to use anti-tracking measures. For example, the HTTP Referrer sent by my browser always gives the site its own homepage no matter what the actual referrer would have been. I use several other measures as well (such as redirect removers) because Web sites are on a need-to-know basis and I don't recognize their need to know where I've been or how I got to their page. If I visited such a blog from Google, the blog site would not know it and it would look to the site like I just went directly to its page. I use Linux but if I were using a Windows system vulnerable to these exploits, I still would not receive the exploits. There are already abundant reasons not to give away your usage data to anyone who wants it; this just provides one more.
I think he was aiming more for the "If you boss doesn't know what you do, you won't be around for long"
My standard for a boss in that (implied) setting is that he or she is someone who is familiar with the work, and thus fit to lead a team which does that particular work. This does not necessarily require intimate expertise but does need, at minimum, an abstract and realistic understanding of the concepts involved and a sense of purpose grounded in an unclouded view of things as they are. To anyone who calls that idealistic, I say that the boss in question either meets that standard or they fail that standard but either way, the standard remains the same.
Perhaps for that reason, it did not occur to me to assume that this discussion was limited to a supervisor at work.
Only in your fantasies. Nothing will change. They'll keep the same subscriber level, and if there's any changes in level it will be due to deteriorating economic conditions.
Face it: the average schlub doesn't give a rat's ass about the security of their internet connection from the ISP itself. In their thoughts: "Why should I? I've got nothing to hide!"
When are people going to learn that it's not about whether you have something to hide? It's about what they want to find and it always was.
Linux can be the one environment that caters to users who are technically inclined, know what they're doing, and either already know how to handle desktop resolutions and printers or are willing to combine basic literacy with Google in order to inform themselves.
Two words: Pulse Audio.
It shouldn't be necessary to Google for solutions to problems that haven't existed for the OSX and Windows user since the dinosaurs last walked the earth.
Personally, I use Gentoo Linux. For that reason, I need not contend with the way someone else decided to arrange the system. I do not have Pulseaudio installed at all, and the only way it's going to get installed is if I decide to install it myself. I just use straight ALSA for all of my audio needs. It's relatively simple, effective, and generally "just works."
I have helped friends with distributions such as Kubuntu and did notice some odd sound quirks. These were issues such as the sound mixer actually locking the sound device such that the media player had no ability to utilize audio. I know that denigrating Gentoo is somewhat popular especially among some diehard Debian fans, and I know Gentoo is not for everyone. Having said that, a Gentoo system built by someone who halfway knows what he's doing just doesn't have a lot of the quirks and problems that I sometimes see among popular binary distributions. I believe this would be true of other source distributions as well. However, I am much less familiar with other source distributions, so I should restrict my commentary to Gentoo.
With Gentoo or any other source distribution, it's a lot more work to get a system set up from scratch. You have to understand how a source-based distribution works and how to correctly maintain one. However, once those basics are handled you get a rock-solid system that just works. This is the main reason I use Gentoo; the small performance gains are just icing on the cake. Now, Gentoo is not really intended for people who are new to Linux or for people who just want to get up and running as quickly as possible. Therefore, it's not generally something I would recommend for beginners.
The exception to that includes two friends of mine whom I personally tutored and supported from the beginning. They, however, were unusual in that they really did want to learn and understand and they gladly accepted that learning requires effort. In fact they viewed that effort as a fair trade or a bargain. For them, starting with Gentoo (i.e. installing it manually) combined with my approach to instruction was profoundly educational and edifying. My approach to instruction is very simple: instead of handing out easy answers, I show them how to find their own answers and it starts by asking the right questions. I explain to them that good research skills and "learning how to learn" is much more important than how many facts you can memorize by rote. But don't try this unless you are glad to teach and support someone and don't find it to be a burden. If I had just handed them a Gentoo installation CD and said "ok, have fun" they would not have enjoyed it and may have been turned off to Linux entirely.
Sorry if I am rambling here. I'll go back to Pulseaudio now. In my opinion, the inclusion of Pulseaudio, or for that matter any comparable sound server, by mainstream distributions is a mistake. The actual need to remotely play sound over a network is an unusual edge case. The vast majority of users don't need the functionality. Therefore, it represents unnecessary complexity, and with it, a higher chance of problems. It would be much better to just use ALSA and maybe publish a Wiki page explaining how to enable Pulseaudio for the few users who specifically need it. Chances are very good that those few users who need it are knowledgable enough to enable it on their own, while the "newbie" or "casual user" crowd that Kubuntu/Ubuntu is designed for are unlikely to have the skill to resolve problems with the audio system. So to me, the decision that was made doesn't make much sense.
Some people will argue "job-security through obscurity", but if your job depends on other people not understanding what you do, it's bound to end sooner rather than later anyway.
So how do you explain the continued existence of doctors and lawyers?
Otherwise I agree with your post. Just wanted to question that one bit.
One size does fit all from a support point of view. If I want to walk a windows user through changing the desktop resolution, it's easy. If I want to find out which printer is their default printer, again easy. Good luck doing those in linux. Everything is all over the place. Linux will not gain mainstream acceptance until it is easy to support.
What follows is my personal opinion. Ideally, Linux can be the one (or one of the few) environment that caters to users who are technically inclined, know what they're doing, and either already know how to handle desktop resolutions and printers or are willing to combine basic literacy with Google in order to inform themselves. Users who don't want to learn how the machine works already have two major systems designed specifically for them: Windows and OSX. To me it makes perfect sense that Linux would be Open Source because Microsoft and Apple both recognize that the real money is gained by appealing to the general public and the general public is nearly technophobic.
I say that because I strongly believe that anyone who is literate and has access to Google can inform themselves. There is no conspiracy or secret cabal trying to hide any of the information one would need in order to understand any system I have named. It's out there, it's available, and it's accessible; it's purely a case of the average person not wanting to utilize it or otherwise to educate themselves. These are the folks who find "easy to use" and "supported by a vendor"** worth paying for. Therefore, the beauty of Open Source allows Linux to exist independently of the financial success of any particular company or organization so there is no reason to appease a crowd that major vendors already cater to. I also don't believe Linux could hope to displace Windows on the desktop without sacrificing many of the things I really enjoy about it. For these reasons, I am not concerned with whether Linux will ever bankrupt Microsoft and I don't view that as its purpose.
** I am far less familiar with OSX so I'll limit my comment here to Windows and Linux. I'll add that I don't really think Windows is very easy to use. I personally find it cumbersome, sometimes tedious, and sometimes difficult to automate. I would describe Windows as "easy to learn" but learning all about it doesn't make it much more convenient to use. I would describe Linux as having a much steeper learning curve by comparison, particularly if you are thorough and intend to master the command line. However, once the investment of overcoming that learning curve is made, you then find yourself with a system that doesn't get in your way or second-guess your actions. The more you master Linux, the more you can automate and the more you can get it to do with less and less effort on your part. The more you learn about it, the easier it is to perform complex tasks with an economy of expression that is difficult to find in a non-Unix system.
Also, the times I have needed support for Linux, what I found was a community of volunteers who welcomed me with open arms and provided a level of support that rivals or exceeds anything you would get with a commercial support contract. All of this was from volunteers who do what they do because they care. I believe that part of what made this possible is that the questions they were answering concerned real bugs and real problems. They were not drowning in a sea of trivial issues of the sort that are well-familiar to anyone who has ever worked a front-line technical support role. This allowed them to focus their efforts on issues that really did require the attention of experts which, in my opinion, makes a big difference.
Slack language is a cause and/or result of slack thinking. For example, single TV episodes advertised as "all new" or the Dodge Ram commercial that states the truck is "all brawn, all brain" - sigh.
What about ManBearPig? In the episode he was described as "half man, half bear, and half pig". So he's 1.5 individuals!
And I definitely agree about the slack thinking. There is nothing quite like a disciplined mind that serves you well with efficient and effective action. Minds become that way by not yielding so easily to the temptation to cut corners and exhibit laziness and it starts with the tiny insignificant things first. Think of all the native English speakers who cannot correctly use words like "loose"/"lose" or "they're"/"there"/"their". It shows that they still struggle with basic usage of their native language, the sorts of issues that they should have worked out back in elementary school. It's noteworthy that foreigners who learn English as a second (or third) langauge tend not to make these mistakes.
Having said that, I'll add that It's okay to have a hard time with something. Not everyone is a great writer or a good speaker and we all have something we're not very good at doing. What's not okay is when an excuse is made for it. The original mistake is just a simple error, like spilling the milk or working an equation incorrectly and getting the wrong answer. It doesn't make you a moron and it doesn't make you a bad person. It's the kind of error that anyone could potentially make because they're human.
The excuse, on the other hand, is cowardly in a sense. It attempts to justify or dismiss something that is clearly incorrect, and all of this to avoid the process of saying "ah-hah, I made a mistake there. Now I know what to do differently in the future." I suspect that they think they are showing weakness or acting "inferior" if for even one moment they say "hey, you're correct; you are right and I had that wrong." The obsession over preventing the perception of inferiority at all costs, including the cost of accuracy, is why I call this cowardly. Nowhere in this can you find the security of knowing that you are who and what you are, whether or not anyone else thinks so.
By and large, people who make those grammatical mistakes are full of excuses. It's the reason why they keep making the same mistakes and their writing does not gradually improve with usage over time the same way that other skills would. You would expect a blacksmith to make a higher-quality knife after 20 years of experience than anything he made when he first started out. So why do native English speakers fail to correctly apply rules of grammar that they should have learned and mastered as children?
The blacksmith has a boss who expects a certain level of job performance, and if he is not internally motivated by an appreciation of his craft then this external motivation will spur him to improve his work. The average Slashdotter who reads and posts for leisure has no external motivation. The only reason why he'd try to get things right is because he values excellence. When you value excellence, you don't see yourself as a static person who scrapes by on the path of least resistance. You see yourself as a dynamic, growing individual who gradually learns more and becomes better at everything you do, whether or not anyone is looking, whether or not anyone is impressed, and whether or not you would have been penalized for a lesser effort. It's an internal thing. The reason to become a better speaker and a better writer is simple: you speak and write on a daily basis, so your life (and quite possibly others) is enriched by being able to do these things well. It's also hard to really enjoy doing something when you struggle to achieve even basic competency.
The antithesis of this is a form of laziness with perhaps some elements of apathy. In that case, you're not really convinced that it's worth doing at all because yo
So you have a city below sea level protected by a barrier which cannot possibly handle an event that you know with certainty will one day happen. Additionally, all those years that passed without it happening were ample opportunity to reinforce the levee and otherwise to prepare for that eventuality.
The judge agrees with you:
'It is the court's opinion that the negligence of the corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia, and shortsightedness,'
The thing is, the judge lives, along with most of us, in a world where people and organizations have some minimal obligation to other people. Thus, when there is a government organization whose responsibility it is to build levees that will protect a city full or people, and when this organization fails to protect against something that is, as both you and the judge point out, perfectly predictable, then we say this organization has been negligent, and we hold it responsible. We call this state of affairs civilization. Come join us!
That's cute of you to talk about what world most people live in. There's an assumption behind that, of course. Not surprisingly it's an unstated assumption, so I'll state it for you. The assumption is that government's responsibility can exist, or the personal responsibility of the people who chose to live in New Orleans can exist, but not both.
I reject this view. I agree that the government should be held liable. That's one issue. I also believe that the people who chose to live in New Orleans were taking a risk, should have known it, and should accept that this is the choice they made. That's another, separate issue. They are not mutually exclusive.
I agree that the government has an obligation to maintain basic infrastructure such as those levees. They should be held fully responsible for any negligence they displayed. But should the government fail in this way, for any reason, then if I live in that area I have an obligation to myself and my family to get out of harm's way. That's because it is a disaster waiting to happen. If I do otherwise then I am showing the exact same negligence that the government has shown, just on a smaller scale. Once out of harm's way, that'd be a perfect time to petition the government, talk to the media about it, or otherwise to try to change the situation.
In other words, my responsibility to myself and my family is not nullified just because the government fails to meet its own responsibility. That point is ignored when you want to play the blame game and say "hah, it's 100% the fault of government, therefore we who could have known better are totally absolved of all blame!" I say to hell with blame and with all of these petty games centered around it. It's just distracts from the process of actually understanding how this disaster could have been sidestepped.
For that reason, blame and how to avoid it does not interest me. What does interest me is effective action based on correctly recognizing a problem and proactively dealing with it. I don't care if it's top-down (government reinforces levee) or bottom-up (people get out of inevitable disaster); either way, that's what needs to happen. Your patronizing tone indicates that this point was lost on you.
Just an observation, anytime you mention personal responsibility and why it's important, people really don't like to hear it. However, they won't just tell you "I reject the notion of personal responsibility", nor will they simply say "I don't like the topic of personal responsibility." Instead, they might accuse you of "blaming the victim", which is easy to do, seldom if ever requires any proof or reasoning, and often scores sympathy points with any audience. Or they might find another entity that was also negligent, such as government, and imply that personal responsibility doesn't exist merely because someone else also screwed up. If you observe people, you will see that this is a recurring pattern.
I could see blaming the French for setting up a fort / trading post in a vulnerable but lucrative location, but blaming fifth or sixth generation native-borns (who weren't exactly rolling in dough) for not moving away seems a bit Darwinian.
It's not about blame. It's about the choice of either taking effective action or waiting until there is a disaster so you can assign blame. If I live in New Orleans prior to Katrina and the federal government won't fund better levees, I might ask the state or local governments to do so. If they won't do so, then I can't do it myself.
At that point, if the government won't do it and I can't do it myself, then two options remain: 1) stick around and eventually get hit by an inevitable disaster, or 2) move away and leave the area to its fate. I'll take the second option every time. If I have a family, then it's no longer an option at all; I would then have an obligation to safeguard my family and would be a piss-poor husband/father if I cared about the inconvenience of moving more than their well-being.
Now, why don't others see it in terms of foresight and proactive action? Do they see it differently because they have a superior point of view? I would argue that a point of view which needlessly places them and their families in danger is not superior. Take a hard look and you'll find that they didn't care enough to look into it, didn't use some foresight and some sense, or naively expected that government would take care of everything without their input. None of these are good attributes worthy of acquisition.
They are all personal failings or character weaknesses. Calling them by their proper names is the first step towards getting rid of this victim mentality which, in the name of "compassion", wants to tell people who are not helpless that they are helpless victims. I don't find anything compassionate about telling people that they are helplessly at the mercy of every problem that might come their way, like a leaf in the wind. I think doing so condemns them to experiencing a lot of preventable suffering. I don't think people need my pity. I think they need to inform and equip themselves and learn to be their own masters.
So, before Katrina did you know all about the levees?
Is that one of those tourist hotspots that everybody goes to see?
If I visited for a weekend perhaps then I would take my chances. That's not unreasonable because hurricane warnings are generally early enough that you would have time to leave town if one was headed that way.
However, if I were moving to New Orleans from another area, you're damned right I would investigate such things. I'd also learn what the schools are like and how they perform if I intended to raise a family there. I would learn things like the crime rate and the cost of living. Why would I do something blindly and haphazardly if I don't have to? If I can't be bothered to learn a few basic things about an area and choose to move there anyway, and something predictable happens to me as a result of moving there, that would be my fault. If something is my fault, I am never going to fix that fault of mine if I find someone else to blame.
You'll never catch me building a home on a fault line. I won't build one in a flood plain either. For that matter, I wouldn't live right next to an active volcano. For the same reason, I wouldn't live in an area below sea level in a part of the USA that regularly gets hit by hurricanes unless I was completely satisfied that it was sufficiently protected. That people believe this is some unusually thorough or out-of-the-box thinking is the real problem here.
Besides, even passive people who think that basic research and a little foreknowledge is a terribly unreasonable burden that no one can expect them to take on (hah) could have known about the levees. The army corps have warned about their inadequacy since the 1960s as others in this thread have pointed out. That means this has been a known issue for nearly half a century. I am nowhere near New Orleans and I know that; if anything, the locals should be better informed about it than me.
Look, I think I understand your objection here. You think I'm blaming the victim. Show me a real victim who had no way of knowing better and suffers through no fault of their own and you won't ever see me doing that. True victims, however, are rare. People who had opportunity to know better but didn't, and only because they didn't care to inform themselves, are not actually victims.
When you decide that basic understanding is not important and not worth acquiring, you are taking a risk. You risk suffering from things that basic understanding would have protected you from. They took a risk that they had the ability to know they were taking and it didn't work out for them. They are not victims of Katrina any more than a gambler who loses money is a victim of the casino.
This is actually a good thing because a real victim is powerless. If the people hit by Katrina are not actually victims but could have known better, it means they can learn from the experience and never have to have another experience like that again. They can take control of this aspect of their lives. They don't need to be helpless. That's good for them and for anyone who doesn't want them to be helpless and powerless. However, they will remain helpless and powerless as long as their main concern is whom to blame.
Anyone who knows anything about civil engineers that build these? They take on the responsibility for those structures. Since it was built by a government agency, designed to make the area habitable and protect people, not ONLY should the government be keeping track of it (that's one thing we pay taxes for! People ARE being responsible, they're paying for that service!) but so should the engineers who built it, because they're legally liable in the first place.
I agree that the government should be legally liable here. That doesn't mean the people who suffered the most from Katrina couldn't have known better. The government would be legally liable because of its negligence; that is
Appealing to "individual responsibility" is fun and all; but senseless if perspective is not kept.
Living below sea level is stupid. However, living below sea level behind a levee designed specifically to make that area habitable, which has been doing exactly that for years and years now is considerably less stupid.
Does "individual responsibility" require near-Cartesian levels of doubt in every possible piece of infrastructure?
The levee could not handle a Category 3 hurricane. Category 3 hurricanes which hit that area are periodic events that happen from time to time; they are absolutely inevitable. So you have a city below sea level protected by a barrier which cannot possibly handle an event that you know with certainty will one day happen. Additionally, all those years that passed without it happening were ample opportunity to reinforce the levee and otherwise to prepare for that eventuality. This did not happen. This alone would dissuade me from living there because the result is absolutely predictable. It's only a question of when.
What do you call it when people make themselves available for preventable disasters that are easy to foresee? Usually the word "stupid" is used to describe actions like this. "Stupid" is also used to describe people who need a politician or other official to tell them when something is a bad idea because they've lost their common sense and have replaced it with various authority figures. So without a government mandate or official inquiry they, acting on their own, would not seriously question the integrity of the levees or the tremendous risk they were taking. That sheeplike dependency, that inability to independently question and reason, explains not only why New Orleans was such a terrible diaster but also most of American politics and government expansion.
If you want to do something constructive, don't feel sorry for them or make excuses for them. Those sentiments are probably meant well but they accomplish nothing. They have no power to prevent a future disaster. If you want to do something, use this as an example for why there is no substitute for thinking for yourself and assessing your own risks. Let it represent why there is no substitute for those things, that all kinds of preventable harm is caused by the failure to value those things. The (minority of) people who understand this got out of New Orleans a long time ago and wouldn't have considered moving back without substantial improvements to the inadequate levee. The rest were surprised by the inevitable, which is like choosing to be a victim.
So yes, individual responsibility was a big factor here. It's not about doubting everything to an absurd degree. It's about knowing the situation you're in and putting yourself into a different situation if it's an invitation to disaster. But the folks who were hit hardest were not thinkers. They didn't think about their situation or compare it to other situations or evaluate risks. They had no such awareness. They just did their daily thing without a second thought and were surprised when something happened. That's the real message here.
Yes indeed. You can always make a network-facing daemon that has been heavily audited more secure by putting a Python script between it and the public Internet.
What I will say here applies to password logins. For SSHD that is configured to accept only cryptographic/public-key authentication, the attacks that Denyhosts would block are only a nuisance (they fill up logfiles).
That heavily-audited network-facing daemon does not concern itself with password security. You can allow remote root logins and set your root password to "password" and that daemon will faithfully do what you told it to do. The heavy audits are designed to make sure that a person who does not have a valid login cannot get a shell without first guessing valid login credentials. The Python script makes it infeasible for a single host to brute-force those login credentials assuming a reasonably strong password. Thus, it addresses a security issue that is actually beyond the scope of SSHD.
Personally I prefer SSHGuard because it will use iptables to drop packets from offending hosts. In my opinion that's a better approach than adding the hosts to a hosts.deny file. A host listed in hosts.deny can still try to connect to your daemon; it will just be immediately disconnected. By contrast, anything firewalled by iptables and set to DROP won't even get so much as a momentary TCP connection. Not a big difference, but I say let them wonder if you're even online anymore. There's also no dependency on the robustness of tcpwrappers (well-tested though they may be).
If Psystar was a stalking horse then the only reason that makes sense is that someone wants Apple to lock their OS to their hardware.
Apple doesn't seem too concerned by hobbyists building Frankenmacs. Their ever vigilant lawyers haven't been jackbooting down doors and dragging offenders to court.
There have been instances in the past where an OS-maker has turned a blind eye to, if not actually facilitating, its OS being pirated simply to deny a competitor marketshare. Maybe somebody was worried that Apple was moving in this direction.
However, if Apple is provoked into action by a startup selling Frankenmacs might they not decide to implement a TPM system to lock the OS to Macs-only?
No more hobby Frankenmacs and Apple is seen as not only closed software but closed hardware too. The Technorati would be incensed and Apple would wear the black eye forever.
I would speculate that Apple is not really threatened by Frankenmacs in general. The kind of hobbyist who is technically inclined and is willing to put something like this together is probably outside of their target audience. I have known people who bought Macs not because they were fans of Apple, but because they were dissatisfied with PCs loaded with Windows. They were not technically inclined and most of their PC problems could be put into two broad categories: configuration issues and malware. They found Macs to be a breath of fresh air not because they think Apple is "hip" and "cool" but because they found its GUI to be easy and intuitive and its underlying Unix system to be rock-solid stable and not prone to malware. They felt like they found something that "just worked" and felt like that is what they were paying a higher price for. I think of these folks as Apple's target audience.
For those reasons, TPM would be a rather extreme measure. They are, at least for now, taking the "other option" of going after commercial Frankenmac producers legally instead of technologically. The precendent this sets is quite likely to discourage other companies from doing the same. The only ones left who are building Frankenmacs are doing so personally and not commercially and for the reasons I mentioned above, are probably not Apple's main market.
Psystar isn't a front for anyone. That doesn't mean they haven't been used by real players.
The truly powerful don't need to do anything so unsubtle as conspiracy nuts like to believe. They can take existing bit players, and give them the right nudge for the same effect.
That scenario would make Paystar a "useful idiot" as some call it, which provides added deniability for the people who pull the strings. That still falls under long-term strategy and plausible deniability. My observation was deliberately worded in a simple way because understanding of this topic is sorely missing in the general public. When the audience you intend to reach is unfamiliar with a topic, you don't usually start with the most advanced material.
Things like strategy, plausible deniability, propaganda techniques, and argumentation fallacies are either not taught in the public schools or are given only the most superficial treatment. Therefore, most people either don't know about them or have no real mastery of the concepts. When they see a politician talking about an issue, they don't immediately see patterns of influence and don't ask questions like "qui bono?" That the public schools don't cover these topics is no excuse for the widespread ignorance. People generally spend far more time educating themselves about things that have much less of an impact on their lives.
This means that the general population is easy prey for what is effectively a ruling class that does have this knowledge and is in the profession of using it. This population understands the actual realities of politics about as well as the average Roman citizen understood the intent of "bread and circus".
I know. They'll say, but, but, but... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out.... coming from Pamela, who revealed that Microsoft played no small role funding the SCO debacle though bogus license purchase.
If you follow patent troll cases for example, you would know that shell business are often set up by litigants for the sole purpose of facilitating a lawsuit. Once you've acquired your defunct IP, you set up a web site to demonstrate intent to sell a product. Sure it's not strictly necessary to test the patent but it can help when it come times to assess damages, and it garners judge and jury sympathies (especially if you can get it tried in the Texas east district).
So, who was behind Psystar? Dell perhaps? There's no chance in hell a startup box builder would go to these lengths to test a legal theory. Their vested interest in the supposed business was a pittance compared to the cost to fight this, so where'd they get the money?
Obviously, Psystar was staged for the exclusive purpose of being sued.
It makes you wonder. Incidentally, it's amazing how often "you're a conspiracy nut" comes from people who have no grasp of long-term strategy and really don't know the first thing about it. The person or group who works towards a goal in incremental steps (each of which has an excuse or plausible deniability) over longer periods of time is much more likely to get what they want than the person or group who goes for a short-term, win-or-lose, once-and-for-all type of showdown. That's particularly true when what they want to get is illegal, immoral, or goes against things like tradition, social convention, or public opinion. Recognizing this reality is the first step towards truly understanding business and politics.
You consider the data analytics and adverts track to be "personal data", but when/. (and RL stores, banks, CCTV, etc, etc) log equally or more personal data (or identical datasets) you have no problem with it.
This implies your reason for blocking certain content isn't about protecting your user data.
It's a plain double-standard, whether I'm insecure or magicians have me under their spell doesn't really come into it.
Slashdot logs data on its own slashdot.org site. Google and others log not only on their own sites, but also on many others. Either you are being deliberately dense or you really cannot seem to grasp the concept that Slashdot's methods cannot be used to build useful profiles on me while Google's methods can do that. Slashdot is not actively trying to track my behaviors while Google is. So Slashdot gets a very minimal set of data (otherwise I could not use the site) while Google is routinely blocked. See the difference?
To give an analogy, Slashdot is like me walking into a store. The store's owner can see that I am there and can see what I am doing, but I can see him too. When I walk out of his store, he leaves me alone. You see, this isn't tracking.
Google is like me walking into a store. The store's owner can see that I am there and can see what I am doing, but I can see him too. When I walk out of his store, he tries to follow me and this time he tries not to be noticable. He writes down the names of every other store I go to so he can sell me similar items later. You see, that is tracking. I will take measures to block this guy that would not be necessary to use on Slashdot. Why? Oh yeah, because they're two different situations so I handle them in two different ways. Yes, I know, it's the ultimate in hypocrisy and double-standards isn't it? It may even club baby seals to death.
Bottom line, my data is mine to do with as I please. The more intrusively someone tries to obtain it, the more willing I am to take steps to prevent them from doing so.
And yeah, you're insecure. Your car is yours to do with as you please, and for that reason, I wouldn't put your driving habits under a microscope and look for inconsistencies and double-standards. That's because I have no need to portray you any particular way. My data is mine to do with as I please also. Yet for some reason you want to tell me there is anything wrong with feeling that way about it. The "double-standard" you point out doesn't exist: Slashdot is not an intrusive Web site so there's little reason for me to treat it like one.
Again, if you don't like what I do with my private data, feel free to set a better example by using yours in a way that you think is appropriate. If you do, that's your business. It's not my place to tell you what you should do with what is rightfully yours, and in fact, everything I have said on this subject is my personal opinion. I'm not shocked or challenged when your personal opinion is different. I don't view that as a problem I need to correct. That's why I don't understand your need to win a convert. It's just not going to happen, so get over it. Incidentally, the imaginary double-standards do not make you any more convincing.
It's not paranoid, just unworkable. Your info is stored on/.'s servers, most likely still used to "derive monetary value" by scaling up viewer figures for advertisers. You want/. to send you a contract to sign before you can comment?
What info is that? The disposable e-mail address with which I created the account? My username of "causality"? My password that is unique to this site and is not used anyplace else? My IP address which is really public information anyway, and does not uniquely identify me because I am on a shared connection with a NAT router? My HTTP referrer that always returns the site's own homepage no matter what the actual referrer would have been? I could try to exhaustively list everything but I think you get the picture.
And, you misunderstood me. A contract would be Slashdot's way to obligate me to provide them with accurate information. Additionally, Slashdot itself doesn't try to track my browsing habits. Sure, they log what I do on their own sites, but you won't find a 1x1 pixel Web bug (or anything like it) from Slashdot on somerandompage.com because Slashdot is not in that business. Comparing Slashdot to the advertising companies employing proactive tracking measures (that were obviously the subject of my post) is less than intellectually honest.
I suspect the difference has a more to do with blocking ads than some real moral objection to mass data collection.
I for one would block ads whether or not an attempt is made to collect my data. They are two separate issues. As I have already stated, my objection to mass data collection is that it occurs without my consent. I am a big believer in the virtues of informed consent. After all, if it is such a legitimate business practice, then informed consent should not be a problem. If it is a shady business practice, then maybe they wouldn't want to call attention to it.
Basically you don't want to see ads, so you blocked them along with analytics, but you want to see/. stories so you'll surrender your precious data without hesitation (let alone signed contract).
Your suggestion (an assumption really) that I am a hypocrite rests on your belief that I am making a special exception for Slashdot because I enjoy Slashdot's content. I do enjoy Slashdot's content. However, I have made no exceptions and the first paragraph of this post explains that for you. Slashdot has none of my private data. If accurate private data became a requirement for using this site, I would find another site.
That's fine, but don't go trumpeting it around like you're on some crusade
What crusade? I do what I do not as a product of random chance, but because I have my reasons. I have stated some of those reasons because it came up in the conversation. Your line there can be reworded thusly: "censor any beliefs you have that I dislike, or I will overreact to them by calling it a crusade and pretending like mentioning something germane to the conversation is the same as 'trumpeting' it". I don't think you are deliberately intending that (though some will knowingly do this because it works so well on most people). I point it out because I don't think you realize it or actually understand the message you are sending.
I'll be blunt here. I am not some pushover who will either censor himself or alter his beliefs in order to please you and you can either respect the integrity of that or you can hate me for it -- your choice. Because of that, you'll just have to get over the fact that I might do things you don't like or don't agree with. If you can't handle that without making a mountain of a molehill or making assumptions about my beliefs, this is your problem. It is yours to either overcome or further succumb to. I won't legitimize it by acquiescing to it and my involvement in it ends there.
It's not "free for the taking". It's "free in exchange for free content on the web".
(Note, I'm not arguing against ad blockers or the like.. just like I 30 second skip through the vast vast vast majority of commercials on my Tivos, and FFed through them on my VCR before that.)
If they want to hold me to an obligation which entails consideration (the exchange of one thing of value for another thing of value) there is an existing mechanism for that: it's called a contract. Until and unless I consent to an agreement stating otherwise, my data is mine and they may not have it. In fact, I am particularly disinclined to give them what they falsely feel entitled to have. Meanwhile, if they choose to have a publically available, free-to-use service on an open network that anyone with a Web browser can freely reach and utilize at no charge, that service is also theirs to do with as they please. No one forced them to make it freely available; they willingly chose to do that. Thus, in the absence of any contract or other binding agreement, I have no obligation to guarantee the success of anyone's business model.
If this arrangement is not to their liking, they are free to deny me access to any sites they own. They are also free to innovate and come up with a way to require payments, acceptance of advertising, or participation in data-mining as a condition of using their site. In the absence of such requirements, anyone who tries to make me feel obligated is either manipulative or misguided. It could be manipulative because they want to use emotional appeals designed to make me feel bad about using for free what is offered for free. It could also be misguided because such people don't understand that the Internet is a open, public network; the reason you put a Web server on a public network with no access controls (such as passwords or paywalls) is because you want the public to use it.
There was an Internet before there was any advertising-funded content. If that business model fails, there will be an Internet after it, too. Besides, companies like Google are more than shrewd enough to realize that for every person like me who will take whatever steps are necessary to safeguard his privacy, there are thousands of users who don't even know what trackers are. This can be regarded as one definition of their business model, though certainly not an exhaustive one.
That's why smart web developers put those scripts at the end of the body.
It's also why smart users filter them outright with something like AdBlock - anything that I see in the browser history that looks like a tracking/stats domain or URL gets blocked on sight. Come to think of it, I could probably clean it up publish it as an AdBlock filter list if anyone's interested; there's only a few dozen entries on there at the moment, but I'm sure that would grow pretty quickly if it was used by a more general and less paranoid userbase.
What's paranoid about insisting that a company bring a proposal, make me an offer, and sign a contract if they want to derive monetary value from my personal data? Instead, they feel my data is free for the taking and this entitlement mentality is the main reason why I make an effort to block all forms of tracking. I never gave consent to anyone to track anything I do, so why should I honor an agreement in which I did not participate? The "goodness" or "evil-ness" of their intentions doesn't even have to be a consideration. Sorry but referring to that as "paranoid" is either an attempt to demagogue it, or evidence that someone else's attempt to demagogue it was successful on you.
Are some people quite paranoia? Sure. Does that mean you should throw out all common sense, pretend like there are only paranoid reasons to disallow tracking, and ignore all reasonable concerns? No. Sure, someone who paints with a broad brush might notice that your actions (blocking trackers) superficially resemble some actions taken by paranoid people. Allowing that to affect your decison-making only empowers those who are superficial and quick to assume because you are kowtowing to them. This is what insecure people do. If the paranoid successfully tarnish the appearance of an otherwise reasonable action because we care too much about what others may think, it can only increase the damage caused by paranoia.
Then imagine what would happen if everyone came to accept these few simple things.
Boy, that sounds great.
Now, do you have any good suggestions for solving the problems of the world we actually live in? Change human nature, perhaps?;)
Sorry to be snide. Your world does sound great, but I think you'll have to fight an uphill battle if you fight against peoples' desire to be lazy.
There is precedent for what you call my world. The USA was not unlike this shortly after it was founded. While the book itself is about public education and how we obtained the system we know today, the best reference for this known to me is John Taylor Gatto's book which can be read online in its entirety for free.
What they wont know, unless they happen to be of the small percentage that cares to investigate, is that the "feature" they are buying into is actually a loss of feature and a relinquishing of control over their own equipment.
You want less BS like this, expand that "small percentage". Bite the bullet and decide that maybe doing some legwork and investigating the truth of a claim before accepting it at face value is how human beings should be. Consider that doing otherwise is a defective practice as evidenced by the deception it leaves one open to. Accept that illiteracy or pure inexcusable laziness would be the only reasons for failure to do so, ever since the advent of Google.
Then imagine what would happen if everyone came to accept these few simple things. Most or all of the control exerted over us by various political and corporate entities comes from their power to deceive, misrepresent, and outright bullshit. That's why the MPAA doesn't say "we want dictatorial control over hardware we don't own" and instead says "this will help us deliver more content." Of course the MPAA is the least of what this mechanism has brought us. I'd like to see what would happen to governments if the general population learned to have high-quality bullshit detectors. Right now, the majority who can't (or won't) handle basic research and argumentation are accepting faulty policies, endorsing flawed ideas, and generally creating a terribly gloomy and cynical world for the minority who can.
They just should cancel the indexing with the words, upon informal public request by newscorp we no longer index their sites...
Agreed. I was hoping that "Lehk228" could tell me why he thinks that would be so childish since he claimed that it was. Apparently he's a subscriber to the "when asked to substantiate, just go silent and pretend you didn't see the question" school of thought. That's a popular school of thought these days.
So is that why SETI doesn't get more funding? The Navy knows there aren't any signals out there because they're getting their allies to block any new incoming transmissions...
It all makes sense now!
SETI is for show and they hide the real stuff that is going on.
ALSO THE AIR FORCE HAS space ships based on allies tech.
I work for someone who is wealthy enough to just plain stop, right now, and live happily ever after. He easily works 60 hours a week at the office, and probably more if he takes anything home with him. We've talked about the quandary you just presented.
His answer as to why he continues to build and expand: "Because I really enjoy it." And I don't think there's much more to be said about it, except that some folks like playing football, or billiards. Some folks paint pictures for fun. And some folks build empires. It's like playing Risk, but with real assets.
I know I'm replying to you a second time, but I wanted to add something.
I guess I am one of those "oddballs" (at least in this society it would seem so) because I value quality time with people I love and care about much more than any game of Risk that I don't actually need to play. What follows is a rhetorical question. If your boss has a family, how often does he say "I just don't have the time" to his wife and children in order to put in those 60+ hours a week, or if he doesn't have his own family, how many people hear that from him who still care about him very much?
To me this is not about whether working a job that you enjoy has merit. Certainly it does. It's about priorities and whether you have any that mean more to you. It's about the fact that there are only so many hours in one day and only so many days in one lifetime.
I work for someone who is wealthy enough to just plain stop, right now, and live happily ever after. He easily works 60 hours a week at the office, and probably more if he takes anything home with him. We've talked about the quandary you just presented.
His answer as to why he continues to build and expand: "Because I really enjoy it." And I don't think there's much more to be said about it, except that some folks like playing football, or billiards. Some folks paint pictures for fun. And some folks build empires. It's like playing Risk, but with real assets.
Is this person generally a good or at least decent man? Or is he a despotic, ruthless, Machiavellian type like (in my opinion) Murdoch is? I believe that makes a significant difference. I don't imagine Murdoch truly rejoicing in much of anything to tell you the truth. He probably views his personal enjoyment as something he had to sacrifice to a) get where he is today and b) demonstrate his single-minded dedication. If you have ever encountered the type before, then you know what I mean.
Slashdot Mirror
to use anti-tracking measures. For example, the HTTP Referrer sent by my browser always gives the site its own homepage no matter what the actual referrer would have been. I use several other measures as well (such as redirect removers) because Web sites are on a need-to-know basis and I don't recognize their need to know where I've been or how I got to their page. If I visited such a blog from Google, the blog site would not know it and it would look to the site like I just went directly to its page. I use Linux but if I were using a Windows system vulnerable to these exploits, I still would not receive the exploits. There are already abundant reasons not to give away your usage data to anyone who wants it; this just provides one more.
I think he was aiming more for the "If you boss doesn't know what you do, you won't be around for long"
My standard for a boss in that (implied) setting is that he or she is someone who is familiar with the work, and thus fit to lead a team which does that particular work. This does not necessarily require intimate expertise but does need, at minimum, an abstract and realistic understanding of the concepts involved and a sense of purpose grounded in an unclouded view of things as they are. To anyone who calls that idealistic, I say that the boss in question either meets that standard or they fail that standard but either way, the standard remains the same.
Perhaps for that reason, it did not occur to me to assume that this discussion was limited to a supervisor at work.
Only in your fantasies. Nothing will change. They'll keep the same subscriber level, and if there's any changes in level it will be due to deteriorating economic conditions.
Face it: the average schlub doesn't give a rat's ass about the security of their internet connection from the ISP itself. In their thoughts: "Why should I? I've got nothing to hide!"
When are people going to learn that it's not about whether you have something to hide? It's about what they want to find and it always was.
Linux can be the one environment that caters to users who are technically inclined, know what they're doing, and either already know how to handle desktop resolutions and printers or are willing to combine basic literacy with Google in order to inform themselves.
Two words: Pulse Audio.
It shouldn't be necessary to Google for solutions to problems that haven't existed for the OSX and Windows user since the dinosaurs last walked the earth.
Personally, I use Gentoo Linux. For that reason, I need not contend with the way someone else decided to arrange the system. I do not have Pulseaudio installed at all, and the only way it's going to get installed is if I decide to install it myself. I just use straight ALSA for all of my audio needs. It's relatively simple, effective, and generally "just works."
I have helped friends with distributions such as Kubuntu and did notice some odd sound quirks. These were issues such as the sound mixer actually locking the sound device such that the media player had no ability to utilize audio. I know that denigrating Gentoo is somewhat popular especially among some diehard Debian fans, and I know Gentoo is not for everyone. Having said that, a Gentoo system built by someone who halfway knows what he's doing just doesn't have a lot of the quirks and problems that I sometimes see among popular binary distributions. I believe this would be true of other source distributions as well. However, I am much less familiar with other source distributions, so I should restrict my commentary to Gentoo.
With Gentoo or any other source distribution, it's a lot more work to get a system set up from scratch. You have to understand how a source-based distribution works and how to correctly maintain one. However, once those basics are handled you get a rock-solid system that just works. This is the main reason I use Gentoo; the small performance gains are just icing on the cake. Now, Gentoo is not really intended for people who are new to Linux or for people who just want to get up and running as quickly as possible. Therefore, it's not generally something I would recommend for beginners.
The exception to that includes two friends of mine whom I personally tutored and supported from the beginning. They, however, were unusual in that they really did want to learn and understand and they gladly accepted that learning requires effort. In fact they viewed that effort as a fair trade or a bargain. For them, starting with Gentoo (i.e. installing it manually) combined with my approach to instruction was profoundly educational and edifying. My approach to instruction is very simple: instead of handing out easy answers, I show them how to find their own answers and it starts by asking the right questions. I explain to them that good research skills and "learning how to learn" is much more important than how many facts you can memorize by rote. But don't try this unless you are glad to teach and support someone and don't find it to be a burden. If I had just handed them a Gentoo installation CD and said "ok, have fun" they would not have enjoyed it and may have been turned off to Linux entirely.
Sorry if I am rambling here. I'll go back to Pulseaudio now. In my opinion, the inclusion of Pulseaudio, or for that matter any comparable sound server, by mainstream distributions is a mistake. The actual need to remotely play sound over a network is an unusual edge case. The vast majority of users don't need the functionality. Therefore, it represents unnecessary complexity, and with it, a higher chance of problems. It would be much better to just use ALSA and maybe publish a Wiki page explaining how to enable Pulseaudio for the few users who specifically need it. Chances are very good that those few users who need it are knowledgable enough to enable it on their own, while the "newbie" or "casual user" crowd that Kubuntu/Ubuntu is designed for are unlikely to have the skill to resolve problems with the audio system. So to me, the decision that was made doesn't make much sense.
So how do you explain the continued existence of doctors and lawyers?
Otherwise I agree with your post. Just wanted to question that one bit.
One size does fit all from a support point of view. If I want to walk a windows user through changing the desktop resolution, it's easy. If I want to find out which printer is their default printer, again easy. Good luck doing those in linux. Everything is all over the place. Linux will not gain mainstream acceptance until it is easy to support.
What follows is my personal opinion. Ideally, Linux can be the one (or one of the few) environment that caters to users who are technically inclined, know what they're doing, and either already know how to handle desktop resolutions and printers or are willing to combine basic literacy with Google in order to inform themselves. Users who don't want to learn how the machine works already have two major systems designed specifically for them: Windows and OSX. To me it makes perfect sense that Linux would be Open Source because Microsoft and Apple both recognize that the real money is gained by appealing to the general public and the general public is nearly technophobic.
I say that because I strongly believe that anyone who is literate and has access to Google can inform themselves. There is no conspiracy or secret cabal trying to hide any of the information one would need in order to understand any system I have named. It's out there, it's available, and it's accessible; it's purely a case of the average person not wanting to utilize it or otherwise to educate themselves. These are the folks who find "easy to use" and "supported by a vendor"** worth paying for. Therefore, the beauty of Open Source allows Linux to exist independently of the financial success of any particular company or organization so there is no reason to appease a crowd that major vendors already cater to. I also don't believe Linux could hope to displace Windows on the desktop without sacrificing many of the things I really enjoy about it. For these reasons, I am not concerned with whether Linux will ever bankrupt Microsoft and I don't view that as its purpose.
** I am far less familiar with OSX so I'll limit my comment here to Windows and Linux. I'll add that I don't really think Windows is very easy to use. I personally find it cumbersome, sometimes tedious, and sometimes difficult to automate. I would describe Windows as "easy to learn" but learning all about it doesn't make it much more convenient to use. I would describe Linux as having a much steeper learning curve by comparison, particularly if you are thorough and intend to master the command line. However, once the investment of overcoming that learning curve is made, you then find yourself with a system that doesn't get in your way or second-guess your actions. The more you master Linux, the more you can automate and the more you can get it to do with less and less effort on your part. The more you learn about it, the easier it is to perform complex tasks with an economy of expression that is difficult to find in a non-Unix system.
Also, the times I have needed support for Linux, what I found was a community of volunteers who welcomed me with open arms and provided a level of support that rivals or exceeds anything you would get with a commercial support contract. All of this was from volunteers who do what they do because they care. I believe that part of what made this possible is that the questions they were answering concerned real bugs and real problems. They were not drowning in a sea of trivial issues of the sort that are well-familiar to anyone who has ever worked a front-line technical support role. This allowed them to focus their efforts on issues that really did require the attention of experts which, in my opinion, makes a big difference.
What about ManBearPig? In the episode he was described as "half man, half bear, and half pig". So he's 1.5 individuals!
And I definitely agree about the slack thinking. There is nothing quite like a disciplined mind that serves you well with efficient and effective action. Minds become that way by not yielding so easily to the temptation to cut corners and exhibit laziness and it starts with the tiny insignificant things first. Think of all the native English speakers who cannot correctly use words like "loose"/"lose" or "they're"/"there"/"their". It shows that they still struggle with basic usage of their native language, the sorts of issues that they should have worked out back in elementary school. It's noteworthy that foreigners who learn English as a second (or third) langauge tend not to make these mistakes.
Having said that, I'll add that It's okay to have a hard time with something. Not everyone is a great writer or a good speaker and we all have something we're not very good at doing. What's not okay is when an excuse is made for it. The original mistake is just a simple error, like spilling the milk or working an equation incorrectly and getting the wrong answer. It doesn't make you a moron and it doesn't make you a bad person. It's the kind of error that anyone could potentially make because they're human.
The excuse, on the other hand, is cowardly in a sense. It attempts to justify or dismiss something that is clearly incorrect, and all of this to avoid the process of saying "ah-hah, I made a mistake there. Now I know what to do differently in the future." I suspect that they think they are showing weakness or acting "inferior" if for even one moment they say "hey, you're correct; you are right and I had that wrong." The obsession over preventing the perception of inferiority at all costs, including the cost of accuracy, is why I call this cowardly. Nowhere in this can you find the security of knowing that you are who and what you are, whether or not anyone else thinks so.
By and large, people who make those grammatical mistakes are full of excuses. It's the reason why they keep making the same mistakes and their writing does not gradually improve with usage over time the same way that other skills would. You would expect a blacksmith to make a higher-quality knife after 20 years of experience than anything he made when he first started out. So why do native English speakers fail to correctly apply rules of grammar that they should have learned and mastered as children?
The blacksmith has a boss who expects a certain level of job performance, and if he is not internally motivated by an appreciation of his craft then this external motivation will spur him to improve his work. The average Slashdotter who reads and posts for leisure has no external motivation. The only reason why he'd try to get things right is because he values excellence. When you value excellence, you don't see yourself as a static person who scrapes by on the path of least resistance. You see yourself as a dynamic, growing individual who gradually learns more and becomes better at everything you do, whether or not anyone is looking, whether or not anyone is impressed, and whether or not you would have been penalized for a lesser effort. It's an internal thing. The reason to become a better speaker and a better writer is simple: you speak and write on a daily basis, so your life (and quite possibly others) is enriched by being able to do these things well. It's also hard to really enjoy doing something when you struggle to achieve even basic competency.
The antithesis of this is a form of laziness with perhaps some elements of apathy. In that case, you're not really convinced that it's worth doing at all because yo
You wrote:
So you have a city below sea level protected by a barrier which cannot possibly handle an event that you know with certainty will one day happen. Additionally, all those years that passed without it happening were ample opportunity to reinforce the levee and otherwise to prepare for that eventuality.
The judge agrees with you:
'It is the court's opinion that the negligence of the corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia, and shortsightedness,'
The thing is, the judge lives, along with most of us, in a world where people and organizations have some minimal obligation to other people. Thus, when there is a government organization whose responsibility it is to build levees that will protect a city full or people, and when this organization fails to protect against something that is, as both you and the judge point out, perfectly predictable, then we say this organization has been negligent, and we hold it responsible. We call this state of affairs civilization. Come join us!
That's cute of you to talk about what world most people live in. There's an assumption behind that, of course. Not surprisingly it's an unstated assumption, so I'll state it for you. The assumption is that government's responsibility can exist, or the personal responsibility of the people who chose to live in New Orleans can exist, but not both.
I reject this view. I agree that the government should be held liable. That's one issue. I also believe that the people who chose to live in New Orleans were taking a risk, should have known it, and should accept that this is the choice they made. That's another, separate issue. They are not mutually exclusive.
I agree that the government has an obligation to maintain basic infrastructure such as those levees. They should be held fully responsible for any negligence they displayed. But should the government fail in this way, for any reason, then if I live in that area I have an obligation to myself and my family to get out of harm's way. That's because it is a disaster waiting to happen. If I do otherwise then I am showing the exact same negligence that the government has shown, just on a smaller scale. Once out of harm's way, that'd be a perfect time to petition the government, talk to the media about it, or otherwise to try to change the situation.
In other words, my responsibility to myself and my family is not nullified just because the government fails to meet its own responsibility. That point is ignored when you want to play the blame game and say "hah, it's 100% the fault of government, therefore we who could have known better are totally absolved of all blame!" I say to hell with blame and with all of these petty games centered around it. It's just distracts from the process of actually understanding how this disaster could have been sidestepped.
For that reason, blame and how to avoid it does not interest me. What does interest me is effective action based on correctly recognizing a problem and proactively dealing with it. I don't care if it's top-down (government reinforces levee) or bottom-up (people get out of inevitable disaster); either way, that's what needs to happen. Your patronizing tone indicates that this point was lost on you.
Just an observation, anytime you mention personal responsibility and why it's important, people really don't like to hear it. However, they won't just tell you "I reject the notion of personal responsibility", nor will they simply say "I don't like the topic of personal responsibility." Instead, they might accuse you of "blaming the victim", which is easy to do, seldom if ever requires any proof or reasoning, and often scores sympathy points with any audience. Or they might find another entity that was also negligent, such as government, and imply that personal responsibility doesn't exist merely because someone else also screwed up. If you observe people, you will see that this is a recurring pattern.
I could see blaming the French for setting up a fort / trading post in a vulnerable but lucrative location, but blaming fifth or sixth generation native-borns (who weren't exactly rolling in dough) for not moving away seems a bit Darwinian.
It's not about blame. It's about the choice of either taking effective action or waiting until there is a disaster so you can assign blame. If I live in New Orleans prior to Katrina and the federal government won't fund better levees, I might ask the state or local governments to do so. If they won't do so, then I can't do it myself.
At that point, if the government won't do it and I can't do it myself, then two options remain: 1) stick around and eventually get hit by an inevitable disaster, or 2) move away and leave the area to its fate. I'll take the second option every time. If I have a family, then it's no longer an option at all; I would then have an obligation to safeguard my family and would be a piss-poor husband/father if I cared about the inconvenience of moving more than their well-being.
Now, why don't others see it in terms of foresight and proactive action? Do they see it differently because they have a superior point of view? I would argue that a point of view which needlessly places them and their families in danger is not superior. Take a hard look and you'll find that they didn't care enough to look into it, didn't use some foresight and some sense, or naively expected that government would take care of everything without their input. None of these are good attributes worthy of acquisition.
They are all personal failings or character weaknesses. Calling them by their proper names is the first step towards getting rid of this victim mentality which, in the name of "compassion", wants to tell people who are not helpless that they are helpless victims. I don't find anything compassionate about telling people that they are helplessly at the mercy of every problem that might come their way, like a leaf in the wind. I think doing so condemns them to experiencing a lot of preventable suffering. I don't think people need my pity. I think they need to inform and equip themselves and learn to be their own masters.
If I visited for a weekend perhaps then I would take my chances. That's not unreasonable because hurricane warnings are generally early enough that you would have time to leave town if one was headed that way.
However, if I were moving to New Orleans from another area, you're damned right I would investigate such things. I'd also learn what the schools are like and how they perform if I intended to raise a family there. I would learn things like the crime rate and the cost of living. Why would I do something blindly and haphazardly if I don't have to? If I can't be bothered to learn a few basic things about an area and choose to move there anyway, and something predictable happens to me as a result of moving there, that would be my fault. If something is my fault, I am never going to fix that fault of mine if I find someone else to blame.
You'll never catch me building a home on a fault line. I won't build one in a flood plain either. For that matter, I wouldn't live right next to an active volcano. For the same reason, I wouldn't live in an area below sea level in a part of the USA that regularly gets hit by hurricanes unless I was completely satisfied that it was sufficiently protected. That people believe this is some unusually thorough or out-of-the-box thinking is the real problem here.
Besides, even passive people who think that basic research and a little foreknowledge is a terribly unreasonable burden that no one can expect them to take on (hah) could have known about the levees. The army corps have warned about their inadequacy since the 1960s as others in this thread have pointed out. That means this has been a known issue for nearly half a century. I am nowhere near New Orleans and I know that; if anything, the locals should be better informed about it than me.
Look, I think I understand your objection here. You think I'm blaming the victim. Show me a real victim who had no way of knowing better and suffers through no fault of their own and you won't ever see me doing that. True victims, however, are rare. People who had opportunity to know better but didn't, and only because they didn't care to inform themselves, are not actually victims.
When you decide that basic understanding is not important and not worth acquiring, you are taking a risk. You risk suffering from things that basic understanding would have protected you from. They took a risk that they had the ability to know they were taking and it didn't work out for them. They are not victims of Katrina any more than a gambler who loses money is a victim of the casino.
This is actually a good thing because a real victim is powerless. If the people hit by Katrina are not actually victims but could have known better, it means they can learn from the experience and never have to have another experience like that again. They can take control of this aspect of their lives. They don't need to be helpless. That's good for them and for anyone who doesn't want them to be helpless and powerless. However, they will remain helpless and powerless as long as their main concern is whom to blame.
I agree that the government should be legally liable here. That doesn't mean the people who suffered the most from Katrina couldn't have known better. The government would be legally liable because of its negligence; that is
Appealing to "individual responsibility" is fun and all; but senseless if perspective is not kept. Living below sea level is stupid. However, living below sea level behind a levee designed specifically to make that area habitable, which has been doing exactly that for years and years now is considerably less stupid. Does "individual responsibility" require near-Cartesian levels of doubt in every possible piece of infrastructure?
The levee could not handle a Category 3 hurricane. Category 3 hurricanes which hit that area are periodic events that happen from time to time; they are absolutely inevitable. So you have a city below sea level protected by a barrier which cannot possibly handle an event that you know with certainty will one day happen. Additionally, all those years that passed without it happening were ample opportunity to reinforce the levee and otherwise to prepare for that eventuality. This did not happen. This alone would dissuade me from living there because the result is absolutely predictable. It's only a question of when.
What do you call it when people make themselves available for preventable disasters that are easy to foresee? Usually the word "stupid" is used to describe actions like this. "Stupid" is also used to describe people who need a politician or other official to tell them when something is a bad idea because they've lost their common sense and have replaced it with various authority figures. So without a government mandate or official inquiry they, acting on their own, would not seriously question the integrity of the levees or the tremendous risk they were taking. That sheeplike dependency, that inability to independently question and reason, explains not only why New Orleans was such a terrible diaster but also most of American politics and government expansion.
If you want to do something constructive, don't feel sorry for them or make excuses for them. Those sentiments are probably meant well but they accomplish nothing. They have no power to prevent a future disaster. If you want to do something, use this as an example for why there is no substitute for thinking for yourself and assessing your own risks. Let it represent why there is no substitute for those things, that all kinds of preventable harm is caused by the failure to value those things. The (minority of) people who understand this got out of New Orleans a long time ago and wouldn't have considered moving back without substantial improvements to the inadequate levee. The rest were surprised by the inevitable, which is like choosing to be a victim.
So yes, individual responsibility was a big factor here. It's not about doubting everything to an absurd degree. It's about knowing the situation you're in and putting yourself into a different situation if it's an invitation to disaster. But the folks who were hit hardest were not thinkers. They didn't think about their situation or compare it to other situations or evaluate risks. They had no such awareness. They just did their daily thing without a second thought and were surprised when something happened. That's the real message here.
Yes indeed. You can always make a network-facing daemon that has been heavily audited more secure by putting a Python script between it and the public Internet.
What I will say here applies to password logins. For SSHD that is configured to accept only cryptographic/public-key authentication, the attacks that Denyhosts would block are only a nuisance (they fill up logfiles).
That heavily-audited network-facing daemon does not concern itself with password security. You can allow remote root logins and set your root password to "password" and that daemon will faithfully do what you told it to do. The heavy audits are designed to make sure that a person who does not have a valid login cannot get a shell without first guessing valid login credentials. The Python script makes it infeasible for a single host to brute-force those login credentials assuming a reasonably strong password. Thus, it addresses a security issue that is actually beyond the scope of SSHD.
Personally I prefer SSHGuard because it will use iptables to drop packets from offending hosts. In my opinion that's a better approach than adding the hosts to a hosts.deny file. A host listed in hosts.deny can still try to connect to your daemon; it will just be immediately disconnected. By contrast, anything firewalled by iptables and set to DROP won't even get so much as a momentary TCP connection. Not a big difference, but I say let them wonder if you're even online anymore. There's also no dependency on the robustness of tcpwrappers (well-tested though they may be).
If Psystar was a stalking horse then the only reason that makes sense is that someone wants Apple to lock their OS to their hardware. Apple doesn't seem too concerned by hobbyists building Frankenmacs. Their ever vigilant lawyers haven't been jackbooting down doors and dragging offenders to court. There have been instances in the past where an OS-maker has turned a blind eye to, if not actually facilitating, its OS being pirated simply to deny a competitor marketshare. Maybe somebody was worried that Apple was moving in this direction. However, if Apple is provoked into action by a startup selling Frankenmacs might they not decide to implement a TPM system to lock the OS to Macs-only? No more hobby Frankenmacs and Apple is seen as not only closed software but closed hardware too. The Technorati would be incensed and Apple would wear the black eye forever.
I would speculate that Apple is not really threatened by Frankenmacs in general. The kind of hobbyist who is technically inclined and is willing to put something like this together is probably outside of their target audience. I have known people who bought Macs not because they were fans of Apple, but because they were dissatisfied with PCs loaded with Windows. They were not technically inclined and most of their PC problems could be put into two broad categories: configuration issues and malware. They found Macs to be a breath of fresh air not because they think Apple is "hip" and "cool" but because they found its GUI to be easy and intuitive and its underlying Unix system to be rock-solid stable and not prone to malware. They felt like they found something that "just worked" and felt like that is what they were paying a higher price for. I think of these folks as Apple's target audience.
For those reasons, TPM would be a rather extreme measure. They are, at least for now, taking the "other option" of going after commercial Frankenmac producers legally instead of technologically. The precendent this sets is quite likely to discourage other companies from doing the same. The only ones left who are building Frankenmacs are doing so personally and not commercially and for the reasons I mentioned above, are probably not Apple's main market.
Psystar isn't a front for anyone. That doesn't mean they haven't been used by real players.
The truly powerful don't need to do anything so unsubtle as conspiracy nuts like to believe. They can take existing bit players, and give them the right nudge for the same effect.
That scenario would make Paystar a "useful idiot" as some call it, which provides added deniability for the people who pull the strings. That still falls under long-term strategy and plausible deniability. My observation was deliberately worded in a simple way because understanding of this topic is sorely missing in the general public. When the audience you intend to reach is unfamiliar with a topic, you don't usually start with the most advanced material.
Things like strategy, plausible deniability, propaganda techniques, and argumentation fallacies are either not taught in the public schools or are given only the most superficial treatment. Therefore, most people either don't know about them or have no real mastery of the concepts. When they see a politician talking about an issue, they don't immediately see patterns of influence and don't ask questions like "qui bono?" That the public schools don't cover these topics is no excuse for the widespread ignorance. People generally spend far more time educating themselves about things that have much less of an impact on their lives.
This means that the general population is easy prey for what is effectively a ruling class that does have this knowledge and is in the profession of using it. This population understands the actual realities of politics about as well as the average Roman citizen understood the intent of "bread and circus".
I know. They'll say, but, but, but ... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out. ... coming from Pamela, who revealed that Microsoft played no small role funding the SCO debacle though bogus license purchase.
If you follow patent troll cases for example, you would know that shell business are often set up by litigants for the sole purpose of facilitating a lawsuit. Once you've acquired your defunct IP, you set up a web site to demonstrate intent to sell a product. Sure it's not strictly necessary to test the patent but it can help when it come times to assess damages, and it garners judge and jury sympathies (especially if you can get it tried in the Texas east district).
So, who was behind Psystar? Dell perhaps? There's no chance in hell a startup box builder would go to these lengths to test a legal theory. Their vested interest in the supposed business was a pittance compared to the cost to fight this, so where'd they get the money?
Obviously, Psystar was staged for the exclusive purpose of being sued .
It makes you wonder. Incidentally, it's amazing how often "you're a conspiracy nut" comes from people who have no grasp of long-term strategy and really don't know the first thing about it. The person or group who works towards a goal in incremental steps (each of which has an excuse or plausible deniability) over longer periods of time is much more likely to get what they want than the person or group who goes for a short-term, win-or-lose, once-and-for-all type of showdown. That's particularly true when what they want to get is illegal, immoral, or goes against things like tradition, social convention, or public opinion. Recognizing this reality is the first step towards truly understanding business and politics.
You consider the data analytics and adverts track to be "personal data", but when /. (and RL stores, banks, CCTV, etc, etc) log equally or more personal data (or identical datasets) you have no problem with it.
This implies your reason for blocking certain content isn't about protecting your user data.
It's a plain double-standard, whether I'm insecure or magicians have me under their spell doesn't really come into it.
Slashdot logs data on its own slashdot.org site. Google and others log not only on their own sites, but also on many others. Either you are being deliberately dense or you really cannot seem to grasp the concept that Slashdot's methods cannot be used to build useful profiles on me while Google's methods can do that. Slashdot is not actively trying to track my behaviors while Google is. So Slashdot gets a very minimal set of data (otherwise I could not use the site) while Google is routinely blocked. See the difference?
To give an analogy, Slashdot is like me walking into a store. The store's owner can see that I am there and can see what I am doing, but I can see him too. When I walk out of his store, he leaves me alone. You see, this isn't tracking.
Google is like me walking into a store. The store's owner can see that I am there and can see what I am doing, but I can see him too. When I walk out of his store, he tries to follow me and this time he tries not to be noticable. He writes down the names of every other store I go to so he can sell me similar items later. You see, that is tracking. I will take measures to block this guy that would not be necessary to use on Slashdot. Why? Oh yeah, because they're two different situations so I handle them in two different ways. Yes, I know, it's the ultimate in hypocrisy and double-standards isn't it? It may even club baby seals to death.
Bottom line, my data is mine to do with as I please. The more intrusively someone tries to obtain it, the more willing I am to take steps to prevent them from doing so.
And yeah, you're insecure. Your car is yours to do with as you please, and for that reason, I wouldn't put your driving habits under a microscope and look for inconsistencies and double-standards. That's because I have no need to portray you any particular way. My data is mine to do with as I please also. Yet for some reason you want to tell me there is anything wrong with feeling that way about it. The "double-standard" you point out doesn't exist: Slashdot is not an intrusive Web site so there's little reason for me to treat it like one.
Again, if you don't like what I do with my private data, feel free to set a better example by using yours in a way that you think is appropriate. If you do, that's your business. It's not my place to tell you what you should do with what is rightfully yours, and in fact, everything I have said on this subject is my personal opinion. I'm not shocked or challenged when your personal opinion is different. I don't view that as a problem I need to correct. That's why I don't understand your need to win a convert. It's just not going to happen, so get over it. Incidentally, the imaginary double-standards do not make you any more convincing.
What info is that? The disposable e-mail address with which I created the account? My username of "causality"? My password that is unique to this site and is not used anyplace else? My IP address which is really public information anyway, and does not uniquely identify me because I am on a shared connection with a NAT router? My HTTP referrer that always returns the site's own homepage no matter what the actual referrer would have been? I could try to exhaustively list everything but I think you get the picture.
And, you misunderstood me. A contract would be Slashdot's way to obligate me to provide them with accurate information. Additionally, Slashdot itself doesn't try to track my browsing habits. Sure, they log what I do on their own sites, but you won't find a 1x1 pixel Web bug (or anything like it) from Slashdot on somerandompage.com because Slashdot is not in that business. Comparing Slashdot to the advertising companies employing proactive tracking measures (that were obviously the subject of my post) is less than intellectually honest.
I for one would block ads whether or not an attempt is made to collect my data. They are two separate issues. As I have already stated, my objection to mass data collection is that it occurs without my consent. I am a big believer in the virtues of informed consent. After all, if it is such a legitimate business practice, then informed consent should not be a problem. If it is a shady business practice, then maybe they wouldn't want to call attention to it.
Your suggestion (an assumption really) that I am a hypocrite rests on your belief that I am making a special exception for Slashdot because I enjoy Slashdot's content. I do enjoy Slashdot's content. However, I have made no exceptions and the first paragraph of this post explains that for you. Slashdot has none of my private data. If accurate private data became a requirement for using this site, I would find another site.
What crusade? I do what I do not as a product of random chance, but because I have my reasons. I have stated some of those reasons because it came up in the conversation. Your line there can be reworded thusly: "censor any beliefs you have that I dislike, or I will overreact to them by calling it a crusade and pretending like mentioning something germane to the conversation is the same as 'trumpeting' it". I don't think you are deliberately intending that (though some will knowingly do this because it works so well on most people). I point it out because I don't think you realize it or actually understand the message you are sending.
I'll be blunt here. I am not some pushover who will either censor himself or alter his beliefs in order to please you and you can either respect the integrity of that or you can hate me for it -- your choice. Because of that, you'll just have to get over the fact that I might do things you don't like or don't agree with. If you can't handle that without making a mountain of a molehill or making assumptions about my beliefs, this is your problem. It is yours to either overcome or further succumb to. I won't legitimize it by acquiescing to it and my involvement in it ends there.
It's not "free for the taking". It's "free in exchange for free content on the web".
(Note, I'm not arguing against ad blockers or the like.. just like I 30 second skip through the vast vast vast majority of commercials on my Tivos, and FFed through them on my VCR before that.)
If they want to hold me to an obligation which entails consideration (the exchange of one thing of value for another thing of value) there is an existing mechanism for that: it's called a contract. Until and unless I consent to an agreement stating otherwise, my data is mine and they may not have it. In fact, I am particularly disinclined to give them what they falsely feel entitled to have. Meanwhile, if they choose to have a publically available, free-to-use service on an open network that anyone with a Web browser can freely reach and utilize at no charge, that service is also theirs to do with as they please. No one forced them to make it freely available; they willingly chose to do that. Thus, in the absence of any contract or other binding agreement, I have no obligation to guarantee the success of anyone's business model.
If this arrangement is not to their liking, they are free to deny me access to any sites they own. They are also free to innovate and come up with a way to require payments, acceptance of advertising, or participation in data-mining as a condition of using their site. In the absence of such requirements, anyone who tries to make me feel obligated is either manipulative or misguided. It could be manipulative because they want to use emotional appeals designed to make me feel bad about using for free what is offered for free. It could also be misguided because such people don't understand that the Internet is a open, public network; the reason you put a Web server on a public network with no access controls (such as passwords or paywalls) is because you want the public to use it.
There was an Internet before there was any advertising-funded content. If that business model fails, there will be an Internet after it, too. Besides, companies like Google are more than shrewd enough to realize that for every person like me who will take whatever steps are necessary to safeguard his privacy, there are thousands of users who don't even know what trackers are. This can be regarded as one definition of their business model, though certainly not an exhaustive one.
It's also why smart users filter them outright with something like AdBlock - anything that I see in the browser history that looks like a tracking/stats domain or URL gets blocked on sight. Come to think of it, I could probably clean it up publish it as an AdBlock filter list if anyone's interested; there's only a few dozen entries on there at the moment, but I'm sure that would grow pretty quickly if it was used by a more general and less paranoid userbase.
What's paranoid about insisting that a company bring a proposal, make me an offer, and sign a contract if they want to derive monetary value from my personal data? Instead, they feel my data is free for the taking and this entitlement mentality is the main reason why I make an effort to block all forms of tracking. I never gave consent to anyone to track anything I do, so why should I honor an agreement in which I did not participate? The "goodness" or "evil-ness" of their intentions doesn't even have to be a consideration. Sorry but referring to that as "paranoid" is either an attempt to demagogue it, or evidence that someone else's attempt to demagogue it was successful on you.
Are some people quite paranoia? Sure. Does that mean you should throw out all common sense, pretend like there are only paranoid reasons to disallow tracking, and ignore all reasonable concerns? No. Sure, someone who paints with a broad brush might notice that your actions (blocking trackers) superficially resemble some actions taken by paranoid people. Allowing that to affect your decison-making only empowers those who are superficial and quick to assume because you are kowtowing to them. This is what insecure people do. If the paranoid successfully tarnish the appearance of an otherwise reasonable action because we care too much about what others may think, it can only increase the damage caused by paranoia.
Then imagine what would happen if everyone came to accept these few simple things.
Boy, that sounds great.
Now, do you have any good suggestions for solving the problems of the world we actually live in? Change human nature, perhaps? ;)
Sorry to be snide. Your world does sound great, but I think you'll have to fight an uphill battle if you fight against peoples' desire to be lazy.
There is precedent for what you call my world. The USA was not unlike this shortly after it was founded. While the book itself is about public education and how we obtained the system we know today, the best reference for this known to me is John Taylor Gatto's book which can be read online in its entirety for free.
You want less BS like this, expand that "small percentage". Bite the bullet and decide that maybe doing some legwork and investigating the truth of a claim before accepting it at face value is how human beings should be. Consider that doing otherwise is a defective practice as evidenced by the deception it leaves one open to. Accept that illiteracy or pure inexcusable laziness would be the only reasons for failure to do so, ever since the advent of Google.
Then imagine what would happen if everyone came to accept these few simple things. Most or all of the control exerted over us by various political and corporate entities comes from their power to deceive, misrepresent, and outright bullshit. That's why the MPAA doesn't say "we want dictatorial control over hardware we don't own" and instead says "this will help us deliver more content." Of course the MPAA is the least of what this mechanism has brought us. I'd like to see what would happen to governments if the general population learned to have high-quality bullshit detectors. Right now, the majority who can't (or won't) handle basic research and argumentation are accepting faulty policies, endorsing flawed ideas, and generally creating a terribly gloomy and cynical world for the minority who can.
They just should cancel the indexing with the words, upon informal public request by newscorp we no longer index their sites...
Agreed. I was hoping that "Lehk228" could tell me why he thinks that would be so childish since he claimed that it was. Apparently he's a subscriber to the "when asked to substantiate, just go silent and pretend you didn't see the question" school of thought. That's a popular school of thought these days.
So is that why SETI doesn't get more funding? The Navy knows there aren't any signals out there because they're getting their allies to block any new incoming transmissions...
It all makes sense now!
SETI is for show and they hide the real stuff that is going on.
ALSO THE AIR FORCE HAS space ships based on allies tech.
also look at ...ghsdghashr..call dropped.
Shit. He knows too much!
I work for someone who is wealthy enough to just plain stop, right now, and live happily ever after. He easily works 60 hours a week at the office, and probably more if he takes anything home with him. We've talked about the quandary you just presented.
His answer as to why he continues to build and expand: "Because I really enjoy it." And I don't think there's much more to be said about it, except that some folks like playing football, or billiards. Some folks paint pictures for fun. And some folks build empires. It's like playing Risk, but with real assets.
I know I'm replying to you a second time, but I wanted to add something.
I guess I am one of those "oddballs" (at least in this society it would seem so) because I value quality time with people I love and care about much more than any game of Risk that I don't actually need to play. What follows is a rhetorical question. If your boss has a family, how often does he say "I just don't have the time" to his wife and children in order to put in those 60+ hours a week, or if he doesn't have his own family, how many people hear that from him who still care about him very much?
To me this is not about whether working a job that you enjoy has merit. Certainly it does. It's about priorities and whether you have any that mean more to you. It's about the fact that there are only so many hours in one day and only so many days in one lifetime.
I work for someone who is wealthy enough to just plain stop, right now, and live happily ever after. He easily works 60 hours a week at the office, and probably more if he takes anything home with him. We've talked about the quandary you just presented.
His answer as to why he continues to build and expand: "Because I really enjoy it." And I don't think there's much more to be said about it, except that some folks like playing football, or billiards. Some folks paint pictures for fun. And some folks build empires. It's like playing Risk, but with real assets.
Is this person generally a good or at least decent man? Or is he a despotic, ruthless, Machiavellian type like (in my opinion) Murdoch is? I believe that makes a significant difference. I don't imagine Murdoch truly rejoicing in much of anything to tell you the truth. He probably views his personal enjoyment as something he had to sacrifice to a) get where he is today and b) demonstrate his single-minded dedication. If you have ever encountered the type before, then you know what I mean.