Going back to the car analogy... think of how "savvy" people have gotten with cars. They know all the brands. Have some idea of different fuel types. They know the difference between an SUV, a sedan, etc. But you know what? After 100 years of automobiles, the vast majority STILL don't understand any of the internal complexities. And in manys they know even less because cars today are generally so reliable (relatively speaking) there is little reason to even open the hood.
I think you're going in the wrong direction slightly, though I agree with your point. There's no reason to expect or hope for users to get more familiar with the internal complexities of either computers or cars. What would be great is for them to get better (more savvy) about *using* those things. And if we go to the cars well again, what do we see? Are drivers a lot more skilled than they were 50 years ago? Do they maintain safe following distance? Have any clue at all what their vehicles are capable of in an emergency? Do they use their fricking turn signals every once in a while? Obviously not. What bearing does that have on computers? I'm hoping not much, otherwise in 50 years users will be just as clueless as they are now.
you are supposed to need a commercial license to drive a vehicle over a certain weight. Of course, we don't actually enforce these laws because it means some rich people in LA and SF wouldn't be able to drive their Hummer home...
Maybe you're just joking, hard to tell online. But a quick google shows this is not correct.
DO YOU NEED A COMMERCIAL DRIVER'S LICENSE?
You need a CDL if you operate any of the following vehicles.
All single vehicles with a manufacturer's weight rating of 26,001 pounds or more
All trailers with a manufacturer's weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more, if the gross weight rating of the combined vehicle(s) is 26,001 pounds or more
All vehicles designed to transport 16 or more persons (including the driver). (Private, church, buses.)
All vehicles that carry placarded amounts of hazardous materials (see following section on exemptions)."
No Hummer (except maybe a stretch limo, which would obviously require a special license) comes close to the weight or passenger requirements, so unless you're carrying "placarded amounts of hazardous materials", you do not need a CDL. Now I don't know if the CDL rules are enforced or not, but if they are not it isn't because of SUVs.
Yeah, Home Depot's got that one nailed with their "self-checkout" debacle. They make you focus on the forking-over-of-cash so hard that it makes you want to leave your pile of crap at the register and go shop somewhere else.
Because... you don't think about the money you're spending when there's a cashier involved?
Re:It Left a Hole in the Clouds
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UFOs In the News
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You confound what the observers said with what actually happened.
I think you might mean "conflate".
Re:It Left a Hole in the Clouds
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UFOs In the News
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· Score: 1
Hmmm, looks like I picked up a little slashdotitis there too. Should be "lose" not "loose".
Everything else was a good point, but most of those cameras on top of the traffic lights can't do more than distinguish the existence of a car.
You may be right, I don't know what the percentage is. But some of them are there to take pictures of red-light runners. These pictures are good enough to read the license plate number and identify the driver.
Is it known if this produces a black market for bugs? Is the benefit of writing a security bug and having a friend/alter ego report it for a reward greater than the penalty for being found to have written a security bug?
Windows and *nix are functionally equivalent, just minor syntax differences to access the semantics.
Except for that whole thing about the registry. You know, that database portion of Windows that gets hosed once about every three seconds, and Windows constantly chokes on? That thing that is next to impossible to gracefully recover from without losing data or settings or creating other odd behavior? That thing that makes a regular workstation crawl to a halt after about 6 months of usage from a normal person.
Well, I would consider that gross exaggeration, but I agree with you that the idea that Windows and *nix are pretty much the same is complete bunk. I don't know, maybe by "functionally equivalent" he means something like "they both run applications". Can't argue with that.
There are many other ways in which Windows and *nix differ, but this is the first one that popped out.
I think you're trolling. XP is well and truly usable on a ~500Mhz P3 w/512M of RAM. It doesn't get iffy until you're down into 300Mhz P2, 256MB RAM territory.
I'm guessing RAM is very important to Windows. OK not guessing, I know it is. XP runs pretty much like crap on a 900MHz P4 with 128MB RAM, and I can pretty much guarntee Vista wouldn't run at all. I'm not even sure my 2-year-old machine at work would run Vista well. I don't have enough OSX experience to compare, though.
By the time you notice it, you've already gone to all the trouble of installing Vista, finding drivers, etc. so you'll pretty much be forced to pay for "Ultimate" - at $400 a copy.
Installing Vista? So there are people who will buy this OS as an upgrade on their current computer? Why?:-)
Okay, I admit it. I really just want to be able to point to my M1A2 Abrams Tank sitting on my front lawn and say "fuck off" the next time someone tries to show me their shiny new Hummer/SUV. Can you blame me?
Yes, that sucks! My front lawn isn't big enough for an Abrams! Waaaaaaa!
Embezzlement and the complete destruction of a company along with pensions, savings, stocks and lives is hardly comparable to sharing a couple copies of some terrible movies with people on the Internet.
There's been a lot of mention of how bad the movies are. Some are obvious jokes. Others are used in an otherwise-serious post, with the implication that the offense is less serious if the movies (more generically, content) are bad. Are the/.ers just taking an opportunity to get in a jab at a movie they don't like (probably haven't watched) or do some people really think it makes any difference, legally or ethically, how good or bad the movie is? Please reassure me that it's the former!:-)
I think I'll just quietly step away from this conversation now. I don't feel comfortable communicating with people who can't tell one poster from another even when it's spelled out in front of them.
Haha! Fair enough, although it isn't "spelled out in front of [me]". All I see is the name of the person I'm immediately replying to. I'm sure if I went to some extra effort I could get it all laid out, so you may call me lazy. I don't appreciate the implication that I'm stupid, but then again I have no reason to care what you think of me anyway.
How is that missing the point? If you meant "unethical" you should have said so. If you meant "hurting someone" you should have said so. You said "illegal". I'm not into guessing what people mean based on what they actually say, so I asked if you wanted to rephrase. And I still don't know if you do or not.
Last I heard it was not illegal to self-manufacture any firearm (much like the minuscule hole in the DMCA which does allow you to manufacture your own tools for circumventing copy protection) except perhaps a potato gun in some states/municipalities.
Really, I can make my own SAM launcher and missiles and that's OK? That doesn't seem right, but maybe so. And IIRC they closed that loophole so it's now illegal to even roll your own tools. I could be wrong on that. I haven't looked it up because I don't mind breaking the DMCA anyway.:-)
If I want to make counterfeit money in my basement, it's really not the business of anyone else. Until I actually do, or attempt to do, something illegal with it, why should I be punished?
You might want to rephrase that, since making counterfeit money is illegal, no matter what you do with it.
It's just one of those slippery slope problems. It's just stupid and wrong to ban something just because you find it immoral or because it could be used for something illegal, especially if it still has a legal use.
I don't agree. There must be a balance between the importance of any legitimate use for the thing and the state's interest in preventing counterfeiting. I think we can agree it's important to prevent counterfeiting, so any legitimate use would also have to be important to be permitted. IMO there is no legitimate use for counterfeit money accurate enough to pass off as real. If you want to do your money fetish thing, you should be allowed to make generally real-looking bills that have some obvious factor about them that makes them useless to try to pass off. Mickey Mouse instead of a dead president, 7 1/2 dollar bill, whatever.
I'm wondering what you would think about another example. Should I be allowed to have military weapons as long as I haven't actually used them illegally? Anti-personnel mines, machine guns (not automatic rifles, machine guns), grenades, tanks, rocket launchers... I just collect them because I think they're neat. No problem?
By their very nature all Christians are conservative meaning that they tend to look at morality as being important.
I just gotta speak up here. The implication is that liberals believe morality is not important. This is what the current Republican party would love for you to believe, but it just isn't so. The difference between conservative and liberal is not that one thinks morality is important and the other doesn't, or even that one thinks morality is more important than the other.
It's not the photoshopping that's harmful; what's harmful is the act of trying to pass the result off as real money. Therefore, it's that act that should be (and is) illegal, not the photoshopping.
You're saying if the FBI (Secret Service?) finds a box full of counterfeit money in your basement, they should have to wait until you actually try to use it before they're allowed to do something about it? And you're serious about this?
Um... not sure what to make of your post. Reminding you of something that doesn't contradict your post is exactly what I was doing. I assume your thanks are sarcastic, but I don't see the problem with doing that. I never stated you were wrong, and in fact made it explicitly clear that I was not saying you're wrong. I never said anything about logical consistency. And I really have no idea how stating that your opinions differ from those of the Supreme Court is showing off. But maybe you just like taking offense, I don't know.
Slashdot Mirror
From http://drivingrules.net/cdl/needaCDL.htm
DO YOU NEED A COMMERCIAL DRIVER'S LICENSE? You need a CDL if you operate any of the following vehicles.
- All single vehicles with a manufacturer's weight rating of 26,001 pounds or more
- All trailers with a manufacturer's weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more, if the gross weight rating of the combined vehicle(s) is 26,001 pounds or more
- All vehicles designed to transport 16 or more persons (including the driver). (Private, church, buses.)
- All vehicles that carry placarded amounts of hazardous materials (see following section on exemptions)."
No Hummer (except maybe a stretch limo, which would obviously require a special license) comes close to the weight or passenger requirements, so unless you're carrying "placarded amounts of hazardous materials", you do not need a CDL. Now I don't know if the CDL rules are enforced or not, but if they are not it isn't because of SUVs.It depends on your timeframe. Ten years ago piracy was definitely behind first.
Is it known if this produces a black market for bugs? Is the benefit of writing a security bug and having a friend/alter ego report it for a reward greater than the penalty for being found to have written a security bug?
Well, must be a P3! I guess it's even crappier than I thought. :-)
Well, I would consider that gross exaggeration, but I agree with you that the idea that Windows and *nix are pretty much the same is complete bunk. I don't know, maybe by "functionally equivalent" he means something like "they both run applications". Can't argue with that.
Yeah, like... the whole architecture?If that's true, then sharing bad movies would be a WORSE offense! Nobody seems to be suggesting that, though...
I'm wondering what you would think about another example. Should I be allowed to have military weapons as long as I haven't actually used them illegally? Anti-personnel mines, machine guns (not automatic rifles, machine guns), grenades, tanks, rocket launchers... I just collect them because I think they're neat. No problem?
Um... not sure what to make of your post. Reminding you of something that doesn't contradict your post is exactly what I was doing. I assume your thanks are sarcastic, but I don't see the problem with doing that. I never stated you were wrong, and in fact made it explicitly clear that I was not saying you're wrong. I never said anything about logical consistency. And I really have no idea how stating that your opinions differ from those of the Supreme Court is showing off. But maybe you just like taking offense, I don't know.