get ready for darknet p2p programs to start popping up all around us.
I wish I could share your optimism, but I doubt it. Freenet has been around for a long, long time (over 10 years now, I believe). It's barely usable because it depends on there being lots and lots of nodes - and why aren't there lots and lots of nodes? Because everybody's afraid of installing it since it might be used for illegal purposes! Nobody's willing to support truly workable anti-censorship measures because deep down, they support some censorship... which is unfortunate because you either allow no censorship at all or you allow arbitrary censorship.
And I don't have a problem with a police officer pulling someone over who "gunned it" through a yellow light when it was obviously safe for him to stop (hell, I don't even have a problem with that if the light was yellow when they guy went under it, if it was obvious to the HUMAN police officer that he was driving in an unsafe manner).
I do have a problem with a machine trying to make the same determination. I know too much about how machines work.
You're supposed to stop on yellow, if you can manage it reasonably.
Which is exactly why a human police officer ought to be the one who observes you acting in an unsafe manner in order for you to get a ticket, not a cheap camera, incapable of making a judgment call, whose lens hasn't been cleaned in a month with a processor less powerful than the one in my watch.
People have made that same claim over and over again here in Dallas, and have had it rejected every single time. I was listening to the radio recently and they read a news story about how some certain percentage of red-light tickets written by an actual cop who saw an actual person actually run the red light had been dismissed... and how not one single automated red-light camera ticket had been dismissed since they started using them.
I was actually OK with the red light cameras until I heard that, and that's when I got to thinking, "damn, what if they camera malfunctioned (or somebody slid through a yellow light that turned red at the last second)?" Since you get the ticket in the mail a few days or weeks later, you won't even be able to remember the circumstances.
I'm sure as hell a bigger traffic safety issue since they added those damned cameras here - I slam on the brakes every time the light turns yellow now. It's a miracle I haven't caused an accident yet.
why should HAVE to consider on that is gay, if that would make me uncomfortable? Why should I have to consider a woman if that would make me uncomfortable?
if Pedophiles can use a system with impunity, it's probably safe to talk about your boss ripping off the government.
Well, yeah, but if you talk about government ripoffs on a network of sexual deviants, the only people who will see your posts will be sexual deviants, not the high ranking government officials who needs to know about this st... oh, wait.
Damn, that's a good idea. We should make that a law! Hell, there should be a constitutional amendment! If I was writing a constitution, I'd make that the very first amendment!
I've taken to writing a statement as to why I don't have any certs and including it with my resume.
Ok, flame-resistant suit on here, but - what, exactly does that statement say? In other words, why *don't* you have any certs? You say you've been turned down for a job for not having the A+ cert. You and I both know that it's a trivial cert to get, right?
Either the test is trivially simple for you, so you can pick up a quick "A+ certification for
dummies" book, skim it on the train over to the testing site (or even walk in with no preparation at all), pass the cert with flying colors, and be out $100 (if you can't get your
current employer to cover the cost of the test, which you usually can) and an hour of your life,
and not be turned down for a job again for something so trivial.
Or - the test is difficult, it takes some preparation and experience to get through - in which
case having one actually *does* say something (much to yours and my
surprise) about your knowledge, determination, and commitment.
I was required (strongly asked) to get a couple of Java certifications by my then-employer back in '01. By then I'd been doing Java for a couple of years, so I figured I'd blow through the test with flying
colors. Oops - turns out there were quite a few things I didn't know. Turns out that I actually
learned some things studying for the test, things that actually turned out to be actually
useful.
Contrary to/., taking a test doesn't make you stupider. Passing it doesn't mean you're smart,
but it does mean you're at the very least smarter than somebody who can't even pass the test.
you can walk around in your back yard in your birthday suit and be pretty confident that nobody's going to see you
Ok, good example - remember, if you walk around naked on the balcony in a highrise, you're going to get arrested for walking around naked in public, even if you don't care. There's a law against that, for no particularly good reason. So, why don't you do it? Some people don't do it because they're mortified that they might be seen, but others don't do it because they don't want to be arrested and really don't care one way or another who sees them naked. If everybody lives on the balcony in their high rise, the law (and peoples attitudes) is going to have to change.
I guess I figure there's a difference between privacy of actions and privacy of thoughts... I figure we might as well start thinking about what the future is going to look like, because privacy is slipping away at an exponential rate and I really don't think there's a thing any of us can do about it.
Well, you make it sound like there's anything you or I or anybody else can do about it. I don't think there is, not any more. I'm not saying I'm OK with it, I just wonder what the privacyless future is going to look like - if it's going to be as bad as most people think or maybe a little less bad.
I often wonder about what will become of all of this. Typically, when somebody starts
dicsussing the "Big Brother sees all" dystopian future, somebody else retorts with the
classic "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" rhetoric. Since it seems
clear that, ultimately, we're going to end up in this position no matter what we do, I
wonder which part will change... will we all end up in fear, or will we all end up with
nothing to hide?
It seems to me that there are a lot of things that all of us do which,
although we may not be afraid of an execution or a prison term if we get caught, we would
at the very least be embarrassed about if exposed. A lot of our social mores and most "morality"-based laws tend to persist
because the chances of getting caught are so slim. Perhaps society will, unexpectedly, end up changing for the better overall if everything is out in the open - if everybody
gets caught doing everything, we might suddenly end up getting a lot more reasonable about
what we care about catching each other doing.
Obviously, that's not going to work for you and me - we're too used to things the way they
are. But since it looks like our grandchildren's generation isn't going to understand the
very meaning of the word "privacy", I can only hope that the end result is a world where
you don't really need any.
No. I most certainly do not consider it just, appropriate, or fitting.
In that case, please accept my apology (in my defense, I tried to check your link before leveling the accusation). I redirecy my mini-rant at the 25 or so percent of the posters here who do think so.
A few generations ago, before they allowed women in, they had separate changing rooms for men and boys.
Actually, at least the last time I was in a YMCA building, which was after they started letting women in, they still had separate changing rooms for men and boys. There were three changing rooms - one for men, one for boys, and one for "women & girls". Yep. Women, of course, are above suspicion in these matters.
Not that I didn't appreciate being able to change without a bunch of brats running around... but I found the implication a bit on the insulting side.
Apparently he died when a fat man sat on his back until his toes turned purple.
Can I presume from your neutral presentation here that you consider this a just, appropriate, and fitting punishment for his misdeeds? I find this (incredibly prevalent) attitude deeply disturbing and disheartening. Your link didn't take me to your journal entry, and I didn't feel like wading through your old ones to find more details, but by my own moral compass, the man in question would have had to do some pretty horrible things to truly deserve execution by suffocation. Given your brief description, what he actually did could have spanned a great range of actual crimes, all of which deserve some form of punishment, but only a very small number of which deserve execution, and none of which deserve a deliberately cruel and inhumane form of execution - at least not in a civilized society.
Then you just play dumb and say "I don't what this computer doohicky is doing - I just turned it on and it started working. Did it do something wrong? I'll take it back to Best Buy and get the Geek Squad to fix it again. Sorry about that."
Thanks for pointing this out. For example, I was just perusing the source code of the Slashdot homepage, and I noticed that it: starts with an <html> tag, includes dozens of <div> tags, uses the <ul>/<li> combination to organize "unordered lists", and combines both the <b> and the <strong> tags... just like my site does! I'm not saying I'm necessarily going to pursue legal action, but after having consulted with my legal tem, I haven't ruled it out yet, either.
Slashdot Mirror
You must be new here.
Sounds just like something Hitler would say.
You scrape it off with a metal file, duh.
Joe Biden, I would guess.
I wish I could share your optimism, but I doubt it. Freenet has been around for a long, long time (over 10 years now, I believe). It's barely usable because it depends on there being lots and lots of nodes - and why aren't there lots and lots of nodes? Because everybody's afraid of installing it since it might be used for illegal purposes! Nobody's willing to support truly workable anti-censorship measures because deep down, they support some censorship... which is unfortunate because you either allow no censorship at all or you allow arbitrary censorship.
And I don't have a problem with a police officer pulling someone over who "gunned it" through a yellow light when it was obviously safe for him to stop (hell, I don't even have a problem with that if the light was yellow when they guy went under it, if it was obvious to the HUMAN police officer that he was driving in an unsafe manner).
I do have a problem with a machine trying to make the same determination. I know too much about how machines work.
Which is exactly why a human police officer ought to be the one who observes you acting in an unsafe manner in order for you to get a ticket, not a cheap camera, incapable of making a judgment call, whose lens hasn't been cleaned in a month with a processor less powerful than the one in my watch.
People have made that same claim over and over again here in Dallas, and have had it rejected every single time. I was listening to the radio recently and they read a news story about how some certain percentage of red-light tickets written by an actual cop who saw an actual person actually run the red light had been dismissed... and how not one single automated red-light camera ticket had been dismissed since they started using them.
I was actually OK with the red light cameras until I heard that, and that's when I got to thinking, "damn, what if they camera malfunctioned (or somebody slid through a yellow light that turned red at the last second)?" Since you get the ticket in the mail a few days or weeks later, you won't even be able to remember the circumstances.
I'm sure as hell a bigger traffic safety issue since they added those damned cameras here - I slam on the brakes every time the light turns yellow now. It's a miracle I haven't caused an accident yet.
Well, that is the law.
Well, yeah, but if you talk about government ripoffs on a network of sexual deviants, the only people who will see your posts will be sexual deviants, not the high ranking government officials who needs to know about this st... oh, wait.
Damn, that's a good idea. We should make that a law! Hell, there should be a constitutional amendment! If I was writing a constitution, I'd make that the very first amendment!
No, he'd rule you out because you have one and he doesn't.
Ok, flame-resistant suit on here, but - what, exactly does that statement say? In other words, why *don't* you have any certs? You say you've been turned down for a job for not having the A+ cert. You and I both know that it's a trivial cert to get, right?
Either the test is trivially simple for you, so you can pick up a quick "A+ certification for dummies" book, skim it on the train over to the testing site (or even walk in with no preparation at all), pass the cert with flying colors, and be out $100 (if you can't get your current employer to cover the cost of the test, which you usually can) and an hour of your life, and not be turned down for a job again for something so trivial.
Or - the test is difficult, it takes some preparation and experience to get through - in which case having one actually *does* say something (much to yours and my surprise) about your knowledge, determination, and commitment.
I was required (strongly asked) to get a couple of Java certifications by my then-employer back in '01. By then I'd been doing Java for a couple of years, so I figured I'd blow through the test with flying colors. Oops - turns out there were quite a few things I didn't know. Turns out that I actually learned some things studying for the test, things that actually turned out to be actually useful.
Contrary to /., taking a test doesn't make you stupider. Passing it doesn't mean you're smart,
but it does mean you're at the very least smarter than somebody who can't even pass the test.
Dude, where have you been since 1970? The U.S. government has decided who you may or may not hire since before I was born.
I'm pretty sure that was the final (mistaken) belief of every failed revolutionary throughout all of history.
Ok, good example - remember, if you walk around naked on the balcony in a highrise, you're going to get arrested for walking around naked in public, even if you don't care. There's a law against that, for no particularly good reason. So, why don't you do it? Some people don't do it because they're mortified that they might be seen, but others don't do it because they don't want to be arrested and really don't care one way or another who sees them naked. If everybody lives on the balcony in their high rise, the law (and peoples attitudes) is going to have to change.
I guess I figure there's a difference between privacy of actions and privacy of thoughts... I figure we might as well start thinking about what the future is going to look like, because privacy is slipping away at an exponential rate and I really don't think there's a thing any of us can do about it.
Well, you make it sound like there's anything you or I or anybody else can do about it. I don't think there is, not any more. I'm not saying I'm OK with it, I just wonder what the privacyless future is going to look like - if it's going to be as bad as most people think or maybe a little less bad.
I often wonder about what will become of all of this. Typically, when somebody starts dicsussing the "Big Brother sees all" dystopian future, somebody else retorts with the classic "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" rhetoric. Since it seems clear that, ultimately, we're going to end up in this position no matter what we do, I wonder which part will change... will we all end up in fear, or will we all end up with nothing to hide?
It seems to me that there are a lot of things that all of us do which, although we may not be afraid of an execution or a prison term if we get caught, we would at the very least be embarrassed about if exposed. A lot of our social mores and most "morality"-based laws tend to persist because the chances of getting caught are so slim. Perhaps society will, unexpectedly, end up changing for the better overall if everything is out in the open - if everybody gets caught doing everything, we might suddenly end up getting a lot more reasonable about what we care about catching each other doing.
Obviously, that's not going to work for you and me - we're too used to things the way they are. But since it looks like our grandchildren's generation isn't going to understand the very meaning of the word "privacy", I can only hope that the end result is a world where you don't really need any.
In that case, please accept my apology (in my defense, I tried to check your link before leveling the accusation). I redirecy my mini-rant at the 25 or so percent of the posters here who do think so.
Accidentally? The opportunity to enjoy the ruining of another person's life is why they do it in the first place.
Actually, at least the last time I was in a YMCA building, which was after they started letting women in, they still had separate changing rooms for men and boys. There were three changing rooms - one for men, one for boys, and one for "women & girls". Yep. Women, of course, are above suspicion in these matters.
Not that I didn't appreciate being able to change without a bunch of brats running around... but I found the implication a bit on the insulting side.
Can I presume from your neutral presentation here that you consider this a just, appropriate, and fitting punishment for his misdeeds? I find this (incredibly prevalent) attitude deeply disturbing and disheartening. Your link didn't take me to your journal entry, and I didn't feel like wading through your old ones to find more details, but by my own moral compass, the man in question would have had to do some pretty horrible things to truly deserve execution by suffocation. Given your brief description, what he actually did could have spanned a great range of actual crimes, all of which deserve some form of punishment, but only a very small number of which deserve execution, and none of which deserve a deliberately cruel and inhumane form of execution - at least not in a civilized society.
Then you just play dumb and say "I don't what this computer doohicky is doing - I just turned it on and it started working. Did it do something wrong? I'll take it back to Best Buy and get the Geek Squad to fix it again. Sorry about that."
Thanks for pointing this out. For example, I was just perusing the source code of the Slashdot homepage, and I noticed that it: starts with an <html> tag, includes dozens of <div> tags, uses the <ul>/<li> combination to organize "unordered lists", and combines both the <b> and the <strong> tags... just like my site does! I'm not saying I'm necessarily going to pursue legal action, but after having consulted with my legal tem, I haven't ruled it out yet, either.
Aw, dude - my boss read that and now he's up there on the rooftop shooting one person for every screwup we made...