"You don't want to tell the computer every nitty-gritty detail. The computer is fast enough and powerful enough to do what you want it to do without you needing to exercise that level of control over how it actually does it."
No! No no no! Stop it! It is thinking like that which has caused my dual 2.66ghz processor to provide a less responsive interface than my 7mhz Amiga provided! Really. Seriously. STOP THINKING THAT FASTER HARDWARE RELEASES YOU FROM THE RESPONSIBILITY OF WRITING EFFICIENT CODE. Really. Just stop.
Sincerely, The rest of the world who actually has to use your programs
So, if I inject code into a MS Windows process, say the shell known as explorer.exe, then I have violated Microsoft's copyright? What about rootkits? Does a Linux rootkit violate Linus' copyright? Does an OS X rootkit... nevermind on that one. That kernel is BSD licensed. Seriously, does anyone really expect code that I wrote completely by myself that interacts with any other code that someone else wrote to take on the license that the code interacted with is released under? Is it really a copyright violation? If so, how?
I am not a lawyer and I do like free (go ahead and mentally capitalize free if it suits "you" (being whomever reads this)) licenses, but I suspect some people are reaching too far to get what they want. I reject Microsoft's claim that my rootkit is violating their copyright and I reject whomevers claim that I am violating their copyright by writing a Linux rootkit.
I am in the same boat. I have lost touch with the music and book scenes and I no longer know what bands and writers produce something that I would like. Even worse, I am actively afraid to buy music and/or video games. I know that something bad will be installed on my computer or that the CD won't play. Especially in my macbook pro (thanks for bricking yet another fucking drive Apple. I really should have learned after the first time. I am so fucking stupid.).
Honestly, their behavior makes me so mad that I want to "steal" all of their shit... but, I just don't care. I can play with bits and bytes of my own creation and not ever worry about any of their crap. Either way, they get none of my cash now (even Apple).
"How would people in the US feel, if the rest of the world judged them, by the behaviour of a small minority of their idiots?"
Well, to be fair, there are quite few voices being raised against the loud minority of idiots here in America... but you do not hear very many objections against stoning women and girls from Muslim folks. Where are the fatwas and jihads against the crazed minority of Muslims? Ah, that's right. There are none.
I know, I know, you will next seek to question where is the moral outrage over the Catholic church and child molesting... well, the Catholic church is being tried in Christian courts over this behavior.
Yes, I am sure that the Marines can easily have a new computer delivered and the off-site backup accessible in 5 minutes while the mortar rounds are landing in their encampment. A map with a bullet hole in it is still good enough to call in an artillery or air strike. The computer with a bullet hole in it is good for hitting you in the head for thinking the environment they work in has spare computers and data connection laying around.
No, I am not honestly mad at you. After all, you have never had mortar rounds or rockets flying over your head before. Your point is valid when talking about being on a stable base well away from enemy lines.:)
Since the "discussion" is now over, I can send you this message:
You deserve the +5 moderation that you are sitting at now. Your post is a sober assessment of the situation that refutes the mouth breathing hyperbole of other comments within this "discussion". Thank you.
"Yes the backend is important and you shouldn't neglect it, but the GUI is what drives the design of the backend!"
I have argued with people who have that idea before. It is like talking to a brick wall. The "back-end" IS the project. You can attach any GUI at all to it and as long as the "back-end" works properly, everything will more or less be ok. The front end could be a web page, native widgets and windows, a curses environment, whatever. As long as the GUI can send the necessary commands to the "back-end" and the GUI is comprehensible and usable to the user, the GUI does not matter.
Ultimately, it is not the GUI that drives design. That is like saying the cart goes in front of the horse... which is exactly what the OP was referring to. A GUI is merely an abstraction layer to make the program itself usable by mere mortals. Permit me to repeat that since it is the point of this entire comment:
A GUI is merely an abstraction layer to make the program itself usable by mere mortals.
(Of course, which seems to be your objection, if the GUI is not adequate then the program itself is not fit for use.)
Except the exploit has already been seen out in the wild. How do you think people without any administrative privileges whatsoever have been getting their machine "rooted" for the past three months by fake anti-virus software? There is far more here than meets the eye upon first inspection.
The only responsible course of action is full disclosure as soon as possible. Those 5 days in which it could have been public but was not were 5 more days of computers getting infected with hostile code.
Ok, that explains why Durango, Colorado or Selene, Kansas doesn't get this stuff... but what about New York City? Los Angeles? Chicago? Detroit (oops, never mind that one), Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Seattle, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Albuquerque, Boston, Miami, and on and on and on and on.
In other words, you are dead wrong. Thanks for playing.:)
I have an iPhone, a Nokia N900, and a Nokia 5800. The 5800 touchscreen was just horrible, but it worked very well with the stylus. Unfortunately, the stylus is not a serious input device. My iPhone, turned sideways, allows me to use both thumbs and hold the device comfortably. After some weeks of practice, I can type almost entire dissertations on it quickly. The 'M' button and the spacebar seem to get mixed up at times as does the Shift and the 'A' key, but otherwise, the iPhone input rocks.
That being said, I fucking hate my iPhone. The only reason I use it at all is that I was able to jailbreak and unlock it and it has superior input capabilities... so, I went out and bought a Nokia N900. Now, this is a real phone. The only reason I still use my iPhone over my N900 is that the keyboard is not so good. I have tried a friends Nokia (N97?) and the keys were spaced just a bit further apart and with practice, could have become a useful input feature. The N900 has keys that are way too close and the 'click' sound feedback is hit and miss, so sometimes, I end up hitting the same key over and over again because I thought it did not take the first time.
All in all, the iPhone is the only onscreen keyboard that I have ever tried that is even useful at all... and it is VERY good. Some of the Nokia phones have semi-decent keyboards, but the N900 is NOT one of them. If you are buying a phone purely for its input capabilities, buy an iPhone and don't look back (because you will see Steve Jobs doing things to your anal opening!).
PC gamers have $2000+ computers and drop $200-500 on a video card every year. But most of them are too damn cheap to buy their games. They grew up pirating them through high school and university, and don't see any reason they should stop now. Most of them have managed to convince themselves that (somehow) they aren't doing anything wrong.
"And you're not going to change that, especially not with DRM that gives pirates a better experience than paying customers."
It is funny. When I was younger, I was very poor. The only way that I could play games was to pirate them. Now, I am older and fairly successful and can buy as many games as I want. I started buying games... oh what a mistake that was. Starforce drivers slowed my computer down on every bootup, regardless of whether or not the game was still installed. The 'Games for Windows Live' bullshit pissed me off. I did not want to create any accounts. The "you only get 5 installs of Grand Theft Auto IV" was the final straw. Oh, let's not get into the whole Steam fiasco when you are in Iraq for 2.5 years without an internet connection.
I walk by the games section and I see all sorts of cool games that I would love to buy. I look at them and see that they are impossible for me to play for various reasons involving DRM. Stupid idiots. Their anti-piracy didn't work when I was younger but it sure works now that I am older and not willing to be a pirate. What are they thinking?
Maybe you should start by not going to WalMart and buying anything made in China or having a part made in China.
If only that were possible. *Everything* is made in China. Even when I was a little kid, Hot Wheels cars were Made in Taiwan... which has been changed to say Made in China.
Seriously, a decade ago, I tried really really hard to not ever buy anything made in China. If everything that is being sold is made in China, there is nothing I can do about it. By now, I just buy what-the-fuck-ever because someone else already made this decision for me. I can go live in the wilderness as a hermit, or I can buy shit made in China. There are no other options.
I like how you toss the blame onto your fellow humans when this decision was already made for us by the people who own the fucking world. Take your stupid whiny accusations and shove them up your ass.
"Why do you, Americans, put up with your mobile operators specifically disabling features (like tethering or bluetooth) on phones"
That is like asking why the innocent prisoner tolerates being shackled up or why the Jews tolerated Hitler or Pharaoh enslaving them. Some escape by not using mobile phone technology. Most just put up with whatever is forced on them. Will you play the part of Moses and lead us to freedom in the promised land of unlocked phones and reliable 3G service?
I guess what I am really asking you is this: Are you suggesting that I move to another country because of the state of mobile phone technology in my country? How else would I stop "putting up with it"? Vote for different representatives? Expose the corruption? Assassinate CEOs?
Seriously, your question makes little sense. Yes, we know it is a fucked up situation. No, there is nothing we can do to stop the rape.
What you do not seem to understand is that once the security of a system is compromised, _everything_ in that system is suspect. Forensics must be performed to attempt to determine what exactly happened, which information was compromised, what kind of backdoors or rootkits were placed, etc. Security auditors are not cheap. Wiping and rebaselining computers could result in loss of information that took lots of money to gather (scientists are not cheap either). Do this across enough systems and $700k is quite possible.
As an aside, if you look at my earlier argument, you might assume that I am against extradition but then in this one, I appear to be for extradition. Neither is the case. I am simply arguing against incorrect assumptions. I do not wish to state whether or not I am for or against extradition at this time.
"He tried to quench that 'thirst' by breaking in to a highly sensitive military computer network directly or indirectly depended on by many people in harms way every day. Sounds a hell of a lot like it SHOULD fall under terrorism laws."
Holy batcaves Batman. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! Let's start with a definition of Terrorism:
terrorism - The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious.
or, how about Terrorist:
terrorist - a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells.
Now, please explain exactly how what he did is in ANY way associated with terrorism. No really. Some morons are modding you up as interesting and you are not even close to the mark here.
"What he really means "I am a heartless selfish asshole who would rather watch unfortunate poor people die in the gutter than pay a pittance for a decent universal health care scheme"."
Ah yes. A truly non-flamebait way to interpret his post. How about seeing it from a different point of view:
I paid $300 or more per paycheck to the state of California for unemployment insurance. When I lost my job, were they willing to pay me at the level that I paid them? No, not only were they unwilling to pay me at the level I paid them, there were unwilling to pay me ANYTHING at all. I could have tried to fight it, but I just didn't care. Even if I had won, the money I would have received would have been smaller than what I had already paid.
So, am I a selfish asshole who wants to see unemployed people eating out of the gutter or am I realistic and realize it does not matter if I pay into it or not, *I* will never benefit. To be quite frank, I strongly suspect the medical coverage changes that are being proposed will be the same way. Only certain people will ever be able to benefit from it, but not me. Hell, my current insurance company has refused to pay every fucking bill I have given them in the past 3 years. Either the procedure happened at the wrong time or was billed under the wrong code, or any number of bureaucratic nonsense excuses.
And ultimately, that is why I would rather you think of me as a selfish asshole who wants to see people die in the gutters. It is not a pittance that is being asked of us and only some will benefit, but it will not be me. All I have to say to the people who want to take my money without any benefit to me is, "FUCK YOU! Earn your own goddamned money. I have spent over half of my life well under the poverty level, and because I am a white male who has never committed a crime, I am eligible for NOTHING. Well, if I am eligible for nothing, stop telling ME that I have to give to YOU. FUCK YOU!".
Yeah, I am well off now. I make more money now than most entire families do. I suffered when I had no money. I could have died in a gutter. Not one of you fucking assholes helped me. How charitable do you think I am now that I do have money? I am not. Go fucking die in a gutter. I do not care.
You know, my first thought when I read "seven seconds is too long" was "you've got to be kidding"
Well, I would say that they are NOT kidding. To be honest, I am getting quite weary of buying upgraded processors and more RAM so I can finally, at last, get instant response... and what happens? Some jackass comes along and says, "programmer time is more important than CPU time. Let's use layers and layers of crap to reduce programmer time. Nobody will ever notice since CPUs will always become faster to hide the slowness."
Well, you know what? Screw you. I am wasting some mod points to respond to this, but yeah. Your mail server should have responded within a second. In a LAN, if a packet takes more than 10 milliseconds to get there, your network is poor. Your CPU should have been able to handle the network packets, decoded the IMAP request, etc within 40 milliseconds. Seriously, a millisecond is a HUGE amount of time for a modern CPU. So, we have 60 milliseconds total in which your mail server should have responded. Why didn't it?
"nothing I've yet experienced is audibly degraded at 256kbps"
Heh. I double dog dare you to try and compress the song My Name is Mud. It is by a group called Primus. I swear to god, no matter what bitrate I use, it always sounds like crap. I have no idea why it is like that, but the song just refuses to be compressed. You get ungodly artifacts, extra clicks, etc. Try it, you will see what I mean.
Note that I am not disagreeing with your general assertion, I just wanted to point out that reality does not like being boxed in. heheh. Regards
I have mod points and I was about to mod you as flamebait... but I thought it would be better to educate you. I doubt you will listen but here goes:
It was not American policy to rape civilians. The story you linked to showed that people were being punished for that crime. Yes, it was a crime, but you are portraying it as if it was American policy and very widespread. Releasing a game where Americans rape innocent civilians would be in bad taste considering that raping innocent civilians is a punishable crime. Regardless, I would not want to see such a game censored.
In clear cut cases of murder, I see no reason why that person should be imprisoned at all. They should be executed quickly and humanely. Yeah, I really believe they should be killed in the same manner that they killed someone else, but, it is not reasonable to have someone commit the same atrocities that the original murderer did. Guillotine, lethal injection, whatever. Get rid of them from this world.
That being said, the reason why I do not support the death penalty is because of jackass prosecutors and asshole policemen who are certain someone committed a crime and will manufacture evidence to get a conviction.
I have been reading your comments for many years and you seem to genuinely believe what you are saying right now. There are a couple of problems with what you say though.
The first is that you are presupposing DRM is the only way for professional artists to recoup their losses during the generation of their art. I am not so certain that this supposition is true. It is easy to get anything digital for free right now and yet it is clear that many people are paying anyways.
The second is that DRM is not a fair deal. As it stands, the cards are stacked entirely in the artists favor with respect to DRM. The problem with that is there are two parties to the transaction. Both parties need consideration. If this does not happen, then one side is going to get screwed.
Relevant to point one, it appears to me that DRM is NOT about ensuring revenue streams. It seems to me that is is more about maximizing revenue. For example, a video game called Colin McRae Dirt 2 is $59 for the PS3, $49 for XBOX 360, and $39 for the PC. The price is clearly tiered with the difficulty or ease of piracy in mind. It would seem to me, an uneducated bystander who is only mildly interested, that artists can make their money back without DRM if the prices are reasonable. In other words, piracy keeps prices out of the monopoly rent tiers. Personally, I do not think my society should not be supporting monopoly rents for artists no matter how important and/or unique such artists think that they are.
"1) Software naturally becomes larger with more features over time."
E.G. bloat
"2) Many of the features added are very good and very helpful "
I decline to agree.
"3) We live in an era where memory is not a precious commodity."
Wrong, memory *IS* a precious commodity. I can only have 4 gigabytes of ram in my laptop. If every program assumes that ram is not an issue, it quickly becomes an issue. RAM is much much much much larger than it was before. It is still finite.
So, bloat is major problem for Firefox now. Why? Because it uses too much of my memory and too much of my time. I close Firefox, I click on the icon to launch it again, and it then tells me that Firefox is still running and to wait. WTF?! Exactly how long does it take to exit()? Oh, it is synching a database. Um, since when did I want or need a database for my web browsing habits? Stop collecting information! "Use privacy mode". Why? What benefits accrue to me from the web browser storing all of this information about me and the websites that I visit?
Honestly, I categorically reject this media rich fun zone that is being thrust upon me. Especially since it seeks to remove all control from me. Leave me alone. Give me Firefox 1.0 with bugfixes/security updates damnit. Firefox 3 is an out of control monstrosity that is growing past the needs of any single individual.
God I wish I could understand the convoluted codebase of even Firefox 1.0 so I could just maintain it myself. What a nightmare.
Slashdot Mirror
"You don't want to tell the computer every nitty-gritty detail. The computer is fast enough and powerful enough to do what you want it to do without you needing to exercise that level of control over how it actually does it."
No! No no no! Stop it! It is thinking like that which has caused my dual 2.66ghz processor to provide a less responsive interface than my 7mhz Amiga provided! Really. Seriously. STOP THINKING THAT FASTER HARDWARE RELEASES YOU FROM THE RESPONSIBILITY OF WRITING EFFICIENT CODE. Really. Just stop.
Sincerely,
The rest of the world who actually has to use your programs
So, if I inject code into a MS Windows process, say the shell known as explorer.exe, then I have violated Microsoft's copyright? What about rootkits? Does a Linux rootkit violate Linus' copyright? Does an OS X rootkit... nevermind on that one. That kernel is BSD licensed. Seriously, does anyone really expect code that I wrote completely by myself that interacts with any other code that someone else wrote to take on the license that the code interacted with is released under? Is it really a copyright violation? If so, how?
I am not a lawyer and I do like free (go ahead and mentally capitalize free if it suits "you" (being whomever reads this)) licenses, but I suspect some people are reaching too far to get what they want. I reject Microsoft's claim that my rootkit is violating their copyright and I reject whomevers claim that I am violating their copyright by writing a Linux rootkit.
strike
"Birth (just try to go back the other way)"
Men have been doing that since the dawn of time. :P
Good. It is better that nothing at all is available rather than dealing with the pain of DRM.
I am in the same boat. I have lost touch with the music and book scenes and I no longer know what bands and writers produce something that I would like. Even worse, I am actively afraid to buy music and/or video games. I know that something bad will be installed on my computer or that the CD won't play. Especially in my macbook pro (thanks for bricking yet another fucking drive Apple. I really should have learned after the first time. I am so fucking stupid.).
Honestly, their behavior makes me so mad that I want to "steal" all of their shit... but, I just don't care. I can play with bits and bytes of my own creation and not ever worry about any of their crap. Either way, they get none of my cash now (even Apple).
strike
"How would people in the US feel, if the rest of the world judged them, by the behaviour of a small minority of their idiots?"
Well, to be fair, there are quite few voices being raised against the loud minority of idiots here in America... but you do not hear very many objections against stoning women and girls from Muslim folks. Where are the fatwas and jihads against the crazed minority of Muslims? Ah, that's right. There are none.
I know, I know, you will next seek to question where is the moral outrage over the Catholic church and child molesting... well, the Catholic church is being tried in Christian courts over this behavior.
You seek to expose hypocrisy where none exists.
Yes, I am sure that the Marines can easily have a new computer delivered and the off-site backup accessible in 5 minutes while the mortar rounds are landing in their encampment. A map with a bullet hole in it is still good enough to call in an artillery or air strike. The computer with a bullet hole in it is good for hitting you in the head for thinking the environment they work in has spare computers and data connection laying around.
No, I am not honestly mad at you. After all, you have never had mortar rounds or rockets flying over your head before. Your point is valid when talking about being on a stable base well away from enemy lines. :)
Regards,
strike
Since the "discussion" is now over, I can send you this message:
You deserve the +5 moderation that you are sitting at now. Your post is a sober assessment of the situation that refutes the mouth breathing hyperbole of other comments within this "discussion". Thank you.
Kind regards,
strike
"Yes the backend is important and you shouldn't neglect it, but the GUI is what drives the design of the backend!"
I have argued with people who have that idea before. It is like talking to a brick wall. The "back-end" IS the project. You can attach any GUI at all to it and as long as the "back-end" works properly, everything will more or less be ok. The front end could be a web page, native widgets and windows, a curses environment, whatever. As long as the GUI can send the necessary commands to the "back-end" and the GUI is comprehensible and usable to the user, the GUI does not matter.
Ultimately, it is not the GUI that drives design. That is like saying the cart goes in front of the horse... which is exactly what the OP was referring to. A GUI is merely an abstraction layer to make the program itself usable by mere mortals. Permit me to repeat that since it is the point of this entire comment:
A GUI is merely an abstraction layer to make the program itself usable by mere mortals.
(Of course, which seems to be your objection, if the GUI is not adequate then the program itself is not fit for use.)
Regards,
strike
Except the exploit has already been seen out in the wild. How do you think people without any administrative privileges whatsoever have been getting their machine "rooted" for the past three months by fake anti-virus software? There is far more here than meets the eye upon first inspection.
The only responsible course of action is full disclosure as soon as possible. Those 5 days in which it could have been public but was not were 5 more days of computers getting infected with hostile code.
Regards,
strike
Ok, that explains why Durango, Colorado or Selene, Kansas doesn't get this stuff... but what about New York City? Los Angeles? Chicago? Detroit (oops, never mind that one), Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Seattle, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Albuquerque, Boston, Miami, and on and on and on and on.
In other words, you are dead wrong. Thanks for playing. :)
strike
I have an iPhone, a Nokia N900, and a Nokia 5800. The 5800 touchscreen was just horrible, but it worked very well with the stylus. Unfortunately, the stylus is not a serious input device. My iPhone, turned sideways, allows me to use both thumbs and hold the device comfortably. After some weeks of practice, I can type almost entire dissertations on it quickly. The 'M' button and the spacebar seem to get mixed up at times as does the Shift and the 'A' key, but otherwise, the iPhone input rocks.
That being said, I fucking hate my iPhone. The only reason I use it at all is that I was able to jailbreak and unlock it and it has superior input capabilities... so, I went out and bought a Nokia N900. Now, this is a real phone. The only reason I still use my iPhone over my N900 is that the keyboard is not so good. I have tried a friends Nokia (N97?) and the keys were spaced just a bit further apart and with practice, could have become a useful input feature. The N900 has keys that are way too close and the 'click' sound feedback is hit and miss, so sometimes, I end up hitting the same key over and over again because I thought it did not take the first time.
All in all, the iPhone is the only onscreen keyboard that I have ever tried that is even useful at all... and it is VERY good. Some of the Nokia phones have semi-decent keyboards, but the N900 is NOT one of them. If you are buying a phone purely for its input capabilities, buy an iPhone and don't look back (because you will see Steve Jobs doing things to your anal opening!).
strike
PC gamers have $2000+ computers and drop $200-500 on a video card every year. But most of them are too damn cheap to buy their games. They grew up pirating them through high school and university, and don't see any reason they should stop now. Most of them have managed to convince themselves that (somehow) they aren't doing anything wrong.
"And you're not going to change that, especially not with DRM that gives pirates a better experience than paying customers."
It is funny. When I was younger, I was very poor. The only way that I could play games was to pirate them. Now, I am older and fairly successful and can buy as many games as I want. I started buying games... oh what a mistake that was. Starforce drivers slowed my computer down on every bootup, regardless of whether or not the game was still installed. The 'Games for Windows Live' bullshit pissed me off. I did not want to create any accounts. The "you only get 5 installs of Grand Theft Auto IV" was the final straw. Oh, let's not get into the whole Steam fiasco when you are in Iraq for 2.5 years without an internet connection.
I walk by the games section and I see all sorts of cool games that I would love to buy. I look at them and see that they are impossible for me to play for various reasons involving DRM. Stupid idiots. Their anti-piracy didn't work when I was younger but it sure works now that I am older and not willing to be a pirate. What are they thinking?
strike
Maybe you should start by not going to WalMart and buying anything made in China or having a part made in China.
If only that were possible. *Everything* is made in China. Even when I was a little kid, Hot Wheels cars were Made in Taiwan... which has been changed to say Made in China.
Seriously, a decade ago, I tried really really hard to not ever buy anything made in China. If everything that is being sold is made in China, there is nothing I can do about it. By now, I just buy what-the-fuck-ever because someone else already made this decision for me. I can go live in the wilderness as a hermit, or I can buy shit made in China. There are no other options.
I like how you toss the blame onto your fellow humans when this decision was already made for us by the people who own the fucking world. Take your stupid whiny accusations and shove them up your ass.
"Why do you, Americans, put up with your mobile operators specifically disabling features (like tethering or bluetooth) on phones"
That is like asking why the innocent prisoner tolerates being shackled up or why the Jews tolerated Hitler or Pharaoh enslaving them. Some escape by not using mobile phone technology. Most just put up with whatever is forced on them. Will you play the part of Moses and lead us to freedom in the promised land of unlocked phones and reliable 3G service?
I guess what I am really asking you is this: Are you suggesting that I move to another country because of the state of mobile phone technology in my country? How else would I stop "putting up with it"? Vote for different representatives? Expose the corruption? Assassinate CEOs?
Seriously, your question makes little sense. Yes, we know it is a fucked up situation. No, there is nothing we can do to stop the rape.
Regards,
strike
What you do not seem to understand is that once the security of a system is compromised, _everything_ in that system is suspect. Forensics must be performed to attempt to determine what exactly happened, which information was compromised, what kind of backdoors or rootkits were placed, etc. Security auditors are not cheap. Wiping and rebaselining computers could result in loss of information that took lots of money to gather (scientists are not cheap either). Do this across enough systems and $700k is quite possible.
As an aside, if you look at my earlier argument, you might assume that I am against extradition but then in this one, I appear to be for extradition. Neither is the case. I am simply arguing against incorrect assumptions. I do not wish to state whether or not I am for or against extradition at this time.
strike
"He tried to quench that 'thirst' by breaking in to a highly sensitive military computer network directly or indirectly depended on by many people in harms way every day. Sounds a hell of a lot like it SHOULD fall under terrorism laws."
Holy batcaves Batman. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! Let's start with a definition of Terrorism:
terrorism - The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious.
or, how about Terrorist:
terrorist - a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells.
Now, please explain exactly how what he did is in ANY way associated with terrorism. No really. Some morons are modding you up as interesting and you are not even close to the mark here.
strike
"What he really means "I am a heartless selfish asshole who would rather watch unfortunate poor people die in the gutter than pay a pittance for a decent universal health care scheme"."
Ah yes. A truly non-flamebait way to interpret his post. How about seeing it from a different point of view:
I paid $300 or more per paycheck to the state of California for unemployment insurance. When I lost my job, were they willing to pay me at the level that I paid them? No, not only were they unwilling to pay me at the level I paid them, there were unwilling to pay me ANYTHING at all. I could have tried to fight it, but I just didn't care. Even if I had won, the money I would have received would have been smaller than what I had already paid.
So, am I a selfish asshole who wants to see unemployed people eating out of the gutter or am I realistic and realize it does not matter if I pay into it or not, *I* will never benefit. To be quite frank, I strongly suspect the medical coverage changes that are being proposed will be the same way. Only certain people will ever be able to benefit from it, but not me. Hell, my current insurance company has refused to pay every fucking bill I have given them in the past 3 years. Either the procedure happened at the wrong time or was billed under the wrong code, or any number of bureaucratic nonsense excuses.
And ultimately, that is why I would rather you think of me as a selfish asshole who wants to see people die in the gutters. It is not a pittance that is being asked of us and only some will benefit, but it will not be me. All I have to say to the people who want to take my money without any benefit to me is, "FUCK YOU! Earn your own goddamned money. I have spent over half of my life well under the poverty level, and because I am a white male who has never committed a crime, I am eligible for NOTHING. Well, if I am eligible for nothing, stop telling ME that I have to give to YOU. FUCK YOU!".
Yeah, I am well off now. I make more money now than most entire families do. I suffered when I had no money. I could have died in a gutter. Not one of you fucking assholes helped me. How charitable do you think I am now that I do have money? I am not. Go fucking die in a gutter. I do not care.
You know, my first thought when I read "seven seconds is too long" was "you've got to be kidding"
Well, I would say that they are NOT kidding. To be honest, I am getting quite weary of buying upgraded processors and more RAM so I can finally, at last, get instant response... and what happens? Some jackass comes along and says, "programmer time is more important than CPU time. Let's use layers and layers of crap to reduce programmer time. Nobody will ever notice since CPUs will always become faster to hide the slowness."
Well, you know what? Screw you. I am wasting some mod points to respond to this, but yeah. Your mail server should have responded within a second. In a LAN, if a packet takes more than 10 milliseconds to get there, your network is poor. Your CPU should have been able to handle the network packets, decoded the IMAP request, etc within 40 milliseconds. Seriously, a millisecond is a HUGE amount of time for a modern CPU. So, we have 60 milliseconds total in which your mail server should have responded. Why didn't it?
strike
"nothing I've yet experienced is audibly degraded at 256kbps"
Heh. I double dog dare you to try and compress the song My Name is Mud. It is by a group called Primus. I swear to god, no matter what bitrate I use, it always sounds like crap. I have no idea why it is like that, but the song just refuses to be compressed. You get ungodly artifacts, extra clicks, etc. Try it, you will see what I mean.
Note that I am not disagreeing with your general assertion, I just wanted to point out that reality does not like being boxed in. heheh.
Regards
I have mod points and I was about to mod you as flamebait... but I thought it would be better to educate you. I doubt you will listen but here goes:
It was not American policy to rape civilians. The story you linked to showed that people were being punished for that crime. Yes, it was a crime, but you are portraying it as if it was American policy and very widespread. Releasing a game where Americans rape innocent civilians would be in bad taste considering that raping innocent civilians is a punishable crime. Regardless, I would not want to see such a game censored.
strike
In clear cut cases of murder, I see no reason why that person should be imprisoned at all. They should be executed quickly and humanely. Yeah, I really believe they should be killed in the same manner that they killed someone else, but, it is not reasonable to have someone commit the same atrocities that the original murderer did. Guillotine, lethal injection, whatever. Get rid of them from this world.
That being said, the reason why I do not support the death penalty is because of jackass prosecutors and asshole policemen who are certain someone committed a crime and will manufacture evidence to get a conviction.
Regards
"Then don't buy it."
I don't.
Hi ScentCone,
I have been reading your comments for many years and you seem to genuinely believe what you are saying right now. There are a couple of problems with what you say though.
The first is that you are presupposing DRM is the only way for professional artists to recoup their losses during the generation of their art. I am not so certain that this supposition is true. It is easy to get anything digital for free right now and yet it is clear that many people are paying anyways.
The second is that DRM is not a fair deal. As it stands, the cards are stacked entirely in the artists favor with respect to DRM. The problem with that is there are two parties to the transaction. Both parties need consideration. If this does not happen, then one side is going to get screwed.
Relevant to point one, it appears to me that DRM is NOT about ensuring revenue streams. It seems to me that is is more about maximizing revenue. For example, a video game called Colin McRae Dirt 2 is $59 for the PS3, $49 for XBOX 360, and $39 for the PC. The price is clearly tiered with the difficulty or ease of piracy in mind. It would seem to me, an uneducated bystander who is only mildly interested, that artists can make their money back without DRM if the prices are reasonable. In other words, piracy keeps prices out of the monopoly rent tiers. Personally, I do not think my society should not be supporting monopoly rents for artists no matter how important and/or unique such artists think that they are.
Regards,
strike
"1) Software naturally becomes larger with more features over time."
E.G. bloat
"2) Many of the features added are very good and very helpful "
I decline to agree.
"3) We live in an era where memory is not a precious commodity."
Wrong, memory *IS* a precious commodity. I can only have 4 gigabytes of ram in my laptop. If every program assumes that ram is not an issue, it quickly becomes an issue. RAM is much much much much larger than it was before. It is still finite.
So, bloat is major problem for Firefox now. Why? Because it uses too much of my memory and too much of my time. I close Firefox, I click on the icon to launch it again, and it then tells me that Firefox is still running and to wait. WTF?! Exactly how long does it take to exit()? Oh, it is synching a database. Um, since when did I want or need a database for my web browsing habits? Stop collecting information! "Use privacy mode". Why? What benefits accrue to me from the web browser storing all of this information about me and the websites that I visit?
Honestly, I categorically reject this media rich fun zone that is being thrust upon me. Especially since it seeks to remove all control from me. Leave me alone. Give me Firefox 1.0 with bugfixes/security updates damnit. Firefox 3 is an out of control monstrosity that is growing past the needs of any single individual.
God I wish I could understand the convoluted codebase of even Firefox 1.0 so I could just maintain it myself. What a nightmare.