I agree that some stories are literally tens of thousands of minutes old, but I guess the site needs some time to process the stories before they put them online.
The issues of people having their accounts frozen by PayPal were long, long ago.
True enough, these issues were manyseconds ago, but these were only high profile cases (you'd hope that they would think twice before freezing somebody well-known's account, such as Cryptome or Wikileaks...). I suppose lesser known cases happen more often than that, even right now as we type.
Checks are old-fashioned, but what can replace them in the US? In the current banking system, giving out your account number for wire transfers isn't secure. I think Europe has figured out a way to do EFTs securely (chip and pin cards? PIN-based wire transfers?)
Nope, in some European countries (such as Germany), giving out your account number is not secure either. Knowing your number, companies can drain your account without your consent (Lastschrift). And electronic banking doesn't help there either, because here to, you need to know the account to which you are sending money, so the receiver still needs to trust you that you aren't doing anything funny with the number.
In other countries (such as Luxembourg), such abuse is not possible.
Interestingly enough, in those countries where withdrawing money by just knowing the account number is not possible, Paypal does not operate a full service (no withdrawals...). I wonder why that is...
I heard a news report on Chicago radio that a guy in California got a speeding ticket that was sent to him via the mail. It was one of those new "camera" set-ups that got him, where a camera is positioned along the highway, sans officer. The camera took the picture of his speeding car & tag number. A letter was generated by a computer & sent to him with the PHOTOGRAPH of his car speeding and the date & time of the offense. The letter went on to state that he had to send in a fine of $40. The story went that the guy was so mad that he sent back the letter with a PHOTOGRAPH of a check of $40. A week later he got a letter back from the police. He opened up the letter and inside was a PHOTOGRAPH of a pair of handcuffs!
Nowadays, the police would just forward the photo of the check to the bank...
the defense is less able to form a coherent defense since a lot of the evidence is gone.
But wouldn't the same also apply for the prosecution? So both sides would again be on equal footing. And a thinning of evidence on both sides would actually favor the defense (in dubito pro reo), wouldn't it?
a corrupt local official was hunted down for attempting to pull a small girl into a bathroom
Is that physically pull (like in grab her arm, and forcefully pull her in, while she's shouting and screaming) or just statutory pulling (nicely asking her whether she wants to have some fun, please join me in my stall)?
And if you're not willing to work hard for it, you're really better off just sucking it up and going along with it, no matter how brainless the edicts are.
Or better yet, just pretend to go along with it. Say "yes boss, I'll remove Firefox wherever I see it", but when you are actually called to a user, and you notice firefox on his computer, conveniently "forget" about it. If "caught", you can always apologize later (had to run to another call, didn't notice firefox,...)
And in meetings, where appropriate, do suggest OSS alternatives. then gauge the reactions of the other participants: if they are ok with it, just continue along. Chances are, they are perfectly fine with it, because nobody really cares that much either way. And if one of them isn't ok with it, apologize but feel free to do it again on another occasion where the disagreeing participant is not present.
Really, what are they going to do? Reprimand you for it? So that you have a written document that you can take, and run to the press with?
This proposes "takling about OSS alternatives", a move which has been explicitly forbidden by the memo. But depending on your personal situation (how much money do you have on the side, do you have wife & kids to feed?), you may just boldly ignore the memo, and continue business as usual. If you confronted, ask for a written statement. If you don't get any, you're fine. If you do, you've got excellent fodder for another Slashdot story, and for the press.
For any kind of leaks, or public noise, try to enlist the help of friends, rather than doing it yourself. Preferably friends that are not easily tracable to you.
If you do it yourself, then if you fail (or even if you succeed...), it might be a career limiting move.
I understand the reasoning behind it... but the problem is, the name will be way over the head of most people. Hardcore Geeks may get it. But hard-core geeks are not numerous enough to tip the scales in an election. We need to rally the common people behind us, or else it is a lost cause.
And how do you garner support with a name where almost half of your audience goes "is this like the beer-drinker's party", and almost the other half goes "so you mean, you want to get everything for free at the expense of the poor starving artists?". And only a tiny epsilon gets the sarcasm, but those won't vote for you either, because they'll assume that with such a name it's a lost cause, and their vote is better spent with the Green party.
IMHO, the "Open Rights Group" has a far better name than the "Pirate Party".
Indeed, ticket scalping is almost as old as humankind, and illegal for almost as long. In the olden days, ticket scalpers just bought their tickets in normal brick-and-mortar pre-sale places, and then sold them on the day of the event to the people in the queue. Many people are poor planners, don't get tickets in time, and are quite "happy" to buy them at over-inflated prices from the scalpers.
But the thing is, if "all" the tickets hadn't been scooped up by scalpers, there would still have been legitimate tickets available through normal channels even at a date quite close to the event, so the "poor planners" could have gotten them for face price.
What is weird however in the current online case, is how is it possible that the operators didn't notice the scam for full eight years? It must have been a pretty large-scale undertaking, which should have shown up even with simple traffic analysis...
and while there'll always be a group who aren't capable of the latter there'll be an equal number who can associate yellow with "unplugged network cable".
Maybe, but I'm sure that the number of people who can associate yellow with "unplugged network cable" would still be lower than the number of people who can associate "network communications timeout" with "unplugged network cable".
A good error message needs to fulfil two goals:
Make it easy for the user to figure out himself what he can do about the problem (where this is possible) => minimize number of support calls
In case where the user needs outside help, make it easy to communicate the message faithfully to support => make those support calls that are still needed as short and efficient as possible
The proposed yellow square/blue circle messages only addresses point 2. Without giving any chance to the user to accomplish 1. Did we already lose so much faith in our users that we believe that they are completely incapable of solving any issue themselves, that we don't even try to give them the info they need?
An error message should not only be easy to read, but also easy to understand. The yellow square/blue circle method achieves neither.
Slashdot Mirror
That site has been around for a very long time
So has Paypal.
and the stories on it are old.
I agree that some stories are literally tens of thousands of minutes old, but I guess the site needs some time to process the stories before they put them online.
It happens to lesser known entities too.
The issues of people having their accounts frozen by PayPal were long, long ago.
True enough, these issues were many seconds ago, but these were only high profile cases (you'd hope that they would think twice before freezing somebody well-known's account, such as Cryptome or Wikileaks...). I suppose lesser known cases happen more often than that, even right now as we type.
Is the US actually ahead of Europe in any aspect of life?
Oppression of the citizen? Big brother (oops, sorry, the UK is part of Europe...)?
Checks are old-fashioned, but what can replace them in the US? In the current banking system, giving out your account number for wire transfers isn't secure. I think Europe has figured out a way to do EFTs securely (chip and pin cards? PIN-based wire transfers?)
Nope, in some European countries (such as Germany), giving out your account number is not secure either. Knowing your number, companies can drain your account without your consent (Lastschrift). And electronic banking doesn't help there either, because here to, you need to know the account to which you are sending money, so the receiver still needs to trust you that you aren't doing anything funny with the number.
In other countries (such as Luxembourg), such abuse is not possible.
Interestingly enough, in those countries where withdrawing money by just knowing the account number is not possible, Paypal does not operate a full service (no withdrawals...). I wonder why that is...
I heard a news report on Chicago radio that a guy in California got a speeding ticket that was sent to him via the mail. It was one of those new "camera" set-ups that got him, where a camera is positioned along the highway, sans officer. The camera took the picture of his speeding car & tag number. A letter was generated by a computer & sent to him with the PHOTOGRAPH of his car speeding and the date & time of the offense. The letter went on to state that he had to send in a fine of $40. The story went that the guy was so mad that he sent back the letter with a PHOTOGRAPH of a check of $40. A week later he got a letter back from the police. He opened up the letter and inside was a PHOTOGRAPH of a pair of handcuffs!
Nowadays, the police would just forward the photo of the check to the bank...
I would have it turned off most of the time.
But what if it's an iPhone?
Damn straight! You will pry my cock from my cold, dead hands!
Don't worry. What is a straight going to do with somebody else's cock?
the defense is less able to form a coherent defense since a lot of the evidence is gone.
But wouldn't the same also apply for the prosecution? So both sides would again be on equal footing. And a thinning of evidence on both sides would actually favor the defense (in dubito pro reo), wouldn't it?
And moreover, Germans don't need to fear Abmanhnungen any longer either...
It's the publisher's rights that DRM manages (protects), not the consumer's. So the name may still be appropriate.
Don't tell your friends to crack the game. Tell them to go to the store and demand their money back.
Or even better: tell your friends to go to the store and demand their money back, and then, to get a cracked game.
I bet you that their uptime isn't because they've just gotten lucky and haven't ever had to deal with a DDoS.
No, it's because they're secretly using Linux.
Try asking your dentist some time if you can have the x-rays they take of your teeth.
Never asked my dentist (when I got X-rayed prior to root canal...), but I'm sure I could have gotten them if I asked.
Case in point I've got X-rays done of other parts of my body (neck), and there I got the pictures on a CD-Rom without even asking.
Or is this "withholding the pictures" a special thing with dentists? If so, why?
a corrupt local official was hunted down for attempting to pull a small girl into a bathroom
Is that physically pull (like in grab her arm, and forcefully pull her in, while she's shouting and screaming) or just statutory pulling (nicely asking her whether she wants to have some fun, please join me in my stall)?
And if you're not willing to work hard for it, you're really better off just sucking it up and going along with it, no matter how brainless the edicts are.
Or better yet, just pretend to go along with it. Say "yes boss, I'll remove Firefox wherever I see it", but when you are actually called to a user, and you notice firefox on his computer, conveniently "forget" about it. If "caught", you can always apologize later (had to run to another call, didn't notice firefox, ...)
And in meetings, where appropriate, do suggest OSS alternatives. then gauge the reactions of the other participants: if they are ok with it, just continue along. Chances are, they are perfectly fine with it, because nobody really cares that much either way. And if one of them isn't ok with it, apologize but feel free to do it again on another occasion where the disagreeing participant is not present.
Really, what are they going to do? Reprimand you for it? So that you have a written document that you can take, and run to the press with?
This proposes "takling about OSS alternatives", a move which has been explicitly forbidden by the memo. But depending on your personal situation (how much money do you have on the side, do you have wife & kids to feed?), you may just boldly ignore the memo, and continue business as usual. If you confronted, ask for a written statement. If you don't get any, you're fine. If you do, you've got excellent fodder for another Slashdot story, and for the press.
If you do it yourself, then if you fail (or even if you succeed...), it might be a career limiting move.
... what's the 7th planet, again?
And how do you garner support with a name where almost half of your audience goes "is this like the beer-drinker's party", and almost the other half goes "so you mean, you want to get everything for free at the expense of the poor starving artists?". And only a tiny epsilon gets the sarcasm, but those won't vote for you either, because they'll assume that with such a name it's a lost cause, and their vote is better spent with the Green party.
IMHO, the "Open Rights Group" has a far better name than the "Pirate Party".
... which shows that you don't need a 230-pin dual-inline connector to shine, sometimes a single prong is enough!
But the thing is, if "all" the tickets hadn't been scooped up by scalpers, there would still have been legitimate tickets available through normal channels even at a date quite close to the event, so the "poor planners" could have gotten them for face price.
What is weird however in the current online case, is how is it possible that the operators didn't notice the scam for full eight years? It must have been a pretty large-scale undertaking, which should have shown up even with simple traffic analysis...
And possibly also a number, just in case they need to call you back if they have to move your appointment for whatever reason.
and while there'll always be a group who aren't capable of the latter there'll be an equal number who can associate yellow with "unplugged network cable".
Maybe, but I'm sure that the number of people who can associate yellow with "unplugged network cable" would still be lower than the number of people who can associate "network communications timeout" with "unplugged network cable".
A good error message needs to fulfil two goals:
The proposed yellow square/blue circle messages only addresses point 2. Without giving any chance to the user to accomplish 1. Did we already lose so much faith in our users that we believe that they are completely incapable of solving any issue themselves, that we don't even try to give them the info they need?
An error message should not only be easy to read, but also easy to understand. The yellow square/blue circle method achieves neither.
A, the subtle difference between a non-fatal and a fatal error...