\ I'm guessing you're doing a simple $15 * 10M subscribers? That's revenue, not profit. Go get some real numbers about how much discretionary spending they have to put towards QA and come back with an honest argument. If nothing else, how about an estimate of what it would cost to placate you, assuming that's even possible.
gotta love waiting 3 days... only to be given the same... canned response
Canned responses are there for a reason. Lots of people do need them. You're smarter and almost learned from your mistake. Just run through their checklist and submit a smarter ticket. It'd be great if those didn't solve problems, and if players used the forums as a method of reducing the load on live-help. And again: show us numbers. How many people/shifts/calls per day. What's the backlog, what percent of tickets are solved using the canned response. How about just an to improve the system?
Complaining is easy, it's also childish to do when making lousy arguments. Blizzard may not be able to "just spend more on QA"- did that ever occur to you? Real life is about making hard decisions, can you handle that? How about $20/mo for faster responses? Postpone Starcraft2, Diablo3, the "next-gen MMO" or the next WoW expansion by a year (no, you can't choose one you don't care about, that's childish again)? Blizzard can do all of these too, but they're probably far worse evils than they ones they choose.
Of course I could just be a complete idiot and Blizzard is an evil corporation. What do I know I'm a fanboi, right?
Blizzard doesn't want to pay to have enough moderators to actually moderate. This idea was to gt around having to do that. Too bad it's based on a false premise.
That's not moderation you're advocating.
No authority should be encouraged to be that neck-deep in the business of people. Even if it's just people playing a game. Moderation isn't about having employees read every single stupid thing your customers say (and they do, you just try not to tell them). It's about being responsive to your customers' needs, taking to heart the stuff you need to benefit them (and through them yourself), and taking action when necessary to stop problems.
As to trolls, they're not going to complain; criminals don't stand up for their rights by admitting their crimes. Allowing only for legitimate complaints results in your false premise.
Also, you're just plain wrong as to intention. Blizzard's announcement specifically mentioned trolls and their place in the reason behind the intended change: (emphasis mine)
"The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players -- however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment".
They didn't. They called him a name which while perhaps harsh, isn't defamatory. You're being unfair comparing the two.
What he did or didn't do may be a matter of perspective considering public opinion could matter a lot in this case.
You could sit in the crowd which holds that corporate executives should not be liable for anything, that there's nothing wrong with acting solely in the interest of shareholders or golden parachutes. That sounds like you.
Or you could be one of the people who expect the chief executive to be responsible for everything happening under him, and that accusing subcontractors is the act of a weasel who draws an outrageous salary while having no actual responsibility. That'd be me and probably dkleinsc.
Hayward's been his own worst enemy here. For enjoying his position, for not taking responsibility, and for making an ass of himself on camera.
We don't know that 10^100 was strictly done for PR, or even that it was a major component of the decision. Given what we know it was just as likely the altruistic mistake as I mentioned. The "appearance" you mention is your own personal opinion. CNN's story is just as biased, focusing solely on the poor guy who feels entitled to win.
For some perspective on what bad PR really is...
PR is Toyota spending millions on TV ads about how safe their cars are during the weeks leading up to the discovery of yet another major safety failure. PR is corn growers advertising to make you think that High-fructose corn syrup appearing in the top three ingredients in every packaged food product is not a public health issue. PR is the so-called "Center for Consumer Freedom" which claims to be a consumer group but actually astroturfs on behalf of alcohol, tobacco and other concerns who may or may not deserve to be regulated. But perhaps that decision to regulate should rest in the hands of actual consumers rather than fake ones?
Google doesn't come close to to these which can have real negative consequences. Even if it was just spending $10M to say "Google cares", again: where's the *actual* damage? And even if there is some minor harm, does it come close to causing a net negative impact? Given how beneficial that company has and continues to be, it's astounding how many people* look at Google with a very narrow lens and just declare it to be just plain evil.
(* I'm not referring to either poster I'm responding to, neither of which go anywhere near this extreme.)
The problem with this view is the 10^100 project can not be compared to the standard marketing-based lottery system where a company gives out some large amount of cash in exchange for lots of even-larger revenue.
"Competing" in 10^100 wasn't about making money by presenting a good idea, cashing out on IP as suggested. Corny as it may sound it was about making the world a better place. You don't get the money just because you proposed the idea, but you could get funded if you had the capacity to follow through on the idea.
And that's exactly the difficulty I would assume Google ran into. It would a piece of cake to just hand $10M to the Red Cross to help out in Africa. But Google's vision goes beyond this. They were thinking bigger, like coming up with something like the RC and unleashing it as a force of good on the world. That's a hard problem which Google is not built for. It's generally the role of governments and people who have nothing else to do. I doubt Google hired someone specifically to run this project, and maybe that's where the idea fails.
I'm really glad this is getting publicity because I want Google to go forward with this project. It's a great idea, but unfortunately many people are unable to appreciate the difficulty involved so they'll just complain about Big Bad Google again. It's a damn shame Google hasn't done more to help the world, but to criticize them for only starting? What harm will have Google done by not following through? People gotta remember that most companies don't even care enough to try.
Police and firemen are two kinds of jobs which can have different definitions of "work". Jobs in which you are waiting for a call (something to happen) often allow for personal time and even sleep such as in the case of firemen. Same deal for soldiers- you're always "at work", but not always on patrol.
Hell, I was a third-shift NOC guy for a while and there was very little actual work to do during a routine shift.
The problem isn't with his employer, hence no point resigning. Me I'd rather have people in government who in the interest of reducing government expense would actually care enough to doubt what some kid at Comcast says and look for advice elsewhere, despite the hordes of idiots who would surely be jerks when given the opportunity.
Time to whip out the old "do not hire" list... Name : Larry Bagina. Reason: Quitter, can't read, anti-social dispenser of useless advice.
which is why religious Jews don't do organ donation or cremation
Cremation, no. But organ donation? Yes we most certainly do!
Jewish law has long held life as precious and almost all law is bound by this sacred point (American Christians like to think they're the only people who care about life, but as is often the case, they're completely oblivious to anything outside their church). It's a much too complex problem for simple sheep who use "it's body desecration" arguments, because there are important questions such as whether donation is actually life-saving (bodies are not likely to be "donated to science") and a donor's "death" can also be defined in a religious manner. Though the Orthodox may be misguided, they're not stupid and do work through such difficult questions. Only the most extremist Jews are stupid enough to look at modern medicine and reflexively say "no thank you."
Kindly don't spread misinformation which can result not only in ignorance but in loss of life.
Well put but it's not "another discriminatory policy". It's a corrective action to address a perceived problem. Public officials are allowed to engage in this to a certain degree, and where they overstep their bounds SCOTUS has ruled to that effect.
As a private company it's Google's prerogative to do so, as long as it's legal. Last I heard US anti-discrimination laws discussing wages stop at gender and don't extend into sexual orientation the way hiring law does.
It took western countries 2 or 3 hundred years to reach the democracy level now.... China has opened door to the world for 30 years now. Do you agree we have made a lot progresses now?
Comparing China to the development of democratic philosophical theory is misguided. You want to compare development of democracy in China to its development in other specific emerging modern nations. Ideally in nations where it was previously absent. The United States' democracy has been stable for much of the 200 years you mention, where progress was improvement upon an already solid democratic foundation.
It took not just us Americans, but humanity itself, eons to figure out that leaders should derive their power though consent of the people, that members of government should have strict time limits, and that citizens should enjoy certain rights which their government would not allowed to restrict. And it took under two decades for the USA to create the modern concepts of constitution and bill of rights, including a first failed attempt with articles of confederation*.
China has done none of this in the past thirty years, and seems from the outside to make little if any progress towards any goal. Chinese citizens still enjoy no rights which the nondemocratic government respects. Life is not sacred, you can be killed by the government at whim. Liberty is reportedly a joke, starting from restrictions on movement (from the country to the cities for example), religion is restricted, and maneuvering the legal system is an exercise in futility. And as discussed here, the government restricts attempts or imagined attempts to bring political change.
The only area you might suggest China is advancing is the area of property rights, where its citizens are finally starting to move away from classic third-world country poverty. But again, this is mostly restricted to the cities, and even there working conditions are nowhere near modern western standards.
The people of China benefit from everything the rest of the world has already figured out. We know how to construct various types of decent representative governments you can pick and choose from. We know where labor unions work and where they fail. We've learned a lot about how to conduct trade, regulate industry, limit corruption. We've know how to keep an executive branch in-check. None of this is perfect, as my American friends will surely point out, but compared to a pre-modern society it's a great start. And like I've said, China could use the boost.
* (And that was done when there were a couple other things going on, so no China can't hide behind famine and poverty which democratic India was just as stricken by early on.)
The allegations , first reported last week by the New York Times,
Fixed that for you.
If one actually bothers to read the original NYT article, one would know it still only talking about allegations. And a limited number of incidents reported by unnamed lobbyists at that. Because there are allegations, CREW called for an official investigation to determine if there is truth to the allegations.
The bigger issue discussed was that coffee-shops being used as meeting places, which again is neither illegal nor necessarily a sign of corruption. It's not a strange and terrible thing for people to meet outside the office. I'd personally be more worried if they were meeting in a private hotel room rather than a busy coffee shop where they can be overheard by reporters.
You're right, there's no excuse for this administration to be caught regularly violating official records laws and ethics rules. But it's kind of important to realize they haven't yet. It's sad that so many in the Slashdot crowd aren't capable of seeing the distinction between sensational headlines and reality.
A valid concern, to be sure, but I must disagree with how casually you view the work of scribes.
I have little actual knowledge beyond Jewish tradition, but I assume the basics are not unique. In Judaism, there were historically a small number of Jews whose profession ("sofer" lit. "scribe") it was to transcribe the Torah on to the large scrolls we're familiar with called sifrei torah (lit. "torah books"). This craft is still practiced today for the ones used in modern synagogues. These are all hand-written (often using a quill) in a painfully slow and precise fashion on special parchment. The writing is done in a standardized calligraphy, and a mistake requires correction or for the entire page be scrapped*. Thus, an actual mistake where a word is omitted or changed is such a big deal it was virtually impossible to introduce.
This is of course not to say it's impossible for changes to be introduced. Translations wreak havoc on all documents, reliability of memorization (which was used early on in Jewish tradition) is questionable, and intentional modifications are certainly not unheard of. But to accuse ancient scribes of being stupid and careless is to forget how highly regarded writing used to be. It wasn't that long ago, the age where not every twelve year old child could put down their thoughts and have those seen by the entire world. It's easy to forget that the stuff we commit to paper (and electronic) storage is generally far less consequential than the culturally-critical religious and intellectual writing our forebears did.
* Again, according to the Jewish tradition of "genizah" in which they are not burned or destroyed as even the written name of God is held sacred and may not be removed.
Boeing was allegedly given massively unfair advantage in the next generation tanker deal
Fixed that for you.
BAE was fined by the US over a bribery scandal in the Saudi Eurofighter deal, yet US companies do this exact same thing all the time
I'm unfamiliar with that case, but I'm getting an apples-and-oranges vibe. Can you verify that the fine wasn't related to national security issues rather than "just" corruption?
BP is being held to higher standards than the US companies that are responsible for Exxon Valdez sized leaks every single year in Nigeria,
Nigeria? Why the hell should the US government be responsible for overseeing environmental protection elsewhere in the world? It'd be *nice* of us, perhaps, but that's up to the Nigerian government to request. Again, apples and oranges.
It's a bit rich for an American company to complain about an overseas company bending the law
(1) It's the Chinese government blocking foreign companies from doing business, not just encouraging local ones. Yet again, apples and oranges. (2) But Google hasn't complained.
Hate the US government as much as you like and it certainly does its share of questionable and bad things, but comparing it to China is way overboard and reeks of bias or ignorance.
But it is worth it, if it serves to make the sites you use better.
I know people like to be short-sighted, selfish and need instant gratification, but there are good reasons to turn off Noscript in some places even when it's not directly and immediately helping you.
Even when talking about a site you visit being able to gain other visitors, that's important if you have any interest in that site growing.
Thank you both for pointing out what should be obvious to all.
I wonder though if your understanding of "given task" being "making money" is identical to that of those surveyed. I think there could be many commonly-held but incomparable views. When talking about Apple, I think of "developing good products" or "pricing products so they're accessible". With Google I'm sure many are concerned with "protects my privacy". With Microsoft (or RIAA), I think "practice fair business".
Unless the survey specifically states what it's asking it not be more pointless even if it were limited to technology companies, or specific types of those (software, hardware, search/online services).
If that money is still considered cash I'm sure a court could get it back from the company to pay off your debts real quick. On the other hand, if it's points/gamebucks/etc., there's probably some kind of fair-market-value conversion which would just cost you even more because you'd only get pennies on the dollar.
Remember: For all its flaws, the law is usually optimized for ripping money away from other people, assuming it's on your side.
Apologies for the assumption. The post you replied to by Locke2005 specifically stated California regarding charges of "disturbing the peace" and "obstructing a police officer". So my replies did continue to imply the case of modern USA.
My problem is with statements such as "random authority figures" and "Police are most definitely not better than the average population", which are terribly insulting and seem to me unjustifiable. This is certainly the case in the US when you consider they not only have far more training than the average pre-college worker. And regardless of training volunteer into a position where they have a significant risk of dying in the line of duty.
If you want to criticize Chinese authorities, premise your statements to specify what kind of officer you're accusing of being worse than useless.
I'd love to watch a video of you in a random police department in the USA, honestly discussing this attitude you have with the folks who work there and see if it changes your mind. I have no idea where you get the extremist notion that the average officer has something against you. Enlighten us with something other than unjustified accusations- what's caused this mistrust?
Yeah, English isn't my primary language. I've been to places where police are actually corrupt and abusive and 'baksheesh' is the norm. The modern United States is not such a place, and Americans who complain about their police, exaggerating as if they live in "police state" are, frankly, idiots who need to grow up. America has plenty of problems, this doesn't come anywhere near the top of the list. I'm sure there are a couple small towns where there's only one lawman who's abusive, but an entire large department under supervision of a political body? I don't think so. The simple fact is that in no other place on Earth do those accused of crimes have more protection from abuse than is provided by the US constitution.
As for commenting on my English, I'd rather you help me learn from my alleged mistakes than just arrogantly infer your superiority in a prelude to- and distraction from your extremist argument. I didn't advocate a police state, nor suggested we should be naive enough to assume officers are never corrupt.
Always a possibility to question these days. I have a silghtly different theory...
Note paragraph 3 of the whitepaper's summary:
SMobile's new behavior-based detection methodology leverages heuristic-style technology to determine if an application could be malicious, then gives the user the ability to use this information to determine if... application is requesting permission to do things that just doesn't make sense for the application.
Given this it's obvious the whitepaper is an advertisement, not an objective security report.
Where the FUD question comes in is whether their application can actually do a better job at determining whether an application is "non-malicious" than the user could themselves. I believe the claim is exaggerated because trying to make a computer understand what an application does and how that relates to Android's security API is far from a trivial task.
...when an officer says "He disturbed the peace"... the "punk with a badge"'s word is held as truth...
No. This kind of glib attitude is exactly why there is a need to provide officers with such authority. If everyone respected a police officer's authority to uphold the law, there would be no point in providing an officer the ability to charge you with ignoring or assaulting them.
"when an officer says..." is not something you should just throw around so casually. Police officers are expected to be truthful, unlike little children and childish adults. The law dictates that their jobs depend on being honest and accurate as everything they "say" is official state business.
The existence of a minority of corrupt officers is never an excuse to paint them all with the same brush and treat them poorly when they do follow the law. Obstinate punks like you contribute to the reason that the word of officers in good standing is worth more than mine, so quit being a jackass just because it makes you popular in high school.
Slashdot Mirror
No. Not "interesting" at all.
They're pulling in roughly $150 million
\
I'm guessing you're doing a simple $15 * 10M subscribers? That's revenue, not profit. Go get some real numbers about how much discretionary spending they have to put towards QA and come back with an honest argument. If nothing else, how about an estimate of what it would cost to placate you, assuming that's even possible.
gotta love waiting 3 days ... only to be given the same ... canned response
Canned responses are there for a reason. Lots of people do need them. You're smarter and almost learned from your mistake. Just run through their checklist and submit a smarter ticket. It'd be great if those didn't solve problems, and if players used the forums as a method of reducing the load on live-help. And again: show us numbers. How many people/shifts/calls per day. What's the backlog, what percent of tickets are solved using the canned response. How about just an to improve the system?
Complaining is easy, it's also childish to do when making lousy arguments. Blizzard may not be able to "just spend more on QA"- did that ever occur to you? Real life is about making hard decisions, can you handle that? How about $20/mo for faster responses? Postpone Starcraft2, Diablo3, the "next-gen MMO" or the next WoW expansion by a year (no, you can't choose one you don't care about, that's childish again)? Blizzard can do all of these too, but they're probably far worse evils than they ones they choose.
Of course I could just be a complete idiot and Blizzard is an evil corporation. What do I know I'm a fanboi, right?
Blizzard doesn't want to pay to have enough moderators to actually moderate. This idea was to gt around having to do that. Too bad it's based on a false premise.
That's not moderation you're advocating.
No authority should be encouraged to be that neck-deep in the business of people. Even if it's just people playing a game. Moderation isn't about having employees read every single stupid thing your customers say (and they do, you just try not to tell them). It's about being responsive to your customers' needs, taking to heart the stuff you need to benefit them (and through them yourself), and taking action when necessary to stop problems.
As to trolls, they're not going to complain; criminals don't stand up for their rights by admitting their crimes. Allowing only for legitimate complaints results in your false premise.
Also, you're just plain wrong as to intention. Blizzard's announcement specifically mentioned trolls and their place in the reason behind the intended change: (emphasis mine)
"The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players -- however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment".
Unfortunately business majors are usually the ones doing the hiring.
They didn't. They called him a name which while perhaps harsh, isn't defamatory. You're being unfair comparing the two.
What he did or didn't do may be a matter of perspective considering public opinion could matter a lot in this case.
You could sit in the crowd which holds that corporate executives should not be liable for anything, that there's nothing wrong with acting solely in the interest of shareholders or golden parachutes. That sounds like you.
Or you could be one of the people who expect the chief executive to be responsible for everything happening under him, and that accusing subcontractors is the act of a weasel who draws an outrageous salary while having no actual responsibility. That'd be me and probably dkleinsc.
Hayward's been his own worst enemy here. For enjoying his position, for not taking responsibility, and for making an ass of himself on camera.
We don't know that 10^100 was strictly done for PR, or even that it was a major component of the decision. Given what we know it was just as likely the altruistic mistake as I mentioned. The "appearance" you mention is your own personal opinion. CNN's story is just as biased, focusing solely on the poor guy who feels entitled to win.
For some perspective on what bad PR really is...
PR is Toyota spending millions on TV ads about how safe their cars are during the weeks leading up to the discovery of yet another major safety failure.
PR is corn growers advertising to make you think that High-fructose corn syrup appearing in the top three ingredients in every packaged food product is not a public health issue.
PR is the so-called "Center for Consumer Freedom" which claims to be a consumer group but actually astroturfs on behalf of alcohol, tobacco and other concerns who may or may not deserve to be regulated. But perhaps that decision to regulate should rest in the hands of actual consumers rather than fake ones?
Google doesn't come close to to these which can have real negative consequences. Even if it was just spending $10M to say "Google cares", again: where's the *actual* damage? And even if there is some minor harm, does it come close to causing a net negative impact? Given how beneficial that company has and continues to be, it's astounding how many people* look at Google with a very narrow lens and just declare it to be just plain evil.
(* I'm not referring to either poster I'm responding to, neither of which go anywhere near this extreme.)
The problem with this view is the 10^100 project can not be compared to the standard marketing-based lottery system where a company gives out some large amount of cash in exchange for lots of even-larger revenue.
"Competing" in 10^100 wasn't about making money by presenting a good idea, cashing out on IP as suggested. Corny as it may sound it was about making the world a better place. You don't get the money just because you proposed the idea, but you could get funded if you had the capacity to follow through on the idea.
And that's exactly the difficulty I would assume Google ran into. It would a piece of cake to just hand $10M to the Red Cross to help out in Africa. But Google's vision goes beyond this. They were thinking bigger, like coming up with something like the RC and unleashing it as a force of good on the world. That's a hard problem which Google is not built for. It's generally the role of governments and people who have nothing else to do. I doubt Google hired someone specifically to run this project, and maybe that's where the idea fails.
I'm really glad this is getting publicity because I want Google to go forward with this project. It's a great idea, but unfortunately many people are unable to appreciate the difficulty involved so they'll just complain about Big Bad Google again. It's a damn shame Google hasn't done more to help the world, but to criticize them for only starting? What harm will have Google done by not following through? People gotta remember that most companies don't even care enough to try.
I wouldn't go so far as to say 'necessary'. Bible comes to mind and how a donkey's jawbone can't qualify as much of a weapon. :)
Really? People need this explained?
Police and firemen are two kinds of jobs which can have different definitions of "work". Jobs in which you are waiting for a call (something to happen) often allow for personal time and even sleep such as in the case of firemen. Same deal for soldiers- you're always "at work", but not always on patrol.
Hell, I was a third-shift NOC guy for a while and there was very little actual work to do during a routine shift.
The problem isn't with his employer, hence no point resigning. Me I'd rather have people in government who in the interest of reducing government expense would actually care enough to doubt what some kid at Comcast says and look for advice elsewhere, despite the hordes of idiots who would surely be jerks when given the opportunity.
Time to whip out the old "do not hire" list...
Name : Larry Bagina.
Reason: Quitter, can't read, anti-social dispenser of useless advice.
which is why religious Jews don't do organ donation or cremation
Cremation, no. But organ donation? Yes we most certainly do!
Jewish law has long held life as precious and almost all law is bound by this sacred point (American Christians like to think they're the only people who care about life, but as is often the case, they're completely oblivious to anything outside their church). It's a much too complex problem for simple sheep who use "it's body desecration" arguments, because there are important questions such as whether donation is actually life-saving (bodies are not likely to be "donated to science") and a donor's "death" can also be defined in a religious manner. Though the Orthodox may be misguided, they're not stupid and do work through such difficult questions. Only the most extremist Jews are stupid enough to look at modern medicine and reflexively say "no thank you."
Kindly don't spread misinformation which can result not only in ignorance but in loss of life.
Well put but it's not "another discriminatory policy". It's a corrective action to address a perceived problem. Public officials are allowed to engage in this to a certain degree, and where they overstep their bounds SCOTUS has ruled to that effect.
As a private company it's Google's prerogative to do so, as long as it's legal. Last I heard US anti-discrimination laws discussing wages stop at gender and don't extend into sexual orientation the way hiring law does.
It took western countries 2 or 3 hundred years to reach the democracy level now. ... China has opened door to the world for 30 years now. Do you agree we have made a lot progresses now?
Comparing China to the development of democratic philosophical theory is misguided. You want to compare development of democracy in China to its development in other specific emerging modern nations. Ideally in nations where it was previously absent. The United States' democracy has been stable for much of the 200 years you mention, where progress was improvement upon an already solid democratic foundation.
It took not just us Americans, but humanity itself, eons to figure out that leaders should derive their power though consent of the people, that members of government should have strict time limits, and that citizens should enjoy certain rights which their government would not allowed to restrict. And it took under two decades for the USA to create the modern concepts of constitution and bill of rights, including a first failed attempt with articles of confederation*.
China has done none of this in the past thirty years, and seems from the outside to make little if any progress towards any goal. Chinese citizens still enjoy no rights which the nondemocratic government respects. Life is not sacred, you can be killed by the government at whim. Liberty is reportedly a joke, starting from restrictions on movement (from the country to the cities for example), religion is restricted, and maneuvering the legal system is an exercise in futility. And as discussed here, the government restricts attempts or imagined attempts to bring political change.
The only area you might suggest China is advancing is the area of property rights, where its citizens are finally starting to move away from classic third-world country poverty. But again, this is mostly restricted to the cities, and even there working conditions are nowhere near modern western standards.
The people of China benefit from everything the rest of the world has already figured out. We know how to construct various types of decent representative governments you can pick and choose from. We know where labor unions work and where they fail. We've learned a lot about how to conduct trade, regulate industry, limit corruption. We've know how to keep an executive branch in-check. None of this is perfect, as my American friends will surely point out, but compared to a pre-modern society it's a great start. And like I've said, China could use the boost.
* (And that was done when there were a couple other things going on, so no China can't hide behind famine and poverty which democratic India was just as stricken by early on.)
The allegations , first reported last week by the New York Times,
Fixed that for you.
If one actually bothers to read the original NYT article, one would know it still only talking about allegations. And a limited number of incidents reported by unnamed lobbyists at that. Because there are allegations, CREW called for an official investigation to determine if there is truth to the allegations.
The bigger issue discussed was that coffee-shops being used as meeting places, which again is neither illegal nor necessarily a sign of corruption. It's not a strange and terrible thing for people to meet outside the office. I'd personally be more worried if they were meeting in a private hotel room rather than a busy coffee shop where they can be overheard by reporters.
You're right, there's no excuse for this administration to be caught regularly violating official records laws and ethics rules. But it's kind of important to realize they haven't yet. It's sad that so many in the Slashdot crowd aren't capable of seeing the distinction between sensational headlines and reality.
A valid concern, to be sure, but I must disagree with how casually you view the work of scribes.
I have little actual knowledge beyond Jewish tradition, but I assume the basics are not unique. In Judaism, there were historically a small number of Jews whose profession ("sofer" lit. "scribe") it was to transcribe the Torah on to the large scrolls we're familiar with called sifrei torah (lit. "torah books"). This craft is still practiced today for the ones used in modern synagogues. These are all hand-written (often using a quill) in a painfully slow and precise fashion on special parchment. The writing is done in a standardized calligraphy, and a mistake requires correction or for the entire page be scrapped*. Thus, an actual mistake where a word is omitted or changed is such a big deal it was virtually impossible to introduce.
This is of course not to say it's impossible for changes to be introduced. Translations wreak havoc on all documents, reliability of memorization (which was used early on in Jewish tradition) is questionable, and intentional modifications are certainly not unheard of. But to accuse ancient scribes of being stupid and careless is to forget how highly regarded writing used to be. It wasn't that long ago, the age where not every twelve year old child could put down their thoughts and have those seen by the entire world. It's easy to forget that the stuff we commit to paper (and electronic) storage is generally far less consequential than the culturally-critical religious and intellectual writing our forebears did.
* Again, according to the Jewish tradition of "genizah" in which they are not burned or destroyed as even the written name of God is held sacred and may not be removed.
Wow that's a lot of paranoia.
Boeing was allegedly given massively unfair advantage in the next generation tanker deal
Fixed that for you.
BAE was fined by the US over a bribery scandal in the Saudi Eurofighter deal, yet US companies do this exact same thing all the time
I'm unfamiliar with that case, but I'm getting an apples-and-oranges vibe. Can you verify that the fine wasn't related to national security issues rather than "just" corruption?
BP is being held to higher standards than the US companies that are responsible for Exxon Valdez sized leaks every single year in Nigeria,
Nigeria? Why the hell should the US government be responsible for overseeing environmental protection elsewhere in the world? It'd be *nice* of us, perhaps, but that's up to the Nigerian government to request. Again, apples and oranges.
It's a bit rich for an American company to complain about an overseas company bending the law
(1) It's the Chinese government blocking foreign companies from doing business, not just encouraging local ones. Yet again, apples and oranges.
(2) But Google hasn't complained.
Hate the US government as much as you like and it certainly does its share of questionable and bad things, but comparing it to China is way overboard and reeks of bias or ignorance.
Please mod up. Couldn't have said it better.
This. And as I posted yesterday, that "security report" was self-promotion of their "security software".
But it is worth it, if it serves to make the sites you use better.
I know people like to be short-sighted, selfish and need instant gratification, but there are good reasons to turn off Noscript in some places even when it's not directly and immediately helping you.
Even when talking about a site you visit being able to gain other visitors, that's important if you have any interest in that site growing.
Think big picture.
Thank you both for pointing out what should be obvious to all.
I wonder though if your understanding of "given task" being "making money" is identical to that of those surveyed. I think there could be many commonly-held but incomparable views. When talking about Apple, I think of "developing good products" or "pricing products so they're accessible". With Google I'm sure many are concerned with "protects my privacy". With Microsoft (or RIAA), I think "practice fair business".
Unless the survey specifically states what it's asking it not be more pointless even if it were limited to technology companies, or specific types of those (software, hardware, search/online services).
If that money is still considered cash I'm sure a court could get it back from the company to pay off your debts real quick. On the other hand, if it's points/gamebucks/etc., there's probably some kind of fair-market-value conversion which would just cost you even more because you'd only get pennies on the dollar.
Remember: For all its flaws, the law is usually optimized for ripping money away from other people, assuming it's on your side.
And if you do click it, click again to disable the sound.
Apologies for the assumption. The post you replied to by Locke2005 specifically stated California regarding charges of "disturbing the peace" and "obstructing a police officer". So my replies did continue to imply the case of modern USA.
My problem is with statements such as "random authority figures" and "Police are most definitely not better than the average population", which are terribly insulting and seem to me unjustifiable. This is certainly the case in the US when you consider they not only have far more training than the average pre-college worker. And regardless of training volunteer into a position where they have a significant risk of dying in the line of duty.
If you want to criticize Chinese authorities, premise your statements to specify what kind of officer you're accusing of being worse than useless.
I'd love to watch a video of you in a random police department in the USA, honestly discussing this attitude you have with the folks who work there and see if it changes your mind. I have no idea where you get the extremist notion that the average officer has something against you. Enlighten us with something other than unjustified accusations- what's caused this mistrust?
Yeah, English isn't my primary language. I've been to places where police are actually corrupt and abusive and 'baksheesh' is the norm. The modern United States is not such a place, and Americans who complain about their police, exaggerating as if they live in "police state" are, frankly, idiots who need to grow up. America has plenty of problems, this doesn't come anywhere near the top of the list. I'm sure there are a couple small towns where there's only one lawman who's abusive, but an entire large department under supervision of a political body? I don't think so. The simple fact is that in no other place on Earth do those accused of crimes have more protection from abuse than is provided by the US constitution.
As for commenting on my English, I'd rather you help me learn from my alleged mistakes than just arrogantly infer your superiority in a prelude to- and distraction from your extremist argument. I didn't advocate a police state, nor suggested we should be naive enough to assume officers are never corrupt.
Sounds like FUD to me.
Always a possibility to question these days. I have a silghtly different theory...
Note paragraph 3 of the whitepaper's summary:
SMobile's new behavior-based detection methodology leverages heuristic-style technology to determine if an application could be malicious, then gives the user the ability to use this information to determine if ... application is requesting permission to do things that just doesn't make sense for the application.
Given this it's obvious the whitepaper is an advertisement, not an objective security report.
Where the FUD question comes in is whether their application can actually do a better job at determining whether an application is "non-malicious" than the user could themselves. I believe the claim is exaggerated because trying to make a computer understand what an application does and how that relates to Android's security API is far from a trivial task.
...when an officer says "He disturbed the peace" ... the "punk with a badge"'s word is held as truth ...
No. This kind of glib attitude is exactly why there is a need to provide officers with such authority. If everyone respected a police officer's authority to uphold the law, there would be no point in providing an officer the ability to charge you with ignoring or assaulting them.
"when an officer says..." is not something you should just throw around so casually. Police officers are expected to be truthful, unlike little children and childish adults. The law dictates that their jobs depend on being honest and accurate as everything they "say" is official state business.
The existence of a minority of corrupt officers is never an excuse to paint them all with the same brush and treat them poorly when they do follow the law. Obstinate punks like you contribute to the reason that the word of officers in good standing is worth more than mine, so quit being a jackass just because it makes you popular in high school.