This is, in fact, the case at many universities. The U of P, birthplace of ENIAC, teaches (this may change soon, apparently) O'Caml (a branch of ML) in the first semester of intro to programming. Talk about useless, perhaps, but the idea is not to teach just technical proficiency (something easily learned at a local community college) but to teach theory. O'Caml teaches recursion and functional programming well, and levels the playing field for those who have and have not had C/C++ in high school.
Incidentally, they then move to Java, although C is taught in Systems Engineering and used somewhat in later Computer Science courses.
The idea here is that anyone can learn any language fairly quickly. It takes a week or so to pick up a new OO language if one is proficient in theory; if one learns only how to use a certain language or API, though, he will have a much tougher time adjusting.
Certainly, this has some flaws, but the general approach is wholly valid. There is no reason to just teach the current programming lingua franca; standards change. Learning how to write something provided in the VB API or Java API may also seem silly, but its done for the same reason. CS courses here don't teach a specific language, they teach with a specific language. The language illustrates; it itself is not the objective.
Students who are taught just one specific skill and language can't see the forest for the trees. Students who can see the big picture can learn to deal with unfamiliar details.
Yeah, I'm mirroring from you as fast as I can (2.5K or so). I think that's you, not me, as my downstream is a lot faster than my up. Fun fun fun, though; I never get this many hits on this box.
I did a little research to see if I could validate or invalidate A Proud American's claims. While he is marginally correct on the facts, his interpretation is very far off.
First and foremost, I learned that the FBI and other similar anti-crime organizations of the U.S. government will not (I repeat, will not) prosecute or even attempt to investigate computer-related security crimes that involve less than $5,000 in liabilities.
Semi-true. There is a technical $5,000 threshold in order for the FBI to have federal jurisdiction over cybercrimes. State law still applies. Additionally, the FBI can probably gain jurisdiction to charge with other laws (they've mentioned RICO) if the crimes cross state lines (and there is judicial precedent that sets the bar merely at passing through an out-of-state router, in the case of a threat delivered over AIM with both perpetrator and victim in the same state).
Also, the $5,000 threshold is not particularly strict under new guidelines in the USA PATRIOT Act, so that they encompass summed damages from different attacks, damages in downtime and time responding, etc. In other words, the bar is very low and easily met with semi-probably damages; $5,000 is more of a requirement to prevent people from being charged for, say, portscanning. See here: http://www.astalavista.com/technologies/library/cr ime/usa.shtml.
And civil suits are always an available alternative.
Prison is actually fairly easily awarded; often we complain just as much about the strict jail time for such minor crimes as the lack of jail time.
Other measures of prosecution are becoming much harsher and stricter now, too, especially with all our terror enforcement (er, I mean anti-terror, Mr. Ashcroft, sir) measures. I mentioned RICO above (see here: http://lists.insecure.org/lists/isn/2000/Feb/0029. html.
So prison is a real possibility; federal prosecution is pretty easy to get; but you should all still make sure you keep up to date with security. Just don't rely on A Proud American for your information.
Oh, yah. And befriend me. Please? Pretty please? I'll be your friend!
Thanks for an interesting conversation, timothy. It would be cheap of me to take the last word simply because you wouldn't have time to respond, so, I won't. Except to say that I'm right;)
Is it even appropriate for me to carry on here when we are so far off the original topic? Should I create a user-defined topic? I think if I did, though, all the nuts would come out of the woodwork. Anyway, it occurs to me a bit delayed that you are the moderator/poster/bigwig guy or whatever, so I suppose you know what you're doing.
Despite my frequent disappointment with so-called Americal democracy, I'll admit I don't plan to go anywhere else. This is as much my country as anyone else's, and besides, I have nowhere else to go. Besides, that disappointment is little more than an extension of my disappointment with people as a whole (and, no, I don't lead a depressing life, as far as I'm concerned).
In more direct regard to guns, though, we clearly acknowledge limits. You would be in the great minority (not that that discredits your beliefs, to be sure) if you truly believed that "anything [one] can bear is fair." Does this apply to everyone? Are licensing schemes to make sure owners have proper training illegal? What about preventing minors or mental patients or felons from owning guns? I know this will probably make you shake your head and mutter, "it's a slippery slope," but clearly once you acknowledge that some restrictions are OK, the debate becomes a bit more complex.
There are, of course, those who argue that in a historical context, the 2nd Amendment didn't mean what it has been said to mean, namely that the "well funded militia" means the intention was for a regulated militia, not rampant gun ownership in any home. I don't know the truth and I don't think it matters a whole lot; the judicial interpretation of it would most likely not be that interpretation (in a hypothetical Supreme Court case, Scalia would surely shed his literalist focus on "intent" in favor of a more proactive approach--and who says the Supreme Court isn't political).
However, the issue at focus can be divided easily into two perspectives, that of arguing the Constitution and that of arguing the public good. Clearly, guns are not being used to prevent a repressive government (such a move, however justified, would be very bloody and likely suicidal, unless you intend to allow possession of weapons the equal of those held by the US military now, which is not limited to what one can bear). The greatest defense mustered by most members of the NRA is that if guns are outlawed, "only outlaws will have them." Statistics, however, indicate that even if this is a great soundbite, this situation would be far safer for everyone in America. Families that own guns are far more likely to suffer a violent gun injury than those that do not. Go figure.
Obviously you won't be convinced to overturn the Second Amendment based on some statistics about the public good, but if you acknowledge limitations even under the Second Amendment to what guns can be owned, and you acknowledge that certain guns are far more risky to the public to be on the streets than not, the conclusion must be in favor of careful and fair regulation.
I never knew there was anything unconstitutional about the draft, however, and your comments about the IRS clearly label you a Libertarian of some sort (So am I right, or am I right?). Income taxes are approved in the 16th Amendment. Whats unconstitutional about that?
Again, according to the article, procedure is that if a humvee or truck equipped with one of these units is surrounded, the driver is to turn off the ignition, which shuts down the computer, requireing a password to restart. However, you obviously have to wonder what happens if, say, the driver is sniped but the computer left intact. Some sort of timed logout, while-using-biometric-authentication, or deadman switch seems the best answer, I suppose. Of course, the same vulnerability applies to radios, apparently without many ill effects.
"It is not forcing anyone, it is just a license which the programmer choose to distribute his software under, or he choose not to, I can't see how that is forcing anything on anyone."
This appears to be, in essence, the same position as that of Gillmor (and of myself), that certainly it is a programmer's right to release the code however he wants, and, to some extent, we should be thankful that the code has been released at all. As Gillmor puts it, "Fine: If you don't like the GPL, don't create software from code that used it in the first place."
However, the arguments against using the GPL (as opposed to saying it is somehow immoral or Bad) are perfectly valid; if you are not making money off of keeping your code secret, and you are going to release the code anyway, does it hurt you to allow others to make their code, which is derived from your code, secret?
For many programmers, I suspect, the GPL is more intended as a means of preventing someone from selling their hard work. Perfectly valid, but other licenses can accomplish this more directly, while at the same time not creating such restrictions on other programmers who would like to use your code, say, with other open code which is not and cannot be converted to GPL.
Picture a hypothetical situation (derived from a real one I experienced) where package derived from two open sourced applications violates the GPL because one is GPL and the other is a commercial/proprietary license which also states that works derived from its code cannot be licensed under another license. In other words, trying to incorporate code from two open, and nearly identical, "viral" licenses violates both.
In this situation, the coder is prevented from doing something for no profit, simply to benefit the greater community in the original spirit of the GPL but hindered by the license itself.
Surely the GPL is a double-edged sword, and not a miracle cure for all situations.
"My note re: gun aesthetics / artistic content was just a tangent, really..."
As is the entire guns discussion, timothy;) (what punctuation goes after an emoticon, anyway?)
As for restrictions to media, I do agree that they are often unnecessary and silly. It's really a tough call, and not really anything I feel terribly strongly about myself; if a parent is being irresponsible to the extent that it is actually damaging the child, then the government of course should step in; barring that situation, its hard to imagine any need to augment sound parental judgement. Additionally, the values reflected in movie ratings (my experience with video game ratings isn't significant enough for me to say) are often far more arbitrary or culterally biased to really be made into the stuff of laws.
For example, its my value judgement (an opinion, to be sure, nothing more) that the restrictions on sex and profanity are downright ludicrous compared to the relative lack of restrictions on violence. Media violence hasn't been shown to cause violent behavior, but certainly this is far more likely than any claims that a nude body somehow inspires the child to become a pervert or communist subversive.
And yet a PG-13 movie may contain plenty of violence to bother even me, while a nude body is somehow off limits (even in a non-sexual context).
It's a bit silly that regardless of the opinions of perhaps very responsible parents, a child of, say, 17 years old cannot see an R rated movie. Old enough to drive, but not old enough to see titties. Ooh, boy.
Still, surely some sort of guidelines for parents, even if voluntary, are a reasonable measure; since parents are not always there to enforce their own preferences, the hard-and-fast restrictions are most likely to serve as surrogate measures of convenience rather than as laws to override a parental preference.
Seems to me that you are very anti-gun-control, so if I may digress yet again, since my beliefs on this are probably somewhat evident by now, to ask what your motivations are. You seem like a fairly reasonable person, rather than just an ideologue like some (not to name names), so is it just that its a fundamental constitutional right? Do you believe that there are reasonable limits to this right (i.e. no machine guns, no surface-to-air missiles, etc)? Should I be allowed to own a fully armed ex-Soviet MiG if I'd like?
I only know a small amount of Python, so I can't comment there, but its more than just a Good Thing to keep private members private. If someone accesses something they shouldn't, reliability and predictability are down the tubes. Who knows what will happen when people start directly accessing components of an Abstract Data Type or mucking about with methods they shouldn't have any access to. It's really just asking for it.
What's really damning here is that this wasn't the intent, apparently. It's not like MS said, "yeah, we'll make them accessible if you really want to, because, hey, its not a big deal and we love our customers." It's more like they documented them as private (which typically means not accessible) and then they weren't, at least, not entirely.
This may not be security per se; end user security is rarely related to one coder abstracting something or hiding a method from another coder (since most applications are compiled into binaries first), after all, but more a bit of a diversion from standard OO coding practices and just a bad idea overall. Private methods are crucial to maintaining method and data abstraction; which does translate directly into reliability and stability, if not security itself (though in this case he did use it to determine information from the.NET framework istalled, the user's groups, which should in fact be hidden from the running.NET application).
If my understanding is correct, though, C# and.NET is supposed to be using some sort of VM or other (I could be way off here, or at least, someone will say I'm way off), as I remember it is supposed to run in a "sandbox." This would be fairly similar to the reason Java isn't vulnerable to this, that is, Java is compiled into bytecode but run in a VM, making it semi-interpreted. The fact that this can happen in.NET, which should be able to do the same safety measures as Java, is somewhat discouraging.
On the other hand, someone posted above that this was only possible in local applications running with the highest security levels. I don't know enough about.NET (I know virtually nothing about it, in fact) to say if this is the case, but it seems reasonable and somewhat reassuring.
Re:My thoughts:
on
Hijacking .NET
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
" you fucking faggot cumdumpster moderators...better here than modding down the opinions of people you don't agree with simply because they employ logic..."
Well, I suppose guns can be a form of utilitarian art, certainly, but thats not the argument used to defend them (it's pretty hard to defend guns under Free Speech when they really have their own amendment, too).
You do raise an intersting point, though one probably irrelevent as I stated above. This argument does pertain to Free Speech and video games, however, insofar as non-binding (I think) precedent which states that video games are not (and neither is computer code) legitimate forms of free expression. I don't really know enough about the standards applied to say definitively, although I may do some looking into the precedent, but my impression is that you need to show meaningful expression of ideas or meaningful artistic expression. I think the latter is more likely to apply to video games than the former, certainly, since clearly a lot of aesthetic design does go into video games. However, it is probably important to note by example that despite how much artistic expression may go info filming that raunchy hardcore porn shot, it may still be considered obscene and its distribution restricted (sort of an exception to Free Speech, if you will). Certainly, violent video games deserve some restriction. But circumventing the existing, supposedly-effective ratings is silly, and making an accross-the-board statement in regards to only one particular form of violence is just idiotic.
OK, you clearly are a troll, and this really isn't the proper venue, but I'll bite.
One, when I refered to guns and video-games killing people, I obviously didn't mean that they themselves made decisions or had any sort of moral cupability at all. To argue that this is technically improper language is silly; you knew what I meant--killings which could be stopped were guns not available versus killings which could be stopped were video games not available, as in, a restriction of which would best save the most number of people. Yes, the killer himself is the one morally responsible, but by the same token, drugs aren't bad, people who do drugs are bad. Why do we still outlaw possession of drugs? Extend this logic, and we should never outlaw implements of crime, only the very act of the crime itself. This doesn't really bear further discussion.
Now, I did not say that guns may not be fundamental rights, but, if you examine the legal precedent surrounding the First and the Second Amendments, the First is clearly far more defended and entrenched; limitations on either must meet judicial standards of scrutiny, but limitations on the First require strict scrutiny (in relation to political or individual speech, though not commercial speech), that is, a compelling governmental interest and the limitation be most narrowly tailored to limit impinging upon that right. Limitations to the Second do not require the same degree of scrutiny, as evidenced by the current, entirely constitutional limitations upon the second. I would hope you can admit it is constitutional and acceptible to limit who can get an Uzi or a surface-to-air missile; clearly, some limitation is acceptible in the interest of public safety; the question hotly debated is simply how much limitation.
Despite my own personal views on this, my statement was intended not to spark some sort of silly argument over the right to bear arms, and I believe I did in fact keep it unbiased enough that the majority of Americans would agree with me (certainly the vast majority support some form of gun ownership limitations, most, I believe, support stricter gun laws as well). Your reaction is, I might add, ridiculous; this was not the point of the post, but even if it had been, I seriously doubt the greatest threat to your liberty right now (at a time when habeous corpus is being effectively suspended and due process circumvented) is that you may not be able to own the biggest gun you want. Get a life.
I forget the exact name (Book Writers Guild? Writers and Publishers Guild?) but there is an organization which has been in the news in the past for complaining about used copies of books being sold at places like Amazon.com and undercutting their profits from the new books. So, yes, I guess there is an RIAA equivalent, at least to some degree. Certainly, the copyright owners still can prevent unlimited digital copies, though, book-RIAA or no.
Interesting point. However, its useful to note that there are a lot of charitable and commercial corporations which currently fund (perhaps for the PR value rather than their own good intentions, and because the US dollar goes so far in most parts of Africa) technology initiatives and other educational programs. I've posted in the past about a program I'm involved in funded by a couple US coporations to put computers and networks in a West African university.
In regards to your vinyl recording idea, couldn't you just hook up a record changer (yes, they do make these; they have a big spindle and an arm) to a DAT or similar digital recording device, and then use some audio software to cut tracks at blank space?
I don't think the comparison to gun ownership is at all accurate. While gun ownership is also, to some (hotly debated) degree defended in the Constitution, free speech is giving much higher priority and much greater accross-the-board protection.
More to the point, guns, be they a fundamental American right or not, kill vastly greater numbers of innocents each year than video games. Conversely, guns are hardly any remote form of artistic expression, while the nature of video games implies that they should enjoy the same protections as art and individual expression as a whole.
I'm not in fact a big video gamer, and I'm not really into violence (except against stupid people--you know who you are) but I think that considering it obviously not protected speech simply because its a newer medium unfamiliar to many is ridiculous. Sure, pac-man may not have much culteral value as protected speech, but extending that view is ignorant and short sighted.
Actually, its conceivable to fit a really, really stripped down boot image on a floppy that would load drivers for a usb device and load an OS from there, no? I don't know a lot about this sort of thing, but it seems like it'd be interesting, and considering that fairly full linux distros have been put on floppies, i'd not put this past anyone. certainly it could be done with a cd rom, no? But, then, having to have a disk defeats the purpose. As for me, i'm still meaning to get a business-card CDR to put the linux bootable business card on. God, I'm a ned.
As for KrispyKringle, I thought I made it up (but maybe I didn't, who knows). A lot of other people probably thought they made it up, too. You know, like Kris Kringle, as in, Santa Clause. But, you know, Krispier.
You know, A Proud American (if that is your real name), I see you on here constantly posting about how the latest post isn't something that interests you or how something else is so much cooler. Now, ordinarily, I welcome a breath of fresh air (metaphorically, at least) but in your case, your opinions seem less backed up by logic and more based on a desire to be contrary for the sake of contrariness.
While I'd be the first to agree that maybe a radio isn't cool just because it runs Linux, or a watch isn't cool just because it has USB, this tends to be the theme of Slashdot. Certainly, I take it with something of a grain of salt and read other news sources, but I find Slashdot interesting. If you don't like the common topics (like useless gadgetry), then don't read it. If you read for the sake of pointing out things you don't like, you are little more than a troll.
And just when being into computers was starting to get "cool" (think The Matrix, Hackers, or Swordfish) someone like you comes along and start talking about Dungeons and Dragons. There go my chances of getting laid. There go all our chances of getting laid.
The hard drives don't have to work. Just the magnets. There are mirrors to the article posted, you know, if you actually want to read the article and not just spout off at the mouth.
I believe you can. It's been a while since I've studied anything remotely similar to this, but if I remember right, a magnet inside a non-turning coil still produces a minimal charge. In relation to thermodynamics, these magnets do lose charge over time.
The original energy is in fact coming from whatever energy was used to magnetise it to begin with (i.e. rubbing two peices of iron together, an electric current through a coil of wire, or another magnet).
Correct me if I'm wrong (and someone will probably do so even if I'm not).
I made jokes about FOX long before it was fashionable to do so. As for the other three:
1) I own a Segway myself you insensetive clod;
2) MS's software is insecure?
3) Sports fans aren't brainless; they're just very small (their brains, that is).
Happy?
Slashdot Mirror
Incidentally, they then move to Java, although C is taught in Systems Engineering and used somewhat in later Computer Science courses.
The idea here is that anyone can learn any language fairly quickly. It takes a week or so to pick up a new OO language if one is proficient in theory; if one learns only how to use a certain language or API, though, he will have a much tougher time adjusting.
Certainly, this has some flaws, but the general approach is wholly valid. There is no reason to just teach the current programming lingua franca; standards change. Learning how to write something provided in the VB API or Java API may also seem silly, but its done for the same reason. CS courses here don't teach a specific language, they teach with a specific language. The language illustrates; it itself is not the objective.
Students who are taught just one specific skill and language can't see the forest for the trees. Students who can see the big picture can learn to deal with unfamiliar details.
Yeah, I'm mirroring from you as fast as I can (2.5K or so). I think that's you, not me, as my downstream is a lot faster than my up. Fun fun fun, though; I never get this many hits on this box.
mirror here.
If you can, mirror it somewhere else, too.
I did a little research to see if I could validate or invalidate A Proud American's claims. While he is marginally correct on the facts, his interpretation is very far off.
First and foremost, I learned that the FBI and other similar anti-crime organizations of the U.S. government will not (I repeat, will not) prosecute or even attempt to investigate computer-related security crimes that involve less than $5,000 in liabilities.
Semi-true. There is a technical $5,000 threshold in order for the FBI to have federal jurisdiction over cybercrimes. State law still applies. Additionally, the FBI can probably gain jurisdiction to charge with other laws (they've mentioned RICO) if the crimes cross state lines (and there is judicial precedent that sets the bar merely at passing through an out-of-state router, in the case of a threat delivered over AIM with both perpetrator and victim in the same state).
Also, the $5,000 threshold is not particularly strict under new guidelines in the USA PATRIOT Act, so that they encompass summed damages from different attacks, damages in downtime and time responding, etc. In other words, the bar is very low and easily met with semi-probably damages; $5,000 is more of a requirement to prevent people from being charged for, say, portscanning. See here: http://www.astalavista.com/technologies/library/cr ime/usa.shtml.
And civil suits are always an available alternative.
Prison is actually fairly easily awarded; often we complain just as much about the strict jail time for such minor crimes as the lack of jail time.
Other measures of prosecution are becoming much harsher and stricter now, too, especially with all our terror enforcement (er, I mean anti-terror, Mr. Ashcroft, sir) measures. I mentioned RICO above (see here: http://lists.insecure.org/lists/isn/2000/Feb/0029. html.
So prison is a real possibility; federal prosecution is pretty easy to get; but you should all still make sure you keep up to date with security. Just don't rely on A Proud American for your information.
Oh, yah. And befriend me. Please? Pretty please? I'll be your friend!
Thanks for an interesting conversation, timothy. It would be cheap of me to take the last word simply because you wouldn't have time to respond, so, I won't. Except to say that I'm right ;)
Despite my frequent disappointment with so-called Americal democracy, I'll admit I don't plan to go anywhere else. This is as much my country as anyone else's, and besides, I have nowhere else to go. Besides, that disappointment is little more than an extension of my disappointment with people as a whole (and, no, I don't lead a depressing life, as far as I'm concerned).
In more direct regard to guns, though, we clearly acknowledge limits. You would be in the great minority (not that that discredits your beliefs, to be sure) if you truly believed that "anything [one] can bear is fair." Does this apply to everyone? Are licensing schemes to make sure owners have proper training illegal? What about preventing minors or mental patients or felons from owning guns? I know this will probably make you shake your head and mutter, "it's a slippery slope," but clearly once you acknowledge that some restrictions are OK, the debate becomes a bit more complex.
There are, of course, those who argue that in a historical context, the 2nd Amendment didn't mean what it has been said to mean, namely that the "well funded militia" means the intention was for a regulated militia, not rampant gun ownership in any home. I don't know the truth and I don't think it matters a whole lot; the judicial interpretation of it would most likely not be that interpretation (in a hypothetical Supreme Court case, Scalia would surely shed his literalist focus on "intent" in favor of a more proactive approach--and who says the Supreme Court isn't political).
However, the issue at focus can be divided easily into two perspectives, that of arguing the Constitution and that of arguing the public good. Clearly, guns are not being used to prevent a repressive government (such a move, however justified, would be very bloody and likely suicidal, unless you intend to allow possession of weapons the equal of those held by the US military now, which is not limited to what one can bear). The greatest defense mustered by most members of the NRA is that if guns are outlawed, "only outlaws will have them." Statistics, however, indicate that even if this is a great soundbite, this situation would be far safer for everyone in America. Families that own guns are far more likely to suffer a violent gun injury than those that do not. Go figure.
Obviously you won't be convinced to overturn the Second Amendment based on some statistics about the public good, but if you acknowledge limitations even under the Second Amendment to what guns can be owned, and you acknowledge that certain guns are far more risky to the public to be on the streets than not, the conclusion must be in favor of careful and fair regulation.
I never knew there was anything unconstitutional about the draft, however, and your comments about the IRS clearly label you a Libertarian of some sort (So am I right, or am I right?). Income taxes are approved in the 16th Amendment. Whats unconstitutional about that?
Again, according to the article, procedure is that if a humvee or truck equipped with one of these units is surrounded, the driver is to turn off the ignition, which shuts down the computer, requireing a password to restart. However, you obviously have to wonder what happens if, say, the driver is sniped but the computer left intact. Some sort of timed logout, while-using-biometric-authentication, or deadman switch seems the best answer, I suppose. Of course, the same vulnerability applies to radios, apparently without many ill effects.
This appears to be, in essence, the same position as that of Gillmor (and of myself), that certainly it is a programmer's right to release the code however he wants, and, to some extent, we should be thankful that the code has been released at all. As Gillmor puts it, "Fine: If you don't like the GPL, don't create software from code that used it in the first place."
However, the arguments against using the GPL (as opposed to saying it is somehow immoral or Bad) are perfectly valid; if you are not making money off of keeping your code secret, and you are going to release the code anyway, does it hurt you to allow others to make their code, which is derived from your code, secret?
For many programmers, I suspect, the GPL is more intended as a means of preventing someone from selling their hard work. Perfectly valid, but other licenses can accomplish this more directly, while at the same time not creating such restrictions on other programmers who would like to use your code, say, with other open code which is not and cannot be converted to GPL.
Picture a hypothetical situation (derived from a real one I experienced) where package derived from two open sourced applications violates the GPL because one is GPL and the other is a commercial/proprietary license which also states that works derived from its code cannot be licensed under another license. In other words, trying to incorporate code from two open, and nearly identical, "viral" licenses violates both.
In this situation, the coder is prevented from doing something for no profit, simply to benefit the greater community in the original spirit of the GPL but hindered by the license itself.
Surely the GPL is a double-edged sword, and not a miracle cure for all situations.
As is the entire guns discussion, timothy ;) (what punctuation goes after an emoticon, anyway?)
As for restrictions to media, I do agree that they are often unnecessary and silly. It's really a tough call, and not really anything I feel terribly strongly about myself; if a parent is being irresponsible to the extent that it is actually damaging the child, then the government of course should step in; barring that situation, its hard to imagine any need to augment sound parental judgement. Additionally, the values reflected in movie ratings (my experience with video game ratings isn't significant enough for me to say) are often far more arbitrary or culterally biased to really be made into the stuff of laws.
For example, its my value judgement (an opinion, to be sure, nothing more) that the restrictions on sex and profanity are downright ludicrous compared to the relative lack of restrictions on violence. Media violence hasn't been shown to cause violent behavior, but certainly this is far more likely than any claims that a nude body somehow inspires the child to become a pervert or communist subversive.
And yet a PG-13 movie may contain plenty of violence to bother even me, while a nude body is somehow off limits (even in a non-sexual context).
It's a bit silly that regardless of the opinions of perhaps very responsible parents, a child of, say, 17 years old cannot see an R rated movie. Old enough to drive, but not old enough to see titties. Ooh, boy.
Still, surely some sort of guidelines for parents, even if voluntary, are a reasonable measure; since parents are not always there to enforce their own preferences, the hard-and-fast restrictions are most likely to serve as surrogate measures of convenience rather than as laws to override a parental preference. Seems to me that you are very anti-gun-control, so if I may digress yet again, since my beliefs on this are probably somewhat evident by now, to ask what your motivations are. You seem like a fairly reasonable person, rather than just an ideologue like some (not to name names), so is it just that its a fundamental constitutional right? Do you believe that there are reasonable limits to this right (i.e. no machine guns, no surface-to-air missiles, etc)? Should I be allowed to own a fully armed ex-Soviet MiG if I'd like?
Thanks for the interesting correspondence.
What's really damning here is that this wasn't the intent, apparently. It's not like MS said, "yeah, we'll make them accessible if you really want to, because, hey, its not a big deal and we love our customers." It's more like they documented them as private (which typically means not accessible) and then they weren't, at least, not entirely.
This may not be security per se; end user security is rarely related to one coder abstracting something or hiding a method from another coder (since most applications are compiled into binaries first), after all, but more a bit of a diversion from standard OO coding practices and just a bad idea overall. Private methods are crucial to maintaining method and data abstraction; which does translate directly into reliability and stability, if not security itself (though in this case he did use it to determine information from the .NET framework istalled, the user's groups, which should in fact be hidden from the running .NET application).
On the other hand, someone posted above that this was only possible in local applications running with the highest security levels. I don't know enough about .NET (I know virtually nothing about it, in fact) to say if this is the case, but it seems reasonable and somewhat reassuring.
They do? You don't. Who's "they"?
You do raise an intersting point, though one probably irrelevent as I stated above. This argument does pertain to Free Speech and video games, however, insofar as non-binding (I think) precedent which states that video games are not (and neither is computer code) legitimate forms of free expression. I don't really know enough about the standards applied to say definitively, although I may do some looking into the precedent, but my impression is that you need to show meaningful expression of ideas or meaningful artistic expression. I think the latter is more likely to apply to video games than the former, certainly, since clearly a lot of aesthetic design does go into video games. However, it is probably important to note by example that despite how much artistic expression may go info filming that raunchy hardcore porn shot, it may still be considered obscene and its distribution restricted (sort of an exception to Free Speech, if you will). Certainly, violent video games deserve some restriction. But circumventing the existing, supposedly-effective ratings is silly, and making an accross-the-board statement in regards to only one particular form of violence is just idiotic.
One, when I refered to guns and video-games killing people, I obviously didn't mean that they themselves made decisions or had any sort of moral cupability at all. To argue that this is technically improper language is silly; you knew what I meant--killings which could be stopped were guns not available versus killings which could be stopped were video games not available, as in, a restriction of which would best save the most number of people. Yes, the killer himself is the one morally responsible, but by the same token, drugs aren't bad, people who do drugs are bad. Why do we still outlaw possession of drugs? Extend this logic, and we should never outlaw implements of crime, only the very act of the crime itself. This doesn't really bear further discussion.
Now, I did not say that guns may not be fundamental rights, but, if you examine the legal precedent surrounding the First and the Second Amendments, the First is clearly far more defended and entrenched; limitations on either must meet judicial standards of scrutiny, but limitations on the First require strict scrutiny (in relation to political or individual speech, though not commercial speech), that is, a compelling governmental interest and the limitation be most narrowly tailored to limit impinging upon that right. Limitations to the Second do not require the same degree of scrutiny, as evidenced by the current, entirely constitutional limitations upon the second. I would hope you can admit it is constitutional and acceptible to limit who can get an Uzi or a surface-to-air missile; clearly, some limitation is acceptible in the interest of public safety; the question hotly debated is simply how much limitation.
Despite my own personal views on this, my statement was intended not to spark some sort of silly argument over the right to bear arms, and I believe I did in fact keep it unbiased enough that the majority of Americans would agree with me (certainly the vast majority support some form of gun ownership limitations, most, I believe, support stricter gun laws as well). Your reaction is, I might add, ridiculous; this was not the point of the post, but even if it had been, I seriously doubt the greatest threat to your liberty right now (at a time when habeous corpus is being effectively suspended and due process circumvented) is that you may not be able to own the biggest gun you want. Get a life.
I forget the exact name (Book Writers Guild? Writers and Publishers Guild?) but there is an organization which has been in the news in the past for complaining about used copies of books being sold at places like Amazon.com and undercutting their profits from the new books. So, yes, I guess there is an RIAA equivalent, at least to some degree. Certainly, the copyright owners still can prevent unlimited digital copies, though, book-RIAA or no.
In regards to your vinyl recording idea, couldn't you just hook up a record changer (yes, they do make these; they have a big spindle and an arm) to a DAT or similar digital recording device, and then use some audio software to cut tracks at blank space?
More to the point, guns, be they a fundamental American right or not, kill vastly greater numbers of innocents each year than video games. Conversely, guns are hardly any remote form of artistic expression, while the nature of video games implies that they should enjoy the same protections as art and individual expression as a whole.
I'm not in fact a big video gamer, and I'm not really into violence (except against stupid people--you know who you are) but I think that considering it obviously not protected speech simply because its a newer medium unfamiliar to many is ridiculous. Sure, pac-man may not have much culteral value as protected speech, but extending that view is ignorant and short sighted.
As for KrispyKringle, I thought I made it up (but maybe I didn't, who knows). A lot of other people probably thought they made it up, too. You know, like Kris Kringle, as in, Santa Clause. But, you know, Krispier.
While I'd be the first to agree that maybe a radio isn't cool just because it runs Linux, or a watch isn't cool just because it has USB, this tends to be the theme of Slashdot. Certainly, I take it with something of a grain of salt and read other news sources, but I find Slashdot interesting. If you don't like the common topics (like useless gadgetry), then don't read it. If you read for the sake of pointing out things you don't like, you are little more than a troll.
Please befriend me if you don't like idiots.
More importantly, you'd need a USB-boot option in everyone else's BIOS. Having it in your own wouldn't really do a lot of good.
"Now, if it came with...Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan...attached - yum!"
Let's think about that.
And just when being into computers was starting to get "cool" (think The Matrix, Hackers, or Swordfish) someone like you comes along and start talking about Dungeons and Dragons. There go my chances of getting laid. There go all our chances of getting laid.
The hard drives don't have to work. Just the magnets. There are mirrors to the article posted, you know, if you actually want to read the article and not just spout off at the mouth.
The original energy is in fact coming from whatever energy was used to magnetise it to begin with (i.e. rubbing two peices of iron together, an electric current through a coil of wire, or another magnet).
Correct me if I'm wrong (and someone will probably do so even if I'm not).
I made jokes about FOX long before it was fashionable to do so. As for the other three: 1) I own a Segway myself you insensetive clod; 2) MS's software is insecure? 3) Sports fans aren't brainless; they're just very small (their brains, that is). Happy?