A few months back, I got a working first shot in Python. I tested it with puzzles from counttonine.com, and it will solve up to medium, but tends to crap out on a hard or expert one. I haven't had another of that sort of insomniatic nights since, so I haven't figured out exactly why it sometimes doesn't work.
I'm not sure I buy that. Maybe I'm just naive, but I don't see a 16 year old kid finding his way into a child porn ring, and then somehow managed to avoid implicating his contacts when he gets investigated.
Because if they could tell he was in a ring, you can be damn sure they wouldn't have let him off.
So one could say, oh, well, the one who took the pixtures is a criminal but everyone who bought them (or traded, etc.) didn't induce it. But of course the fact they are a market does induce it.
Of course, in my original post, I stipulated that we were talking about those that are neither involved in the photography or purchase it. Would you consider that a market?
To extract this from the emotional context, suppose somebody creates audio files, or any media. Some people buy these media, and some simply retrieve them via a P2P network. I would consider the former group the market, and thus complicit in the further creation of the media, while the latter would not be.
I would say it should depend on the sort of pictures. Are the pictures likely within a year or two of himself? If so, then he's displaying fairly normal sexual attractions, and there seems little reason to consider him a threat to children. If the images are clearly of prepubescents, or if he's still looking at ~14-16 year olds when he's 21, then he displays deviant sexual attractions.
Whether it's convictable, I don't know. Under current laws, I would have to say if the pictures are of prepubescents (a 16 year old is a man, if not in the sight of the law), he's convictable.
However, I would note there's a big difference between leeching some images and actually abusing children or paying money for images of minors, providing a demand for the continued abuse of children. As disgusting as we may find it, nobody is harmed if someone gets off on underage pictures. There are arguments about likelihood to commit a crime (I am here excluding "victimless" crimes, which I believe includes leeching child pornography), but we convict people for criminal acts, not likelihood to commit criminal acts.
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The Birth of vi
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· Score: 5, Funny
:w saves!
I actually want that on a t-shirt. I would do it myself, but I don't think my stenciling skills are up to the task.
Are there any languages that copy the whole array when you do this?
The array notation is equivalent to pointer, as far as the program is concerned. Its only use is in telling the programmer to expect an array, and not a pointer to a single value. I think every other language I know passes every variable by reference or does a copy-on-write (and I'm not sure any of them do that).
I'm a bit paranoid about my privacy, but damn are the guys at Hacktivismo dramatic about it. They seem to think that everything they make is a tool that will assuredly be used in a rebellion against an oppressive regime, and boy are they ever sticking it to the Man!
"ScatterChat is a HACKTIVIST WEAPON designed to allow non-technical human rights activists and political dissidents to communicate securely and anonymously while operating in hostile territory."
Hostile territory? Political dissidents? HACKTIVIST WEAPON? It's a goddamn instant messenger. Useful? Sure it would be if there weren't already GAIM plugins for encrypting your messages. But even if they weren't, it's hardly a revolutionary weapon that will stamp out tyranny.
And their Hacktivismo License? That cracks me up. "If you use this software, and you commit human rights abuses, we can sue your ass!"
Don't get me wrong, I agree with these guys on a lot of points. But with the level of drama, you'd think an allegorical The Man should be wearing a black mask over his eyes and tiptoeing around the stage stealing food from starving children and shocking prisoners' testicles.
Do you not agree that moral boundaries must shift in a war?
If you are the aggressor, you must impose your will upon the opponent. If you are the defender, you must prevent your opponent from doing so. In either situation, if you are constrained by "normal" moral boundaries (those adopted when living in cooperation is key to survival), your enemy gains an advantage.
Is murder necessarily immoral? Suppose for instance there is an invading army occupying your home town. You aren't allowed out at night, and they keep tabs on everything you do in public, maybe even stopping by your house once a week or once a day to make sure you're not up to anything. Would it be immoral to kill (or murder, if you prefer) the soldiers, forcing the invading army to constantly reallocate resources to your area, potentially giving somebody else a chance to drive them out of your country?
Whether or not I agree with war, a warrior cannot be burdened with normal standards of morality if he is to acheive his goals.
> So.. Anthrax bombs are OK then by you eh? what about 747's full of passengers? its war right?
I rarely approve of war and its tactics. I do not condone any of those actions. My point was essentially that normal standards of morality do not apply in war.
If a crashing into a building with a 747 full of passengers actually helped neutralize the enemy, then it would make sense as a military tactic. As it is, it simply pissed the US off and strengthened its resolve, making it an ineffective tactic. The fact that the US historically has entered wars following symbolic losses (Alamo, Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, among others) made it an *idiotic* tactic. Speaking in moral terms, it was immoral, since it did nothing to advance either main objective, and anybody with a basic knowledge of US history would have known from the start that it wouldn't.
> Well i would say that when your objective is to torture the enemy horribly with biological weapons before they ultimately die, then yes i would say thats pretty fucking immoral you sick fuck.
You're thinking as a human being that needs to live in cooperation with others. In a war, your survival depends on preventing your opponent from killing you. Therefore, you must take whatever measures necessary to prevent him from doing so. If he has an army, it may mean killing or otherwise incapacitating a very large number of people.
If someone treats torture as an end in itself, I'd consider them a psychopath. However, as a means of debilitating and demoralizing an opponent, it may be very effective.
Since it apparently didn't come through in my original post, let me make it very clear: I do not approve of wars. I do not approve of war tactics. But human morality is largely based on the need to live together, and in the context of war, that goes out the window.
Rules of war are a farce, and nobody seems to want to admit it. They are enforced and broken by those with the power to do so. The US, for instance, gets to bring war crimes charges against foreigners. At the same time, it can declare its own soldiers immune from international tribunals.
I'm sure that when several options are on the table, you might be less inclined to take one that is "illegal", but if it's the only one, I wouldn't count on finding many that would even hesitate to take it.
> There is such a thing as in immoral technology. That this was posted to Slashdot is disgusting. > > If you're going to report on anything, ScuttleMonkey, try posting about technology that saves lives.
I wasn't aware that news only involved the prettier uses of technology. Here I sat in my naïveté, thinking we ought to hear about both good and bad things.
Sarcasm aside,/. is acting as a news service here. It's not as if they appended praises to their report.
To address the first quoted claim, I disagree that this is an immoral use of technology. In a war, the two essential objectives are to preserve your resources (such as soldiers lives) and to neutralize the enemy, with preference going towards the latter. As such, any technology that aids in either of these objectives is moral, or at least amoral (I tend to think of war -- it's execution, not necessarily its objectives or motivations -- amorally, but that you can assign value judgments based on various objectives allows us to speak in moral terms if we like).
Is this use of technology disgusting? I think so. So are assault rifles and hand grenades, in my opinion. But this does not make them immoral in the context in which they are meant to be used.
I was a bit disappointed in His Dark Materials, or at least the execution of it. The story was interesting, and overall the writing was good, but there were a few times in each book where the narrative loses its flow and you're suddenly dragged out of the fantasy and made painfully aware that you're reading words on a page.
That, and sometimes the dialogue felt like it had been written by someone who had the vaguest notions of how humans interacted.
"I don't like what I've found, so rather than do what I can to change anything for the better, I'd rather revert to a state of ignorance and pretend there's nothing to fix."
I find this to be a rather appalling abdication of responsibility. Which I suppose is the entire point.
Slashdot Mirror
Can they ever!
A few months back, I got a working first shot in Python. I tested it with puzzles from counttonine.com, and it will solve up to medium, but tends to crap out on a hard or expert one. I haven't had another of that sort of insomniatic nights since, so I haven't figured out exactly why it sometimes doesn't work.
I'm not sure I buy that. Maybe I'm just naive, but I don't see a 16 year old kid finding his way into a child porn ring, and then somehow managed to avoid implicating his contacts when he gets investigated.
Because if they could tell he was in a ring, you can be damn sure they wouldn't have let him off.
So one could say, oh, well, the one who took the pixtures is a criminal but everyone who bought them (or traded, etc.) didn't induce it. But of course the fact they are a market does induce it.
Of course, in my original post, I stipulated that we were talking about those that are neither involved in the photography or purchase it. Would you consider that a market?
To extract this from the emotional context, suppose somebody creates audio files, or any media. Some people buy these media, and some simply retrieve them via a P2P network. I would consider the former group the market, and thus complicit in the further creation of the media, while the latter would not be.
I would say it should depend on the sort of pictures. Are the pictures likely within a year or two of himself? If so, then he's displaying fairly normal sexual attractions, and there seems little reason to consider him a threat to children. If the images are clearly of prepubescents, or if he's still looking at ~14-16 year olds when he's 21, then he displays deviant sexual attractions.
Whether it's convictable, I don't know. Under current laws, I would have to say if the pictures are of prepubescents (a 16 year old is a man, if not in the sight of the law), he's convictable.
However, I would note there's a big difference between leeching some images and actually abusing children or paying money for images of minors, providing a demand for the continued abuse of children. As disgusting as we may find it, nobody is harmed if someone gets off on underage pictures. There are arguments about likelihood to commit a crime (I am here excluding "victimless" crimes, which I believe includes leeching child pornography), but we convict people for criminal acts, not likelihood to commit criminal acts.
:w saves!
I actually want that on a t-shirt. I would do it myself, but I don't think my stenciling skills are up to the task.
Are there any languages that copy the whole array when you do this?
The array notation is equivalent to pointer, as far as the program is concerned. Its only use is in telling the programmer to expect an array, and not a pointer to a single value. I think every other language I know passes every variable by reference or does a copy-on-write (and I'm not sure any of them do that).
Yes. It requires module insertion. It's nothing terribly special.
It took me over an hour to download, so for the next day or so (or if the writers insist I take it down), I'll be hosting this file at: http://effigies.ath.cx:85/~chris/binfmt-en.pdf
Woops. That's what I get for not previewing.
/"\n\n/
s/"
"Where are the regex training programs for [Linux]?" /usr/bin/perl -w
"Remember the one where I petition the Almighty for three more planets? That one."
-- Meat Puppets (Classic Puppets - 23. Meltdown)
In case any of the previous commenters check back, this is a general reply:
I'm not saying they have no legitimate complaints. I even agree with a great many of them. I just find their overly dramatic style amusing.
I'm a bit paranoid about my privacy, but damn are the guys at Hacktivismo dramatic about it. They seem to think that everything they make is a tool that will assuredly be used in a rebellion against an oppressive regime, and boy are they ever sticking it to the Man!
"ScatterChat is a HACKTIVIST WEAPON designed to allow non-technical human rights activists and political dissidents to communicate securely and anonymously while operating in hostile territory."
Hostile territory? Political dissidents? HACKTIVIST WEAPON? It's a goddamn instant messenger. Useful? Sure it would be if there weren't already GAIM plugins for encrypting your messages. But even if they weren't, it's hardly a revolutionary weapon that will stamp out tyranny.
And their Hacktivismo License? That cracks me up. "If you use this software, and you commit human rights abuses, we can sue your ass!"
Don't get me wrong, I agree with these guys on a lot of points. But with the level of drama, you'd think an allegorical The Man should be wearing a black mask over his eyes and tiptoeing around the stage stealing food from starving children and shocking prisoners' testicles.
Good idea: Playing catch with your grandfather.
Bad idea: Playing catch *with* your grandfather.
Speaking of which, have you seen?
Animaniacs DVD (Not a referral link.)
Mistakes? We don't make mistakes.
Do you not agree that moral boundaries must shift in a war?
If you are the aggressor, you must impose your will upon the opponent. If you are the defender, you must prevent your opponent from doing so. In either situation, if you are constrained by "normal" moral boundaries (those adopted when living in cooperation is key to survival), your enemy gains an advantage.
Is murder necessarily immoral? Suppose for instance there is an invading army occupying your home town. You aren't allowed out at night, and they keep tabs on everything you do in public, maybe even stopping by your house once a week or once a day to make sure you're not up to anything. Would it be immoral to kill (or murder, if you prefer) the soldiers, forcing the invading army to constantly reallocate resources to your area, potentially giving somebody else a chance to drive them out of your country?
Whether or not I agree with war, a warrior cannot be burdened with normal standards of morality if he is to acheive his goals.
> So.. Anthrax bombs are OK then by you eh? what about 747's full of passengers? its war right?
I rarely approve of war and its tactics. I do not condone any of those actions. My point was essentially that normal standards of morality do not apply in war.
If a crashing into a building with a 747 full of passengers actually helped neutralize the enemy, then it would make sense as a military tactic. As it is, it simply pissed the US off and strengthened its resolve, making it an ineffective tactic. The fact that the US historically has entered wars following symbolic losses (Alamo, Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, among others) made it an *idiotic* tactic. Speaking in moral terms, it was immoral, since it did nothing to advance either main objective, and anybody with a basic knowledge of US history would have known from the start that it wouldn't.
> Well i would say that when your objective is to torture the enemy horribly with biological weapons before they ultimately die, then yes i would say thats pretty fucking immoral you sick fuck.
You're thinking as a human being that needs to live in cooperation with others. In a war, your survival depends on preventing your opponent from killing you. Therefore, you must take whatever measures necessary to prevent him from doing so. If he has an army, it may mean killing or otherwise incapacitating a very large number of people.
If someone treats torture as an end in itself, I'd consider them a psychopath. However, as a means of debilitating and demoralizing an opponent, it may be very effective.
Since it apparently didn't come through in my original post, let me make it very clear: I do not approve of wars. I do not approve of war tactics. But human morality is largely based on the need to live together, and in the context of war, that goes out the window.
And torture is illegal too, right?
Rules of war are a farce, and nobody seems to want to admit it. They are enforced and broken by those with the power to do so. The US, for instance, gets to bring war crimes charges against foreigners. At the same time, it can declare its own soldiers immune from international tribunals.
I'm sure that when several options are on the table, you might be less inclined to take one that is "illegal", but if it's the only one, I wouldn't count on finding many that would even hesitate to take it.
> There is such a thing as in immoral technology. That this was posted to Slashdot is disgusting.
/. is acting as a news service here. It's not as if they appended praises to their report.
>
> If you're going to report on anything, ScuttleMonkey, try posting about technology that saves lives.
I wasn't aware that news only involved the prettier uses of technology. Here I sat in my naïveté, thinking we ought to hear about both good and bad things.
Sarcasm aside,
To address the first quoted claim, I disagree that this is an immoral use of technology. In a war, the two essential objectives are to preserve your resources (such as soldiers lives) and to neutralize the enemy, with preference going towards the latter. As such, any technology that aids in either of these objectives is moral, or at least amoral (I tend to think of war -- it's execution, not necessarily its objectives or motivations -- amorally, but that you can assign value judgments based on various objectives allows us to speak in moral terms if we like).
Is this use of technology disgusting? I think so. So are assault rifles and hand grenades, in my opinion. But this does not make them immoral in the context in which they are meant to be used.
I was a bit disappointed in His Dark Materials, or at least the execution of it. The story was interesting, and overall the writing was good, but there were a few times in each book where the narrative loses its flow and you're suddenly dragged out of the fantasy and made painfully aware that you're reading words on a page.
That, and sometimes the dialogue felt like it had been written by someone who had the vaguest notions of how humans interacted.
"I don't like what I've found, so rather than do what I can to change anything for the better, I'd rather revert to a state of ignorance and pretend there's nothing to fix."
I find this to be a rather appalling abdication of responsibility. Which I suppose is the entire point.
Behind the couch.
And the dog needs to be let outside. Now.
Old hat. A *real* hacker reverses the polarity on his speakers, and whistles his source code.
Jesus, haven't you heard of sed?