Is the shout-out to manifest destiny intentional? "We need more wireless elbow room! These primitives don't realize you can own bandwidth! They'll give it up for pretty beads and mp3 ringtones invoking pop idols! We'd be fools not to auction it off!"
Okay, so let me get this straight. A company is searching through and compiling publicly available information, and then making some TheSpark-style random conjectures based on these data?
Where is the expectation of privacy here? Do I have a (reasonable) expectation that data about me on the internet are private? Even my grandmother can tell you that that's ridiculous. This is the cyberspace equivalent of looking through my garbage, not breaking into my house. I hope this action falls on its face, because people providing information aggregation of all kinds are a very valuable, growing part of the coolness the internet has to offer and I want to encourage them in any way possible, even if it does mean that someone might know I bought a USB Christmas tree off ThinkGeek.
Two qualifications, though:
I hope this site also logs visits to...this site. It would be neat to know if my prospective employer is vetting prospective employees without telling them. That would speak to their trustworthiness, I would think.
I also hope that the fact that their "psychological profiles" are basically for-fun-only personality tests is stated plainly. This is one place where legal weasel-words would make me very happy. This goes under the generic heading of "You can be as stupid as you want, but please don't make other people stupid, too."
Good point, but the analogy breaks down somewhat. There is no person who legitimately could possess drugs, and no legal reason to buy them. But notice what you're busted for if you buy drugs: possession. Not the act of buying them.
Downloading a movie isn't inherently illegal. What if I download a movie because I forgot my copy back in Boston (which I have done, by the way). That's fair use. What if I download a cracker for my company's product because the VPN is down and I need to install it? Again, doesn't matter how I got it, only that I have a right to have it.
Are these weird cases? Maybe. The point is, though, that a downloader isn't necessarily infringing. That said, I'd love to see more of the people downloading illegal content being gone after. Sharing can be done in ignorance, while going out and finding illegal stuff takes actual malice.
I don't actually think anyone is contesting this. The sharers of copyrighted works who live in areas where the copyrights in question apply are committing a crime, no question.
The questions we are positing are:
Is someone who downloads that content necessarily infringing? Answer: No, not necessarily.
Are the people who provide the mechanism whereby this is done contributory infringers? Answer: No, and what are you smoking?
I don't like the trend in litigation lately. It's begging for judicial activism...asking point blank for the courts to neglect their duty to the law.
So many suits these days are not about someone doing something illegal, but rather about someone doing something you really really wish was illegal. This case is a prime example -- it's clear to anyone who's had first year Con Law that Kazaa is totally safe. But here we have some people who really wish it wasn't true, so they get their day in court and a chance, however slim, to write new law in the courts instead of the legislature.
The SCO case comes to mind, too. People get an idea of how they wish the law was, and sue based on that. Not just evil people, either: I seem to remember a recent case where a duly enacted law extending copyright protection was challenged in a court, not a legislature.
Of course, it would be easy to say that these people are just wrong, wrong, wrong for abusing the judicial system this way, but I think the problem goes a little deeper. People feel disenfranchised in the legislature. As soon as they elect someone, they're whisked away by the highest bidder and don't have to listen to you again for another few years. Once every few years isn't enough time to get your representative/senator's ear. The courts always have to listen to you, right now, and make a decision based on the merits of your case. That seems like a pretty attractive alternative.
Politicians are often said to have a social "contract" with their constituents. But we all know what verbal contracts are worth. I want it in writing next time. What are you promising me? What are you promising not to do?
And, when / if the time comes, I want to be able to sue you for specific performance.
Good Stuff, but not enough to make me learn it yet
on
Python 2.4 Final Released
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I've always liked Python, but I don't think this update is enough to make me learn it.
In one respect, it is exactly what I've been hoping for. No more sweeping changes or vast syntactic variances, but they have eliminated some usability problems and silly errors. It's a very mature language now, and seems to be behaving as such, this makes me happy
Still, though, they seem to be competing for a niche that Perl has a deathgrip on for me. I use Bash whenever I can, Perl when I can't or it would be ugly, and C when I feel like I haven't had my eyeballs gouged out with hot pokers enough lately -- er, I mean when performance is at a premium.
Python's capabilities seem to rapidly be approaching what I can do with C, and God knows I want to never malloc() again, but as long as compiled binaries can be made only "Not easily," I don't think it's going to unseat Perl for my heavy-duty scripting language slot.
So a lot of this space was spent explaining to Joseph P. Siquespack, Esq. what a "protocol" was and the like, but there were two points in here that I'm really glad my great-grandboss might be reading:
A system should be designed to fail in a predictable way. Much like a car body, it should crumple to protect its most valuable assets, and repairs should have obvious beginnings, middles, and ends.
Obsolete systems will cause you more downtime in the end than incremental upgrades. And, what's worse, it will be all at once instead of at 4am twice a month on Saturday morning.
Neither of the above are impossible goals! They can be done with a little thought and elbow grease. And the great part is, they're probably already being done! Next time you're reading over your IT department head's recommendations for a project, call them up and ask WHY. You might be amazed at how awesome the answer is, and it might even persuade you to put away the "my way or the highway" stamp.
...do you think it will be until people hack the network? Perhaps to intercept en-route music for their own use, or perhaps just to add a black-market underground to the existing framework, indistinguishable from legal traffic?
And, on a related note, how long before the RIAA black suits arrive at the door of someone using this software in a way that they thought was legal but the RIAA doesn't?
Sorry for the pessimism, but I really think this is a bad idea. Maximizing profit is a motive that leads to bad decisions, and voluntarily letting go of the one thing that you want to control (ie an avenue to access to your content) is one of the worse decisions I've seen in a while. It's like having an MMOG which stores your characters on the local client.
Okay, I stand completely corrected! You're right, if the game is all that then leveling shouldn't be a grind. What a bizarre culture that it's so easy to completely lose sight of that!
Still, I think it's a good idea basically, though. Maybe offer a time credit (try our game out free for a month, and if you end up canceling your other accounts you get another free month?), or maybe a cash reward in game, like equivalent to 10 quests run at the level you are when you run to the end of the month. Something transient, but neat.
The speed of the vitriol about the cost of online games was truly amazing! We got some speed typists here.
It's a religious debate as to whether or not it's worth it, so I won't weigh in. I'm just amazed that there were people hovering over their keyboards with "OMG I can't believe that anyone would pay $15 a month for something like this more like $0.15 twice a year is what I would pay!" in the paste buffer.
I was all looking forward to this game coming out, but City of Heroes snagged me instead. Not that I'm not interested, but I have friends, a supergroup, etc...
Which brings me to thinking: how long until we get some kind of trade-in service for MMORPG characters? What if I could trade into the WoW universe some portion of the time / XP I put into my CoH character? What if I got a bonus to what I got for each friend I brought along? Seems like a good business to me. You give away something worth nothing for extreme goodwill and extra subscribers.
And hey, you could even sell the characters on eBay if you wanted! Hehe.
I had been thinking lately that people using cell phones in public weren't quite annoying enough, so really this legislation is an answer to my prayers.
Hopefully to follow will be something that will make phones emit garbled conversation loudly while they're being used as phones as well. Loud beeps to tell what numbers are being pressed would also be nice.
Seriously, if you go out in public, you run the risk of being seen. Sometimes you might even be recorded being out and about. There are privacy concerns, then there is silliness. Anything that other people are allowed around does not have an expectation of privacy, so invading my privacy further with noise pollution is not only non-productive, but counterproductive.
Well, this is nice. I personally use a Mac, so I don't have much invested in the whole "I wish I could run iTunes" thing, but it's still nice. I might end up getting some good utility out of it even, if the music sharing functionality is intact.
What I'm really jazzed about, though, is that serious effort is being expended in multimedia (oooh, dated buzzword! kill him!) application compatibility. These are the areas that not only wine is lacking in, but also linux in general. The fact is that sound is tricky...even on the OS level. Not a problem for geeks like us, but it is for the proverbial "my grandma." I'm psyched to see where else this code takes us and what other fun things will be runnable in the near future, now that the 800 lb. gorilla of tough integration is being tackled.
I remember as a kid, I always wanted to know how things worked (and I ended up in IT...go figure). Anyway, my dad figured this out pretty quickly after I disassembled my 15th transformer.
His solution was to get me a lot of toys that relied on principles of physics to work. Nerf projectiles, particularly the stomp on me to shoot a projectile from h=0 types, are really fun. It's like playing the artillery game in real life. Also, boomerangs, kites, home-made electromagnets, microscopes, lawn darts, croquet sets, giant styrofoam planes...all these things are both educational and genuinely fun.
Your cause is woefully unsupported. Please stop fighting for justice and just have a hamburger.
Love, Your Conquering Overlords
Seriously, just because narrow-mindedness, bigotry, self-service, and international vendetta and bullying is prevalent now doesn't mean it'll stay in style. People don't stop fighting for justice, peace, and equality just because they had a little setback. They cry, scream, and kick every step of the way, and when their cause is going to Hell they spit in the devil's eye on the way down.
So please, no more of this "please just lay down like a rug and take it like a good little Democrat" stuff. Yes, our candidate lost, which we will accept sure but not get over.
This is the same question I ask of all third party candidates and supporters, and I have yet to receive a good answer.
Why the presidency? I have read your campaign materials and spoken with some of your representatives and the universal and overwhelming impression I get is that your party's agenda is almost entirely based around policy and the amendment of it or contribution to it. Given that that is the case, why are you standing a candidate for our country's foremost executive position? It would seem that since your goals are legislative in nature, you would be better served by standing candidates for election to those bodies, namely the House and Senate.
The only answer I have been given to date is that it would be a good way to get the message out and apply the powers of the executive to support your agenda (by vetoing key policies, etc.) This is a basic abuse of the system, however, and there are more appropriate ways to go about it. I refuse to believe that your party's only reasoning in this election is to strong-arm Congress out of its Constitutional duty and to use media time granted the President for political gain on non-executive issues.
So please, tell us, why are you standing for election to a post whose Constitutional duty is solely to put into effect the very policies which you find so abhorrent?
And, as a side note, do you have any other policies? A frequent thread in third parties in the US is a complete focus on one or a few "key" issues, and a total lack of focus or regard to issues not on the agenda. How is the Green party different? What are your constructive alternatives to current energy policies? What are your plans for foreign policy? Do you have any coherent and logical policies regarding the federal debt / deficit? What reasons do you have to believe that these policies will gain the necessary support, provided that you are elected?
Wanna be more disgusted, though? Say we did get a good handle on one of them. Well, then the federal prosecutor has a hell of a job on his hands. All he has to do is make 12 people understand how spam works, how they found the guy, why their "searches" were legal, what he was doing, and why it's a crime. Which, if it were possible to make people understand, would have prevented the crime in the first place.
And, if he's really unlucky, the defendant waives jury trial and he instead has to convince one very conservative 70 year old man of all these things.
It's interesting that what John perceives as a lack of focus I perceive as merely a more diffuse / different focus. John speaks as if the goal of FOSS is business adoption and we're not doing a very good job. I question the first premise.
One of the things that makes FOSS so good is that the only people who code it are people with a need for, and thus an understanding of, a specific solution for a specific problem. Linux is not in the business of telling businesses what they need and then providing it. We're not gunning for adoption, unless I missed the memo. We're aiming to make the best software we can think of for all the things we need to do.
I think the solution to the focus problem is a no-op...there's not a problem, per se.
This isn't to say, though, that there's not a good point here. There's a great one, but it's backwards. We don't need to make linux more attractive to business, we need to start more businesses on linux. Businesses who are willing to make significant, open contributions to the code base. Think, for example, of a company which made a database product which was open, but also sold support, training, and hosting services for that database. I think it would do very well, and that's only one example.
Read the article carefully. That's a picture of the solar powered widget, not the upcoming widget. But here's hoping they look similar...that thing's cool.
Slashdot Mirror
Is the shout-out to manifest destiny intentional? "We need more wireless elbow room! These primitives don't realize you can own bandwidth! They'll give it up for pretty beads and mp3 ringtones invoking pop idols! We'd be fools not to auction it off!"
Okay, so let me get this straight. A company is searching through and compiling publicly available information, and then making some TheSpark-style random conjectures based on these data?
Where is the expectation of privacy here? Do I have a (reasonable) expectation that data about me on the internet are private? Even my grandmother can tell you that that's ridiculous. This is the cyberspace equivalent of looking through my garbage, not breaking into my house. I hope this action falls on its face, because people providing information aggregation of all kinds are a very valuable, growing part of the coolness the internet has to offer and I want to encourage them in any way possible, even if it does mean that someone might know I bought a USB Christmas tree off ThinkGeek.
Two qualifications, though:
Good point, but the analogy breaks down somewhat. There is no person who legitimately could possess drugs, and no legal reason to buy them. But notice what you're busted for if you buy drugs: possession. Not the act of buying them.
Downloading a movie isn't inherently illegal. What if I download a movie because I forgot my copy back in Boston (which I have done, by the way). That's fair use. What if I download a cracker for my company's product because the VPN is down and I need to install it? Again, doesn't matter how I got it, only that I have a right to have it.
Are these weird cases? Maybe. The point is, though, that a downloader isn't necessarily infringing. That said, I'd love to see more of the people downloading illegal content being gone after. Sharing can be done in ignorance, while going out and finding illegal stuff takes actual malice.
I don't actually think anyone is contesting this. The sharers of copyrighted works who live in areas where the copyrights in question apply are committing a crime, no question.
The questions we are positing are:
I don't like the trend in litigation lately. It's begging for judicial activism...asking point blank for the courts to neglect their duty to the law.
So many suits these days are not about someone doing something illegal, but rather about someone doing something you really really wish was illegal. This case is a prime example -- it's clear to anyone who's had first year Con Law that Kazaa is totally safe. But here we have some people who really wish it wasn't true, so they get their day in court and a chance, however slim, to write new law in the courts instead of the legislature.
The SCO case comes to mind, too. People get an idea of how they wish the law was, and sue based on that. Not just evil people, either: I seem to remember a recent case where a duly enacted law extending copyright protection was challenged in a court, not a legislature.
Of course, it would be easy to say that these people are just wrong, wrong, wrong for abusing the judicial system this way, but I think the problem goes a little deeper. People feel disenfranchised in the legislature. As soon as they elect someone, they're whisked away by the highest bidder and don't have to listen to you again for another few years. Once every few years isn't enough time to get your representative/senator's ear. The courts always have to listen to you, right now, and make a decision based on the merits of your case. That seems like a pretty attractive alternative.
Politicians are often said to have a social "contract" with their constituents. But we all know what verbal contracts are worth. I want it in writing next time. What are you promising me? What are you promising not to do?
And, when / if the time comes, I want to be able to sue you for specific performance.
Score: 1 Hojillion, Informative
I've always liked Python, but I don't think this update is enough to make me learn it.
In one respect, it is exactly what I've been hoping for. No more sweeping changes or vast syntactic variances, but they have eliminated some usability problems and silly errors. It's a very mature language now, and seems to be behaving as such, this makes me happy
Still, though, they seem to be competing for a niche that Perl has a deathgrip on for me. I use Bash whenever I can, Perl when I can't or it would be ugly, and C when I feel like I haven't had my eyeballs gouged out with hot pokers enough lately -- er, I mean when performance is at a premium.
Python's capabilities seem to rapidly be approaching what I can do with C, and God knows I want to never malloc() again, but as long as compiled binaries can be made only "Not easily," I don't think it's going to unseat Perl for my heavy-duty scripting language slot.
So a lot of this space was spent explaining to Joseph P. Siquespack, Esq. what a "protocol" was and the like, but there were two points in here that I'm really glad my great-grandboss might be reading:
Neither of the above are impossible goals! They can be done with a little thought and elbow grease. And the great part is, they're probably already being done! Next time you're reading over your IT department head's recommendations for a project, call them up and ask WHY. You might be amazed at how awesome the answer is, and it might even persuade you to put away the "my way or the highway" stamp.
...do you think it will be until people hack the network? Perhaps to intercept en-route music for their own use, or perhaps just to add a black-market underground to the existing framework, indistinguishable from legal traffic?
And, on a related note, how long before the RIAA black suits arrive at the door of someone using this software in a way that they thought was legal but the RIAA doesn't?
Sorry for the pessimism, but I really think this is a bad idea. Maximizing profit is a motive that leads to bad decisions, and voluntarily letting go of the one thing that you want to control (ie an avenue to access to your content) is one of the worse decisions I've seen in a while. It's like having an MMOG which stores your characters on the local client.
Okay, I stand completely corrected! You're right, if the game is all that then leveling shouldn't be a grind. What a bizarre culture that it's so easy to completely lose sight of that!
Still, I think it's a good idea basically, though. Maybe offer a time credit (try our game out free for a month, and if you end up canceling your other accounts you get another free month?), or maybe a cash reward in game, like equivalent to 10 quests run at the level you are when you run to the end of the month. Something transient, but neat.
The speed of the vitriol about the cost of online games was truly amazing! We got some speed typists here.
It's a religious debate as to whether or not it's worth it, so I won't weigh in. I'm just amazed that there were people hovering over their keyboards with "OMG I can't believe that anyone would pay $15 a month for something like this more like $0.15 twice a year is what I would pay!" in the paste buffer.
I was all looking forward to this game coming out, but City of Heroes snagged me instead. Not that I'm not interested, but I have friends, a supergroup, etc...
Which brings me to thinking: how long until we get some kind of trade-in service for MMORPG characters? What if I could trade into the WoW universe some portion of the time / XP I put into my CoH character? What if I got a bonus to what I got for each friend I brought along? Seems like a good business to me. You give away something worth nothing for extreme goodwill and extra subscribers.
And hey, you could even sell the characters on eBay if you wanted! Hehe.
I had been thinking lately that people using cell phones in public weren't quite annoying enough, so really this legislation is an answer to my prayers.
Hopefully to follow will be something that will make phones emit garbled conversation loudly while they're being used as phones as well. Loud beeps to tell what numbers are being pressed would also be nice.
Seriously, if you go out in public, you run the risk of being seen. Sometimes you might even be recorded being out and about. There are privacy concerns, then there is silliness. Anything that other people are allowed around does not have an expectation of privacy, so invading my privacy further with noise pollution is not only non-productive, but counterproductive.
Well, this is nice. I personally use a Mac, so I don't have much invested in the whole "I wish I could run iTunes" thing, but it's still nice. I might end up getting some good utility out of it even, if the music sharing functionality is intact.
What I'm really jazzed about, though, is that serious effort is being expended in multimedia (oooh, dated buzzword! kill him!) application compatibility. These are the areas that not only wine is lacking in, but also linux in general. The fact is that sound is tricky...even on the OS level. Not a problem for geeks like us, but it is for the proverbial "my grandma." I'm psyched to see where else this code takes us and what other fun things will be runnable in the near future, now that the 800 lb. gorilla of tough integration is being tackled.
A very excellent and articulate argument, logical and cogent. I hope the right people are listening.
I remember as a kid, I always wanted to know how things worked (and I ended up in IT...go figure). Anyway, my dad figured this out pretty quickly after I disassembled my 15th transformer.
His solution was to get me a lot of toys that relied on principles of physics to work. Nerf projectiles, particularly the stomp on me to shoot a projectile from h=0 types, are really fun. It's like playing the artillery game in real life. Also, boomerangs, kites, home-made electromagnets, microscopes, lawn darts, croquet sets, giant styrofoam planes...all these things are both educational and genuinely fun.
Your cause is woefully unsupported. Please stop fighting for justice and just have a hamburger.
Love,
Your Conquering Overlords
Seriously, just because narrow-mindedness, bigotry, self-service, and international vendetta and bullying is prevalent now doesn't mean it'll stay in style. People don't stop fighting for justice, peace, and equality just because they had a little setback. They cry, scream, and kick every step of the way, and when their cause is going to Hell they spit in the devil's eye on the way down.
So please, no more of this "please just lay down like a rug and take it like a good little Democrat" stuff. Yes, our candidate lost, which we will accept sure but not get over.
Widespread questionable activity in the electoral process! And it overwhelmingly favors Republicans!!! HOLY COW!!!
Nothing for you to see here, please move along. And take your "First Ammendment" crap with you...
Seriously! Oh, look at us we managed to make a player that runs Linux and still isn't Linux-friendly. How stupid can you get?
It's like some marketing guy came in and said "You know what's hot? Li-nux!" and then no one ever bothered to figure out why or how or with who.
This is the same question I ask of all third party candidates and supporters, and I have yet to receive a good answer.
Why the presidency? I have read your campaign materials and spoken with some of your representatives and the universal and overwhelming impression I get is that your party's agenda is almost entirely based around policy and the amendment of it or contribution to it. Given that that is the case, why are you standing a candidate for our country's foremost executive position? It would seem that since your goals are legislative in nature, you would be better served by standing candidates for election to those bodies, namely the House and Senate.
The only answer I have been given to date is that it would be a good way to get the message out and apply the powers of the executive to support your agenda (by vetoing key policies, etc.) This is a basic abuse of the system, however, and there are more appropriate ways to go about it. I refuse to believe that your party's only reasoning in this election is to strong-arm Congress out of its Constitutional duty and to use media time granted the President for political gain on non-executive issues.
So please, tell us, why are you standing for election to a post whose Constitutional duty is solely to put into effect the very policies which you find so abhorrent?
And, as a side note, do you have any other policies? A frequent thread in third parties in the US is a complete focus on one or a few "key" issues, and a total lack of focus or regard to issues not on the agenda. How is the Green party different? What are your constructive alternatives to current energy policies? What are your plans for foreign policy? Do you have any coherent and logical policies regarding the federal debt / deficit? What reasons do you have to believe that these policies will gain the necessary support, provided that you are elected?
Yeah, it's nasty all right.
Wanna be more disgusted, though? Say we did get a good handle on one of them. Well, then the federal prosecutor has a hell of a job on his hands. All he has to do is make 12 people understand how spam works, how they found the guy, why their "searches" were legal, what he was doing, and why it's a crime. Which, if it were possible to make people understand, would have prevented the crime in the first place.
And, if he's really unlucky, the defendant waives jury trial and he instead has to convince one very conservative 70 year old man of all these things.
...the ability to DoS SCO for the rest of the century...priceless.
There are some things money can't buy. For the rest, there's my Zombie Army of Evil.
It's interesting that what John perceives as a lack of focus I perceive as merely a more diffuse / different focus. John speaks as if the goal of FOSS is business adoption and we're not doing a very good job. I question the first premise.
One of the things that makes FOSS so good is that the only people who code it are people with a need for, and thus an understanding of, a specific solution for a specific problem. Linux is not in the business of telling businesses what they need and then providing it. We're not gunning for adoption, unless I missed the memo. We're aiming to make the best software we can think of for all the things we need to do.
I think the solution to the focus problem is a no-op...there's not a problem, per se.
This isn't to say, though, that there's not a good point here. There's a great one, but it's backwards. We don't need to make linux more attractive to business, we need to start more businesses on linux. Businesses who are willing to make significant, open contributions to the code base. Think, for example, of a company which made a database product which was open, but also sold support, training, and hosting services for that database. I think it would do very well, and that's only one example.
Read the article carefully. That's a picture of the solar powered widget, not the upcoming widget. But here's hoping they look similar...that thing's cool.