The "Troll" mod is not for posts that you simply disagree with. It is meant for posts that are clearly trying to troll. Generally speaking, this is defined as:
An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.
Controversial? Possibly. Then again, these days, anything political seems to be controversial, so the point is debatable.
Irrelevant or off-topic? Definitely not.
Intended to provoke other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion? Definitely not.
Please, folks, if you disagree with someone's post, reply and at least add something to the discussion. Be aware of what the negative modding options are actually supposed to be used for. Modding posts "troll" just because you disagree is counterproductive.
I'm not trying to justify the hacking at all. My reply was in response to techsoldaten's, which stated simply that we should leave Palin alone, which presumably includes any critical view of her at all. My reply was written from the perspective that anyone running for public office had better be up for some serious scrutiny.
As to the morality of the hack, I'm still sifting through this one to some extent. Regardless of *who* gets hacked, the hacking itself is troublesome. Given that this is a public figure who has apparently been using the now-hacked account for devious shenanigans, my general impression is that *both* Anonymous *and* Palin should be prosecuted. Two wrongs don't make a right, and all that.
While personally thankful that the hacking exposed otherwise hidden illegal and immoral behaviour that the public indeed deserves to know about, I am also concerned that letting Anonymous off the hook would prompt a black-/grey-hat fishing expedition to hack everyone's accounts in the hopes of finding something juicy, which is effectively no better than having the NSA tapping everything -- and neither is acceptable.
To extend a thought experiment a bit, though, the questions of "to hack or not to hack" and "to tap or not to tap" have only two fair answers, one of which is very uncomfortable for most people -- either no one should be hacked / tapped / surveilled, or everyone should. Either we should know no one's hidden business, or we should know everyone's. However, in real-world terms, since the powers that be will never accept letting everyone else into their business, the only approach even marginally realizable is privacy for all.
Okay, you've gotten me curious -- what video? I just tried your link again and all I get is a "Latest Videos" listing page with a ton of non-Palin-related links. I find Palin's name when I view the page source, but otherwise there's nothing related to her that I can find. Then again, I *do* have Doubleclick blocked, and it looks like that page has two Shockwave objects served by Doubleclick, so maybe that's why I'm not seeing anything? The URLs make it look like they're ads, but who knows...
Sure, I'm happy to leave her alone -- so long as she promises to leave all of us alone. Her socially reactionary politics scare the bejebus out of me, and apparently quite a few other people too. With McCain 72 and quite possibly cancerous, a McCain win would put Palin a hop, skip, and cardiac jump from being in the driver's seat. If we're supposed to leave her alone, we need some guarantee that she's not going to do everything in her power to mold the country's society into her own warped ideal.
And so far, nothing she's said has been anything but highly alarming.
(If you were trying to be funny, sorry for missing your point -- your link just went to a generic E! list of videos, and I saw nothing specific about Palin.)
As long as people will accept anything in the name of fighting terrorists or paedophiles then civil liberties are fucked.
Aha, wery interestink, I tink hyu haff found de appropriate neurotic diagnozis! A new form of philia!
On a slightly more serious note, it seems the folks who get involved in such governmental shenanigans do indeed have a problem, though. Instead of lusting after kids, they lust after destroying civil liberties. To coin a new word, perhaps they should be labeled as katapnixiphiles? (katapnixi = repression)
And KGill is saying, "well, them's the breaks, but X-Y is better than nothing... "
Indeed. KGill appears to be (hopefully unwittingly?) setting up a strawman argument here. The choice is *not* XP+OLPC (expensive) or nothing (cheapest), it's at least XP+OLPC (expensive) or Linux+OLPC (cheaper) or nothing (cheapest), with more possibilities conceivable. And if we're going by the Think Of The Children (TM) argument, it sure looks like Door #2 here with Linux on the machines would have allowed for more OLPCs going to more kids.
I'm not about evangelizing. I'm a pragmatist -- I'm interested in getting things done. And if the end goal is to get OLPCs into the hands of more kids, then Linux (or some other FOSS OS) is the way to go, simply in terms of cost.
So how about no ACs within X minutes of a story going live? That makes sense to me. It seems this particularly odious and obnoxious variety of AC is mostly just obsessed with getting the first post, so any reasonable delay before allowing AC posts would head this annoyance off at the pass, so to speak.
Minor quibble, but pidgins arise regardless of the presence of children. What you're probably thinking of is how, when children grow up in a pidgin-speaking community, the pidgin gains more linguistic structure and tends to develop into a full-blown creole language, much as what was seen in Suriname.
Yay for more people talking sense.:) I agree that any talk of how valid science might be versus other possible explanations belongs in a philosophical context, possibly even as a matter for epistemology (nailing down how we know what we know).
However, you bring up belief within a scientific context, and I find myself thinking that this is exactly the problem:
The reason it makes sense to discuss the differences between scientific reasoning vs. creationist belief is that there is a significant, vocal population of people who earnestly believe that creationism is not only true, but just as valid in a scientific context as evolution.
(emphasis added)
This reveals a profound misunderstanding about what "science" is. Religion has its fundamentalists -- I say it's high time scientists go a similar route -- teach the fundamentals. Science is an extension of logically viewing the world. It is about observing, as objectively as possible, and then logically deriving the best possible explanation for the perceived phenomena. A very important part of this is posing a hypothesis -- a fancy word for supposing something about what you've observed -- and *testing* that in a logical manner to make sure it's the best possible fit. It is entirely about logic -- belief does not come into it.
Within this logical framework, there is *nothing* about creationism that fits.
Is it testable? Nope.
Is it logical? Nope.
Does it fit the observed phenomena of the known universe better than any other hypothesis? Nope.
Logically, quod erat demonstrandum, creationism is not scientific. Also, logically, it is therefore bollocks to teach it as science. Sure, it may be viewed as an alternative to the scientific view of the world, I certainly agree with Michael Reiss on that account. But then any other view at all also counts as an alternative...
I'd be fascinated if you could point me to what the rationale was that the SCOTUS gave for why suing property (the basis for a lot of drug-related seizure) is deemed constitutional.
... and, frankly, for all their evils, at least the oligarchs purport to do something useful for society as a whole (i.e., hire all those minions^W employees)...
Interesting. I speak purely from Tiger experience, as I do not have Leopard. Shame on me -- I simply forgot about Leopard, and that defaults there might be significantly different.
And what you describe might also help define serious warning flags for installing non-system software under OS X -- if it requires more than just copying a folder into the Apps tree, there may well be something very undesirable happening.
My thought experiment actually had less to do with nationalism than the old who-knows-whom kind of thinking -- with MS being based in the US, it seems more plausible that MS execs might personally know execs of the big US exchanges, or others who would stand to gain if the US exchanges could capture more business currently handled by the LSE. I have zero illusions about corporations "caring" for countries, and was thinking purely in terms of where money might be flowing.
I'm not seriously into any conspiracy theory here, but it certainly is an interesting juxtaposition. Were I on the management team of any of the European exchanges, with the US exchanges breathing down our collective neck for our trading business, I'm not so sure I'd be happy selecting a US-based company as one of our key IT vendors. I don't know about what anyone else might think...
You need to input your admin password to change anything in the Apps folder. It's not actually about any DRM. Try it now -- try moving any file or folder on your desktop, say, into the Apps folder, and you should get a request for your admin password. It's Apple's way of trying to make sure that folks don't accidentally bork up their Apps folder without even realizing it.
I'll have to go with the GP here. That might be due to my own understanding of hiding caveats, and bait and switch. You noted:
"Hiding an important caveat" is almost certainly nothing. It's rude, and I'll agree with you that it's ripping the customer off, but it's not illegal unless that caveat is so debilitating to the product that you run afoul of merchantability statutes.
I think the caveats the GP is talking about are indeed serious enough to "run afoul of merchantability statutes", certainly vis-a-vis the "three installs and that's it" condition apparently placed on Spore. Hiding that from people purchasing the game is a grave misrepresentation -- they think they're buying the game, meaning they expect to be able to install it and use it and reinstall it later as needed, for as long as they have hardware that can run it. What they're getting is effectively a rental. Yet the game is ostensibly being "sold" by major retail outlets... That sound like an abusive gotcha to me. (And, incidentally, this appears to answer for the "false pretenses" described by the GP.)
Then we have bait and switch. You noted:
Neither of these have anything to do with the concept of bait and switch, which is where you offer something (usually a low price or bundle deal or some sort) and then withdraw the offer when the customer comes to purchase it.
This definition indeed seems to fit what is happening with Spore. The offer is to sell you a cool whizbang game. The switch is that you're not actually allowed to buy the game, for normal definitions of "buy" -- you're effectively only allowed to rent it, due to the three-installs-only condition. And this important caveat is not openly acknowledged in any publisher or retailer description.
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Dear Mods --
The "Troll" mod is not for posts that you simply disagree with. It is meant for posts that are clearly trying to troll. Generally speaking, this is defined as:
(From the Wikipedia article)
So, was my post:
Possibly. Then again, these days, anything political seems to be controversial, so the point is debatable.
Definitely not.
Definitely not.
Please, folks, if you disagree with someone's post, reply and at least add something to the discussion. Be aware of what the negative modding options are actually supposed to be used for. Modding posts "troll" just because you disagree is counterproductive.
Cheers,
Hey there DaveV1.0 --
I'm not trying to justify the hacking at all. My reply was in response to techsoldaten's, which stated simply that we should leave Palin alone, which presumably includes any critical view of her at all. My reply was written from the perspective that anyone running for public office had better be up for some serious scrutiny.
As to the morality of the hack, I'm still sifting through this one to some extent. Regardless of *who* gets hacked, the hacking itself is troublesome. Given that this is a public figure who has apparently been using the now-hacked account for devious shenanigans, my general impression is that *both* Anonymous *and* Palin should be prosecuted. Two wrongs don't make a right, and all that.
While personally thankful that the hacking exposed otherwise hidden illegal and immoral behaviour that the public indeed deserves to know about, I am also concerned that letting Anonymous off the hook would prompt a black-/grey-hat fishing expedition to hack everyone's accounts in the hopes of finding something juicy, which is effectively no better than having the NSA tapping everything -- and neither is acceptable.
To extend a thought experiment a bit, though, the questions of "to hack or not to hack" and "to tap or not to tap" have only two fair answers, one of which is very uncomfortable for most people -- either no one should be hacked / tapped / surveilled, or everyone should. Either we should know no one's hidden business, or we should know everyone's. However, in real-world terms, since the powers that be will never accept letting everyone else into their business, the only approach even marginally realizable is privacy for all.
Cheers,
Okay, you've gotten me curious -- what video? I just tried your link again and all I get is a "Latest Videos" listing page with a ton of non-Palin-related links. I find Palin's name when I view the page source, but otherwise there's nothing related to her that I can find. Then again, I *do* have Doubleclick blocked, and it looks like that page has two Shockwave objects served by Doubleclick, so maybe that's why I'm not seeing anything? The URLs make it look like they're ads, but who knows...
Cheers,
Sure, I'm happy to leave her alone -- so long as she promises to leave all of us alone. Her socially reactionary politics scare the bejebus out of me, and apparently quite a few other people too. With McCain 72 and quite possibly cancerous, a McCain win would put Palin a hop, skip, and cardiac jump from being in the driver's seat. If we're supposed to leave her alone, we need some guarantee that she's not going to do everything in her power to mold the country's society into her own warped ideal.
And so far, nothing she's said has been anything but highly alarming.
(If you were trying to be funny, sorry for missing your point -- your link just went to a generic E! list of videos, and I saw nothing specific about Palin.)
Cheers,
Aha, wery interestink, I tink hyu haff found de appropriate neurotic diagnozis! A new form of philia!
On a slightly more serious note, it seems the folks who get involved in such governmental shenanigans do indeed have a problem, though. Instead of lusting after kids, they lust after destroying civil liberties. To coin a new word, perhaps they should be labeled as katapnixiphiles? (katapnixi = repression)
Cheers,
... where the wild souvlaki herds roam! :)
Cheers,
And apparently they were kind enough to include both English and Chinese versions of it, too!
Cheers,
Indeed. KGill appears to be (hopefully unwittingly?) setting up a strawman argument here. The choice is *not* XP+OLPC (expensive) or nothing (cheapest), it's at least XP+OLPC (expensive) or Linux+OLPC (cheaper) or nothing (cheapest), with more possibilities conceivable. And if we're going by the Think Of The Children (TM) argument, it sure looks like Door #2 here with Linux on the machines would have allowed for more OLPCs going to more kids.
I'm not about evangelizing. I'm a pragmatist -- I'm interested in getting things done. And if the end goal is to get OLPCs into the hands of more kids, then Linux (or some other FOSS OS) is the way to go, simply in terms of cost.
Cheers,
So how about no ACs within X minutes of a story going live? That makes sense to me. It seems this particularly odious and obnoxious variety of AC is mostly just obsessed with getting the first post, so any reasonable delay before allowing AC posts would head this annoyance off at the pass, so to speak.
Cheers,
I'm just sayin'...
Cheers,
Aw, man, I fired *myself*? And couldn't even be bothered to do it face-to-face. What's the world coming to these days! :)
Minor quibble, but pidgins arise regardless of the presence of children. What you're probably thinking of is how, when children grow up in a pidgin-speaking community, the pidgin gains more linguistic structure and tends to develop into a full-blown creole language, much as what was seen in Suriname.
Cheers,
And a cigar for the AC!
Now, for the super-secret bonus question, can you tell us all when the strip ran, and what it was poking fun at? :)
Cheers,
Wow, I'm impressed. Googling for "gay furry bondage snuff porn" produces your post here as the top hit only a couple hours after you posted.
Aside from being impressed, I'm also somehow disappointed... ;)
Cheers,
As the son of a life-long bureaucrat, I say, Amen brother! ;)
Yay for more people talking sense. :) I agree that any talk of how valid science might be versus other possible explanations belongs in a philosophical context, possibly even as a matter for epistemology (nailing down how we know what we know).
However, you bring up belief within a scientific context, and I find myself thinking that this is exactly the problem:
This reveals a profound misunderstanding about what "science" is. Religion has its fundamentalists -- I say it's high time scientists go a similar route -- teach the fundamentals. Science is an extension of logically viewing the world. It is about observing, as objectively as possible, and then logically deriving the best possible explanation for the perceived phenomena. A very important part of this is posing a hypothesis -- a fancy word for supposing something about what you've observed -- and *testing* that in a logical manner to make sure it's the best possible fit. It is entirely about logic -- belief does not come into it.
Within this logical framework, there is *nothing* about creationism that fits.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Logically, quod erat demonstrandum, creationism is not scientific. Also, logically, it is therefore bollocks to teach it as science. Sure, it may be viewed as an alternative to the scientific view of the world, I certainly agree with Michael Reiss on that account. But then any other view at all also counts as an alternative...
"But the world isn't flat. Nope, it's shaped like a burrito!"
Extra points to those who catch the reference. :) And therein lies a hint as to why this is just more of the same.
Cheers,
I'd be fascinated if you could point me to what the rationale was that the SCOTUS gave for why suing property (the basis for a lot of drug-related seizure) is deemed constitutional.
Depressed,
... and, frankly, for all their evils, at least the oligarchs purport to do something useful for society as a whole (i.e., hire all those minions^W employees)...
Cheers,
Interesting. I speak purely from Tiger experience, as I do not have Leopard. Shame on me -- I simply forgot about Leopard, and that defaults there might be significantly different.
And what you describe might also help define serious warning flags for installing non-system software under OS X -- if it requires more than just copying a folder into the Apps tree, there may well be something very undesirable happening.
Caveat installator.
Cheers,
Hee! :)
My thought experiment actually had less to do with nationalism than the old who-knows-whom kind of thinking -- with MS being based in the US, it seems more plausible that MS execs might personally know execs of the big US exchanges, or others who would stand to gain if the US exchanges could capture more business currently handled by the LSE. I have zero illusions about corporations "caring" for countries, and was thinking purely in terms of where money might be flowing.
Cheers,
Hmm, and with MS a US-based company to boot... ;)
I'm not seriously into any conspiracy theory here, but it certainly is an interesting juxtaposition. Were I on the management team of any of the European exchanges, with the US exchanges breathing down our collective neck for our trading business, I'm not so sure I'd be happy selecting a US-based company as one of our key IT vendors. I don't know about what anyone else might think...
Cheers,
You need to input your admin password to change anything in the Apps folder. It's not actually about any DRM. Try it now -- try moving any file or folder on your desktop, say, into the Apps folder, and you should get a request for your admin password. It's Apple's way of trying to make sure that folks don't accidentally bork up their Apps folder without even realizing it.
Cheers,
I'll have to go with the GP here. That might be due to my own understanding of hiding caveats, and bait and switch. You noted:
I think the caveats the GP is talking about are indeed serious enough to "run afoul of merchantability statutes", certainly vis-a-vis the "three installs and that's it" condition apparently placed on Spore. Hiding that from people purchasing the game is a grave misrepresentation -- they think they're buying the game, meaning they expect to be able to install it and use it and reinstall it later as needed, for as long as they have hardware that can run it. What they're getting is effectively a rental. Yet the game is ostensibly being "sold" by major retail outlets... That sound like an abusive gotcha to me. (And, incidentally, this appears to answer for the "false pretenses" described by the GP.)
Then we have bait and switch. You noted:
This definition indeed seems to fit what is happening with Spore. The offer is to sell you a cool whizbang game. The switch is that you're not actually allowed to buy the game, for normal definitions of "buy" -- you're effectively only allowed to rent it, due to the three-installs-only condition. And this important caveat is not openly acknowledged in any publisher or retailer description.
Cheers,
Sounds more like "retire equipment from the Carter era and replace it with new equipment based on designs from the Kennedy-Johnson era."
Perhaps only a minor quibble, but hey.
Cheers,