she was indeed an angel sent from heaven to do the Lord's work, would not want to risk thousands of dollars in fines simply because she was too lazy. The fact that she was a lawyer makes this even worse. If the site had been "Help little Timmy get the life-saving surgery he needs", I'm sure it would have been a bit different. But an attorney running a website advertising services should have known better. If she wasn't up-to-speed on DMCA, she should have consulted an IP attorney, or at the very least, a techie.
I imagine that Congress would need to write a law similar to the one for a US Citizen traveling overseas for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity with a minor (Title 18, Chapter 117, Section 2423, Subsection b).
So yeah, you can mess up the stuff on the moon, but government will find a way to nail you
Your sarcasm aside, the parent post is saying that times were different when the law was written. The Supreme Court, for the most part, have adapted the Constitutional meaning of the First Amendment to the times.
I agree with the Parent that Martin Luther King would not be as effective today hiding behind a pseudonym and a faceless blog as he was when he took the National Mall. This is not to say that anonymous messages don't have their place. Often anonymous commentators will offer ideas to the marketplace, which then spawn more ideas and contribute to the free speech of all people.
While I agree with the premise of the assemblyman (the premise being that bullies shouldn't get to hide behind the First Amendment), using a nuke to trim a tree is not the way to go.
My only problem with this is what makes it into a scientific journal? Since it's public, I would want as many studies included, but this may include junk science. But having a lower bar of entry could also be used for controversial subjects.
As rigorous as scientific method is, the definition of science has become fodder for political debate. (I initially had examples of good and bad science, but it seems that each person has their own idea of what they mean.) Whether this fodder will benefit humanity long term or even the country short term has yet to be determined. Perhaps ironically, science, like art, must push the boundaries of our own preconceptions and be willing to be bold, even when society does not wish it. Embryonic stem cell research comes to mind as a clear example between science and society (no "religious" war intended; just citing an example).
I'm hesitant of a government-backed publisher simply because science would then be defined by who is in office. Even if this was done by non-partisan people, politicians can still "withhold funding" until they get the results they want.
I think forcing studies that were paid for by taxpayers to be open is a great and important start. That way, any study, regardless of outcome, will have to be published and available for all taxpayers. To make it fully accountable, there would need to be a list of studies being conducted so that some senator/representative can't bury the results because it gets in the way of their political ideology. For added paranoia, several independent servers can archive the list and make sure every study conducted is published. For ultimate paranoia, provide a way to contact whomever is conducting the study.
While I love the great outdoors, my back has precluded this activity for me. So now, I "don't do computers" at home. DVR and phone is the maximum of what I'll do.
It usually while I'm mopping the floor or washing the dishes that I'll think of a solution to a problem I'm having. Maybe not so much of a solution as a different way to approach the problem. (e.g. iterating through a users list to find which of them belong to a group because I can't query the group.)
Does Apple monitor questions asked to Siri? Or were they browsing twitter and noticed a bunch of people pointing this out?
I'd be interested to see how they found out that Siri was doing this.
Many large corporations have moved from Customer Service to Customer Relations. The difference is that corporations are no longer interested in keeping customers happy. They only need customers to keep paying.
Verizon has a very large customer base. As long as they don't do something drastic, the majority of their customers will continue paying. They may have crappy customer service, but as long as people don't have problems, they will continue to pay.
I have no figures on the subject but I suspect that those with unlimited data plans may represent a smaller portion of their customer base...or at least a smaller profitable portion of their customer base. They may lose customers because of this, but they may be hedging that new customers may come to Verizon for it's coverage/speed/etc.
I set up a ustream account for my dog. The baby, like my dog, can't interact with the audience.
This set up would be a lot simpler since it would just involve a webcam you can buy for $20 and run the usb cable to some laptop.
Completely agree. Outside your home, the dangers to your equipment is good-old-fashioned stealing. You having ALL of your stuff in ONE place in an EASY-TO-CARRY container is just setting yourself up for failure.
This is like having a handle on a safe. Yeah, a thief can't break into the safe NOW, but at least they can take it with them and break into the safe later.
You need to imagine what you would do if/when someone steals your stuff. If you carry it around as often as you say you do, likelihood of it getting stolen or lost approaches 1 very quickly.
This is going to sound troll-y but I hope that /.-ers will look past the thesis and read the arguments...
Public education has done a lot, but to a point. I grew up going to private school when I was younger and then public school for middle school or high. If memory serves me correctly (which it may not), is that my views when younger tended to be more conservative than in my later years. Of course, in college, it was a bit of a wild target but eventually settled right of the middle.
It's no mistake that a large portion of students that go to college tend to be moderate to liberal. Many of the teachers and professors, whether knowingly or unknowingly, teach from a liberal standpoint and thus this is what children are taught. There are many history lessons I learned when I was in high school that turned out to be either flat wrong or horribly one-sided.
The lesson here is that students don't get the full story. But teachers teach as if they do. Teachers have to do this because they need to get through a lesson plan and can't spend weeks on one topic. It's understandable. Unfortunately, when all students hear is "Lincoln freed the slaves", they think that's all there is. Very few of them go deeper into the material because they have assignments, projects, papers, math problems, etc. And what kid wants to spend his time reading for fun about the Civil War when Pokemon is on!
Children are taught it's more important to be correct than it is to know the full story. They learn through social pressure it's cooler to know who the Jersey Shore has on next season than the top writs in front of the SCOTUS. You're considered a jock if you can name ERAs of various baseball players and not know the atomic number of helium.
While I'm sure there are kids that know all of these things, they are in the minority. And until this changes, we'll always have a gap between elite and the General Population.
There are times when sending a text is more "appropriate" than calling. For example, if you're in a noisy environment and need to get someone's attention. Equally so, if you're in a very quiet environment and need to talk to some discretely.
Texts can be better than e-mails since they require the sender to be precise with his/her words and to be as short as possible.
That doesn't negate how expense texts really are verses how much they should be. Like many things, text fees are a fee of convenience, not of actual value. I'm pretty sure this is why the cost of texts haven't gone up in a while. I think the carriers don't want to rock the boat. Any increase is likely to result in more people seeking free alternatives.
This needs to be modded up because not only did you address the concern, but you made another excellent point about resale.
This is so important geeks may forget it. My parents new house came with cabling installed. They put the cables in an awful location, but not enough for me to complain about it. I'm so jealous of their set up that I go to my parents more often than I like to admit.
The geek in me wants to do the same thing in my house. But the investor in me knows that the work and effort in laying all the cable is not going to be worth the payout. Right now, I just have cables hugging the crown molding. It looks horrible, but I'm not married so I don't care.
I understand the premise, but isn't entirely accurate. People love the Big Mac, but getting the Big Mac would be difficult if the government shut down McDonald's all of the sudden.
But to help your point, TPB will live on. Just as another name. Until the ease of use of legitimate digital files is greater than the ease of pirating, the TPB and other services will live on.
The problem with X10 is that it was just a horrible piece of equipment. I had a roommate who played with this stuff all day and the control was unpredictable. I'm sure there's a way to configure it properly, but all-in-all, it just wasn't ready for prime-time.
I believe this is eventually where we will be headed, but we're just not there yet. RFIDs are helping bridge the devices gap. I don't think it will be long until we have fridges that can read RFIDs on everything from a bottle of milk (multiple embedded RFIDs could track how much milk is left) to the number of juice boxes left.
But how to get everything integrated is still up in the air. And let's not forget demand: will anyone want this enough to pay for it?
Back then, X10 and Microsoft was trying to solve a problem that didn't quite exist. I would say this is still true today. I don't think this type of connectivity will be accepted and/or expected by the general public until the price is so low that it just becomes included with anything we buy (think UPC codes).
I think what gweihir is trying to say is that if he sees a candy bar that's behind a locked glass and the same candy bar in an open tray, he'll take the candy bar in an open tray.
/., that given a choice, they would forgo buying a digital copy with DRM and even not buy anything at all. The store may not have lost a customer, but they did lose a sale.
I do agree with what you said, however. If you hate DRM so much that you pirate, then you are ultimately contributing to the problem. But there are a quiet few, like myself and I suppose many on
If you're going to pirate, at least be honest about it. Don't disguise your cheapness with mock anger. But I'll admit to being frustrated by DRM sometimes to the point that I will do exactly what you suggest: buy a legal version then download a DRM-free version and register my complaint with the appropriate people.
DRM is a show-stopper for me too. If something I intend to buy has DRM, I won't buy it. I can do that because most things with DRM are things I don't NEED. Yes, it will still work on current devices. Yes to all the reasons you said. But it's my money and I get to decide how I spend it. If I don't want to buy beer from store X because they experiment on animals, that's my business. I can buy beer somewhere else or not buy it at all, regardless of how delicious it may be.
I vaguely recall that someone had developed a program that mimicked battle.net, so people could host their own Starcraft game servers. Blizzard eventually sued and shut down the program.
It sounds like the facts are similar, except that in the MapleStory case, the people were making money whereas the battle.net clone was just some developer who released his stuff open-source.
Anyone with a better memory than me?
You must be new here.
A few months ago, Congress was considering a bill known as SOPA & PIPA. While the sponsoring representatives said this legislation was necessary to stop copyright pirates, many technical people said it would cripple the internet. SOPA was pretty much going to pass, if it weren't for the "meddling nerds" who just painted the law in a negative light, forcing the representatives to table the bill for a non-election year.
There is a difference between how the world *SHOULD* be and how it actually is. If the last two administrations have taught us anything is that the Constitution is not worth the paper it's printed on when it comes to "national security" and "re-election".
The point is that what the UK is considering COULD happen here. We need to watch what they do carefully.
That's the difference between the RIAA and Goldman Sachs. The RIAA doesn't arrest anyone or even get the state to arrest anyone. They just file lawsuits. Goldman Sachs actually wanted criminal charges.
I'm sure that Goldman Sachs will now file a copyright infringement lawsuit.
But it begs the question if anyone has ever been jailed for copyright infringement. My google skills are lacking now that I'm in my post-lunch coma...
With the problems of media bias from ALL sides, I fear this would be the biggest political hurdle. The graph of actual funding is sad, but not surprising. The way that most people think about fusion technology, you might as well be talking about teleportation and warp drive.
Cards on the table, I'm a fiscal conservative. At the same time, I realize research like this really requires government funding because the profit of these ideas will not be realized for decades, if at all. Unfortunately, in a down economy, the People want hand outs and ultimately, this is what gets you elected. I hate the system, but that's how it works.
Maybe these guys can do what the Corn people have done and just spend money on commercials and ads. Get people to understand that fusion may still be a "pie in the sky" idea, but that pie is getting closer to earth.
It begs the question of whether you can not hire or even fire a person for non-protected reasons.
For example, could fire someone for being ugly? Could you fire someone for being attractive? They had their wisdom teeth removed? Pronounce specific "pacific"? Drink Budwiser instead of Coors? Drive a Ford instead of a Chevy?
For every illegal reason to fire someone, there's probably 10 legal (mostly petty) reasons. I don't know of any state or locality that requires employers to show that they fired someone for a specific reason. Most laws are to make sure that someone doesn't get fired for the wrong reason.
I understand why companies are asking for Facebook passwords. They don't want to hire someone who is clearly an ass.
But like you said, there are much better and more accurate ways to judge this than by looking through someone's facebook account.
But in Apple's defense, the permissions structure of Macs are inherently different than on a Windows machine.
Most mac users run at normal user level, a la Linux/Unix. When the computer needs to do something at the priveleged level, it asks for a password.
Most Windows users usually run as administrator by default. Anytime some virus/trojan wants to do something, it just prompts the user with a "Hey, Windows Explorer wants to do something. Continue?"
There is something different about having to type in a password than just clicking ok. Then again, Windows has so many random dialogue boxes that most users don't read them anymore.
TurboTax, et al could be made open source, but it there are major problems.
While the major deductions haven't changed (e.g. mortgage, charitable contributions, etc), a lot of other stuff change, expire, get extended, year to year. While I would love to see a stable, open-source TurboTax, there is just too much at stake.
When you install Linux on your computer, the overall cost is your system. If Linux somehow crashes and melts your motherboard, it sucks but you won't go to jail or get fined for it. Most, if not all open source software include clauses that absolve the authors of anything bad. Ultimately, you want to be able to say, "Linus Torvalds, that jerk, told me that I could claim my penis enlargement pills were tax-deductible!" and have the government hold him liable.
Since compromise is required for anyone to get behind SOPA/PIPA, I suggest the following concessions of the MPAA: * Copyright is reduced from 75 years after authors death to 10 years after the creation of a protected work. * No more software patents. * Lobbying groups that donate more than $1 million dollars annually to politicians shall be taxable. While I realize that this is purely a fantasy and likely to never happen, I think a compromise like this would help MPAA and others at least sell their snake oil. Wondering what concessions others slashdotters would like to see in order for them to accept SOPA/PIPA in it's current form.