Librarians are hardly a "soft target", they are well organised on a local, national, and international level, and have been successfully fighting censoring goverments and greedy publishers ever since they first opened their doors.
Ignoring your attempt to equate "fall of democracy" and "democracy has failed" to the original "end to democray". Simple logic says that if any single corrupt election was an "end to democray" then democracy would have ceased to exist long before it did any good.
I forsee a swelling in garbage collectors wallets.
I guess the modern way of proving yourself as a respectable organization is to have the balls to own up to those mistakes....
...and make an honest effort to correct and/or compensate for them.
As a grandfather I can attest that it is also the old fashion way, and now that I have you trapped on my lawn I'm going to punish you by giving you my long winded opinion on the matter (while my bath robe flaps about in the breeze just enough to make you uncomfortable).
Anyone who shows genuine remorse for a mistake (such as stepping on my lawn) gets a +1:respect from me, (in real terms that means I will consider suppressing the flapping of my bathrobe while conversing with them). It's not absolution for irresponsibility or carelessness but it is a very reliable indicator that it was a genuine mistake rather than a mallicious act or an irresponsible attitude. The alternative hit and run behavoiur does nothing but compound the damage of a mistake which is the basic reason hit and run car accidents are so reviled by the public and so harshly punished by the law. OTOH, hit and run journalsism under the guise of "opinion" (eg: Andrew Bolt) seems to be not only tolerated by society, but more handsomely rewarded by it, and it has been that way since the dead sea was feeling a bit off colour.( I danced on the lawn of the "haunted house" when I was a kid, and was a legend at lunchtime for doing it)
This retraction is as good as journalistic ethics gets. TAL fucked up, and when this was pointed out to them they immediately sought to correct the record, they, like Apple, are victims that played some part in their own "downfall" here. As an Aussie I know virtually nothing about TAL other than the name, in fact I thought it was a 1950's magazine, but whatever/whoever they are, they deserve the upmost respect in this instance for willingly risking their own reputation in an attempt to set the record straight. To do otherwise turns an honest mistake into recklessly causing damage to Apple's reputaion. (Had you walked down the path and knocked on my door I most likely would have retrived your schoolbag from my lawn without a fuss, and consequently my dogs would not be eating your homework right now)
Of course the reputation of the "showman" who told tall tales about his adventure is in the toilet, and sadly it took his real story on third world working conditions with it. His actions are almost the exact opposite of TAL. He had ample oportunity to set the record straight, but he chose to continue the "showmanship". That choice is the point where he started lying to TAL for the purpose of self-glorification (or self-enrichment) and is therefore the moral vilian in all this. (I suspect you're lying about the schoolbag and just wanted to impress your mates by dancing on my lawn).
Now get off my lawn and go tell your teacher that a dog ate your homework. If the teacher broadcasts your stroy by giving you detention you'll also get a full 15 minuites of fame, tomorrow, during lunch.
Hold on fellas, you've got it all wrong. Math is different in Europe (they've got their commas and periods all backward in many places), especially when it's attorneys doing the counting. Folks just have to understand this, and fortunately there's a great instructional video available for those in need of further tutelage.
Very true. For a start - we call it Maths
So that's where the vote count went wrong! They were counting plurals where there should be singulars!
No, that's the 'S' bend. They're going to need a plumber because someone has clogged it up with due process, and people are starting to notice the stench.
It's a joke. "Authority figure" !=arsehole, even the most wonderful parent,boss,kindergarten teacher,dead saint on a stick, is still an "authority figure". And if you personally think you do not have an evil dictator lurking inside your phyche just waiting for the right circumstances to emerge, then the stanford prison experiments have taught us nothing.
If it was not a copyright licence then it would have no force under the law and would be fucking pointless. Yes the license has generous terms for the user but it's still a copyright license that has the full protection of copyright law. As a proffesional developer I cannot legally use GPL software unless I comply with it's terms. The only difference between a GPL license and the more traditional ones is that the GPL terms are entirely focused on the "improving society" rationale for granting a monopoly.
Nothing is restricted under the GPL
Incorrect. The user has to comply with redistribution restrictions because the aim of the license is to benifit scoiety as a whole rather than compensating the creator.
Copyright as a concept is neither inherently good or evil, it was originally a rather nobel intention to support the arts and sciences for everyone's benifit that has over the centuries devolved into a legal minefield that implements property rights for trivial "creative works" such as merging 2 button clicks on an order form into one button click. Most OSS licenses reflect the noble intentions of copyright law, the MAFIAA licenses ignore all that "social responsibilty" babble in favour of personal gain that is far beyond the social value of their distribution networks.
Having said that, anyone who is genuinely committed to the idea that social benifit is more important than personal control over their creations would not bother creating a license like the GPL, they would release their work into the public domain and be done with it (eg: the world's most popular database software).
It's a strong possibility. I've seen similar bizzare things based on what's written in a contract and in private industry not just goverment. My first encouter with contract crazyness was at a large telco in the mid 90's where I had I authorised putting 250MB disks into ~100 laptops with dead drives. However this upset a PHB somewhere in the money spending chain of command because the original maintenance contract stated 120MB disks (which were by this time out of production and as rare as hen's teeth). I tried explaining the supply problem and that the contrator was actually giving us twice the storage for no extra cost. In the end it was simpler to explain the situation to the contrator and (sheepishly) ask them to refomat the 250MB disks down to 120MB than it was to continue butting heads with a dick-swinging autocrat from the finance dept.
Office politics is really no different to real politics, the vast number of people who work for large organisations be they private, public or charitable are for the most part reletively efficient at whatever it is they do, but one or two clowns in the wrong position can turn the whole thing into a circus. In an evolutionary sense large organisations exist because they can do what no man can do alone. However our tribal instincts are still evolving such that we can live with and within groups of more than ~150 that are required to produce what a single mind can imagine, large groups (civilization,cities) simply did not exist until we invented agriculture and yet our current civilization(s) cannot function without them.
For example the multi-national I work for has about 175K people, a death in that "tribe" would happen quite frequently (say one a week), but it's only the handful of people I personally work with that I care (or even know) about. I think the fact that telecommunications have gone from simple morse code to their current star trek capabilities is part of that evolution, we are tool-makers, it's in our nature to invent tools to overcome the problems caused by inventing tools. So in a way that will probably upset bioligists it can be said that our tools and our instincts are co-evolving to accomplish greater feats, but our tools are evolving at a geometrical rate whereas our base instincts evolve at a glacial rate. So I'm betting our tools will evolve to the point where the size of the organisation is (almost) irrelevant to the effectiveness of its internal organisation long before our pumy minds can name, let alone care about, 175k individuals.
Under general relitivity pi is a variable not a constant, if the gravitational well is strong enough a circular orbit around it will be less than 3.14... times the diameter of the orbit. Not sure if the effect around a black hole is strong enough to reduce pi to 3.0, but the effect for Earth is that the circumfrance of a circular orbit is about a centimeter less than it should be if pi was a universal constant.
Disclaimer: I don't think god lives in a black hole, I think the human authour just rounded it down for literary convienience.
I'd actually be surprised if they really produce anything anymore
GE used to piss a lot of people off in the 70's because they built hydro-electric dams and nuclear reactors, they were hated as much as Monstanto and the oil companies, They still build hydro-electric dams and nuclear reactors, and everything else from wind turbines to kitchen kettles, I have no idea why they fell off people's shit list?
Which in a competitive market will ultimately result in the optimium endorphine hit per buck ratio. I'm nearing retirement so l'm hoping they perfect this before my "sunset years", just in case I'm alergic to morphine or something.
Your sig reminded me of A wrinkle in time, first science fantasy book I read as a kid (circa 1968). Great for kids and adults but a prime target of the same religious nutters who think Harry Potter is Satan's scripture. I thought it had been forgotten until Disney made a film out of it in 2003.
You act like this stuff hasnt gone on for the ENTIRETY of human existence.
Indeed. Indeed in fact I would say it's been going on since before we were human, many speicies of mammals are territorial and live in hieracrchical societies. Human morality reflects this inate behaviour with a prime example being the ten commandments, many of which are simply asserting God's role as the omnipresent Alpha male who cannot be understood but must be obeyed. Just look at the number of.people who are still eager to give their rulers the right to kill them via corporal punishment despite the fact is has zero practical benifit to society as a whole.
If anything, modern society has reduced the more brutal extremes of this behaviour. The Alpha members of (western) sociuety can no longer keep slaves or conscript peasants to fight their wars, they cannot murder you on whim and in most western countries they cannot murder you at all, nor can they tourtue you in the public square, or forcibly take your wife/daughter for their own entertainment. Of course someone like Murdoch can still screw up your life if they so desire, just not as effectively, permanently, or as easily as in the past. Even the recent past, as in a few decades ago.
All property is intellectual, "property" is the deep rooted concept of ownership found in such diverse creatures as humans and hermit crabs, territorial behaviour is another example. It's meaningless without the "cooperation" of the majority of individuals, which is where we seem to be in the "information age".
The average Slashdotter wants global governance of meatspace
Well this average slashdotter is against drug prohibition and against corporal punishment, by any form of governance other than informed free will. However, almost by definition global infrastructure needs to be governed by global organisations. The global communications system in principle needs to be governed at a global level, and to some degree it already is via treaties negotiated at the UN in the past. Whether the UN is the right governing body for this particular issue is an entirely separate question, but right now the UN is the only diplomatic avenue for discussing such mundane global issues such as to who should be the DNS BOFH.
The hard part for anybody managing/governing anything is striking a balance between anarchy and the borg while at the same time not poisoning the roots of the organic governance that created whatever collective benefit you're trying to optimise.
There are parrots all over Australia, not just in the rain forest, many pet species (eg: common budgie, sulphur crested cockatoo) are well adapted to dry conditions and prefer grassland/scrub.
Yeah right, because government had nothing to do with creating the internet in the first place and corporations had nothing to do will filling it up with content.
If you're not with Ron Paul and the Freedom movement, you're part of the problem.
What is it with some Americans that whenever the incantation "freedom" is used their fucking brains fall out? Fact: EVERY civilisation requires that you give up some individual freedom in order to reap the benefits that flow from belonging to it. Sacrificing some individual freedom to achieve the things you want but cannot do alone is one of the founding principles that society is build on, and not just human societies. Self interest and self sacrifice are not two binary options, everyone makes trade-offs everyday by choosing from the vast grey area between in an attempt to find their personal balance. It is so innate to the human phyche that people rarely realise they are doing it all the time.
So please restrict your freedom to write freedom rants to something that really does impinge on basic human rights. Using it to hyperventilate over a court decision that asserted the 'bad guys' freedoms, or using it to promote your favourite "sheeple" shepard, simply dilutes the credibility of your message with everyone except those in your own flock. If you really want to get a message through to old farts like me who have seen a million messiahs (naught boys?) run for office, then cut out the bullshit rhetoric, just state exactly who lost what "freedom" in this court case and how electing your shepard in the last election would have changed the decision of this particular UK judge, if your facts and logic are sound then I might give your shepard another brownie point (which is moot anyway because I'm an Aussie).
Disclaimer: In no way does the above imply that I agree with the judge, matter of fact I don't. However my 'personal balance' between self interest and self sacrifice is strongly biased toward the basic principle of the 'rule of law' which means I am compelled to accept the judges role as the arbitrator when individual freedoms collide. I fully acknowledge I am willingly putting myself in a "cage" (re sig) that I occasionally step out of to smoke a J. Of course if this was jockstrap.org and not slashdot.org a simple sports analogy where the judge is the umpire would be enough to get my message and disclaimer understood.
No data was lost/deleted, there was no material/financial loss, so what the heck?
Except for the $200K FB spent reacting to an unknown intruder. As for the philosophy of no damage therefore no accountability for reckless regard for other people's property, we used to have a saying in Australia based on a police anti-DUI slogan; "If you drink and drive your a bloody idiot. If you make it home, you're a fucking legend."
Or could it be that the judge is using business size to point out the potential scale of damage is directly related to the size of the targeted organisation. By targeting one of the largest organisations on the grid, the scale of the potential damage is maximised. Besides, he was not sentenced for potential damage, he was sentenced for breaking into a computer system. The $200K real damage he did cause would have made the sentence harsher. Targeting FB got him a lecture from the bench about the potential amount of damage he could have done would have made the sentence hasher still (presumably up to some mandated maximum term).
Having said that, I agree that the judge's wording does seem to betray an underlying contempt for the little guy. However if you ignore the contemptuous tone of what he's saying, there's nothing actually wrong with his statements or logic. The defendant IS maximising potential damages in both financial and human costs by targeting one of the largest players and therefore he is also maximising the potential of receiving the maximum sentence.
If I interpret the Judge the way you and many other post have and claim he's being punished for potential damage and apply it to other laws, I see it's common practice. For example: DUI is illegal almost everywhere because of the clear potential for damage, it doesn't matter if your particular DUI incident didn't cause any damage or disturbance, we're still locking you up for DUI.
And yet, even if I accepted this as true, burglars -- even serial burglars -- are not sentenced based on potential deaths
And neither was this guy. He was sentenced for what he did, the judge was just giving him the traditional 'your lucky you didn't kill someone' lecture when passing sentence.
Car analogy; It's the same as a judge lecturing a drunk driver and telling him that he's lucky he's not on manslaughter charges. The drunk isn't being convicted or sentenced for potential manslaughter, he's being convicted and sentenced for DUI.
I've been in my fair share of court rooms and there's one thing Judges and Magistrates all seem to enjoy doing most, asserting their dominance over the courtroom by lecturing people like small children. This feels great when they are attacking the other guy's lawyer, not so much if they attack you.
Are most parents really that cool about their adult child, spouse, and grandkids all moving in with them, especially if said child just didn't feel like paying their mortgage?
As a stereotypical Granddad I say no, we're not cool with it, especially at this time of year when we are getting ready to reseed our lawns.
Slashdot Mirror
Librarians are hardly a "soft target", they are well organised on a local, national, and international level, and have been successfully fighting censoring goverments and greedy publishers ever since they first opened their doors.
Ignoring your attempt to equate "fall of democracy" and "democracy has failed" to the original "end to democray". Simple logic says that if any single corrupt election was an "end to democray" then democracy would have ceased to exist long before it did any good.
I forsee a swelling in garbage collectors wallets.
I guess the modern way of proving yourself as a respectable organization is to have the balls to own up to those mistakes....
...and make an honest effort to correct and/or compensate for them.
As a grandfather I can attest that it is also the old fashion way, and now that I have you trapped on my lawn I'm going to punish you by giving you my long winded opinion on the matter (while my bath robe flaps about in the breeze just enough to make you uncomfortable).
Anyone who shows genuine remorse for a mistake (such as stepping on my lawn) gets a +1:respect from me, (in real terms that means I will consider suppressing the flapping of my bathrobe while conversing with them). It's not absolution for irresponsibility or carelessness but it is a very reliable indicator that it was a genuine mistake rather than a mallicious act or an irresponsible attitude. The alternative hit and run behavoiur does nothing but compound the damage of a mistake which is the basic reason hit and run car accidents are so reviled by the public and so harshly punished by the law. OTOH, hit and run journalsism under the guise of "opinion" (eg: Andrew Bolt) seems to be not only tolerated by society, but more handsomely rewarded by it, and it has been that way since the dead sea was feeling a bit off colour.( I danced on the lawn of the "haunted house" when I was a kid, and was a legend at lunchtime for doing it)
This retraction is as good as journalistic ethics gets. TAL fucked up, and when this was pointed out to them they immediately sought to correct the record, they, like Apple, are victims that played some part in their own "downfall" here. As an Aussie I know virtually nothing about TAL other than the name, in fact I thought it was a 1950's magazine, but whatever/whoever they are, they deserve the upmost respect in this instance for willingly risking their own reputation in an attempt to set the record straight. To do otherwise turns an honest mistake into recklessly causing damage to Apple's reputaion. (Had you walked down the path and knocked on my door I most likely would have retrived your schoolbag from my lawn without a fuss, and consequently my dogs would not be eating your homework right now)
Of course the reputation of the "showman" who told tall tales about his adventure is in the toilet, and sadly it took his real story on third world working conditions with it. His actions are almost the exact opposite of TAL. He had ample oportunity to set the record straight, but he chose to continue the "showmanship". That choice is the point where he started lying to TAL for the purpose of self-glorification (or self-enrichment) and is therefore the moral vilian in all this. (I suspect you're lying about the schoolbag and just wanted to impress your mates by dancing on my lawn).
Now get off my lawn and go tell your teacher that a dog ate your homework. If the teacher broadcasts your stroy by giving you detention you'll also get a full 15 minuites of fame, tomorrow, during lunch.
Here's a contribution that I'm sure you will find useful. Look up the definition of "summary".
Hold on fellas, you've got it all wrong. Math is different in Europe (they've got their commas and periods all backward in many places), especially when it's attorneys doing the counting. Folks just have to understand this, and fortunately there's a great instructional video available for those in need of further tutelage.
Very true. For a start - we call it Maths
So that's where the vote count went wrong! They were counting plurals where there should be singulars!
No, that's the 'S' bend. They're going to need a plumber because someone has clogged it up with due process, and people are starting to notice the stench.
This is end of democracy
Parody or paranoia? I can never tell these days.
It's a joke. "Authority figure" !=arsehole, even the most wonderful parent,boss,kindergarten teacher,dead saint on a stick, is still an "authority figure". And if you personally think you do not have an evil dictator lurking inside your phyche just waiting for the right circumstances to emerge, then the stanford prison experiments have taught us nothing.
i hired him because he is the type that hates authority figures
That would make you his boss. Are you sure you thought that through properly?
GPL isn't copyright
If it was not a copyright licence then it would have no force under the law and would be fucking pointless. Yes the license has generous terms for the user but it's still a copyright license that has the full protection of copyright law. As a proffesional developer I cannot legally use GPL software unless I comply with it's terms. The only difference between a GPL license and the more traditional ones is that the GPL terms are entirely focused on the "improving society" rationale for granting a monopoly.
Nothing is restricted under the GPL
Incorrect. The user has to comply with redistribution restrictions because the aim of the license is to benifit scoiety as a whole rather than compensating the creator.
Copyright as a concept is neither inherently good or evil, it was originally a rather nobel intention to support the arts and sciences for everyone's benifit that has over the centuries devolved into a legal minefield that implements property rights for trivial "creative works" such as merging 2 button clicks on an order form into one button click. Most OSS licenses reflect the noble intentions of copyright law, the MAFIAA licenses ignore all that "social responsibilty" babble in favour of personal gain that is far beyond the social value of their distribution networks.
Having said that, anyone who is genuinely committed to the idea that social benifit is more important than personal control over their creations would not bother creating a license like the GPL, they would release their work into the public domain and be done with it (eg: the world's most popular database software).
It's a strong possibility. I've seen similar bizzare things based on what's written in a contract and in private industry not just goverment. My first encouter with contract crazyness was at a large telco in the mid 90's where I had I authorised putting 250MB disks into ~100 laptops with dead drives. However this upset a PHB somewhere in the money spending chain of command because the original maintenance contract stated 120MB disks (which were by this time out of production and as rare as hen's teeth). I tried explaining the supply problem and that the contrator was actually giving us twice the storage for no extra cost. In the end it was simpler to explain the situation to the contrator and (sheepishly) ask them to refomat the 250MB disks down to 120MB than it was to continue butting heads with a dick-swinging autocrat from the finance dept.
Office politics is really no different to real politics, the vast number of people who work for large organisations be they private, public or charitable are for the most part reletively efficient at whatever it is they do, but one or two clowns in the wrong position can turn the whole thing into a circus. In an evolutionary sense large organisations exist because they can do what no man can do alone. However our tribal instincts are still evolving such that we can live with and within groups of more than ~150 that are required to produce what a single mind can imagine, large groups (civilization,cities) simply did not exist until we invented agriculture and yet our current civilization(s) cannot function without them.
For example the multi-national I work for has about 175K people, a death in that "tribe" would happen quite frequently (say one a week), but it's only the handful of people I personally work with that I care (or even know) about. I think the fact that telecommunications have gone from simple morse code to their current star trek capabilities is part of that evolution, we are tool-makers, it's in our nature to invent tools to overcome the problems caused by inventing tools. So in a way that will probably upset bioligists it can be said that our tools and our instincts are co-evolving to accomplish greater feats, but our tools are evolving at a geometrical rate whereas our base instincts evolve at a glacial rate. So I'm betting our tools will evolve to the point where the size of the organisation is (almost) irrelevant to the effectiveness of its internal organisation long before our pumy minds can name, let alone care about, 175k individuals.
Under general relitivity pi is a variable not a constant, if the gravitational well is strong enough a circular orbit around it will be less than 3.14... times the diameter of the orbit. Not sure if the effect around a black hole is strong enough to reduce pi to 3.0, but the effect for Earth is that the circumfrance of a circular orbit is about a centimeter less than it should be if pi was a universal constant.
Disclaimer: I don't think god lives in a black hole, I think the human authour just rounded it down for literary convienience.
I'd actually be surprised if they really produce anything anymore
GE used to piss a lot of people off in the 70's because they built hydro-electric dams and nuclear reactors, they were hated as much as Monstanto and the oil companies, They still build hydro-electric dams and nuclear reactors, and everything else from wind turbines to kitchen kettles, I have no idea why they fell off people's shit list?
Which in a competitive market will ultimately result in the optimium endorphine hit per buck ratio. I'm nearing retirement so l'm hoping they perfect this before my "sunset years", just in case I'm alergic to morphine or something.
Your sig reminded me of A wrinkle in time, first science fantasy book I read as a kid (circa 1968). Great for kids and adults but a prime target of the same religious nutters who think Harry Potter is Satan's scripture. I thought it had been forgotten until Disney made a film out of it in 2003.
You act like this stuff hasnt gone on for the ENTIRETY of human existence.
Indeed. Indeed in fact I would say it's been going on since before we were human, many speicies of mammals are territorial and live in hieracrchical societies. Human morality reflects this inate behaviour with a prime example being the ten commandments, many of which are simply asserting God's role as the omnipresent Alpha male who cannot be understood but must be obeyed. Just look at the number of.people who are still eager to give their rulers the right to kill them via corporal punishment despite the fact is has zero practical benifit to society as a whole.
If anything, modern society has reduced the more brutal extremes of this behaviour. The Alpha members of (western) sociuety can no longer keep slaves or conscript peasants to fight their wars, they cannot murder you on whim and in most western countries they cannot murder you at all, nor can they tourtue you in the public square, or forcibly take your wife/daughter for their own entertainment. Of course someone like Murdoch can still screw up your life if they so desire, just not as effectively, permanently, or as easily as in the past. Even the recent past, as in a few decades ago.
True, and after all, complaining about stuff is what slashdot is all about. :)
All property is intellectual, "property" is the deep rooted concept of ownership found in such diverse creatures as humans and hermit crabs, territorial behaviour is another example. It's meaningless without the "cooperation" of the majority of individuals, which is where we seem to be in the "information age".
The average Slashdotter wants global governance of meatspace
Well this average slashdotter is against drug prohibition and against corporal punishment, by any form of governance other than informed free will. However, almost by definition global infrastructure needs to be governed by global organisations. The global communications system in principle needs to be governed at a global level, and to some degree it already is via treaties negotiated at the UN in the past. Whether the UN is the right governing body for this particular issue is an entirely separate question, but right now the UN is the only diplomatic avenue for discussing such mundane global issues such as to who should be the DNS BOFH.
The hard part for anybody managing/governing anything is striking a balance between anarchy and the borg while at the same time not poisoning the roots of the organic governance that created whatever collective benefit you're trying to optimise.
There are parrots all over Australia, not just in the rain forest, many pet species (eg: common budgie, sulphur crested cockatoo) are well adapted to dry conditions and prefer grassland/scrub.
Yeah right, because government had nothing to do with creating the internet in the first place and corporations had nothing to do will filling it up with content.
If you're not with Ron Paul and the Freedom movement, you're part of the problem.
What is it with some Americans that whenever the incantation "freedom" is used their fucking brains fall out? Fact: EVERY civilisation requires that you give up some individual freedom in order to reap the benefits that flow from belonging to it. Sacrificing some individual freedom to achieve the things you want but cannot do alone is one of the founding principles that society is build on, and not just human societies. Self interest and self sacrifice are not two binary options, everyone makes trade-offs everyday by choosing from the vast grey area between in an attempt to find their personal balance. It is so innate to the human phyche that people rarely realise they are doing it all the time.
So please restrict your freedom to write freedom rants to something that really does impinge on basic human rights. Using it to hyperventilate over a court decision that asserted the 'bad guys' freedoms, or using it to promote your favourite "sheeple" shepard, simply dilutes the credibility of your message with everyone except those in your own flock. If you really want to get a message through to old farts like me who have seen a million messiahs (naught boys?) run for office, then cut out the bullshit rhetoric, just state exactly who lost what "freedom" in this court case and how electing your shepard in the last election would have changed the decision of this particular UK judge, if your facts and logic are sound then I might give your shepard another brownie point (which is moot anyway because I'm an Aussie).
Disclaimer: In no way does the above imply that I agree with the judge, matter of fact I don't. However my 'personal balance' between self interest and self sacrifice is strongly biased toward the basic principle of the 'rule of law' which means I am compelled to accept the judges role as the arbitrator when individual freedoms collide. I fully acknowledge I am willingly putting myself in a "cage" (re sig) that I occasionally step out of to smoke a J. Of course if this was jockstrap.org and not slashdot.org a simple sports analogy where the judge is the umpire would be enough to get my message and disclaimer understood.
No data was lost/deleted, there was no material/financial loss, so what the heck?
Except for the $200K FB spent reacting to an unknown intruder. As for the philosophy of no damage therefore no accountability for reckless regard for other people's property, we used to have a saying in Australia based on a police anti-DUI slogan; "If you drink and drive your a bloody idiot. If you make it home, you're a fucking legend."
Or could it be that the judge is using business size to point out the potential scale of damage is directly related to the size of the targeted organisation. By targeting one of the largest organisations on the grid, the scale of the potential damage is maximised. Besides, he was not sentenced for potential damage, he was sentenced for breaking into a computer system. The $200K real damage he did cause would have made the sentence harsher. Targeting FB got him a lecture from the bench about the potential amount of damage he could have done would have made the sentence hasher still (presumably up to some mandated maximum term).
Having said that, I agree that the judge's wording does seem to betray an underlying contempt for the little guy. However if you ignore the contemptuous tone of what he's saying, there's nothing actually wrong with his statements or logic. The defendant IS maximising potential damages in both financial and human costs by targeting one of the largest players and therefore he is also maximising the potential of receiving the maximum sentence.
If I interpret the Judge the way you and many other post have and claim he's being punished for potential damage and apply it to other laws, I see it's common practice. For example: DUI is illegal almost everywhere because of the clear potential for damage, it doesn't matter if your particular DUI incident didn't cause any damage or disturbance, we're still locking you up for DUI.
And yet, even if I accepted this as true, burglars -- even serial burglars -- are not sentenced based on potential deaths
And neither was this guy. He was sentenced for what he did, the judge was just giving him the traditional 'your lucky you didn't kill someone' lecture when passing sentence.
Car analogy; It's the same as a judge lecturing a drunk driver and telling him that he's lucky he's not on manslaughter charges. The drunk isn't being convicted or sentenced for potential manslaughter, he's being convicted and sentenced for DUI.
I've been in my fair share of court rooms and there's one thing Judges and Magistrates all seem to enjoy doing most, asserting their dominance over the courtroom by lecturing people like small children. This feels great when they are attacking the other guy's lawyer, not so much if they attack you.
Terrorize them into submission
Go ahead punk! Step on my lawn and make my day!
Are most parents really that cool about their adult child, spouse, and grandkids all moving in with them, especially if said child just didn't feel like paying their mortgage?
As a stereotypical Granddad I say no, we're not cool with it, especially at this time of year when we are getting ready to reseed our lawns.