A 90 year old grandmother can defend herself against a knife wielding rapist if she has a gun. Without it she is relegated to only being a victim. Unless she is some sort of Navy Seal that can fight the criminal on his own terms.
Or she could use pepper spray. Incapacitates faster than a gun and requires less accuracy, plus the enormous benefit that you're much less likely to kill someone with it (including yourself or loved ones).
I have not idea if VLC natively supports SMB streaming (I didn't even know that was a feature desktop VLC had), but SMB streaming is wroking great for me with cifsmanager.
You're really not thinking very hard, Android runs on more than just tiny phones. I just installed the VLC alpha a few days ago on my (rooted) Kindle Fire, which is great for watching video (that's one of it's selling points). Combined with cifsmanager, I can now browse and play my entire music and movie collection on my home server, without having to transcode everything into the limited formats that the Kindle supports. Very, very useful indeed.
If your income has stagnated after 10 years of experience, the root cause is that you have stagnated your own career
I'll try to explain what I think the grandparent means. Say I am a mechanical or electrical engineer at a large company. Here are the requirements for promotion:
Level 1: Starting (college grad)
Level 2: Minimum 2 years experience.
Level 3: Minimum 5 years experience.
Level 4: Minimum 9 years experience.
Level 5: Minimum 14 years experience. Also needs a "business case" to justify promotion. These are typically technical lead positions, but are not management.
The numbers above are real numbers from a large US company. As you can see, once you've reached Level 4 you've reached the end of your career advancement if you want to stay a grunt, and you can easily get there in 10 years from college. Many Engineers stay at this level for the rest of their career. Level 5 is doable if you don't mind being a lead, but still that's only 14 years in and then you truly have reached the end of your career advancement. Beyond that, the only options for advancement are:
* Go into management.
* Company hop to increase your salary.
This has nothing to do with whether or not you keep your skill set up to date. If you do that you may get higher yearly merit salary increases (which hopefully exceed inflation), but no more promotions. The salary grades just don't exist.
there are three ways to establish trust. Something you have , something are , something you know.
This is incorrect, there are only two. "Something you are" (fingerprints, retinas, etc.) is really just another kind of "something you have". The only differences between biometrics and something like a physical key or access card is that biometrics are horribly insecure (how many objects have you left your fingerprints on today?) and nearly impossible to replace if they get compromised.
Have you tried the native Windows port of zsh? It was unmaintained for several years but has recently been picked up again, might be worth checking out.
But as cops I know tell me, they can't use ANY hitting force for compliance unless they are being hit or are planning on charging the person in question. What this leads to is the only two tools left are the taser and the gun, and we know where this story goes.
I find the part in bold disturbing. Are you saying that it used to be okay to hit people you had no intention of charging with a crime (and were therefore presumably not doing anything illegal), and that now it is okay to taser them instead?
as a Christian I don't recognize that. Humans are already neck deep in it; the concept of "free will" that I recognize is the same free will that a rescue helicopter gives you in a flood, or a US marine gives you in an evacuation.
That would only be a valid analogy if the rescue helicopter also caused the flood to begin with. If you read the bible, it makes it clear that God is the one punishing mankind for sinning, it is not some amoral third party force like a flood or hurricane (act of God?;). Of course, God also has the power to save you from His torture, that is if you do what He says. This makes it more akin to the mugger analogy in the GP post.
I don't think it's as much really believing in the existence of other gods as acknowledging the fact that other people believed in other gods.
This is a common modern view, but reading the bible doesn't seem to support this conclusion. For example, start with Genesis in the Garden of Eden: "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us..." There are many more examples if you care to look, try http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/gods.html
The general result was that 50% of the schools resources was poured into 15-20% of the students.
Which 15-20%? I think it makes a difference.
If you think that's fair that's your problem I for one will respectfully disagree.
Whoever said that life, or school, should be fair? The truth is that some people are better than others at things. Some are better at throwing a baseball. Some are better at algebra. And, an un-PC as it is, some seem to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Trying to treat them all "fairly" is just stupid, not to mention impossible.
One more thing, you are right in that physical violence has no place in schools but you would do well to note that neither does intellectual snobbery.
This surely depends on how you define "snobbery", but why not? Schools are places to learn, why shouldn't intelligence be praised here? Same as in athletics, typically it is the best athletes who are exalted, not the klutzes. Is this athletic snobbery?
I was mostly commenting on your statement that "My son joined boy scouts a couple months ago, and I signed up to be a leader. I was really surprised that nobody asked us about religion..." (emp mine). I too am very surprised that they have never asked whether you and your son have read and agreed to the Scout Oath and Scout Laws, let alone making you recite the Oath out loud. Of course, you didn't actually say that they didn't ask about the Oath and Laws, perhaps you could clarify. If they haven't asked you about the Oath and Laws, it makes me wonder what the point of having them are. If they have asked you, then your statement that I quoted is incorrect.
You didn't pay attention to the parent post I was refuting then.
I'm not sure you paid attention to my point. My point is that there is a big difference between security checks and a store's loss prevention, and a private business trying to control what you do in your own home with your personal property that you paid good money for.
The store is still treating you like a criminal.
Perhaps, but it doesn't inconvenience me in the least, so I don't really mind. The only way the anti-theft devices could inconvenience me was if I actually was a criminal. I think the difference here is that people recognize that some people visiting a store will be criminals, so it is reasonable for the store to take reasonable precautions against them. However, once you prove that you are NOT a criminal by paying for the item, the store is more than happy to remove any and all restrictions and thank you for your purchase. Copy protection, one the other hand, continues to treat you like a criminal even after you've purchased the item, and will continue to do so for ever and ever! That is what people object to. See the difference? One is reasonable, the other is not.
You walked through metal detectors on the way in, and again on the way out. You were treated like a criminal.
But the metal detectors did not inconvenience me in any way, nor did they try to control what I do with my personal property, nor do they take away any of my rights that I can see. I doubt people would mind much if copy protection was not inconvenient, but of course that is impossible, it's designed to be inconvenient and take away your rights. As I said, unauthorized searches of my person are inconvenient, and they violate my rights as well, so I rightly object to them.
Your examples are poor and bear little relevance to software copy protection.
* When you go through security checks at an airport (even without accounting for crazy post 9/11 levels of scrutiny
A lot of people do object to the (mostly useless security theater) security checks at the airport, although you could make the argument that the airport is a private building (as in not open to the general public) so they have the right to put whatever checks in place that they want. Very different from someone making you jump through hoops to use your own personal property.
* Swiping your card for entry to your office building
Your office building is almost certainly a private building, so again they have the right to put whater checks in place that they want.
* Having anti-theft devices attached to clothes, or in books so you can't leave a store without paying for them
The anti-theft devices are installed while the items are still the property of the store. Once you purchase them the anti-theft devices are usually removed, or you can remove them yourself. This is very different from software copy protection, which tries to keep the anti-theft devices on after you've purchased the item!
* Having the dude at Best Buy's exit ask to see your receipt on random occasions, to make sure you've paid for the stuff you're exiting with
At last, a semi-decent example! Best Buy is a public building (this doesn't mean that they are owned by the public, it means that the general public can enter), so they have absolutely no right to search your person without your consent. Just walk on by that dude and don't surrender your rights so easily.
How exactly? For most of my post I asked you to explain and defend your assertion that a creator has the right to control what purchaser's do with the product after the sale is completed. You have provided zero support for this assertion.
However... One doesn't buy software generally. One buys a license for that software.
This may be true for software downloaded, but for software purchased in a store this is false. I pick up a box in the store and pay for it, it's mine, I own it. I haven't licensed anything, nor am I even necessarily aware that a supposed license exists. It is trivially easy to bypass any EULA presented after the sale. For example, consider the situation where I buy a computer with Windows OEM preloaded. The first time I boot it up, I use a live Linux CD. I then proceed to examine Microsoft dlls on the hard disc and disassemble them. As long as I do not distribute the dlls or any derivatives, what laws have I broken? I certainly could not be violating any license, since I never saw any. The same could be done with any commercial software, instead of running the installer program just copy the files directly off the CD.
There is probably no better example of this than the present eBook market. Most eBooks 1) are heavily DRMed and 2) are still about 90% of the cost of the physical book!
Nope, restricting someone from accessing the code is their right.
Really? Where exactly does this "right" derive from? Why does it trump the user's right to take apart and use something they've purchased however they want?
Much as I can restrict someone from not accessing the bedroom in the above analogy.
No, it's actually nothing like it at all. The difference in your analogy is that it's your bedroom, and you actually do have the right to tell me to stay out. If I've purchased your closed source code, that is now my copy of the code. Why shouldn't I have the right to take it apart to see how it works, or rebuild it to make it better? Since this is/., a car analogy would be if Ford sold you a car, then argued that you had no right to open up the hood or take it apart or swap out the engine.
People have a right to make closed source applications and charge all they want.
Again, where does this right derive from? And, even granting that this is true, how does this extend to the right to prevent purchasers of the applications from modifying the software as the GP said?
The cost is not just in the writing but also in the peer review, editing, and re-checking of facts to ensure accuracy and completeness. That is why really good textbooks are relatively more expensive than their page count, material, and binding might suggest.(emphasis mine)
Have you actually read a high school or younger text book lately? They are full of errors and inaccuracies! Sure, maybe the math books are okay, but any social studies (history, etc.) and even science books have many problems. The textbook industry is really screwed up, I think an open system could do a lot to help things, and it would be very hard to make it worse.
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Or she could use pepper spray. Incapacitates faster than a gun and requires less accuracy, plus the enormous benefit that you're much less likely to kill someone with it (including yourself or loved ones).
Please do name a legal one.
Amazon Prime Video is working fine for me with the XBMC add on, and XBMC has a Linux client.
I have not idea if VLC natively supports SMB streaming (I didn't even know that was a feature desktop VLC had), but SMB streaming is wroking great for me with cifsmanager.
You're really not thinking very hard, Android runs on more than just tiny phones. I just installed the VLC alpha a few days ago on my (rooted) Kindle Fire, which is great for watching video (that's one of it's selling points). Combined with cifsmanager, I can now browse and play my entire music and movie collection on my home server, without having to transcode everything into the limited formats that the Kindle supports. Very, very useful indeed.
I'll try to explain what I think the grandparent means. Say I am a mechanical or electrical engineer at a large company. Here are the requirements for promotion:
Level 1: Starting (college grad)
Level 2: Minimum 2 years experience.
Level 3: Minimum 5 years experience.
Level 4: Minimum 9 years experience.
Level 5: Minimum 14 years experience. Also needs a "business case" to justify promotion. These are typically technical lead positions, but are not management.
The numbers above are real numbers from a large US company. As you can see, once you've reached Level 4 you've reached the end of your career advancement if you want to stay a grunt, and you can easily get there in 10 years from college. Many Engineers stay at this level for the rest of their career. Level 5 is doable if you don't mind being a lead, but still that's only 14 years in and then you truly have reached the end of your career advancement. Beyond that, the only options for advancement are:
* Go into management.
* Company hop to increase your salary.
This has nothing to do with whether or not you keep your skill set up to date. If you do that you may get higher yearly merit salary increases (which hopefully exceed inflation), but no more promotions. The salary grades just don't exist.
This is incorrect, there are only two. "Something you are" (fingerprints, retinas, etc.) is really just another kind of "something you have". The only differences between biometrics and something like a physical key or access card is that biometrics are horribly insecure (how many objects have you left your fingerprints on today?) and nearly impossible to replace if they get compromised.
Most exploration in centuries past was primarily motivated by monetary gain (new trade routes, new sources of natural resources, etc). Just sayin'...
Bruce Schneier disagrees with you and your security professionals.
Have you tried the native Windows port of zsh? It was unmaintained for several years but has recently been picked up again, might be worth checking out.
I find the part in bold disturbing. Are you saying that it used to be okay to hit people you had no intention of charging with a crime (and were therefore presumably not doing anything illegal), and that now it is okay to taser them instead?
That would only be a valid analogy if the rescue helicopter also caused the flood to begin with. If you read the bible, it makes it clear that God is the one punishing mankind for sinning, it is not some amoral third party force like a flood or hurricane (act of God? ;). Of course, God also has the power to save you from His torture, that is if you do what He says. This makes it more akin to the mugger analogy in the GP post.
I was mostly commenting on your statement that "My son joined boy scouts a couple months ago, and I signed up to be a leader. I was really surprised that nobody asked us about religion..." (emp mine). I too am very surprised that they have never asked whether you and your son have read and agreed to the Scout Oath and Scout Laws, let alone making you recite the Oath out loud. Of course, you didn't actually say that they didn't ask about the Oath and Laws, perhaps you could clarify. If they haven't asked you about the Oath and Laws, it makes me wonder what the point of having them are. If they have asked you, then your statement that I quoted is incorrect.
Here's the releavant parts:
There is probably no better example of this than the present eBook market. Most eBooks 1) are heavily DRMed and 2) are still about 90% of the cost of the physical book!
Do the instructions include printing out a sticker saying "Don't Panic" to attach to the cover?