Your question can never be answered definitively enough, especially to satisfy suits and bean-counters. As evidence I offer you the ONGOING tug-of-war over tech support: is it an expense to be minimized and avoided at all cost, or does it actually aid the bottom line by boosting goodwill, etc? Even after decades that question hasn't been answered, and customers often suffer because of it.
The question you ask is just as insoluble. You might as well be debating religion.
She might, knowing her wages wouldn't be garnished for the rest of her life, her posthumous estate held hostage, and her heirs stuck on the hook... all because she downloaded two dozen songs.
So this guy gets 30 months for physically duplicating AND SELLING stuff, while Jammie Thomas et al get smacked with million-dollar fines for downloading a few handfuls of unpaid tunes for their own personal enjoyment? Maybe THIS guy should be the one getting smacked with million-dollar fines, considering he might have made millions from what he was doing.
Use your own ISP's DNS servers instead or run your own resolving DNS server.
The first suggestion is just no longer an option, for so many reasons, all of them based on lack of trustworthiness in this climate of corporate dominance and machination. I was using OpenDNS for several years, but recently I started using TreeWalk to host my own modest DNS server. Seems to work fine, and I don't even notice it's there.
I'm the caretaker - or perhaps the other way 'round? - of five cats myself, four of which I raised from birth. I've had ample opportunity to observe how they interact with each other. They are all middle aged now, well past the kitten stage when they are most likely to "socialize". When they engage in anything resembling it now, it's out of pure necessity and they do it poorly! Most of the time they prefer to be completely alone and "have their space". They do have distinct personalities, but that characteristic is common to all of them.
Their behavior with each other is what we humans might expect of "autistic" people: they may attempt to lick each other as a sign of acceptance, but they can't read the body language and signals well at all and the effort always devolves into get-the-fuck-AWAY! swatting at each other within moments. I've been observing this behavior every day for years.
Housecats, as a species distinct from, say, lions, are NOT social at all. They are solitary by nature, just as are leopards, mountain lions, cougars, and most other feline species. They PREFER to live alone. Contrast this with dogs, who will ALWAYS seek out other dogs with which to form a pack. Abuse a housecat enough, for instance, and he'll just LEAVE, whereas a dog will stay and take the abuse rather than abandon its pack. Housecats would only form something resembling a very loose pack out of necessity, though it's possible there may be some forced evolution at work.
Agreed (and part of my point). They're just more autistic than dogs; they lack the social intelligence because they didn't evolve as a pack species. They haven't stopped evolving, though, any more than we have, so who knows. The watching I was describing, though, is specific to when I'm moving or doing stuff and they are motivated to figure out if that "stuff" will affect them. Ain't no game... it's self-preservation!
Funny you mention pointing: my cats also understand the relevance and intent of pointing, at least to a limited degree. If I point to the bed, for instance, they seem to understand that the act is a communication that they should jump up on the bed (and/or that the coast up there is clear).
What you're describing is social intelligence. Dogs have that in spades. Housecats don't, because they're didn't evolve as a pack species. Perhaps over time we will force them to evolve it, too.
My cats look directly and intently at my face every day, and it's obvious from the circumstances that they recognize that a mind with intent is attached to those eyes and they're eager to figure out what that intent might be (and whether it might adversely affect them). This is not at all a behavior exclusive to primates, much less humans. Presumably that means my cats would have hated The Polar Express, too. They're already annoyed by Tom Hanks' nasally voice.
The success of placebos is completely dependent upon the person's predisposition to self-delusion. Some - a very few, admittedly (far too few for my taste) - are much less predisposed to it. Placebos would probably be a waste of time with such people. As the saying goes, you can't hypnotize a skeptic.
Next up: anyone, inside of government or not, who accesses or downloads anything from WikiLeaks will have their computer remotely fried. Who needs a warrant to search and seize when ya got 3G?
I certainly had the opportunity to influence more than just other jurors when I used my newfound knowledge to openly oppose the law in court and allow them to remove me. If more people did that and made the execution of it impossible, the law would be changed or stricken. I discharged my primary duty to society as a citizen of conscience, which prevented me from discharging a secondary duty as an unethical juror. Perhaps her motives were different, but I doubt it. Her execution was flawed.
The correct response is "I cannot make that affirmation in good conscience".
To copy verbatim my earlier response to another:
That's precisely what I did (my shortest stint ever), BUT I couldn't even make that decision in the complete absence of information that the judge imposed. That was my point: the judge was preventing an INFORMED affirmation.
Read my reply to rjstanford. If you know a law to be wrong and unethical, the ONLY responsible way you can discharge your "duty to society" is to DISSENT, openly state your opposition to it in court. You have a duty to society as a citizen first and juror second. Exercising that primary duty will get you removed as a juror, but your action will also be in the court record. If enough prospective jurors opposed it thus and made jurisprudence in such cases so much more difficult, the law would be stricken or changed. You at least had the benefit of already knowing it was a bad law; I had no knowledge of it at all until I took matters into my own hands.
"Honey, can you do me a favor? I'm at Best Buy looking at that TV, but I'm not sure about their price... couldja call Wal-Mart and find out what they sell it for or check Amazon and Newegg online, and then call me back? Thanks!"
... why didn't you just say so and be excused from the process?
That's precisely what I did (my shortest stint ever), BUT I couldn't even make that decision in the complete absence of information that the judge imposed. That was my point: the judge was preventing an INFORMED affirmation.
Slashdot Mirror
Your question can never be answered definitively enough, especially to satisfy suits and bean-counters. As evidence I offer you the ONGOING tug-of-war over tech support: is it an expense to be minimized and avoided at all cost, or does it actually aid the bottom line by boosting goodwill, etc? Even after decades that question hasn't been answered, and customers often suffer because of it.
The question you ask is just as insoluble. You might as well be debating religion.
She might, knowing her wages wouldn't be garnished for the rest of her life, her posthumous estate held hostage, and her heirs stuck on the hook... all because she downloaded two dozen songs.
grossly out of proportion == misplaced focus, then?
Lemme guess... a million or so dollars?
So this guy gets 30 months for physically duplicating AND SELLING stuff, while Jammie Thomas et al get smacked with million-dollar fines for downloading a few handfuls of unpaid tunes for their own personal enjoyment? Maybe THIS guy should be the one getting smacked with million-dollar fines, considering he might have made millions from what he was doing.
The first suggestion is just no longer an option, for so many reasons, all of them based on lack of trustworthiness in this climate of corporate dominance and machination. I was using OpenDNS for several years, but recently I started using TreeWalk to host my own modest DNS server. Seems to work fine, and I don't even notice it's there.
I'm the caretaker - or perhaps the other way 'round? - of five cats myself, four of which I raised from birth. I've had ample opportunity to observe how they interact with each other. They are all middle aged now, well past the kitten stage when they are most likely to "socialize". When they engage in anything resembling it now, it's out of pure necessity and they do it poorly! Most of the time they prefer to be completely alone and "have their space". They do have distinct personalities, but that characteristic is common to all of them.
Their behavior with each other is what we humans might expect of "autistic" people: they may attempt to lick each other as a sign of acceptance, but they can't read the body language and signals well at all and the effort always devolves into get-the-fuck-AWAY! swatting at each other within moments. I've been observing this behavior every day for years.
Housecats, as a species distinct from, say, lions, are NOT social at all. They are solitary by nature, just as are leopards, mountain lions, cougars, and most other feline species. They PREFER to live alone. Contrast this with dogs, who will ALWAYS seek out other dogs with which to form a pack. Abuse a housecat enough, for instance, and he'll just LEAVE, whereas a dog will stay and take the abuse rather than abandon its pack. Housecats would only form something resembling a very loose pack out of necessity, though it's possible there may be some forced evolution at work.
Why? Didn't you experience the joy of discovery by finding it yourself?
Hey, the address bus was 8 bits....
No. Ummm... do I get to keep my knees?
Obviously you never owned a Sinclair QL!
Agreed (and part of my point). They're just more autistic than dogs; they lack the social intelligence because they didn't evolve as a pack species. They haven't stopped evolving, though, any more than we have, so who knows. The watching I was describing, though, is specific to when I'm moving or doing stuff and they are motivated to figure out if that "stuff" will affect them. Ain't no game... it's self-preservation!
Funny you mention pointing: my cats also understand the relevance and intent of pointing, at least to a limited degree. If I point to the bed, for instance, they seem to understand that the act is a communication that they should jump up on the bed (and/or that the coast up there is clear).
What you're describing is social intelligence. Dogs have that in spades. Housecats don't, because they're didn't evolve as a pack species. Perhaps over time we will force them to evolve it, too.
My cats look directly and intently at my face every day, and it's obvious from the circumstances that they recognize that a mind with intent is attached to those eyes and they're eager to figure out what that intent might be (and whether it might adversely affect them). This is not at all a behavior exclusive to primates, much less humans. Presumably that means my cats would have hated The Polar Express, too. They're already annoyed by Tom Hanks' nasally voice.
Self-delusion can readily take the place of external deception. Ain't Homo sapiens awesome?
You're confusing ignorance with self-delusion. Either can exist to the complete exclusion of the other... though they're more often comorbid.
The success of placebos is completely dependent upon the person's predisposition to self-delusion. Some - a very few, admittedly (far too few for my taste) - are much less predisposed to it. Placebos would probably be a waste of time with such people. As the saying goes, you can't hypnotize a skeptic.
You forgot the Army boots.
Next up: anyone, inside of government or not, who accesses or downloads anything from WikiLeaks will have their computer remotely fried. Who needs a warrant to search and seize when ya got 3G?
I certainly had the opportunity to influence more than just other jurors when I used my newfound knowledge to openly oppose the law in court and allow them to remove me. If more people did that and made the execution of it impossible, the law would be changed or stricken. I discharged my primary duty to society as a citizen of conscience, which prevented me from discharging a secondary duty as an unethical juror. Perhaps her motives were different, but I doubt it. Her execution was flawed.
To copy verbatim my earlier response to another:
Read my reply to rjstanford. If you know a law to be wrong and unethical, the ONLY responsible way you can discharge your "duty to society" is to DISSENT, openly state your opposition to it in court. You have a duty to society as a citizen first and juror second. Exercising that primary duty will get you removed as a juror, but your action will also be in the court record. If enough prospective jurors opposed it thus and made jurisprudence in such cases so much more difficult, the law would be stricken or changed. You at least had the benefit of already knowing it was a bad law; I had no knowledge of it at all until I took matters into my own hands.
*ring*
"Honey, can you do me a favor? I'm at Best Buy looking at that TV, but I'm not sure about their price... couldja call Wal-Mart and find out what they sell it for or check Amazon and Newegg online, and then call me back? Thanks!"
That's precisely what I did (my shortest stint ever), BUT I couldn't even make that decision in the complete absence of information that the judge imposed. That was my point: the judge was preventing an INFORMED affirmation.