Here's a tip: everybody loves to think they're unique and "weird." The most conventional, boring, person you know is going to describe how wacky their party was if you ask.
If you read the article, you'll see that this isn't what this is all about. The "song lyrics developer" placed song lyrics in the comments of his code. That was apparently "distracting" to QA, so managed had a talk with him. They asked him why he did it, he said that when he was writing boring code, that made it more exciting, so they came to an "agreement" where he'd stop commenting the code with lyrics and in exchange, he'd be allowed "to pursue more interesting side projects."
In other words, management thought that they exchanged the extra 15 seconds it takes every time he writes one of those lyrics comments to get him to do more work for them in the form of "interesting side-projects." Poor dude agreed because he likely felt his job was threatened, and what they actually did was make him less productive because he's no longer as happy in his work.
Now, it wasn't even a problem of offensive curse words in comments, which is quite common. He was just peppering the code with random lyrics. Any company with management that makes things THAT strict is making the work environment a serious pain, and it's not someplace I'd work at. I suspect that guy also started submitting resumes to other places and just agreed to compromise until he could find a better job.
The solution to this, and ALL life's problems is to uninstall pulse audio.
I keep hearing that. Am I the only person who had consistent problems with sound in linux which all went away the very moment ubuntu adopted pulse audio, when suddenly everything just worked perfectly?
I mean, it's not that I don't believe you guys, but based on my experience, fixing the pulseaudio bugs that are currently giving you guys problems is probably a better option for distros than dropping pulseaudio.
Before I get accused of "cheating" myself, I'll go ahead and start by stating I don't play MMO's.
Let me help out out. Blizzard says those two activities are cheating and, like it or not, Blizzard is the Dungeon Master. There's your definition right there.
The player is paying Blizzard for the subscription account. Do you know what that means? It means Blizzard isn't the one with the moral right to make the rules.
You say that your cheating doesn't hurt anyone... what about the other fair players that have to invest 10 times more personal time in the game than you to get to the level cap and make enough gold to equip themselves?
That's like saying that by paying the neighbor's kid to mow my lawn, I'm hurting all the other neighbors who had to spend time off their busy schedule to mow their own lawns. Or that by using a roomba to vaccuum my house, I'm somehow hurting all the people who vacuum without bots.
You presumably play the game for entertainment. If you don't finding grinding entertaining, you're paying extra to skip it, or automating the crappy process so you can get to what you consider the fun part. If you're not willing to spend the money and want to "invest 10 times more personal time" to avoid doing that, that's a choice you made. It's a trade-off, just like mowing the lawn yourself or paying the kid. Making your own dinner or going to a restaurant. Vacuuming or using an automated device.
What about the people your "purchased" gold was stolen from?
Stealing gold from somebody else would indeed be unethical, but you can't expect the buyer to somehow divine the difference between stolen and farmed gold. So the cheating happened by the thief, not the buyer.
What about the items your farming bots took that could have been given to actual player-controlled toons in the farming areas farming the area at the same time as you?
Why does it matter if a real person or a bot is controlling the player that got the item instead of you? Either way, you didn't get it. Seems like the problem is that you resent having to go through that work. Maybe you should get a bot yourself. If using a bot removes the fun for you, but not for the other person, why do you care, you'd be doing the exact same thing with the exact same results if a human was controlling the other character. If grinding itself isn't fun, the solution isn't condemning other people for skipping it, but rather to skip it yourself, or don't play games that require that much investment in time, or communicate to blizzard that they need to change the mechanics of the game and remove the fucking boring parts that everyone hates to play.
In all cases, you are inconveniencing real life humans because you are too lazy or greedy to play fair.
No, none of those cases you described demonstrated any inconveniencing to any other player. Unless you consider that others not suffering as much as you do is an inconvenience to you. Waaa, I need to work 60 hours a week to make $70,000 a year, while Tom Cruise makes millions for 3 months of work in a movie. He's inconveniencing me!!!
You need a real world analogy to drive the point home? It's like buying a term paper off the internet, copying test answers off the guy next to you, or paying someone to rob someone else. You're staying competitive with people who are working harder than you by sucking off them so you can have more free time for yourself.
No, those are not accurate analogies. Not writing your own term paper and copying test answers are unethical because the point of term papers and tests is to evaluate your knowledge, the end goal isn't the paper or the solution to the problems of the test, and it most certainly isn't for entertainment. If you copy somebody else's work, your knowledge isn't being evaluated. If you pay somebody else for ownership rights to
Actually I'm pretty sure that putting.0000000010000000 the second set of 0's are still significant since you're indicating a level of precision beyond the 7 significant digits...
Uh...yeah, the second set of 0's are significant. The first set still aren't.
Basically, you've substituted the list of skills on your resume with a single relevant skill: Honesty.
Consider how under valued this skill actually is. You want to dump this guy in 2 minutes for being honest for possibly being unable to explain another persons dishonesty. On the other hand you would probably have a full scale interview with someone who lied about their resume and can BS enough about their skill set to at least seem competent.
Any wonder people willing to lie about this stuff?
That's not what he said. He said the man would have 2 minutes to explain what his actual non-fabricated skill set is (how much longer do you need to list your experience and education?). If it's still a good fit, he gets the full fledged interview. If he's honest, but still doesn't have the required skill set for the job...well, he's a nice guy, but not the guy they're looking for.
P.S. ABC didn't copy Harlan's idea. They copied the whole freaking script with changes to try to hide the fact (like a plagiarist schoolboy copying somebody else's report). That's why Harlan won his case.
If that's the case, then you and Harlan are absolutely right. I really don't know anything about it. I do tend to be biased against Harlan's lawsuits because he does tend to file a lot of bullshit ones. Beyond the Terminator example the AC listed, which I actually didn't know about, there's his whole thing about trying to wring more money from Paramount for anything that he believes may have stemmed from City on the Edge of Forever. This despite the fact that he claims to hate the version of the episode aired (which was heavily rewritten).
I didn't watch B5 and DS9 simultaneously (I actually only got around to watching all of it about 2 years ago), so maybe that makes a difference. It also doesn't surprise me that newsgroups were full of people claiming B5 was copying DS9 because for some stupid reason fans of shows tend to like belittling the show they feel is the competition. Doesn't make it true.
The reason I consider B5 to be a vastly superior show is that they didn't manage to end DS9 satisfactorily. That tends to be a trend with shows with heavy involvement from Ron Moore. He's GREAT at building up the conflict, but he has no idea how to resolve it. So you end up with the DS9 finale or worse: Battlestar Galactica finale. Straczynski, by contrast, knew exactly where he was going from the very first season. B5 is a complete story.
And I don't agree with you that software shouldn't be patented. If Edison was able to patent the phonograph, describing how to store and then retrieve music, then there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to patent a music codec too, which is also used to stor/retrive music.
The difference is that the software version of the patent is actually patenting the mathematical mapping between the sound waves and its representation. The patent on the phonograph was the implementation by which the grooves were written or read. So if someone came up with a completely different device to read the grooves, even if they are in the exact same format as Edison has devised, they were free to do so and even patent their new device. On the other hand, when the mp3 codec is patented, it's not enough to devise a new implementation to read and write the mp3 codec. You're barred from using it in any way shape or form, even if the implementation is novel.
There is a similar protection available for software. If there were no patents, you can still copyright your implementation, and then nobody can copy your implementation. However, if you come up with your own implementation to read and write the mp3 codec, you're free to do so, and free to copyright your implementation.
Why bother end-users with it at all, since it doesn't matter to them?
It doesn't do Joe Sixpack any good to receive a notification that "By the way, this software is distributed under a license that most likely will not affect you in any way." It will do nothing but teach Joe to ignore notifications.
It does matter to them. It tells them they have additional rights they don't typically have when they download software. It tells them they have the right to request the source code. It tells them they have the right to redistribute the software. It tells them they have the right to redistributed modified versions of the software.
Nice...attack on anonymity? Ok, I for one am not being anonymous. Hell, if you really cared to find out my real name, it's been linked to this nick online a sufficient number of times that you could do it with some search engine work. Not that it has any bearing on the arguments.
Yeah except that I have a Straczynski novel published in 1989. Here's what it says, "He [the main character] was anxious to get home from school and watch his favorite videonovel Babylon 5." There it is. Prior art..... predating DS9 by several years and invalidating your claim that JMS' story was originally called "Star Trek spinoff" and evolved into B5 after the 1991 rejection.
Yeah, I'm not sure where he got that idea from. Point for you.
As for similarities:
- shapeshifter in both shows
- Dukhat and Dukat
- Lyta and Leeta
- a marketplace as a central location for stories
- station run by a commander (not captain as was usually the case)
- a commander with a dark past which makes his present life miserable
- station near a wormhole that allows rapid travel to distant places for exploration
Shape-shifters have been part of Star Trek long before DS9. TNG had the Allasomorphs, Star Trek VI had a shapeshifter...it's not an original invention by either camp.
As for Dukat vs. Dukhat and Lyta vs. Leeta. I'll grant you some similarities in character between Dukat and Dukhat, but Lyta vs. Leeta?? The most powerful telepath in the universe vs. the dabo girl? Really? Besides, Leeta didn't show up in the beginning. That's not the same character, that's a coincidence.
Where do you get the idea that captains run space stations in Star Trek. In the original series they were run by Commodores. TNG always referred to them as "station commander" without giving any specific rank. I don't think a Captain was ever in charge of a space station in Trek until Sisko got promoted, although I'm not willing to bet on this one.
The wormhole in DS9 wasn't the same thing as the gate in babylon 5. The gate was essentially their warp drive, the only way they could travel anywhere sufficiently distant to be interesting. The wormhole was really more about the prophets than it was about getting to the Gamma Quadrant.
Paramount had copies of the entire B5 writer bible, plus nearly a season's worth of scripts, plus plans to launch UPN very soon, and you think they just politely ignored this excellent opportunity to copy (and hopefully kill-off) rival network PTEN's flagship show? If so, you're naive.
I'm completely ignoring the "dark past" comment. That's such a common archetype that you can find that in pretty much half of all heroes. Hell, you can can see that in ancient Greek plays.
Please. First of all, DS9 didn't kill Babylon 5. Babylon 5 ran for the full 5 seasons Straczynski intended (although it was almost cancelled in the fourth). Second, calling DS9 a copy of B5 is a disservice to B5 which was a much superior show (and I say this as an avid Trekkie). The stories were nothing alike. Hell, DS9 didn't even start with a continuing storyline until the 4th season, whereas B5 was from the start trying to tell a much bigger story.
If so, you've learned nothing about my story of how ABC directly stole Harlan Ellison's idea for a robot cop show
Harlan Ellison stole that from Asimov (R. Daneel Olivaw). No, not really, but I agree with the AC on this one: Harlan Ellison is a litigious bastard. The point is that if I go now create a story about a Robot Cop, I'm not infringing on the copyright of ABC, Harlan Ellison, or Isaac Asimov. That's a concept, and ideas can't be copyrighted--the only way to protect an idea is to not tell anyone about it. If the stories are similar (and I have no idea if they are in this case), that's another thing. "Robot cop" is not enough to make an accusation, though.
Back in the 70s there was a similar case where Harlan Ellison tried to sell his story about a Robot Cop to ABC. They rejected his idea and then turned-around and released a virtual clone one year later. Ellison sued for copyright infringement and won.
You do realize that point actually supports c64_love's claim that Paramount ripped off Straczynksi with DS9, right?
That statement by itself does nothing of the kind. Only if they actually used his idea and story arc, it supports his point. If they used the same character names, it's a frigging slam dunk. The fact that he tried to pitch them a star trek series and they later came out with one on their own says nothing about plagiarism or any copyright violation. You need to look at exactly what the similarities are, and determine if they are significant.
On the other hand, I think c64_love's referencing hollywood as a set of examples is a poor one - that business is as incestous as hell - movies and shows with similar themes come out all the time, just a few off the top of my head:
I agree that Hollywood is messed up in this and many other ways, but your examples are equally poor (at least based on the ones I've seen). For example, the only thing similar about Antz and A Bug's Life is the fact that both are animated movies about insects. A similar concept isn't copyright violation, nor should it be.
Look at any band's website and they'll proudly list their influences, other bands which inspired their music. If you listen, you can often even find the similarities yourself. That's the nature of art: you're inspired by somebody else's work and you use it to build your own. As long as you don't copy the other person's work, you're fine. Some infringing works are clearly over that fine line, but the line itself can be a bit blurry.
Whether that's good or bad is left as an exercise to the reader.
I don't think the readers, by definition also slashdotters, are going to be unbiased sources of criticism.
I think by just looking at my nick you can get an idea of whether or not I believe thinking of TNG episodes when looking at mostly unrelated articles is a good thing or not.
<Nerd>I say "mostly unrelated" because Picard's artificial heart most definitely had a pulse. It was being measured when he got his faulty version replaced (best Wesley quote ever: "why would anyone use a faulty replacement?")</Nerd>
Washington keeps an eye on its borders because neither Oregon nor Montana have sales taxes. I've seen roving police patrols stopping motorists coming in who have what looks to be a vehicle full of new consumer goodies.
Uh...why? It's perfectly legal to shop in another state, however much one might want to. They're only breaking the law if they don't report the use tax at the end of the year.
We all know most of them won't, but they still haven't done anything illegal at the time they were crossing the state borders, so what's the police going to do?
You know you're old if you remember that your copy of 25th Anniversary came with a video demo for Fury:-)
Are you sure? My copy of Judgment Rites came with that demo, but not 25th Anniversary.
The video demo also came with Starfleet Academy. Which was really the game that began the decline of Interplay's trek games. 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites were awesome. I remember being incredibly excited about Vulcan Fury because it looked like a return to those games, but with cool 3d graphics.
I can just download one anywhere online that anyone programmed with visual studio and place it on my zune with no restrictions or ads or whatever.
Ads aren't something Apple forces. If an app has an ad, it is because the developer put them there. You will run into that same problem no matter the platform.
I mentioned ads because the parent did as if Microsoft was requiring them on all applications. In that sentence, my complaint about apple are the restrictions. Your application needs to approved by Apple before you can place it on your device.
You get two choices.
Either the "free" games are sponsored or they are paid for by everyone who buys a Zune - whether they want them or not.
No. With the IPod model, I get a marketplace where games and business models compete. Sure there are some free ad sponsored games. But there are also low cost no ad games. And some expensive games. And there probably are some free, no ad games as well. Point is that the consumer has their choice. Not just what the guys at Microsoft dream up.
No. Point is with the Zune model, I don't have to go through their app store. I can just download one anywhere online that anyone programmed with visual studio and place it on my zune with no restrictions or ads or whatever. I could make an app and sell them for money without giving microsoft $100 for the privilege of deciding whether the apps I make that year will be allowed in the store or not.
Microsoft is evil, but don't ever use Apple as an example of a less evil company. Next to Apple, Microsoft's evil seems like they are small annoyances. Apple will place you in a torture rack and charge you for the privilege. Because the torture rack is really beautiful, has rounded corners, and an easy-to-use interface.
This cuts both ways. Juries are also free to ignore a just law. Juries made heavy use of this power in the South from the end of the Civil War up until rather late in the 20th century, to convict black defendants who should have been acquitted, and to acquit white defendants who should have been convicted.
I've always believed what you described is not a fault of Jury Nullification, but rather a symptom of what happens when you're not being tried by a jury of your peers. If the jury had included blacks as well, that wouldn't have been a problem.
Proponents of nullification often overlook the problems with it. For instance, it violates the principle that all should be equal before the law. If X and Y commit the same acts, and are both charged under the same law (a law that most think is OK, but, say 10% oppose), and X is convicted but Y is acquitted because by chance he got one of th 10% on his jury, that's pretty damn unjust for X.
It's true that this is very unjust for X, but it's just as unjust to convict Y for breaking an unjust law simply because someone else was also convicted of said unjust law. In the end, a jury system depends on the interpretation of the jury at hand. There's always a chance the verdict could go another way if you have a different jury, which is why jury selection is such a big deal.
If a law is unjust in general, that can be dealt with through the legislative process, and if the legislature won't act, it can dealt with by electing better legislators, and if that doesn't work, the referendum process can be used. Where nullification is appropriate is when you have a law that is find almost all the time, but due to a unique set of circumstances, it would be unjust to follow it in a particular case.
A law should most definitely be dealt with through the legislative process, but until that is resolved, there's no excuse to letting someone pay for a law that should not be in the books. The idea of checks and balances in our government is an important one, and refusing to enforce a law is a judiciary check on the legislative branch.
I have a better idea. Let's tax campaign contributions from auto makers, auto unions, and gasoline manufacturers at 50% and the proceeds will go to fund the roads.
That is one of the best ideas I've ever heard. You are brilliant.
I'm fascinated by your ability to tell at a momentary glance what is a bomb and what is not.
I don't know anything about bombs. That doesn't mean I can't easily tell when some things are not. If I see my dog's chew toy, I know it's not a bomb, for example.
Does that mean someone couldn't hide a bomb in a dog's chew toy in a such a way that I couldn't detect it? Nope, somebody probably could. Alert your local airport so security can come out guns out if they see somebody holding a dog's chew toy.
And that's the entire point. Wires and chips are no more "dangerous looking" than a dog's chew toy. I can carry my ipod into the airport and nobody will give me a second look. The moment I open up and expose circuitry it's suspicious?
Do you have _any idea_ how much fascinating circuitry you can wire into such a protoboard?
I'm an Electrical Engineer, so I have some idea, yes.
Clock circuits, relays, even enough voltage doublers and amplification to generate just the sort of ignition spark you'd want for a detonator embedded in plastique?
What the hell is your point? Yes, you need some sort of power and some sort of circuitry in order to build a detonator, so now every circuit needs to be treated as a potential detonator?
While the display was innocuous, the putty made it suspicious.
So Plastique looks like putty, so now everything that looks like putty should be treated as if it could be plastique?
Here's what I'm saying that you seem to be missing. NOTHING should be treated like a potential bomb unless one of four things happen:
Somebody yells out, "I'm carrying a bomb so do what I tell you!"
An expert in explosives determines that it could be a bomb.
A dog sniff the plastique
One of the chemical detectors warns of plastique.
If it's not on the list it should be automatically assumed it's not a bomb. Compliment the girl on creative accessorizing and the pride on what she does for a living (she was an EE student)
You are suggesting that police or security person ask for subtle judgement information from an information drone in an airport? And interpret that to say "oh, no, it probably wasn't a bomb, we'll just send over one rent-a-cop to ask about it".
Yes, I am. With a report of something so unlikely as, "teenager with bomb in airport" I'd expect the default assumption to be false alarm, unless there's a damn good reason to believe otherwise. 9/11 is making people think that these things happen all the time in the United States. They do not, and you're not supposed to act like they do. That's irrational and it's inconveniencing people with no clear benefit.
Goodness, how does having a "plain clothes" cop walk over and stare a teenager up close in the chest not cause some reaction, even in a crowded airport?
Oh, please. Anyone with any experience with electronics could tell that her shirt was innocuous at a glance, have you seen pictures of it? Somebody who has any experience with explosives would be able to tell even better than I can. There's no staring at her chest involved, all you need is a guy walking past her. In fact, the idea that anyone would be stupid enough to assume a circuit board is a bomb is a product of the insane times we live in.
An "impolite" response could have involved so many other possibilities, it's amazing. Shooting her first tops the list.
That's not an "impolite" response, that's something that deserves a murder charge. Your definitions are skewed to say the least.
This critique makes little sense. She was already _in_ the crowded restaurant. What were they supposed to do but surround her with people in body armor and give her a chance to put it down, in case she is innocent?
And my critique makes little sense? Why should have to put anything down "in case she is innocent"? Why should she be inconvenienced at all if she's innocent? Besides, it's not like they just let her go afterward and said, "oh, sorry for the mistake."
She was treated as a suspect of a very dangerous crime, but got the benefit of being treated as a suspect.
And that's the problem. Before you start being treated as a suspect of a very dangerous crime there should be a whole lot more evidence than a random individual who gets nervous around things they don't understand.
Would you really prefer that someone ventilate her head with a sniper rifle as a first response, which would have contained the potential damage even more effectively?
I would prefer that they ask the person who reported her if, "the individual told you it was a bomb or did you just think it looked like a bomb?" and were smart enough to realize most people have no idea what bombs look like, smart enough to realize a terrorist would want to conceal a bomb until she reached her target instead of proudly wearing it on her t-shirt and risk being caught prematurely. I would then expect the reaction to be at most a warning to security officers to be extra alert in case there is an actual danger.
This is what I want in a security scare: react strongly, but politely (as the police on the site did.)
Coming down on somebody with guns drawn is strong, but is no way polite. Seriously, she's walking around in a crowded place, they could have send one guy not in uniform to take a closer look while he passes by her before scaring everyone.
And if the bomb were real, what are they going to do?
If the bomb had been real, she would have detonated it when they came at her with all the guns and killed a whole bunch of people in a crowded airport.
So, as with most of the security we see these days, not only is it an inconvenience, not only is it over the top for no rational reason whatsoever, but also it's completely ineffective.
Reminds me of that girl who strolled into an airport with circuit-boards, wires and blinking lights attached to her jumper, and was surprised when security got rather twitchy. It might not have looked like a bomb to you and I, but to the average person bought up on a diet of Hollywood films, where the bombs always have sticky out wires and flashing lights (and beep, just to let you know they are there), it certainly looked suspicious.
Yes it does. In both cases, the people calling the police should be fined for wasting valuable resources. Those officers could have been needed elsewhere.
You don't automatically assume wires are bombs and you don't automatically assume somebody with a gun, even a real one, is going to kill someone. Until there's a threat associated with it, you're not supposed to be an idiot and panic.
I don't see how this is, in any way, different than doing so in person.
It's not, but trying to convince someone to commit suicide in person isn't illegal either. Nor should it be.
This woman is the scum of the earth.
She sure is. Being a bad person is also not illegal, nor should it be.
I've had words with people before but I've never attempted to talk somebody into committing suicide. I also tend not to get into arguments with minors.
Congratulations. You're a better person than someone who we both agree is "the scum of the earth." Most people wouldn't do the things she did, that's why everyone is outraged.
What in the world could possibly lead somebody to think this ever sounded like a good idea?
She's the scum of the earth. It really isn't any more complicated than that. She's a fucking evil bitch. Making the laws unreasonable just to make sure she gets punished isn't going to bring the kid back to life, and it's going to make it worse for the rest of us because now we'd have unreasonable laws in the books in addition to a dead kid.
They're looking for talented engineers and scientists with LOTS of imagination to take important projects from concept to reality!
Check out their website and apply if you want to turn this trend around!
Back when I was doing my undergrad, Disney send some recruiters over to try to get people to sign up for summer internships. They sent fliers around that included that "free access to disney parks" crap and said they were giving a presentation to explain the details. I thought, "summer internship at disney. Could be kind of cool." I convinced my roommate to go with me to check it out.
Well, I'll say one thing for them: they're not liars. I listened to their presentation while they gave everyone there every reason not to apply. The most important one being, "we don't really pay you enough to make any money. You probably can break even, but you'll most likely end up spending more money on rent and food than you'll get paid." Then they told us all how awesome it was because it was Disney! And you had free admission to theme parks and discounts on merch! And all you need to do to apply is fill up this form!
My roommate and I both essentially said, "fuck that," but it was a lesson on the advantages of being a huge and famous company, especially one in the entertainment business. There were no lack of other people filling up those forms and disney gets some seriously cheap labor.
"Spectator sports" is STILL an oxymoron. the contradiction between people competing, and the fat slobs watching them, IS funny.
In what way is it an oxymoron? There are people competing in physical activity. Check. There are people watching or "spectating" the participants. Check.
As a rule, there are quite a few extremely well conditioned people who enjoy watching sports. In fact, most people who like participating in a sport like watching it. And there are many others like me: I have no interest in either watching nor participating in sports, so I'm way out of shape. There's no correlation, man.
The goal IS to beat the other person to the point where they simply can't defend themselves, and that's no more a sport than dog fighting. Both are stupid, and cater to the lowest of the low.
There's one fundamental difference: dogs didn't consent to that lifestyle (nor are they capable of doing so). It's only cruelty when you force someone into that situation. If you go out into the streets, find some random guy and start beating him up, you're committing assault. If you force children into a fight, that's child abuse. If two people choose to step into a ring to fight for money or for fun (and there are people who do it just for fun, no money involved), it's their choice, and it's not wrong.
What makes our opinion on any of this worth more than the opinion of people who actually enjoy those activities? I don't like sports, I don't watch them. You don't like boxing, don't watch it or participate in it. I like doing other activities many people probably think of as stupid, and they're free to think that all they want and not participate, but it doesn't mean that I should be doing something else. I found something I enjoy doing and that's all that matters.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a tip: everybody loves to think they're unique and "weird." The most conventional, boring, person you know is going to describe how wacky their party was if you ask.
If you read the article, you'll see that this isn't what this is all about. The "song lyrics developer" placed song lyrics in the comments of his code. That was apparently "distracting" to QA, so managed had a talk with him. They asked him why he did it, he said that when he was writing boring code, that made it more exciting, so they came to an "agreement" where he'd stop commenting the code with lyrics and in exchange, he'd be allowed "to pursue more interesting side projects."
In other words, management thought that they exchanged the extra 15 seconds it takes every time he writes one of those lyrics comments to get him to do more work for them in the form of "interesting side-projects." Poor dude agreed because he likely felt his job was threatened, and what they actually did was make him less productive because he's no longer as happy in his work.
Now, it wasn't even a problem of offensive curse words in comments, which is quite common. He was just peppering the code with random lyrics. Any company with management that makes things THAT strict is making the work environment a serious pain, and it's not someplace I'd work at. I suspect that guy also started submitting resumes to other places and just agreed to compromise until he could find a better job.
The solution to this, and ALL life's problems is to uninstall pulse audio.
I keep hearing that. Am I the only person who had consistent problems with sound in linux which all went away the very moment ubuntu adopted pulse audio, when suddenly everything just worked perfectly?
I mean, it's not that I don't believe you guys, but based on my experience, fixing the pulseaudio bugs that are currently giving you guys problems is probably a better option for distros than dropping pulseaudio.
Before I get accused of "cheating" myself, I'll go ahead and start by stating I don't play MMO's.
Let me help out out. Blizzard says those two activities are cheating and, like it or not, Blizzard is the Dungeon Master. There's your definition right there.
The player is paying Blizzard for the subscription account. Do you know what that means? It means Blizzard isn't the one with the moral right to make the rules.
You say that your cheating doesn't hurt anyone... what about the other fair players that have to invest 10 times more personal time in the game than you to get to the level cap and make enough gold to equip themselves?
That's like saying that by paying the neighbor's kid to mow my lawn, I'm hurting all the other neighbors who had to spend time off their busy schedule to mow their own lawns. Or that by using a roomba to vaccuum my house, I'm somehow hurting all the people who vacuum without bots.
You presumably play the game for entertainment. If you don't finding grinding entertaining, you're paying extra to skip it, or automating the crappy process so you can get to what you consider the fun part. If you're not willing to spend the money and want to "invest 10 times more personal time" to avoid doing that, that's a choice you made. It's a trade-off, just like mowing the lawn yourself or paying the kid. Making your own dinner or going to a restaurant. Vacuuming or using an automated device.
What about the people your "purchased" gold was stolen from?
Stealing gold from somebody else would indeed be unethical, but you can't expect the buyer to somehow divine the difference between stolen and farmed gold. So the cheating happened by the thief, not the buyer.
What about the items your farming bots took that could have been given to actual player-controlled toons in the farming areas farming the area at the same time as you?
Why does it matter if a real person or a bot is controlling the player that got the item instead of you? Either way, you didn't get it. Seems like the problem is that you resent having to go through that work. Maybe you should get a bot yourself. If using a bot removes the fun for you, but not for the other person, why do you care, you'd be doing the exact same thing with the exact same results if a human was controlling the other character. If grinding itself isn't fun, the solution isn't condemning other people for skipping it, but rather to skip it yourself, or don't play games that require that much investment in time, or communicate to blizzard that they need to change the mechanics of the game and remove the fucking boring parts that everyone hates to play.
In all cases, you are inconveniencing real life humans because you are too lazy or greedy to play fair.
No, none of those cases you described demonstrated any inconveniencing to any other player. Unless you consider that others not suffering as much as you do is an inconvenience to you. Waaa, I need to work 60 hours a week to make $70,000 a year, while Tom Cruise makes millions for 3 months of work in a movie. He's inconveniencing me!!!
You need a real world analogy to drive the point home? It's like buying a term paper off the internet, copying test answers off the guy next to you, or paying someone to rob someone else. You're staying competitive with people who are working harder than you by sucking off them so you can have more free time for yourself.
No, those are not accurate analogies. Not writing your own term paper and copying test answers are unethical because the point of term papers and tests is to evaluate your knowledge, the end goal isn't the paper or the solution to the problems of the test, and it most certainly isn't for entertainment. If you copy somebody else's work, your knowledge isn't being evaluated. If you pay somebody else for ownership rights to
Actually I'm pretty sure that putting .0000000010000000 the second set of 0's are still significant since you're indicating a level of precision beyond the 7 significant digits...
Uh...yeah, the second set of 0's are significant. The first set still aren't.
Basically, you've substituted the list of skills on your resume with a single relevant skill: Honesty.
Consider how under valued this skill actually is. You want to dump this guy in 2 minutes for being honest for possibly being unable to explain another persons dishonesty. On the other hand you would probably have a full scale interview with someone who lied about their resume and can BS enough about their skill set to at least seem competent.
Any wonder people willing to lie about this stuff?
That's not what he said. He said the man would have 2 minutes to explain what his actual non-fabricated skill set is (how much longer do you need to list your experience and education?). If it's still a good fit, he gets the full fledged interview. If he's honest, but still doesn't have the required skill set for the job...well, he's a nice guy, but not the guy they're looking for.
P.S. ABC didn't copy Harlan's idea. They copied the whole freaking script with changes to try to hide the fact (like a plagiarist schoolboy copying somebody else's report). That's why Harlan won his case.
If that's the case, then you and Harlan are absolutely right. I really don't know anything about it. I do tend to be biased against Harlan's lawsuits because he does tend to file a lot of bullshit ones. Beyond the Terminator example the AC listed, which I actually didn't know about, there's his whole thing about trying to wring more money from Paramount for anything that he believes may have stemmed from City on the Edge of Forever. This despite the fact that he claims to hate the version of the episode aired (which was heavily rewritten).
I didn't watch B5 and DS9 simultaneously (I actually only got around to watching all of it about 2 years ago), so maybe that makes a difference. It also doesn't surprise me that newsgroups were full of people claiming B5 was copying DS9 because for some stupid reason fans of shows tend to like belittling the show they feel is the competition. Doesn't make it true.
The reason I consider B5 to be a vastly superior show is that they didn't manage to end DS9 satisfactorily. That tends to be a trend with shows with heavy involvement from Ron Moore. He's GREAT at building up the conflict, but he has no idea how to resolve it. So you end up with the DS9 finale or worse: Battlestar Galactica finale. Straczynski, by contrast, knew exactly where he was going from the very first season. B5 is a complete story.
And I don't agree with you that software shouldn't be patented. If Edison was able to patent the phonograph, describing how to store and then retrieve music, then there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to patent a music codec too, which is also used to stor/retrive music.
The difference is that the software version of the patent is actually patenting the mathematical mapping between the sound waves and its representation. The patent on the phonograph was the implementation by which the grooves were written or read. So if someone came up with a completely different device to read the grooves, even if they are in the exact same format as Edison has devised, they were free to do so and even patent their new device. On the other hand, when the mp3 codec is patented, it's not enough to devise a new implementation to read and write the mp3 codec. You're barred from using it in any way shape or form, even if the implementation is novel.
There is a similar protection available for software. If there were no patents, you can still copyright your implementation, and then nobody can copy your implementation. However, if you come up with your own implementation to read and write the mp3 codec, you're free to do so, and free to copyright your implementation.
Why bother end-users with it at all, since it doesn't matter to them?
It doesn't do Joe Sixpack any good to receive a notification that "By the way, this software is distributed under a license that most likely will not affect you in any way." It will do nothing but teach Joe to ignore notifications.
It does matter to them. It tells them they have additional rights they don't typically have when they download software. It tells them they have the right to request the source code. It tells them they have the right to redistribute the software. It tells them they have the right to redistributed modified versions of the software.
Anonymous Shithead writes:
Nice...attack on anonymity? Ok, I for one am not being anonymous. Hell, if you really cared to find out my real name, it's been linked to this nick online a sufficient number of times that you could do it with some search engine work. Not that it has any bearing on the arguments.
Yeah except that I have a Straczynski novel published in 1989. Here's what it says, "He [the main character] was anxious to get home from school and watch his favorite videonovel Babylon 5." There it is. Prior art..... predating DS9 by several years and invalidating your claim that JMS' story was originally called "Star Trek spinoff" and evolved into B5 after the 1991 rejection.
Yeah, I'm not sure where he got that idea from. Point for you.
As for similarities:
- shapeshifter in both shows
- Dukhat and Dukat
- Lyta and Leeta
- a marketplace as a central location for stories - station run by a commander (not captain as was usually the case)
- a commander with a dark past which makes his present life miserable
- station near a wormhole that allows rapid travel to distant places for exploration
Shape-shifters have been part of Star Trek long before DS9. TNG had the Allasomorphs, Star Trek VI had a shapeshifter...it's not an original invention by either camp.
As for Dukat vs. Dukhat and Lyta vs. Leeta. I'll grant you some similarities in character between Dukat and Dukhat, but Lyta vs. Leeta?? The most powerful telepath in the universe vs. the dabo girl? Really? Besides, Leeta didn't show up in the beginning. That's not the same character, that's a coincidence.
Where do you get the idea that captains run space stations in Star Trek. In the original series they were run by Commodores. TNG always referred to them as "station commander" without giving any specific rank. I don't think a Captain was ever in charge of a space station in Trek until Sisko got promoted, although I'm not willing to bet on this one.
The wormhole in DS9 wasn't the same thing as the gate in babylon 5. The gate was essentially their warp drive, the only way they could travel anywhere sufficiently distant to be interesting. The wormhole was really more about the prophets than it was about getting to the Gamma Quadrant.
Paramount had copies of the entire B5 writer bible, plus nearly a season's worth of scripts, plus plans to launch UPN very soon, and you think they just politely ignored this excellent opportunity to copy (and hopefully kill-off) rival network PTEN's flagship show? If so, you're naive.
I'm completely ignoring the "dark past" comment. That's such a common archetype that you can find that in pretty much half of all heroes. Hell, you can can see that in ancient Greek plays.
Please. First of all, DS9 didn't kill Babylon 5. Babylon 5 ran for the full 5 seasons Straczynski intended (although it was almost cancelled in the fourth). Second, calling DS9 a copy of B5 is a disservice to B5 which was a much superior show (and I say this as an avid Trekkie). The stories were nothing alike. Hell, DS9 didn't even start with a continuing storyline until the 4th season, whereas B5 was from the start trying to tell a much bigger story.
If so, you've learned nothing about my story of how ABC directly stole Harlan Ellison's idea for a robot cop show
Harlan Ellison stole that from Asimov (R. Daneel Olivaw). No, not really, but I agree with the AC on this one: Harlan Ellison is a litigious bastard. The point is that if I go now create a story about a Robot Cop, I'm not infringing on the copyright of ABC, Harlan Ellison, or Isaac Asimov. That's a concept, and ideas can't be copyrighted--the only way to protect an idea is to not tell anyone about it. If the stories are similar (and I have no idea if they are in this case), that's another thing. "Robot cop" is not enough to make an accusation, though.
Back in the 70s there was a similar case where Harlan Ellison tried to sell his story about a Robot Cop to ABC. They rejected his idea and then turned-around and released a virtual clone one year later. Ellison sued for copyright infringement and won.
You do realize that point actually supports c64_love's claim that Paramount ripped off Straczynksi with DS9, right?
That statement by itself does nothing of the kind. Only if they actually used his idea and story arc, it supports his point. If they used the same character names, it's a frigging slam dunk. The fact that he tried to pitch them a star trek series and they later came out with one on their own says nothing about plagiarism or any copyright violation. You need to look at exactly what the similarities are, and determine if they are significant.
On the other hand, I think c64_love's referencing hollywood as a set of examples is a poor one - that business is as incestous as hell - movies and shows with similar themes come out all the time, just a few off the top of my head:
I agree that Hollywood is messed up in this and many other ways, but your examples are equally poor (at least based on the ones I've seen). For example, the only thing similar about Antz and A Bug's Life is the fact that both are animated movies about insects. A similar concept isn't copyright violation, nor should it be.
Look at any band's website and they'll proudly list their influences, other bands which inspired their music. If you listen, you can often even find the similarities yourself. That's the nature of art: you're inspired by somebody else's work and you use it to build your own. As long as you don't copy the other person's work, you're fine. Some infringing works are clearly over that fine line, but the line itself can be a bit blurry.
Actually, it means you're a Slashdotter.
Whether that's good or bad is left as an exercise to the reader.
I don't think the readers, by definition also slashdotters, are going to be unbiased sources of criticism.
I think by just looking at my nick you can get an idea of whether or not I believe thinking of TNG episodes when looking at mostly unrelated articles is a good thing or not.
<Nerd>I say "mostly unrelated" because Picard's artificial heart most definitely had a pulse. It was being measured when he got his faulty version replaced (best Wesley quote ever: "why would anyone use a faulty replacement?")</Nerd>
Washington keeps an eye on its borders because neither Oregon nor Montana have sales taxes. I've seen roving police patrols stopping motorists coming in who have what looks to be a vehicle full of new consumer goodies.
Uh...why? It's perfectly legal to shop in another state, however much one might want to. They're only breaking the law if they don't report the use tax at the end of the year.
We all know most of them won't, but they still haven't done anything illegal at the time they were crossing the state borders, so what's the police going to do?
You know you're old if you remember that your copy of 25th Anniversary came with a video demo for Fury :-)
Are you sure? My copy of Judgment Rites came with that demo, but not 25th Anniversary.
The video demo also came with Starfleet Academy. Which was really the game that began the decline of Interplay's trek games. 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites were awesome. I remember being incredibly excited about Vulcan Fury because it looked like a return to those games, but with cool 3d graphics.
> The really problem is that every fan will bid $1701. Therefore, only a non-fan can possibly win the auction.
what about $1701b, $1701c and $1701d? So the maximum bid would be up to $94237
You fail as a fan. There's an Enterprise-E, so it could go to $94238.
And I do believe the Enterprise-J showed up during an Enterprise time-travel episode. So you might need to move to another base.
I can just download one anywhere online that anyone programmed with visual studio and place it on my zune with no restrictions or ads or whatever.
Ads aren't something Apple forces. If an app has an ad, it is because the developer put them there. You will run into that same problem no matter the platform.
I mentioned ads because the parent did as if Microsoft was requiring them on all applications. In that sentence, my complaint about apple are the restrictions. Your application needs to approved by Apple before you can place it on your device.
No. With the IPod model, I get a marketplace where games and business models compete. Sure there are some free ad sponsored games. But there are also low cost no ad games. And some expensive games. And there probably are some free, no ad games as well. Point is that the consumer has their choice. Not just what the guys at Microsoft dream up.
No. Point is with the Zune model, I don't have to go through their app store. I can just download one anywhere online that anyone programmed with visual studio and place it on my zune with no restrictions or ads or whatever. I could make an app and sell them for money without giving microsoft $100 for the privilege of deciding whether the apps I make that year will be allowed in the store or not.
Microsoft is evil, but don't ever use Apple as an example of a less evil company. Next to Apple, Microsoft's evil seems like they are small annoyances. Apple will place you in a torture rack and charge you for the privilege. Because the torture rack is really beautiful, has rounded corners, and an easy-to-use interface.
This cuts both ways. Juries are also free to ignore a just law. Juries made heavy use of this power in the South from the end of the Civil War up until rather late in the 20th century, to convict black defendants who should have been acquitted, and to acquit white defendants who should have been convicted.
I've always believed what you described is not a fault of Jury Nullification, but rather a symptom of what happens when you're not being tried by a jury of your peers. If the jury had included blacks as well, that wouldn't have been a problem.
Proponents of nullification often overlook the problems with it. For instance, it violates the principle that all should be equal before the law. If X and Y commit the same acts, and are both charged under the same law (a law that most think is OK, but, say 10% oppose), and X is convicted but Y is acquitted because by chance he got one of th 10% on his jury, that's pretty damn unjust for X.
It's true that this is very unjust for X, but it's just as unjust to convict Y for breaking an unjust law simply because someone else was also convicted of said unjust law. In the end, a jury system depends on the interpretation of the jury at hand. There's always a chance the verdict could go another way if you have a different jury, which is why jury selection is such a big deal.
If a law is unjust in general, that can be dealt with through the legislative process, and if the legislature won't act, it can dealt with by electing better legislators, and if that doesn't work, the referendum process can be used. Where nullification is appropriate is when you have a law that is find almost all the time, but due to a unique set of circumstances, it would be unjust to follow it in a particular case.
A law should most definitely be dealt with through the legislative process, but until that is resolved, there's no excuse to letting someone pay for a law that should not be in the books. The idea of checks and balances in our government is an important one, and refusing to enforce a law is a judiciary check on the legislative branch.
I have a better idea. Let's tax campaign contributions from auto makers, auto unions, and gasoline manufacturers at 50% and the proceeds will go to fund the roads.
That is one of the best ideas I've ever heard. You are brilliant.
I'm fascinated by your ability to tell at a momentary glance what is a bomb and what is not.
I don't know anything about bombs. That doesn't mean I can't easily tell when some things are not. If I see my dog's chew toy, I know it's not a bomb, for example.
Does that mean someone couldn't hide a bomb in a dog's chew toy in a such a way that I couldn't detect it? Nope, somebody probably could. Alert your local airport so security can come out guns out if they see somebody holding a dog's chew toy.
And that's the entire point. Wires and chips are no more "dangerous looking" than a dog's chew toy. I can carry my ipod into the airport and nobody will give me a second look. The moment I open up and expose circuitry it's suspicious?
Do you have _any idea_ how much fascinating circuitry you can wire into such a protoboard?
I'm an Electrical Engineer, so I have some idea, yes.
Clock circuits, relays, even enough voltage doublers and amplification to generate just the sort of ignition spark you'd want for a detonator embedded in plastique?
What the hell is your point? Yes, you need some sort of power and some sort of circuitry in order to build a detonator, so now every circuit needs to be treated as a potential detonator?
While the display was innocuous, the putty made it suspicious.
So Plastique looks like putty, so now everything that looks like putty should be treated as if it could be plastique?
Here's what I'm saying that you seem to be missing. NOTHING should be treated like a potential bomb unless one of four things happen:
If it's not on the list it should be automatically assumed it's not a bomb. Compliment the girl on creative accessorizing and the pride on what she does for a living (she was an EE student)
You are suggesting that police or security person ask for subtle judgement information from an information drone in an airport? And interpret that to say "oh, no, it probably wasn't a bomb, we'll just send over one rent-a-cop to ask about it".
Yes, I am. With a report of something so unlikely as, "teenager with bomb in airport" I'd expect the default assumption to be false alarm, unless there's a damn good reason to believe otherwise. 9/11 is making people think that these things happen all the time in the United States. They do not, and you're not supposed to act like they do. That's irrational and it's inconveniencing people with no clear benefit.
Goodness, how does having a "plain clothes" cop walk over and stare a teenager up close in the chest not cause some reaction, even in a crowded airport?
Oh, please. Anyone with any experience with electronics could tell that her shirt was innocuous at a glance, have you seen pictures of it? Somebody who has any experience with explosives would be able to tell even better than I can. There's no staring at her chest involved, all you need is a guy walking past her. In fact, the idea that anyone would be stupid enough to assume a circuit board is a bomb is a product of the insane times we live in.
An "impolite" response could have involved so many other possibilities, it's amazing. Shooting her first tops the list.
That's not an "impolite" response, that's something that deserves a murder charge. Your definitions are skewed to say the least.
This critique makes little sense. She was already _in_ the crowded restaurant. What were they supposed to do but surround her with people in body armor and give her a chance to put it down, in case she is innocent?
And my critique makes little sense? Why should have to put anything down "in case she is innocent"? Why should she be inconvenienced at all if she's innocent? Besides, it's not like they just let her go afterward and said, "oh, sorry for the mistake."
She was treated as a suspect of a very dangerous crime, but got the benefit of being treated as a suspect.
And that's the problem. Before you start being treated as a suspect of a very dangerous crime there should be a whole lot more evidence than a random individual who gets nervous around things they don't understand.
Would you really prefer that someone ventilate her head with a sniper rifle as a first response, which would have contained the potential damage even more effectively?
I would prefer that they ask the person who reported her if, "the individual told you it was a bomb or did you just think it looked like a bomb?" and were smart enough to realize most people have no idea what bombs look like, smart enough to realize a terrorist would want to conceal a bomb until she reached her target instead of proudly wearing it on her t-shirt and risk being caught prematurely. I would then expect the reaction to be at most a warning to security officers to be extra alert in case there is an actual danger.
This is what I want in a security scare: react strongly, but politely (as the police on the site did.)
Coming down on somebody with guns drawn is strong, but is no way polite. Seriously, she's walking around in a crowded place, they could have send one guy not in uniform to take a closer look while he passes by her before scaring everyone.
And if the bomb were real, what are they going to do?
If the bomb had been real, she would have detonated it when they came at her with all the guns and killed a whole bunch of people in a crowded airport.
So, as with most of the security we see these days, not only is it an inconvenience, not only is it over the top for no rational reason whatsoever, but also it's completely ineffective.
Reminds me of that girl who strolled into an airport with circuit-boards, wires and blinking lights attached to her jumper, and was surprised when security got rather twitchy. It might not have looked like a bomb to you and I, but to the average person bought up on a diet of Hollywood films, where the bombs always have sticky out wires and flashing lights (and beep, just to let you know they are there), it certainly looked suspicious.
Yes it does. In both cases, the people calling the police should be fined for wasting valuable resources. Those officers could have been needed elsewhere.
You don't automatically assume wires are bombs and you don't automatically assume somebody with a gun, even a real one, is going to kill someone. Until there's a threat associated with it, you're not supposed to be an idiot and panic.
I don't see how this is, in any way, different than doing so in person.
It's not, but trying to convince someone to commit suicide in person isn't illegal either. Nor should it be.
This woman is the scum of the earth.
She sure is. Being a bad person is also not illegal, nor should it be.
I've had words with people before but I've never attempted to talk somebody into committing suicide. I also tend not to get into arguments with minors.
Congratulations. You're a better person than someone who we both agree is "the scum of the earth." Most people wouldn't do the things she did, that's why everyone is outraged.
What in the world could possibly lead somebody to think this ever sounded like a good idea?
She's the scum of the earth. It really isn't any more complicated than that. She's a fucking evil bitch. Making the laws unreasonable just to make sure she gets punished isn't going to bring the kid back to life, and it's going to make it worse for the rest of us because now we'd have unreasonable laws in the books in addition to a dead kid.
They're looking for talented engineers and scientists with LOTS of imagination to take important projects from concept to reality! Check out their website and apply if you want to turn this trend around!
Back when I was doing my undergrad, Disney send some recruiters over to try to get people to sign up for summer internships. They sent fliers around that included that "free access to disney parks" crap and said they were giving a presentation to explain the details. I thought, "summer internship at disney. Could be kind of cool." I convinced my roommate to go with me to check it out.
Well, I'll say one thing for them: they're not liars. I listened to their presentation while they gave everyone there every reason not to apply. The most important one being, "we don't really pay you enough to make any money. You probably can break even, but you'll most likely end up spending more money on rent and food than you'll get paid." Then they told us all how awesome it was because it was Disney! And you had free admission to theme parks and discounts on merch! And all you need to do to apply is fill up this form!
My roommate and I both essentially said, "fuck that," but it was a lesson on the advantages of being a huge and famous company, especially one in the entertainment business. There were no lack of other people filling up those forms and disney gets some seriously cheap labor.
"Spectator sports" is STILL an oxymoron. the contradiction between people competing, and the fat slobs watching them, IS funny.
In what way is it an oxymoron? There are people competing in physical activity. Check. There are people watching or "spectating" the participants. Check.
As a rule, there are quite a few extremely well conditioned people who enjoy watching sports. In fact, most people who like participating in a sport like watching it. And there are many others like me: I have no interest in either watching nor participating in sports, so I'm way out of shape. There's no correlation, man.
The goal IS to beat the other person to the point where they simply can't defend themselves, and that's no more a sport than dog fighting. Both are stupid, and cater to the lowest of the low.
There's one fundamental difference: dogs didn't consent to that lifestyle (nor are they capable of doing so). It's only cruelty when you force someone into that situation. If you go out into the streets, find some random guy and start beating him up, you're committing assault. If you force children into a fight, that's child abuse. If two people choose to step into a ring to fight for money or for fun (and there are people who do it just for fun, no money involved), it's their choice, and it's not wrong.
What makes our opinion on any of this worth more than the opinion of people who actually enjoy those activities? I don't like sports, I don't watch them. You don't like boxing, don't watch it or participate in it. I like doing other activities many people probably think of as stupid, and they're free to think that all they want and not participate, but it doesn't mean that I should be doing something else. I found something I enjoy doing and that's all that matters.