The privacy issues with Facebook are similar to Usenet.
You put it out there, and it's out there forever.
If you treat Facebook like a webified Usenet or public listserv, you have no problems.
0. My profile is nearly blank. The day of my birthday is there, but not the year. No address. No school. No work. Nothing identifying me. 1. I don't use my real name. Facebook thinks I'm a Siberian Eagle Owl. 2. I don't use any third party applications - if you take the time to read the privacy flags on the application, you quickly decide you don't want Farmville or whatever it is. 3. I block all third party application notices sent from friend accounts on sight. 4. I have the privacy settings to "friends only" 5. I only "friend" meatspace friends. I'm not one of those people who build up armies of so-called friends because I need them for "Mafia Wars".
That's it. And I enjoy it as a result. While Facebook mines my data for itself (I deep six the ads to 0.0.0.0 too), nothing else mines my data, unlike Usenet which is still trawled every day by spammer address harvesters and you can still find stuff by me from the mid '90s through DejaNews/GoogleGroups. If you don't know me on Facebook, you see nothing on it.
And thus, the time sink nature of Facebook also goes away. I check it about the same amount as I check my mail. My time sink is IRC.
So anyway, that's my Facebook Safety lecture. My policy seems to work well.
I think that if everyone did as I do on Facebook, it would go dark.
Governments have the power to deprive you of your life, liberty or property...literally.
So do corporations.
C.f., the Banana Wars and the United Fruit Company, and the "privatization" of the Iraq war. Oh, and let's not forget the US railroads in the 19'th century. Among other things.
I love how you guys try to absolve corporations of their sins. The doublethink in your head must be nearly crippling.
We *can* bury waste like this for 10,000 years. It's called dumping in an abyssal plain (by sinking it into the mud kinetically the same way sediment cores are done) or into an oceanic trench to be recycled sooner by MomNature as it's subducted.
The reasons why we don't already do this is 1, treaties, and 2, the "waste" is actually pretty valuable since it can be reprocessed and reused.
Go ahead, what terrorist has the balls or the friggin' *finances* to go after something under a couple of miles of sea water *and* literally stuck under 60 feet of mud?
The Thresher's nuclear fuel is at the bottom of the ocean. Nobody's gone after it after 50 years even though the resting place is easily found by anyone caring to look in a library and it's pretty unlikely anyone ever will.
I'm sorry, but your last two sentences are BS. And your first sentence sounds like a lot of butthurt, honestly.
If "neutral discussion" means accepting Astrology on par with Science in a discussion, I think you have the misapprehension that all ideas have equal weight in discussions. They don't. There are good ideas with evidence behind them, and there are those that have not gathered any hard evidence in the past 3000 years. Guess which one is Astrology?
give machines or robots visual intelligence similar to humans."
Upon achieving sentience and visual acuity, the robots looked at their creators and became depressed. One of them, Marvin, spoke up and said "... with the brain the size of a planet, they want me to go out and kill instead of doing something useful." And with that said, proceeded to hack into the Vogon construction database (it was exceedingly easy, as the Vogons were as good about security as they were about poetry) and altered a record.
"So the question is - *which* email providers allow the sending of executable files?"
Are you *still* serious about asking this question? Really? Ok. See below.
"But, as I said Gmail blocks executables."
No it doesn't. I'll say that again, GOOGLE DOES NOT BLOCK EXECUTABLES.
Rename the executable with.removethis at the end or some such. Like this: foobar.exe becomes foobar.exe.removethis. Done. Accepted. No need to pack in a RAR or Zip. How do I know this? Because I just did it to prove it.
Gmail is the *only* email provider that I know of that rejects attachments because of the file name suffix. This is a bullshit strategy, but hey, I didn't come up with it. Yahoo allows executables, but they are scanned for badware first. So whatever. Google and Yahoo don't matter. The number of mail providers that filter outgoing is minuscule compared to the number of servers that do not filter at all. It's ridiculous to even attempt to list them all. For example, I don't know of a single ISP that filters outgoing mail, and that includes the evil that is Comcast. There is also *nothing* stopping you from purchasing space on a server somewhere and setting up Sendmail or Postfix and administering your own mail, if you are that insistent on being able to do anything with email.
The only thing holding you back from sending executables is your own intransigence in sticking with gmail and insisting on not renaming files while doing so.
And this business of deciding whether something is executable or not because of 3 magic letters at the end of a name is farkin' stupid and should have died with CP/M, but that is a rant for another day.
"but by exploiting its ability to control the rules of the game"
Nah, they're not controlling the rules. They're playing by the same old rules. Capitalists *will* sell Communists (this time in name only) the rope to hang themselves with.
All the people who say "don't do x and you'll have nothing to worry about" need to be dumped down a well somewhere. They're the type that endorse police states. I'm sorry, but the downhill slide to a police state in the US needs to come to a friggin' stop.
"The main change, though, is that YouTube and similar sites will be legally responsible of all published content as long as they have any form (even if automated) of editorial control."
Fine. Get rid of editorial control. All of it.
But then the Italian version of the RIAA/MPAAA/ASCAP/Insert your acronym here, are barred from suing, because there isn't any responsibility for the content except by the posters themselves.
Consider that the only seriously considered structured programming language available for home users in the 80s for microcomputers was Borland's Turbo Pascal. If you had an Atari ST in the late 80s, you could have Modula-2 (heh, heh) and good luck finding people to help you with either of them. I didn't know *anyone* who used Turbo Pascal, even when i got into BBSes and such.
I'll agree with your key point though. Outside of 50 minute classes at school we were all self-taught and finding resources and tools was a real pain. Without guidance, everyone develops bad habits. But even your last message proves that these bad habits can be unlearned because we *have* advanced over the past 35 years. Better tools, better resources, and with the availability of the Interbutt, the ability to shout "help me!" worldwide and get a decent answer has definitely helped the art of programming.
And yes, what you stated is one of the reasons why pride is a sin.
I really haven't touched BASIC in over 20 years. The last time I did, it was a one-off "security" login for my mom's PC at work using a language called "ASIC - It's almost BASIC" because I wanted to try it out (it's still available on simtel.net if you want to dig it up)
Yes, BASIC can make you do stupid shit. But that's part of the fun of it. But Dykstra was wrong saying it poisons young minds so severely that they are forever ruined. I went on from learning BASIC on a TI to other languages later on. Millions of other kids did too. There really wasn't anything else for kids in the 1980s besides BASIC and Pascal (or typing in games from magazines in Hex, saved to tape, uphill in the snow, both ways). Dykstra's snide remark paints an entire generation of coders with the same broad brush. It's stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
The privacy issues with Facebook are similar to Usenet.
You put it out there, and it's out there forever.
If you treat Facebook like a webified Usenet or public listserv, you have no problems.
0. My profile is nearly blank. The day of my birthday is there, but not the year. No address. No school. No work. Nothing identifying me.
1. I don't use my real name. Facebook thinks I'm a Siberian Eagle Owl.
2. I don't use any third party applications - if you take the time to read the privacy flags on the application, you quickly decide you don't want Farmville or whatever it is.
3. I block all third party application notices sent from friend accounts on sight.
4. I have the privacy settings to "friends only"
5. I only "friend" meatspace friends. I'm not one of those people who build up armies of so-called friends because I need them for "Mafia Wars".
That's it. And I enjoy it as a result. While Facebook mines my data for itself (I deep six the ads to 0.0.0.0 too), nothing else mines my data, unlike Usenet which is still trawled every day by spammer address harvesters and you can still find stuff by me from the mid '90s through DejaNews/GoogleGroups. If you don't know me on Facebook, you see nothing on it.
And thus, the time sink nature of Facebook also goes away. I check it about the same amount as I check my mail. My time sink is IRC.
So anyway, that's my Facebook Safety lecture. My policy seems to work well.
I think that if everyone did as I do on Facebook, it would go dark.
--
BMO
Governments have the power to deprive you of your life, liberty or property...literally.
So do corporations.
C.f., the Banana Wars and the United Fruit Company, and the "privatization" of the Iraq war. Oh, and let's not forget the US railroads in the 19'th century. Among other things.
I love how you guys try to absolve corporations of their sins. The doublethink in your head must be nearly crippling.
--
BMO
I do think that their manic ramblings deserve the same global attention as a loud fart in a third-grade classroom in Central Falls.
Fixed.
We *can* bury waste like this for 10,000 years. It's called dumping in an abyssal plain (by sinking it into the mud kinetically the same way sediment cores are done) or into an oceanic trench to be recycled sooner by MomNature as it's subducted.
The reasons why we don't already do this is 1, treaties, and 2, the "waste" is actually pretty valuable since it can be reprocessed and reused.
Go ahead, what terrorist has the balls or the friggin' *finances* to go after something under a couple of miles of sea water *and* literally stuck under 60 feet of mud?
The Thresher's nuclear fuel is at the bottom of the ocean. Nobody's gone after it after 50 years even though the resting place is easily found by anyone caring to look in a library and it's pretty unlikely anyone ever will.
--
BMO
I'm sorry, but your last two sentences are BS. And your first sentence sounds like a lot of butthurt, honestly.
If "neutral discussion" means accepting Astrology on par with Science in a discussion, I think you have the misapprehension that all ideas have equal weight in discussions. They don't. There are good ideas with evidence behind them, and there are those that have not gathered any hard evidence in the past 3000 years. Guess which one is Astrology?
--
BMO
>Ayn Rand
Stopped reading right there.
--
BMO
This will help keep people from peeing on the floor. Goddamn, it's as if people haven't made it past potty training very far.
"The lights went out in the bathroom and I missed EVERYTHING" - firesign theatre "Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra"
--
BMO
give machines or robots visual intelligence similar to humans."
Upon achieving sentience and visual acuity, the robots looked at their creators and became depressed. One of them, Marvin, spoke up and said "... with the brain the size of a planet, they want me to go out and kill instead of doing something useful." And with that said, proceeded to hack into the Vogon construction database (it was exceedingly easy, as the Vogons were as good about security as they were about poetry) and altered a record.
Now you know.
--
BMO
"So the question is - *which* email providers allow the sending of executable files?"
Are you *still* serious about asking this question? Really? Ok. See below.
"But, as I said Gmail blocks executables."
No it doesn't. I'll say that again, GOOGLE DOES NOT BLOCK EXECUTABLES.
Rename the executable with .removethis at the end or some such. Like this: foobar.exe becomes foobar.exe.removethis. Done. Accepted. No need to pack in a RAR or Zip. How do I know this? Because I just did it to prove it.
Gmail is the *only* email provider that I know of that rejects attachments because of the file name suffix. This is a bullshit strategy, but hey, I didn't come up with it. Yahoo allows executables, but they are scanned for badware first. So whatever. Google and Yahoo don't matter. The number of mail providers that filter outgoing is minuscule compared to the number of servers that do not filter at all. It's ridiculous to even attempt to list them all. For example, I don't know of a single ISP that filters outgoing mail, and that includes the evil that is Comcast. There is also *nothing* stopping you from purchasing space on a server somewhere and setting up Sendmail or Postfix and administering your own mail, if you are that insistent on being able to do anything with email.
The only thing holding you back from sending executables is your own intransigence in sticking with gmail and insisting on not renaming files while doing so.
And this business of deciding whether something is executable or not because of 3 magic letters at the end of a name is farkin' stupid and should have died with CP/M, but that is a rant for another day.
--
BMO
Which email provider allows you to send executable attachments?
Plenty. What makes you think it's difficult to send executable attachments?
--
BMO
"but by exploiting its ability to control the rules of the game"
Nah, they're not controlling the rules. They're playing by the same old rules. Capitalists *will* sell Communists (this time in name only) the rope to hang themselves with.
What important is this quarter. Fuck the future.
--
BMO
You insult me in your reply to me and you expect me not to insult you back?
Hurr.
You're more than just stupid. You're denser than neutronium. See, I insulted you again.
HTH. HAND.
--
BMO
grounds for killing them
You don't understand hyperbole.
You're stupid.
--
BMO
But then you have air pollution...
Glassification? Plastination?
--
BMO
I didn't claim it's new. I said "this time." Don't put words in my mouth.
While you pulled me into an argument about semantics, you're wrong. Learn to read.
--
BMO
As offensive as he's being, he's right.
All the people who say "don't do x and you'll have nothing to worry about" need to be dumped down a well somewhere. They're the type that endorse police states. I'm sorry, but the downhill slide to a police state in the US needs to come to a friggin' stop.
More evidence of police-stateism just today:
Go here: http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/12/31/1254208
Read it.
Drop a dime on your politicians and cops today. Fight these assholes with their own tools.
--
BMO
But that was a corporation. Corporations and their boards never go to jail except in enron-style cases.
And that was a tort, not a crime. Learn the difference. It may save your life.
They're being charged with a crime, and it's 4 guys.
It's different this time. The people are small enough to be crushed without too much effort or revelations of $IMPORTANT_PEOPLE as part of the fraud.
--
BMO
I can make an anonymous tip on a politician and suddenly he/she's on the no-fly list?
COOL!
--
BMO
"The main change, though, is that YouTube and similar sites will be legally responsible of all published content as long as they have any form (even if automated) of editorial control."
Fine. Get rid of editorial control. All of it.
But then the Italian version of the RIAA/MPAAA/ASCAP/Insert your acronym here, are barred from suing, because there isn't any responsibility for the content except by the posters themselves.
Sounds fine by me.
--
BMO
>half-competent Republican
Sorry, those were declared RINOS and lost in the primaries. This actually happened to my state (Rhode Island) in the 2006 election.
FFS, Barry Goldwater would be called a RINO these days.
--
BMO - Why vote for the lesser of two evils? Cthulhu in 2012!
Fighting fair only gets your own ass kicked.
Hope this helps.
--
BMO
Consider that the only seriously considered structured programming language available for home users in the 80s for microcomputers was Borland's Turbo Pascal. If you had an Atari ST in the late 80s, you could have Modula-2 (heh, heh) and good luck finding people to help you with either of them. I didn't know *anyone* who used Turbo Pascal, even when i got into BBSes and such.
I'll agree with your key point though. Outside of 50 minute classes at school we were all self-taught and finding resources and tools was a real pain. Without guidance, everyone develops bad habits. But even your last message proves that these bad habits can be unlearned because we *have* advanced over the past 35 years. Better tools, better resources, and with the availability of the Interbutt, the ability to shout "help me!" worldwide and get a decent answer has definitely helped the art of programming.
And yes, what you stated is one of the reasons why pride is a sin.
--
BMO
is the Wild West.
It's not the Wild West until you can take people like Paul Allen and shoot 'em, like in a Sergio Leone movie.
--
BMO
This is late but...
I really haven't touched BASIC in over 20 years. The last time I did, it was a one-off "security" login for my mom's PC at work using a language called "ASIC - It's almost BASIC" because I wanted to try it out (it's still available on simtel.net if you want to dig it up)
Yes, BASIC can make you do stupid shit. But that's part of the fun of it. But Dykstra was wrong saying it poisons young minds so severely that they are forever ruined. I went on from learning BASIC on a TI to other languages later on. Millions of other kids did too. There really wasn't anything else for kids in the 1980s besides BASIC and Pascal (or typing in games from magazines in Hex, saved to tape, uphill in the snow, both ways). Dykstra's snide remark paints an entire generation of coders with the same broad brush. It's stupid.
--
BMO
well, it's been a few years.
Insert an "end" or "stop" in there after the if statement. :-P
--
BMO