Maybe or maybe not, but my guess is that they do. However, even if they did pay the ransom, the hacker will still release it into the wild to the highest bidder. VA only choice is not to pay the ransom and to notify all of their customers that their personal information is compromised.
Go get 'em. Seriously. I came to this same conclusion more or less about 10 years ago. I never studied philosophy beyond a frosh class in college and was never religious. I like to converse with people about religion and it generally boils down to "What's the point?" No one knows, or will ever know. Most religious beliefs and arguments are about what's right and what's wrong. Fine, let's debate that without all of the supernatural mumbo-jumbo in the way. (BTW, if you want to have a good debate, never offer as proof "Because the Bible says so.")
As far as the article, once again, what's the point? If he wants to molest children, he should be locked away, no matter what the cause. The judges can determine if it's prison or a hospital. I'm glad that he was treated and was able to be released. I have sympathy for his plight and everyone else in this thread who had experience with brain tumors. But I still don't want them around me or my family if they're violent.
BTW, have any references that I can peruse along these lines? I'm always interested in exploring this line of thought more.
That suit was primarily about Accessibility with respect to disabilities. I believe this study concentrated not on the disabled, but more on the average person and the Usability of the site. I understand that there is a lot of cross-over between the two concepts, but they are not the same thing.
Is there any ruling on the complexity of the wording for TOS/EULAs? Is comprehension not required? These are hard for me to digest; I can only imagine what a high school drop-out makes of them. If the EULA was in French and the buyer did not know French, would it be binding? Is that not a comprehension problem? How is the inability to understand a foreign language different from the inability to understand legalese?
IANAL, but it seems that as government employees, law enforcement cannot stifle freedom of speech anywhere, except in the special cases identified by the SCOTUS (i.e. theatre and fire). However, as this was done on private property (I'm assuming the airport is privately owned), the airport at most can refuse the passenger service.
Ask any musician that is serious and there is signifcant costs in materials and training.
The original point is still valid: music is cheap to make. I can go online and download any number of open source music software tools, and with enough time and patience, come up with some decent sounding stuff band upload it online. What is your classical musician going to do when the technology becomes so powerful and easy to use that I can create a violin concerto that sounds indistinguishable from their performance? Not a dang thing.
What the real musician has over any digital work is the ability to intereact with other real people, e.g. live performances and teaching. The reproduction of music electronically is becoming just a tool to market the live perfomrances or validate teaching credentials.
...competition will force prices to the level of manufacturing costs.
IANAE(conomics)M(ajor)
Competition? What competition? Aren't we really facing multiple monopolies? It's not like Big Summer Movie #1 is offered by multiple companies. It's only offered by one. Competition is good if you consider the demand for ALL movies, but that's not really what happens. If I really want to see 3 movies this summer, I'll save my money and go to them, and not the 97 others that are released. Big Summer Movie #1 is not really competing with Big Summer Movie #2 or Crappy Art Movie #9864.
Each DRM product is a monopoly and not affected by other DRM products. The only thing to consider is the demand for an individual product and the fact the the supply for that product is monopolized.
This is a private initiative that people can choose to be a part of or not. You don't like it, fine, don't be part of it. But as far as no real opportunities being created? These laptops are information tools. These are essentially portable, electronic libraries of information. Libraries are useless? People educating themselves, communicating with others instantly, expressing their ideas and opinions to the world are not opportunities? This is giving the poor a cheap fishing pole and hook so they can learn how to fish.
Google needs to offer al least two ways for businesses to advertise. Keep the existing way as the bottom, cheapest tier of advertising. Offer another tier where the user enters a small code presented to them in an image. (The term for this escapes me for the moment.) This gives confidence to the business that a real person with at least a passing interest is submitting the code.
Then allow businesses to customize their ad. They can do either the current way or the code entry technique. The business could offer an incentive for entering a code: "Enter the code for 5% off!". The business could offer both ways for either lazy users or accessiblity reasons. Any way they choose, the business should pay much less for the current technique then the code entry way.
If they don't like the code entry method, come up with another method. The main point is to offer multiple ways for the business to present their link.
Somewhere on the page, near the top, Wiki needs to have a rating of the article based on some sort of calculations and/or community rating.
If a rating system is too hard to create, at least post some easy to read stats at the top of the article so the user can infer a confidence rating. How many versions has this article gone through? How many people are watching the page? When was the last version created? I know you can get some of this information elsewhere, but it needs to be condensed and put right on the front of the first page seen.
Just some quick thoughts.
I've only done cursory reading on migrating to Linux in the workplace. It seems though that most, if not all, of these studies assume a total, flip-the-switch conversion from Windows to Linux. What about a gradual (say over 5+ years) conversion?
I work for the main IT shop for a state (US) government, and every time I bring up OSS, I always get some version of "We have too many applciations custom written to go back and rewrite them." We are a Mainframe/Windows/Java shop, but no one advocates rewriting a Windows app to the Mainframe, or a Java app to Windows. What I want is a study that projects TCO of a Windows or hybrid shop bringing in Linux, and over time creating new applications and replacing old ones with Linux. In effect, a gradual phase out of the Windows technology. Anyone know of any unbiased reviews?
As a side question, what does Gartner and their ilk think of this topic? The PHBs don't want the opinions of the grunts and we don't have an R&D shop, so they follow whatever these consultants recommend.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe or maybe not, but my guess is that they do. However, even if they did pay the ransom, the hacker will still release it into the wild to the highest bidder. VA only choice is not to pay the ransom and to notify all of their customers that their personal information is compromised.
Go get 'em. Seriously. I came to this same conclusion more or less about 10 years ago. I never studied philosophy beyond a frosh class in college and was never religious. I like to converse with people about religion and it generally boils down to "What's the point?" No one knows, or will ever know. Most religious beliefs and arguments are about what's right and what's wrong. Fine, let's debate that without all of the supernatural mumbo-jumbo in the way. (BTW, if you want to have a good debate, never offer as proof "Because the Bible says so.")
As far as the article, once again, what's the point? If he wants to molest children, he should be locked away, no matter what the cause. The judges can determine if it's prison or a hospital. I'm glad that he was treated and was able to be released. I have sympathy for his plight and everyone else in this thread who had experience with brain tumors. But I still don't want them around me or my family if they're violent.
BTW, have any references that I can peruse along these lines? I'm always interested in exploring this line of thought more.
That suit was primarily about Accessibility with respect to disabilities. I believe this study concentrated not on the disabled, but more on the average person and the Usability of the site. I understand that there is a lot of cross-over between the two concepts, but they are not the same thing.
IANAL (obviously)
Is there any ruling on the complexity of the wording for TOS/EULAs? Is comprehension not required? These are hard for me to digest; I can only imagine what a high school drop-out makes of them. If the EULA was in French and the buyer did not know French, would it be binding? Is that not a comprehension problem? How is the inability to understand a foreign language different from the inability to understand legalese?
TIA
IANAL, but it seems that as government employees, law enforcement cannot stifle freedom of speech anywhere, except in the special cases identified by the SCOTUS (i.e. theatre and fire). However, as this was done on private property (I'm assuming the airport is privately owned), the airport at most can refuse the passenger service.
Ask any musician that is serious and there is signifcant costs in materials and training.
The original point is still valid: music is cheap to make. I can go online and download any number of open source music software tools, and with enough time and patience, come up with some decent sounding stuff band upload it online. What is your classical musician going to do when the technology becomes so powerful and easy to use that I can create a violin concerto that sounds indistinguishable from their performance? Not a dang thing.
What the real musician has over any digital work is the ability to intereact with other real people, e.g. live performances and teaching. The reproduction of music electronically is becoming just a tool to market the live perfomrances or validate teaching credentials.
IANAE(conomics)M(ajor)
Competition? What competition? Aren't we really facing multiple monopolies? It's not like Big Summer Movie #1 is offered by multiple companies. It's only offered by one. Competition is good if you consider the demand for ALL movies, but that's not really what happens. If I really want to see 3 movies this summer, I'll save my money and go to them, and not the 97 others that are released. Big Summer Movie #1 is not really competing with Big Summer Movie #2 or Crappy Art Movie #9864.
Each DRM product is a monopoly and not affected by other DRM products. The only thing to consider is the demand for an individual product and the fact the the supply for that product is monopolized.
You need to update your web.config or machine.config file by including a browsercap section. Check out Rob Eberhardt's page explaining this.
This is a private initiative that people can choose to be a part of or not. You don't like it, fine, don't be part of it. But as far as no real opportunities being created? These laptops are information tools. These are essentially portable, electronic libraries of information. Libraries are useless? People educating themselves, communicating with others instantly, expressing their ideas and opinions to the world are not opportunities? This is giving the poor a cheap fishing pole and hook so they can learn how to fish.
Google needs to offer al least two ways for businesses to advertise. Keep the existing way as the bottom, cheapest tier of advertising. Offer another tier where the user enters a small code presented to them in an image. (The term for this escapes me for the moment.) This gives confidence to the business that a real person with at least a passing interest is submitting the code.
Then allow businesses to customize their ad. They can do either the current way or the code entry technique. The business could offer an incentive for entering a code: "Enter the code for 5% off!". The business could offer both ways for either lazy users or accessiblity reasons. Any way they choose, the business should pay much less for the current technique then the code entry way.
If they don't like the code entry method, come up with another method. The main point is to offer multiple ways for the business to present their link.
Somewhere on the page, near the top, Wiki needs to have a rating of the article based on some sort of calculations and/or community rating. If a rating system is too hard to create, at least post some easy to read stats at the top of the article so the user can infer a confidence rating. How many versions has this article gone through? How many people are watching the page? When was the last version created? I know you can get some of this information elsewhere, but it needs to be condensed and put right on the front of the first page seen. Just some quick thoughts.
I've only done cursory reading on migrating to Linux in the workplace. It seems though that most, if not all, of these studies assume a total, flip-the-switch conversion from Windows to Linux. What about a gradual (say over 5+ years) conversion?
I work for the main IT shop for a state (US) government, and every time I bring up OSS, I always get some version of "We have too many applciations custom written to go back and rewrite them." We are a Mainframe/Windows/Java shop, but no one advocates rewriting a Windows app to the Mainframe, or a Java app to Windows. What I want is a study that projects TCO of a Windows or hybrid shop bringing in Linux, and over time creating new applications and replacing old ones with Linux. In effect, a gradual phase out of the Windows technology. Anyone know of any unbiased reviews?
As a side question, what does Gartner and their ilk think of this topic? The PHBs don't want the opinions of the grunts and we don't have an R&D shop, so they follow whatever these consultants recommend.