Virtual Reality - where IT celebrities go to die. The eternal hype. It's been "the next big thing" for as long as I know computers, and I'm fucking ancient.
The FBI does not know if the erase feature is enabled. The court should force them to run through the desoldering routine at least once to figure out if maybe they don't even need Apple to disable this feature.
That they didn't try, that they go to court without being sure, tells the whole story. If this were about breaking into the phone, they would have tried this, in the time that has passed with court cases they would already be sure if they need Apple at all or not, and if it turns out that not, they probably would have already broken into the phone.
ACLU is right, but they still miss just how malicious the FBI is.
he did give us the god-genre and gems such as with Populous, Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper, Magic Carpet.
Most of which promised more than they delivered. I remember how I excited was about Dungeon Keeper, then how sceptical I became after they changed course during development and turned it into a competitive DM vs. DM thing, and how utterly disappointed I was that I was right. DK was fun the first few levels when you were actually defending your dungeon against heroes, after that it was just a run-of-the-mill Aufbauspiel.
Likewise Syndicate didn't have compelling endgame. Black & White had the same, fun idea at first then it became more and more boring.
Molyneux is an idea man. I know the type, I tend into this direction as well, I've got trouble with completing and polishing things to perfection because I already have the next idea.
He brought us great ideas, but largely mediocre games.
Yes, and the concepts of fascism, socialism, communism, aristocracy, and theocracy were also developed in Europe.
Yes, we are smart and inventive and you guys are just angry kids who have one toy and broke it and are now screaming at the rest of the world because no way it way your own fault.:-)
People who actually wanted to experience liberty largely emigrated from Europe, because there is a big difference between talking about liberty and realizing it. Europe has been such a fertile ground for theorizing about utopias because the reality of political and social life in Europe has generally been bleak.
Says the guy living in a country without health care, with smashed unions and the largest income inequality in the history of the world. The country that invented the word "hobo".
True, a lot of people left Europe to escape oppression. Europe is a diverse place and has had its ups and downs. I'm the last to say it's perfect, and right now I'm the first to say our political leadership is entirely corrupt, incompetent and if they'd all die in a big fire at the next G20, the world would be a better place for it. But at the same time, your stupid, one-sided, totally superficial condemnation is simply wrong.
In Nazi Germany, individuals and corporations became wealthy and powerful not through participation in free markets, but through cooperating with the government.
Newsflash: Corporations and the super-rich hate free markets. There's no profit to be made in free markets (you know the basics of economic theory, I suppose, so you know about prices levelling out and price points and all that). If you want profit, you need to have artificial scarcity, you need to have imperfect information on the consumer side, you need to have an oligopol or best a monopol.
Corporations hate to compete, they hate free markets, and they do everything to avoid them. You don't realize it, I see, but you actually live in one of the countries with the highest government subsidies for private industries. They are just thinly veiled. It's called "The Pentagon System". Heck, even some of your presidents have admitted that this and that economic slowdown was because after the end of the cold war, they couldn't fire up the military-industrial subsidy machinery as much as they could before.
And who would that grandfather be?
Your attempts at research are pathetic. Georg Reiter, grandfather on my mothers side, they named a street after him in Cologne and put a memorial tablet at the house he and my grandmother lived in. And if you were not a total nutjob, you would know that just like the USA during McCarthy times, the nazis called pretty much everyone they didn't like a communist. What he really was was a union secretary who refused to rat out his friends who would've certainly been sent to concentration camps.
The fact that you throw mud at a dead man you don't know in order to win an argument with me shows that you're a piece of dishonourable pond scum. Too bad this is online, in person you wouldn't speak like that, or at least you wouldn't reach the end of the sentence.
Ah, so you are taking Europe's sorry history of totalitarian regimes, political oppression, and genocides as evidence of European political wisdom?
Try a history book that goes back more than 200 years.
Greece invented democracy, 2500 years ago. Rome once ruled the western world, and had a functioning republic for over 500 years. Sweden has a flag in its capital that is only raised while the country is at peace. The last time it was taken down was in 1640. The French formed the first republic of modern times. England had a parliament and the Magna Carta when Americans were hunting buffaloes out of tipis.
European cultures are fundamentally hostile to liberty
Right. The concept of liberty was invented in Greece (which is in Europe), further developed in the Roman Empire (which was in Europe), extensively developed by philosophers Hobbes (England), Locke (England) and Rousseau (France), Montesquieu (France), and Mill (England) - all of which you may have noticed, are in Europe. It was brought to America by european colonists, not invented there.
That was probably Hitler's main grievance: he hated capitalism,
Barf. What? Sorry, I just spit out my breakfast. Hitler hated capitalism??? His biggest allies were the great industrialists of the time. He hated communism. Lots of communists died in concentration camps. If you can name one (non-jewish) capitalist who did, do so.
[...] America, bankers, and merchants, [...]
I have to break it to you, but american bankers and merchants were big friends of the Nazi regime until the start of the war (and some much later still). That includes the grandfather of president Bush.
See, there's obviously a little Nazi in you struggling to get out. Just be honest and embrace him.
My grandfather, on the other hand, was hanged by the Nazis for his participation in a resistance group. Say that to my face, in person, and I'll punch some sense into your stupid brain.
leaving Europe to get away from people like you.
Yeah, I understand how difficult it must be for you to be around people with some education. My pity was misplaced.
Like many Americans, both my work and my home are protected by armed private police forces. I like it that way, thank you very much.
I pity you. Maybe because I live in Europe and we have a thousand years of experience with mercenary armies.
You americans think you are so smart. But the rest of the world has had every form of government for the past 3000 years. We've tried small government, big government, democracy, tyranny, aristocracy, monarchy (with one, two and more kings), feudalism, centralism, socialism, capitalism, state control and private control and mob rule - name any political fancy of anyone and you will find it in a history book and you can read up on the results.
Ah, I forgot, you are special...
It's true. You are. No country ever in the history of the world has allowed its elite to plunder it so completely, to transfer so much of its wealth to so few. Even the French had a revolution long before the wealth disparity was as crazy as it is in the US now. The fucking French!
It's funny how the opponents of "big government" have no problem with big corporations. Because having a lot of power in the hands of an institution accountable only to a few is somehow better than having it in the hands of an institution accountable to us all.
Wait until private corporations have their own armies, police forces and jails. You will wish back to the days when governments had power.
Silly, this obsession with giving private web sites more rights than the government.
Next step: Government should be prohibited from throwing you in jail without due process, but if private security companies want to do it, they should have a right to.
Bullshit. If he is likely to repeat it, keep him locked up.
but as long as the probability is non-zero
Your probability of brutally torturing a little child to death after raping it in front of its mother whom you just set on fire afterwards is non-zero. I'm fairly sure it is really, really small, but it is non-zero.
So how much above zero you need before you ruin someones life?
We need much more subtle classifications, and people who no longer pose any danger to society should not have to register.
With you on that one. No, wait. We need to keep people who are still a danger to society locked up. When people are set free, we should be safe to assume they are no more a danger than everyone else. If they are not, don't set them free. If they are, don't keep them on some naughty list just because you can.
Because they are so easily available, it is ridiculous. The other examples are someone actively researching your past. But putting your name into Google is so common that most potential employers these days do it, and many potential dates and friends.
Really though, this isnâ(TM)t about a right. Itâ(TM)s about restriction of rights.
No it's not. It's about the fundamental question who owns information about you. Is it yours, or is it Google's (or whoever else collected it) ?
I'm on the side of "it is mine, and I decide what to do with it". You know, the side that privacy is on.
Because for this guy it's his criminal past. For you it is what you want to keep to yourself. Maybe your embarassing shower singing or your horrible break-up with that one ex-gf or how you cheated in high school or whatever.
It's about who owns your information, and more and more that who owns your information is who owns you.
Of course, that exactly is the point. But you see, most companies are small companies. For every 20,000 employee multinational corporation there are thousands of small companies.
Doesn't matter which average you take - arithmetic, geometric, median - the high-end CEOs are the outliers.
Of course the average CEO doesn't earn a killing. I'm a CEO. I make less than I did when I had a regular job.
The problem has never been the average CEO. The problem is the high-end CEOs. The guys who run banks, fortune 500 companies and such, who earn several thousand times what normal employees or, in fact, average CEOs make.
FIDOnet and BBS times were actually pretty cool, and for every disadvantage there was also some advantage. Getting mail at specific times of day, for example, was much more relaxing than the constantly-connected shit where every three minutes you get distracted from whatever you're doing.
Poor horse carriage drivers. We need to stop those auto-mobiles, they are putting them out of business!
Other business models exist, and the very reason we don't see them is because the advertisement model has crowded them all out.
It's the same reason normal people couldn't get a reasonable credit or financing for half a decade - the banks were busy playing casino. That market crashed. It's time the advertisement market bubble bursts.
Which is why everything that throws and obnoxious, interruptive or distracting ad at me gets immediately deleted from my phone. Doesn't matter how good it is or how much I need it. I will find something else that doesn't.
Actually, even then I don't want to see ads. I'm not interested in seing the trailer or poster or reading how great X is - I've already decided to buy it. Give me a list of shops with distance and price.
There is no such thing as acceptable ads. The advertisement industry has ruined the whole thing, and I feel no pity whatsoever for them.
There used to be a time when a little bit of advertisement was acceptable. But once you've pissed all over your host, you can't come to the next party, even if you promise you won't do it again. Not anymore. Not after you've promised it twenty times, and twenty times pissed all over the host, his guests, the food and the neighbours dog.
There's a point where you are just not invited anymore, doesn't matter what you promise, how sincerely you promise or how much you really, really mean it this time.
and I would expect some level of retaliation by the courts/government.
You are seing it already. Apple made things the way they are exactly because of previous requests. So this time, the angle is "you are on the side of terrorists". It's a warning shot. Next time it will be "you ARE the terrorists".
The thing saving Apple is that thanks to two decades of NeoCon politics, multinational corporations are now more powerful than governments, and the crooks can't play hardball anymore.
It's not a two party system problem. My country has 5 or 6 relevant parties.
It's a systemic problem. Politics is a high-stakes game for low achievers. If you are really good, you don't go into politics. You can earn more for less work and more fun in the private sector.
"Follow the money" is always a good rule. If you think the chancellor (yearly salary: Less than half a million Euros) can meet with the head of a big bank (yearly salary: 20+ millions) and they will talk like peers, you are an idiot.
I had to check the headling to realize you are talking about the australian government.
Honestly, could just as well be my country. Seems to be endemic. We might be at the edge of the third major political system of the 20th century imploding (you know, after facism and communism, the bell is definitely tolling for representative democracy).
Any countries with a competent government left? I'm thinking about moving anyway, might as well pick by that criterium.
Of course not, he is the real world Iron Man, while Tony Stark is the Marvel Universe Iron Man. You see, not the same person, just a universe crossover. Happens all the time in comics.
Probably massively distorted by stars who accept all friend requests and serve as hubs.
Basically, when you make such a rule, you should have some kind of minimum standard for what qualifies as a "connection". If you bring it down to FB standards, which basically is "I once saw you from afar on the street", the distance is minimal. In real-world terms, if you actually would use "once saw you on the street", I'm fairly sure even for large cities the average would be something like 1.8
Slashdot Mirror
John Oliver was right: Trump very likely does get an orgasm every time someone mentions his name, so good job, Anonymous.
Stop feeding the troll.
Virtual Reality - where IT celebrities go to die. The eternal hype. It's been "the next big thing" for as long as I know computers, and I'm fucking ancient.
The ACLU misses one point:
The FBI does not know if the erase feature is enabled. The court should force them to run through the desoldering routine at least once to figure out if maybe they don't even need Apple to disable this feature.
That they didn't try, that they go to court without being sure, tells the whole story. If this were about breaking into the phone, they would have tried this, in the time that has passed with court cases they would already be sure if they need Apple at all or not, and if it turns out that not, they probably would have already broken into the phone.
ACLU is right, but they still miss just how malicious the FBI is.
he did give us the god-genre and gems such as with Populous, Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper, Magic Carpet.
Most of which promised more than they delivered. I remember how I excited was about Dungeon Keeper, then how sceptical I became after they changed course during development and turned it into a competitive DM vs. DM thing, and how utterly disappointed I was that I was right. DK was fun the first few levels when you were actually defending your dungeon against heroes, after that it was just a run-of-the-mill Aufbauspiel.
Likewise Syndicate didn't have compelling endgame. Black & White had the same, fun idea at first then it became more and more boring.
Molyneux is an idea man. I know the type, I tend into this direction as well, I've got trouble with completing and polishing things to perfection because I already have the next idea.
He brought us great ideas, but largely mediocre games.
Yes, and the concepts of fascism, socialism, communism, aristocracy, and theocracy were also developed in Europe.
Yes, we are smart and inventive and you guys are just angry kids who have one toy and broke it and are now screaming at the rest of the world because no way it way your own fault. :-)
People who actually wanted to experience liberty largely emigrated from Europe, because there is a big difference between talking about liberty and realizing it. Europe has been such a fertile ground for theorizing about utopias because the reality of political and social life in Europe has generally been bleak.
Says the guy living in a country without health care, with smashed unions and the largest income inequality in the history of the world. The country that invented the word "hobo".
True, a lot of people left Europe to escape oppression. Europe is a diverse place and has had its ups and downs. I'm the last to say it's perfect, and right now I'm the first to say our political leadership is entirely corrupt, incompetent and if they'd all die in a big fire at the next G20, the world would be a better place for it.
But at the same time, your stupid, one-sided, totally superficial condemnation is simply wrong.
In Nazi Germany, individuals and corporations became wealthy and powerful not through participation in free markets, but through cooperating with the government.
Newsflash: Corporations and the super-rich hate free markets. There's no profit to be made in free markets (you know the basics of economic theory, I suppose, so you know about prices levelling out and price points and all that). If you want profit, you need to have artificial scarcity, you need to have imperfect information on the consumer side, you need to have an oligopol or best a monopol.
Corporations hate to compete, they hate free markets, and they do everything to avoid them. You don't realize it, I see, but you actually live in one of the countries with the highest government subsidies for private industries. They are just thinly veiled. It's called "The Pentagon System". Heck, even some of your presidents have admitted that this and that economic slowdown was because after the end of the cold war, they couldn't fire up the military-industrial subsidy machinery as much as they could before.
And who would that grandfather be?
Your attempts at research are pathetic. Georg Reiter, grandfather on my mothers side, they named a street after him in Cologne and put a memorial tablet at the house he and my grandmother lived in. And if you were not a total nutjob, you would know that just like the USA during McCarthy times, the nazis called pretty much everyone they didn't like a communist. What he really was was a union secretary who refused to rat out his friends who would've certainly been sent to concentration camps.
The fact that you throw mud at a dead man you don't know in order to win an argument with me shows that you're a piece of dishonourable pond scum. Too bad this is online, in person you wouldn't speak like that, or at least you wouldn't reach the end of the sentence.
EOT
Ah, so you are taking Europe's sorry history of totalitarian regimes, political oppression, and genocides as evidence of European political wisdom?
Try a history book that goes back more than 200 years.
Greece invented democracy, 2500 years ago. Rome once ruled the western world, and had a functioning republic for over 500 years. Sweden has a flag in its capital that is only raised while the country is at peace. The last time it was taken down was in 1640. The French formed the first republic of modern times. England had a parliament and the Magna Carta when Americans were hunting buffaloes out of tipis.
European cultures are fundamentally hostile to liberty
Right. The concept of liberty was invented in Greece (which is in Europe), further developed in the Roman Empire (which was in Europe), extensively developed by philosophers Hobbes (England), Locke (England) and Rousseau (France), Montesquieu (France), and Mill (England) - all of which you may have noticed, are in Europe. It was brought to America by european colonists, not invented there.
That was probably Hitler's main grievance: he hated capitalism,
Barf. What? Sorry, I just spit out my breakfast. Hitler hated capitalism??? His biggest allies were the great industrialists of the time. He hated communism. Lots of communists died in concentration camps. If you can name one (non-jewish) capitalist who did, do so.
[...] America, bankers, and merchants, [...]
I have to break it to you, but american bankers and merchants were big friends of the Nazi regime until the start of the war (and some much later still). That includes the grandfather of president Bush.
See, there's obviously a little Nazi in you struggling to get out. Just be honest and embrace him.
My grandfather, on the other hand, was hanged by the Nazis for his participation in a resistance group. Say that to my face, in person, and I'll punch some sense into your stupid brain.
leaving Europe to get away from people like you.
Yeah, I understand how difficult it must be for you to be around people with some education. My pity was misplaced.
Like many Americans, both my work and my home are protected by armed private police forces. I like it that way, thank you very much.
I pity you. Maybe because I live in Europe and we have a thousand years of experience with mercenary armies.
You americans think you are so smart. But the rest of the world has had every form of government for the past 3000 years. We've tried small government, big government, democracy, tyranny, aristocracy, monarchy (with one, two and more kings), feudalism, centralism, socialism, capitalism, state control and private control and mob rule - name any political fancy of anyone and you will find it in a history book and you can read up on the results.
Ah, I forgot, you are special...
It's true. You are. No country ever in the history of the world has allowed its elite to plunder it so completely, to transfer so much of its wealth to so few. Even the French had a revolution long before the wealth disparity was as crazy as it is in the US now. The fucking French!
Ah, the voice of reason and rational argument...
It's funny how the opponents of "big government" have no problem with big corporations. Because having a lot of power in the hands of an institution accountable only to a few is somehow better than having it in the hands of an institution accountable to us all.
Wait until private corporations have their own armies, police forces and jails. You will wish back to the days when governments had power.
Silly, this obsession with giving private web sites more rights than the government.
Next step: Government should be prohibited from throwing you in jail without due process, but if private security companies want to do it, they should have a right to.
which they are likely to repeat in the future.
Bullshit. If he is likely to repeat it, keep him locked up.
but as long as the probability is non-zero
Your probability of brutally torturing a little child to death after raping it in front of its mother whom you just set on fire afterwards is non-zero. I'm fairly sure it is really, really small, but it is non-zero.
So how much above zero you need before you ruin someones life?
We need much more subtle classifications, and people who no longer pose any danger to society should not have to register.
With you on that one. No, wait. We need to keep people who are still a danger to society locked up. When people are set free, we should be safe to assume they are no more a danger than everyone else. If they are not, don't set them free. If they are, don't keep them on some naughty list just because you can.
Why target google searches alone?
Because they are so easily available, it is ridiculous. The other examples are someone actively researching your past. But putting your name into Google is so common that most potential employers these days do it, and many potential dates and friends.
Really though, this isnâ(TM)t about a right. Itâ(TM)s about restriction of rights.
No it's not. It's about the fundamental question who owns information about you. Is it yours, or is it Google's (or whoever else collected it) ?
I'm on the side of "it is mine, and I decide what to do with it". You know, the side that privacy is on.
Because for this guy it's his criminal past. For you it is what you want to keep to yourself. Maybe your embarassing shower singing or your horrible break-up with that one ex-gf or how you cheated in high school or whatever.
It's about who owns your information, and more and more that who owns your information is who owns you.
Of course, that exactly is the point. But you see, most companies are small companies. For every 20,000 employee multinational corporation there are thousands of small companies.
Doesn't matter which average you take - arithmetic, geometric, median - the high-end CEOs are the outliers.
Are they total idiots, or being paid?
Of course the average CEO doesn't earn a killing. I'm a CEO. I make less than I did when I had a regular job.
The problem has never been the average CEO. The problem is the high-end CEOs. The guys who run banks, fortune 500 companies and such, who earn several thousand times what normal employees or, in fact, average CEOs make.
Yes, they are called the marketing department. Where pissing people off is considered "engagement".
Ok, I'm officially getting old.
FIDOnet and BBS times were actually pretty cool, and for every disadvantage there was also some advantage. Getting mail at specific times of day, for example, was much more relaxing than the constantly-connected shit where every three minutes you get distracted from whatever you're doing.
Poor horse carriage drivers. We need to stop those auto-mobiles, they are putting them out of business!
Other business models exist, and the very reason we don't see them is because the advertisement model has crowded them all out.
It's the same reason normal people couldn't get a reasonable credit or financing for half a decade - the banks were busy playing casino. That market crashed. It's time the advertisement market bubble bursts.
Which is why everything that throws and obnoxious, interruptive or distracting ad at me gets immediately deleted from my phone. Doesn't matter how good it is or how much I need it. I will find something else that doesn't.
Actually, even then I don't want to see ads. I'm not interested in seing the trailer or poster or reading how great X is - I've already decided to buy it. Give me a list of shops with distance and price.
There is no such thing as acceptable ads. The advertisement industry has ruined the whole thing, and I feel no pity whatsoever for them.
There used to be a time when a little bit of advertisement was acceptable. But once you've pissed all over your host, you can't come to the next party, even if you promise you won't do it again. Not anymore. Not after you've promised it twenty times, and twenty times pissed all over the host, his guests, the food and the neighbours dog.
There's a point where you are just not invited anymore, doesn't matter what you promise, how sincerely you promise or how much you really, really mean it this time.
and I would expect some level of retaliation by the courts/government.
You are seing it already. Apple made things the way they are exactly because of previous requests. So this time, the angle is "you are on the side of terrorists". It's a warning shot. Next time it will be "you ARE the terrorists".
The thing saving Apple is that thanks to two decades of NeoCon politics, multinational corporations are now more powerful than governments, and the crooks can't play hardball anymore.
The problem with any two party system
It's not a two party system problem. My country has 5 or 6 relevant parties.
It's a systemic problem. Politics is a high-stakes game for low achievers. If you are really good, you don't go into politics. You can earn more for less work and more fun in the private sector.
"Follow the money" is always a good rule. If you think the chancellor (yearly salary: Less than half a million Euros) can meet with the head of a big bank (yearly salary: 20+ millions) and they will talk like peers, you are an idiot.
I had to check the headling to realize you are talking about the australian government.
Honestly, could just as well be my country. Seems to be endemic. We might be at the edge of the third major political system of the 20th century imploding (you know, after facism and communism, the bell is definitely tolling for representative democracy).
Any countries with a competent government left? I'm thinking about moving anyway, might as well pick by that criterium.
Of course not, he is the real world Iron Man, while Tony Stark is the Marvel Universe Iron Man. You see, not the same person, just a universe crossover. Happens all the time in comics.
His cameo in the actual Iron Man movies is a pretty good indicator that at least someone at the movie studios also saw the connection, so yes.
Probably massively distorted by stars who accept all friend requests and serve as hubs.
Basically, when you make such a rule, you should have some kind of minimum standard for what qualifies as a "connection". If you bring it down to FB standards, which basically is "I once saw you from afar on the street", the distance is minimal. In real-world terms, if you actually would use "once saw you on the street", I'm fairly sure even for large cities the average would be something like 1.8