All and all it felt a bit like overkill, but considering that the statue is probably one of the most important symbols of America, it makes sense to so heavily gaurd it.
Or perhaps we've found a better way to prevent an attack on the statue. Why would anyone want to attack such a symbol when we are making it so oppressive to visit? Does anyone else see the irony here?
Seems to me that if I was a terrorist I would want to leave the statue standing... wouldn't want to deprive us of such a good opportunity to make fools of ourselves.
It would also seem that even if the fingerprints are not checked against a database, the purpose of this could be just to condition people to accept biometric scanners to lesson the shock of the scanners that DO check a national database.
I am aware that meta tags themselves are not illegal. My point is that while meta tag spamming is unfair, a law against it is not needed because search engines already ignore meta tags. Meta tag spammers are thus harmless, because they are ignored.
I didn't RTFA either for the same reason as the parent, but I'm going to comment anyway (perhaps we need a system of human translation by bi-lingual slashdotters in exchange for karma, mod-points, or free subscription page views).
What we have here is a great example of a clumsy law being passed to solve a problem that the free market has already solved for itself.
Most search engines ignore meta-tags already, presumably as a result of people abusing them to artifically boost their page ranking.
The search engines themselves have a vested interest in defeating scams like this. People want relevant results from a search engine, so spamming of this sort reduces the value of those results. We don't need a clueless government trying to help solve the problem months or years after the fact.
The time it takes for spammers to discover an exploit like this, abuse it, and have the search engines adjust their procedures to compensate is probably an order of magnitude less than the time it takes a piece of corrective legislation to be passed in pretty much any democratic system. Governments are by their very nature too slow and clumsy to solve problems of this nature.
Okay, so let's say I write my own browser and start using it. Then I give it to two of my friends. There has now been a 200% increase in people using my browser... by your logic this is something Microsoft should be worried about...
I read Linus' book and heard about the "feud" between him and Tanenbaum... somehow, I never connected that Tanenbaum to the one that wrote my networking text...
Whatever else may be said about Prof. Tanenbaum, I learned much of what I know about networking from his excellent text. It should be said that he is excellent at what he does (that is, teaching students about computers).
I dont why they wouldn't want the hype, but its their product, and they can do with it what they want.
I would generally agree with you... but in this case "doing with it what they want" involved sending some small website owner to jail for posting a few screenshots.
Perhaps you should have said "It's their police force, and they can do with it what they want."
So does the NRA.
And at the end of the day, their goal is to make it IMPOSSIBLE to ignore them, as opposed to just illegal.
Some types of political action are not subject to a gag order.
Wow... look at how much emotion is being spilled over this blatent, but minor act of censorship. Anyone can look up the text of the PATRIOT act and find the content of the article that was deleted.
So, while we are wasting our time and energy on this little gem, what else are they up to?
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...
How did this get modded as insightful? I mean, come on, I'm as paranoid as the next guy, but Congress voting on a bill it hasn't seen...
At least provide some evidence if you are going to make a statement like that.
You are relying on a third party to provide you with a free anonymizing (sp) service. This would simply result in google etc. no longer responding to echo requests.
Since 'ping www.google.com' is my network test utility of choice, I would not be to happy to see this come down.
Also, the downloader still has to broadcast an IP to make this happen, though I doubt there will be a practical solution to that one, ever.
These people have two sets of DNA, but the other set comes from their fraternal twin... at worst, the other set of DNA is as closely related to them as a brother or sister. And in all cases, they would still have half of their DNA from their mother, and half from the father -- just like anyone else.
It wouldn't seem that this would cause much of a problem in terms of body part mismatch, since the situation is not that much different from a normal single baby.
Slashdot Mirror
Think of it as forking the source... something we do a lot of around here, right?
All and all it felt a bit like overkill, but considering that the statue is probably one of the most important symbols of America, it makes sense to so heavily gaurd it.
Or perhaps we've found a better way to prevent an attack on the statue. Why would anyone want to attack such a symbol when we are making it so oppressive to visit? Does anyone else see the irony here?
Seems to me that if I was a terrorist I would want to leave the statue standing... wouldn't want to deprive us of such a good opportunity to make fools of ourselves.
It would also seem that even if the fingerprints are not checked against a database, the purpose of this could be just to condition people to accept biometric scanners to lesson the shock of the scanners that DO check a national database.
I am aware that meta tags themselves are not illegal. My point is that while meta tag spamming is unfair, a law against it is not needed because search engines already ignore meta tags. Meta tag spammers are thus harmless, because they are ignored.
I didn't RTFA either for the same reason as the parent, but I'm going to comment anyway (perhaps we need a system of human translation by bi-lingual slashdotters in exchange for karma, mod-points, or free subscription page views). What we have here is a great example of a clumsy law being passed to solve a problem that the free market has already solved for itself. Most search engines ignore meta-tags already, presumably as a result of people abusing them to artifically boost their page ranking. The search engines themselves have a vested interest in defeating scams like this. People want relevant results from a search engine, so spamming of this sort reduces the value of those results. We don't need a clueless government trying to help solve the problem months or years after the fact. The time it takes for spammers to discover an exploit like this, abuse it, and have the search engines adjust their procedures to compensate is probably an order of magnitude less than the time it takes a piece of corrective legislation to be passed in pretty much any democratic system. Governments are by their very nature too slow and clumsy to solve problems of this nature.
Rather than going through all that trouble, you could just SELL your Tandy 286 laptop and get a p-p-p-powerbook.
Okay, so let's say I write my own browser and start using it. Then I give it to two of my friends. There has now been a 200% increase in people using my browser... by your logic this is something Microsoft should be worried about...
I read Linus' book and heard about the "feud" between him and Tanenbaum... somehow, I never connected that Tanenbaum to the one that wrote my networking text...
Whatever else may be said about Prof. Tanenbaum, I learned much of what I know about networking from his excellent text. It should be said that he is excellent at what he does (that is, teaching students about computers).
I dont why they wouldn't want the hype, but its their product, and they can do with it what they want. I would generally agree with you... but in this case "doing with it what they want" involved sending some small website owner to jail for posting a few screenshots. Perhaps you should have said "It's their police force, and they can do with it what they want."
So does the NRA. And at the end of the day, their goal is to make it IMPOSSIBLE to ignore them, as opposed to just illegal. Some types of political action are not subject to a gag order.
Wow... look at how much emotion is being spilled over this blatent, but minor act of censorship. Anyone can look up the text of the PATRIOT act and find the content of the article that was deleted. So, while we are wasting our time and energy on this little gem, what else are they up to? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...
How did this get modded as insightful? I mean, come on, I'm as paranoid as the next guy, but Congress voting on a bill it hasn't seen... At least provide some evidence if you are going to make a statement like that.
You are relying on a third party to provide you with a free anonymizing (sp) service. This would simply result in google etc. no longer responding to echo requests.
Since 'ping www.google.com' is my network test utility of choice, I would not be to happy to see this come down.
Also, the downloader still has to broadcast an IP to make this happen, though I doubt there will be a practical solution to that one, ever.
These people have two sets of DNA, but the other set comes from their fraternal twin... at worst, the other set of DNA is as closely related to them as a brother or sister. And in all cases, they would still have half of their DNA from their mother, and half from the father -- just like anyone else. It wouldn't seem that this would cause much of a problem in terms of body part mismatch, since the situation is not that much different from a normal single baby.