Sure, open source fixes everything. Except, you know, legal threats.
Legal threats only work where there is some way to get them enforced. If someone picks this up in a country where legal threats from Facebook means bupkis, then yes, Open Source does fix this.
Oh, I'm disappointed by the Dems on this too. They have "played fair" and capitulated on enough of things to embolden the teabaggers since the beginning of the 2009 Congress, which is where the Ted Cruzes get their courage from. "Oh, hey, they'll fold again! No problem!"
And now when they want to actually use their testicular fortitude, finally, in this pissing match, we get... this.
That is a ridiculous position when you only control half of the congress.
And the Republicans don't want to be seen as "caving" by their "base" either, and they also only control half of congress.
The only way out is to give something to the moderate Republicans, IMHO.
Which the moderate Republicans aren't agreeing to because that would be "caving" when viewed by the teabagger cabal which is stronger than ever because they've let them steer the party rather than keep the freshmen in their places. And in a congress controlled by moderate Republicans, we wouldn't be seeing any of this. We'd have an actual budget, not a string of insane CRs, or is that an insane string of CRs?
I think the worst word in the world for the past 20 years, politically, is RINO. Barry Goldwater would be called a RINO, and so would Reagan these days. It's like when William F. Buckley died, the Republicans lost their mind.
I'm betting saner heads will prevail with the potential default. The McCains (who has also disappointed me greatly as a moderate) and the rest will not go along with the teabaggers on that. NFW.
Note, I use "teabaggers" because that's what they used when they started before someone told them what it meant. Then it was the "Tea Party" and I used that term and after years of listening to just dumb things coming out of the mouths of so-called "Tea Partiers" and my eventual disgust, I'm back to calling them "teabaggers"
You are writing as if they didn't have a whole goddamn year to do this.
And you are writing as if the Republican Party hasn't chased after the "energy" of the Teabaggers for years, thinking they can control the derp. The "dog that finally caught the car" that was referenced yesterday by Rep. John Dingell is/not/ about the shutdown despite what he thinks and what the media is reporting. The "dog that finally caught the car" and is in terror are the "mainstream" Republicans like Boehner (you know, the Speaker) of the Republican Party who are now terrified of being primaried out by morons like Rand Paul and "Ted" Cruz in 2014. Because they're not obstructionist enough.
You should read the cheerleading comments by the barely literate on Ted Cruz's Facebook page. Fucking scary, actually.
We need to seriously reconsider how we handle electing these clowns.
When you leave primary elections up to the people with too much time on their hands and not enough intelligence that vote for populist morons that pander to them, you get what you pay for. Clown shoes everywhere.
On a related note, the "clean CR" is based on the budget numbers that the Republicans themselves set, based on Paul Ryan's stuff. This "The Democrats Won't Negotiate" talking point is complete nonsense and anyone who pays attention for 5 minutes knows it. The Republicans are getting what they want with the budget with this CR, and that's what's hilarious about it. The Republicans could have claimed victory with the budget with this CR but they can't because they have to somehow save face with this shutdown that they let themselves get talked into over the ACA. Because the Mike Lees and Ted Cruzes (teabaggers to the core) of the House wanted to create as much pain as possible and hope that the public is dumb enough to blame anyone but them for this boneheaded "plan" they cooked up between themselves in their own little echo chamber and convinced their buddies that "this will work, this time, for sure."
That's not even getting into the debt-ceiling nonsense with the teabaggers. To hear a teabagger like Rand Paul talk, it's all "kitchen-table-economics" and a default is "no big deal." As if the US Government budget is like a household budget instead of the budget of a publicly-held large corporation. Imagine if Microsoft started defaulting on its debt. Look at what happened to Bear-Stearns when they defaulted. Yeah.
Honestly, how hard would it be for the Dems to recruit a handful of Republicans over to their side for a funding bill?
They already tried.
The 22 or so Republicans that said they'd vote for a "clean CR" to their constituents and the press in their home states.... didn't. They wouldn't sign the Discharge Petition, which would bypass the Speaker, to bring it to the floor.
the FAA forbids the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles over crowded areas such as Manhattan
If it's for hobbyist reasons, no, it doesn't.
From the FAQ:
Do I need to get approval from the FAA to fly a model aircraft for recreation?
No. FAA guidance does not address size of the model aircraft. FAA guidance says that model aircraft flights should be kept below 400 feet above ground level (AGL), should be flown a sufficient distance from populated areas and full scale aircraft, and are not for business purposes. 1, 2
The second PDF applies to model aircraft. The first to SRS BZNS "money making" UAVs. It's when you start getting into SRS BZNS that the FAA says you need a waiver.
These quadcopters that are less than two feet across (even though the FAA in the second PDF says they don't define by size) that aren't SRS BZNS are obviously "model aircraft" and have never been needed to be regulated
The second PDF cited above has "guidelines" for "good neighborliness." They are good ideas if you don't want to injure anyone (where the real risk lies) and get sued in civil court for negligence. But they are not hard and fast administrative laws
and create something stable and less buggy from it
Wishful thinking requiring LSD and shrooms at the same time.
Their code base for Photoshop, for example, goes back to the mid-80s. The amount of crunchy crusty cruft probably makes "cleaning it up and making it less buggy" impossible.
And if the rant from the guy who maintained the Linux fork of Flash Player, a few years ago, is any indication, anything related to Flash is spaghetti-coded.
Slashdot's biggest redesign effort ever is now in beta and you're invited to help guide it.
Yeah, whatever.
This is so visually insulting that the only criticism I can give it is "start over." That's not even getting into the page navigation. I can't navigate to the message number from my ~bmo page to catch up on replies? That really leads to intelligent conversation about topics, doesn't it? Wow, what a POS.
I am reminded of the Yahoo redesign of the Y! Finance fora in 2006. People left in droves, and it's only gone downhill since then, to utter unusability. Because someone somewhere had to "make a name for himself."
I will continue to come here only if certain people come here, but I doubt they will.
FTA: E-mail: âoeNever forget that electronic mail is like a postcard.
I said this the other day.
It made people angry.
So, like, whatever, man. If you don't want people reading your stuff, encrypt it. Not every country has the same laws. Not every country has the same 3 letter agencies. And just because it's not been revealed by Snowden's archive yet doesn't mean it's not happening.
If I tell you in a privacy policy that I'm going to use keywords for advertising, and not hide this anywhere, it's not snooping.
It's the fucking law.
You can bitch and whine all you want, but that was the construction of the ECPA of 1986 and it still holds true. When it first came out, people made boilerplate disclaiming all privacy out of panic, but that has morphed into the modern privacy policies of today that have been refined over time.
If you don't like it, use a different mail service or roll your own.
Per your comments I could send postcards with encrypted text which would stop the casual reader, but not one dedicated to seeing my communication.
Actually yes it would. There are encryption systems out there that are more involved than the Caesar Cypher (your typical decoder-ring or ROT-13).
Nobody has decrypted Julian Assange's "Insurance" file, have they? (or they have not revealed it) And you can bet that people are throwing everything they can at cracking it.
So I'm lazy and decide to put the postcard in an envelope but not encrypt it. Doing so means I not have an expectation of privacy. For a letter carrier (or nefarious person) to read the contents they would need to actually open the envelope which requires an active act, fingers tearing, knife slicing, steam unbinding. That active act is the step that break the law and it is only the threat of arrest that stops people from perform such an act.
Putting the postcard in an envelope has been established that you have a/reasonable/ expectation of privacy. Your problem with your argument is the fact is that the only "envelope" you can use is full-on encryption. There is no such envelope otherwise.
>The plaintiffs in the suit allege Google violates federal and state wiretap laws by scannning the messages sent by non-Gmail and Gmail users."
The ECPA says that email is different and that only watching the live transmission outside the normal checking of function of the email system by a person when not otherwise disclaimed by the privacy policy is the equivalent of a wiretap.
That's because email is a store and forward communication, not the equivalent of a phone call.
When the ECPA was written, it had to be written in a way that prevented turning all operators into felons when they weren't deliberately spying on their users. This is the "hole" (it's not really) that Google is using to justify the machine reading of email, if it's spelled out.
I have read the Gmail privacy statement. To me it covers their ass in this regard. The Gmail privacy statement applies just as much to incoming mail as it does to outgoing. But even if it doesn't, when you send email, unless it's encrypted, it's the equivalent of a postcard. Are we going to be throwing meatspace postal workers into jail when they read the text next to the address on a postcard? That would be insane and unrealistic expectation of privacy, wouldn't it? That's not just my opinion, it's the opinion of everyone who knows anything about email. It's not a new concept, either. It's been expressed in books like my copy of the first edition of "Navigating The Internet" where the author introduced this "new thing" called the "web."
Calling this wiretapping and removing the safe-harbor sets a dangerous precedent and will turn all operators into felons.
While there is the desire to have complete privacy when it comes to email, unencrypted transmission and text negate any realistic expectation of privacy. Privacy starts with the user and ends with the user. If you don't want people reading your stuff (besides the fuckin' NSA spit), take measures to keep them from reading it. Instead of sending plain text on the postcard, encrypt the text with your (figurative) Ovaltine Decoder Ring and get your friends to use their decoder rings.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, open source fixes everything. Except, you know, legal threats.
Legal threats only work where there is some way to get them enforced. If someone picks this up in a country where legal threats from Facebook means bupkis, then yes, Open Source does fix this.
--
BMO
Oh, I'm disappointed by the Dems on this too. They have "played fair" and capitulated on enough of things to embolden the teabaggers since the beginning of the 2009 Congress, which is where the Ted Cruzes get their courage from. "Oh, hey, they'll fold again! No problem!"
And now when they want to actually use their testicular fortitude, finally, in this pissing match, we get... this.
That is a ridiculous position when you only control half of the congress.
And the Republicans don't want to be seen as "caving" by their "base" either, and they also only control half of congress.
The only way out is to give something to the moderate Republicans, IMHO.
Which the moderate Republicans aren't agreeing to because that would be "caving" when viewed by the teabagger cabal which is stronger than ever because they've let them steer the party rather than keep the freshmen in their places. And in a congress controlled by moderate Republicans, we wouldn't be seeing any of this. We'd have an actual budget, not a string of insane CRs, or is that an insane string of CRs?
I think the worst word in the world for the past 20 years, politically, is RINO. Barry Goldwater would be called a RINO, and so would Reagan these days. It's like when William F. Buckley died, the Republicans lost their mind.
I'm betting saner heads will prevail with the potential default. The McCains (who has also disappointed me greatly as a moderate) and the rest will not go along with the teabaggers on that. NFW.
Note, I use "teabaggers" because that's what they used when they started before someone told them what it meant. Then it was the "Tea Party" and I used that term and after years of listening to just dumb things coming out of the mouths of so-called "Tea Partiers" and my eventual disgust, I'm back to calling them "teabaggers"
--
BMO
You are writing as if they didn't have a whole goddamn year to do this.
And you are writing as if the Republican Party hasn't chased after the "energy" of the Teabaggers for years, thinking they can control the derp. The "dog that finally caught the car" that was referenced yesterday by Rep. John Dingell is /not/ about the shutdown despite what he thinks and what the media is reporting. The "dog that finally caught the car" and is in terror are the "mainstream" Republicans like Boehner (you know, the Speaker) of the Republican Party who are now terrified of being primaried out by morons like Rand Paul and "Ted" Cruz in 2014. Because they're not obstructionist enough.
You should read the cheerleading comments by the barely literate on Ted Cruz's Facebook page. Fucking scary, actually.
We need to seriously reconsider how we handle electing these clowns.
When you leave primary elections up to the people with too much time on their hands and not enough intelligence that vote for populist morons that pander to them, you get what you pay for. Clown shoes everywhere.
On a related note, the "clean CR" is based on the budget numbers that the Republicans themselves set, based on Paul Ryan's stuff. This "The Democrats Won't Negotiate" talking point is complete nonsense and anyone who pays attention for 5 minutes knows it. The Republicans are getting what they want with the budget with this CR, and that's what's hilarious about it. The Republicans could have claimed victory with the budget with this CR but they can't because they have to somehow save face with this shutdown that they let themselves get talked into over the ACA. Because the Mike Lees and Ted Cruzes (teabaggers to the core) of the House wanted to create as much pain as possible and hope that the public is dumb enough to blame anyone but them for this boneheaded "plan" they cooked up between themselves in their own little echo chamber and convinced their buddies that "this will work, this time, for sure."
That's not even getting into the debt-ceiling nonsense with the teabaggers. To hear a teabagger like Rand Paul talk, it's all "kitchen-table-economics" and a default is "no big deal." As if the US Government budget is like a household budget instead of the budget of a publicly-held large corporation. Imagine if Microsoft started defaulting on its debt. Look at what happened to Bear-Stearns when they defaulted. Yeah.
--
BMO
So they just... give up?
It was fucking yesterday. It's 10:am on Saturday.
Give it your outrage a fucking rest already.
--
BMO
Honestly, how hard would it be for the Dems to recruit a handful of Republicans over to their side for a funding bill?
They already tried.
The 22 or so Republicans that said they'd vote for a "clean CR" to their constituents and the press in their home states .... didn't. They wouldn't sign the Discharge Petition, which would bypass the Speaker, to bring it to the floor.
So there you go.
--
BMO
They are guidelines
They aren't regulations. They're (as it says in the pdf for model aircraft) voluntary.
I know it's a fine distinction for some people, but it's important.
--
BMO
the FAA forbids the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles over crowded areas such as Manhattan
If it's for hobbyist reasons, no, it doesn't.
From the FAQ:
Do I need to get approval from the FAA to fly a model aircraft for recreation?
No. FAA guidance does not address size of the model aircraft. FAA guidance says that model aircraft flights should be kept below 400 feet above ground level (AGL), should be flown a sufficient distance from populated areas and full scale aircraft, and are not for business purposes. 1, 2
http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/uas/uas_faq/#Qn2
pdf1: http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/uas/reg/media/frnotice_uas.pdf
pdf 2: http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAdvisoryCircular.nsf/0/1acfc3f689769a56862569e70077c9cc/$FILE/ATTBJMAC/ac91-57.pdf
The second PDF applies to model aircraft. The first to SRS BZNS "money making" UAVs. It's when you start getting into SRS BZNS that the FAA says you need a waiver.
These quadcopters that are less than two feet across (even though the FAA in the second PDF says they don't define by size) that aren't SRS BZNS are obviously "model aircraft" and have never been needed to be regulated
The second PDF cited above has "guidelines" for "good neighborliness." They are good ideas if you don't want to injure anyone (where the real risk lies) and get sued in civil court for negligence. But they are not hard and fast administrative laws
--
BMO
>get owned
>be shown how wrong you are
>argue semantics over logic and facts.
Yeah, you're a tool.
--
BMO
I think rewriting it in any language, including TECO and brainfuck might improve things.
Emacs was once a bunch of TECO macros. Which explains a lot about both RMS and emacs itself.
--
BMO
The first two versions they made were named after the size of the code.
4k and 8k BASIC. As a kid in the early 80s, I used a lot of 4k and 8k BASIC listings and "ported" programs over to Apple, TRS-80, and TI BASIC.
Because everybody had different syntax for BASIC.
And they were named Micro-Soft at the time.
/old
//slashies on slashdot? [palin] you betcha [/palin]
///and peek and poke were the gateway drug to assembler.
--
BMO
and create something stable and less buggy from it
Wishful thinking requiring LSD and shrooms at the same time.
Their code base for Photoshop, for example, goes back to the mid-80s. The amount of crunchy crusty cruft probably makes "cleaning it up and making it less buggy" impossible.
And if the rant from the guy who maintained the Linux fork of Flash Player, a few years ago, is any indication, anything related to Flash is spaghetti-coded.
So I'm not gonna hold my breath.
--
BMO
http://postimg.org/image/ucbqrq6fn/
>stripping html used in quoting or emphasis.
Because nobody ever uses this, ever.
--
BMO
Slashdot's biggest redesign effort ever is now in beta and you're invited to help guide it.
Yeah, whatever.
This is so visually insulting that the only criticism I can give it is "start over." That's not even getting into the page navigation. I can't navigate to the message number from my ~bmo page to catch up on replies? That really leads to intelligent conversation about topics, doesn't it? Wow, what a POS.
I am reminded of the Yahoo redesign of the Y! Finance fora in 2006. People left in droves, and it's only gone downhill since then, to utter unusability. Because someone somewhere had to "make a name for himself."
I will continue to come here only if certain people come here, but I doubt they will.
--
BMO
Entire websites and careers are built on that now.
One wonders what happened to Trashcan Man after the invasion of rec.pets.cats by alt.tasteless.
--
BMO
FTA: E-mail: âoeNever forget that electronic mail is like a postcard.
I said this the other day.
It made people angry.
So, like, whatever, man. If you don't want people reading your stuff, encrypt it. Not every country has the same laws. Not every country has the same 3 letter agencies. And just because it's not been revealed by Snowden's archive yet doesn't mean it's not happening.
--
BMO
There is an OCD workshop at McLean Hospital.
http://www.mclean.harvard.edu/
I suggest you go.
--
BMO
Guidos are a lot like the gays, except without the homosexuality.
Coffee fucking everywhere.
I'm using this.
--
BMO
Enough with the stupid fucking boycotts that are nothing but attempts at silencing free speech.
Furthermore, free speech does not mean to be free from criticism.
You are entirely free to say dumb things. Other people are free to say those things are dumb.
--
BMO
The guy is entitled to his opinion and to run the company as he wishes
The instant you decide one person's money is less than another's, you've become bad at business.
The converse of this is when you decide to give away too many freebies to your "friends" which is also bad business.
I've personally seen businesses go under because of shit like this.
He deserves this and your defense of this is idiotic.
--
BMO
Follow-up
>I've been an email postmaster since the early 90s
Then you should know that the safe-harbor provision in the ECPA protects your ass when you go and start troubleshooting why email isn't working.
Remove this safe harbor of being able to write a privacy policy, and you become a felon. Have a nice day.
--
BMO
If I tell you in a privacy policy that I'm going to use keywords for advertising, and not hide this anywhere, it's not snooping.
It's the fucking law.
You can bitch and whine all you want, but that was the construction of the ECPA of 1986 and it still holds true. When it first came out, people made boilerplate disclaiming all privacy out of panic, but that has morphed into the modern privacy policies of today that have been refined over time.
If you don't like it, use a different mail service or roll your own.
--
BMO
Per your comments I could send postcards with encrypted text which would stop the casual reader, but not one dedicated to seeing my communication.
Actually yes it would. There are encryption systems out there that are more involved than the Caesar Cypher (your typical decoder-ring or ROT-13).
Nobody has decrypted Julian Assange's "Insurance" file, have they? (or they have not revealed it) And you can bet that people are throwing everything they can at cracking it.
So I'm lazy and decide to put the postcard in an envelope but not encrypt it. Doing so means I not have an expectation of privacy. For a letter carrier (or nefarious person) to read the contents they would need to actually open the envelope which requires an active act, fingers tearing, knife slicing, steam unbinding. That active act is the step that break the law and it is only the threat of arrest that stops people from perform such an act.
Putting the postcard in an envelope has been established that you have a /reasonable/ expectation of privacy. Your problem with your argument is the fact is that the only "envelope" you can use is full-on encryption. There is no such envelope otherwise.
--
BMO
Yeah, Americans use Rhode Islands for area.
As a former resident of RI, I can categorically state that this is true. The other measurement is Delawares. But that is less common.
--
BMO
>The plaintiffs in the suit allege Google violates federal and state wiretap laws by scannning the messages sent by non-Gmail and Gmail users."
The ECPA says that email is different and that only watching the live transmission outside the normal checking of function of the email system by a person when not otherwise disclaimed by the privacy policy is the equivalent of a wiretap.
That's because email is a store and forward communication, not the equivalent of a phone call.
When the ECPA was written, it had to be written in a way that prevented turning all operators into felons when they weren't deliberately spying on their users. This is the "hole" (it's not really) that Google is using to justify the machine reading of email, if it's spelled out.
I have read the Gmail privacy statement. To me it covers their ass in this regard. The Gmail privacy statement applies just as much to incoming mail as it does to outgoing. But even if it doesn't, when you send email, unless it's encrypted, it's the equivalent of a postcard. Are we going to be throwing meatspace postal workers into jail when they read the text next to the address on a postcard? That would be insane and unrealistic expectation of privacy, wouldn't it? That's not just my opinion, it's the opinion of everyone who knows anything about email. It's not a new concept, either. It's been expressed in books like my copy of the first edition of "Navigating The Internet" where the author introduced this "new thing" called the "web."
Calling this wiretapping and removing the safe-harbor sets a dangerous precedent and will turn all operators into felons.
While there is the desire to have complete privacy when it comes to email, unencrypted transmission and text negate any realistic expectation of privacy. Privacy starts with the user and ends with the user. If you don't want people reading your stuff (besides the fuckin' NSA spit), take measures to keep them from reading it. Instead of sending plain text on the postcard, encrypt the text with your (figurative) Ovaltine Decoder Ring and get your friends to use their decoder rings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdA__2tKoIU
There is a crying need for transparent encryption methods in communication software, and it boggles my mind that this hasn't happened yet.
--
BMO - Drink more Ovaltine.
>Europeans use Wales as a measurement of area
>Criticize the US for using "comparative measurements"
Look at the troll. Look at the troll and laugh.
--
BMO