Fine her? How about "jail her for extortion" and "seize everything she owns under RICO"?. Last time I checked extortion and racketeering were felonies. She's just damned lucky that her target didn't decide to settle it with 230 grains of lead (which is, in my not-at-all-humble opinion the only proper way to deal with blackmailers and extortionists, especially when they threaten children like this bitch did).
Freedom of speech does not include freedom to slander.
On the other hand, nobody is entitled to enter a given market without the capital to operate in it. I'm not entitled to be a wireless operator just because I feel like it.
As loathe as I am to give even an inch to the entitlement crowd (nobody on Earth is ENTITLED to Internet access, cable TV, make-my-weenie-hard pills or a smartphone), this is an area in which there is at least some argument in favor of some degree of regulation. There is a finite amount of spectrum available, you can't make more (you hear me, Lightspeed bribemasters?), and once that spectrum is allocated you're done. Sounds like a public utility to me! That being said, increased regulation of access and sale will inevitably come with increased regulation of content and control; a major telco bill is the perfect platform to sneak in yet another layer of warrantless monitoring of every American citizen while searching for political opponents (excuse me, should I have said "terrorists"?), "subversives", climate-change skeptics and/or gay rights activists by the Department of Homeland Brownshirts and the racketeers at the RIAA. Once the monitoring is in place, it will be used against whoever is playing the role of 1933-era Jew to whatever bread-and-circuses Democratic Socialist or goose-stepping Christian Reich is in power at the moment.
Would you accept a truly unlimited data plan at 20 a month if that rate came with a mandatory monitoring clause, and the law explicitly forbade a more expensive but unmonitored alternative? Price controls and government intrusion are be inseparable, at least in the real world.
Their response hardly qualifies as a tantrum. What we're seeing here on Slashdot... does.
My sympathies lie entirely with CBS. The law is on their side, the basic fairness of "they paid for it, they should be able to control what they paid for" applies, and the behavior of people saying "we will take anything we want anytime we want" is infantile.
Time to write CBS a letter praising them for defending their rights, and in the process defending the rights of copyright owners everywhere.
Truth and beauty, not fact. Your perspective would be different if your ability to pay the rent depended upon getting paid to create copyrightable material.
CBS doesn't need your sympathy, or a cause. It's already theirs. It's the fans who have to play nice and who have to abide by CBS's wishes in this matter, and no amount of "I'm entitled to take anything I see for free regardless of law or contract or right or wrong" attitude will ever change that.
It's their property, they can do what they want with it, and that's the end of it. They don't have to explain why, and they don't have to accommodate you. They said No, and throwing a tantrum will not change that to a Yes; the tantrum will only make a future No all the more likely.
Did it occur to any of you that perhaps, just perhaps, CBS isn't hoarding? That the ownership of the script produced and submitted within the Hollywood structure (particularly the one that existed back in the 60's) includes a clause that forbids reassignment? That there may exist terms with the Screen Writers' Guild that forbids subcontracting SWG scripts for production by non SWG-signatory producers (like, y'know, fans)? Crap like that goes on all the time in Hollywood.
Screeching "GIMME GIMME GIMME MINE MINE MINE" like a two-year-old in the toy aisle of a supermarket isn't going to make CBS (or other owners of popular franchises) more likely to cooperate. In fact, it makes them more likely to start cruising through YouTube on a takedown spree. If the fringe fans become more trouble than they're worth, they're going to get shut down.
With, of course, the certainty that the data mining capabilities will never be used for evil such as monitoring American citizens for the purposes of identifying nonviolent (but loud) political dissidents.
The difference between this and Google is that you can haul Google into court when they do evil.
Then you can't be monetized, and therefore are not of interest to Gawker. From his perspective, you take but contribute nothing in return. Cynical, but Gawker's a business not a charity. They're also criminals, but that's another matter.
Denton's right about comment sections being basically useless, though. Just look around you. Look at Slashdot's comments. Just a bunch of adolescent OS bigots who don't know shit.
Yeah, like you're going to get an objective answer here. Slashdot doesn't have experts. It has OS bigots.
That being said, the most secure mobile OS is the one on the phone operated by someone who doesn't install ad-supported "free" apps, who password-protects the phone, doesn't load pirated software, and who enables remote wipe/locate-my-phone functionality.
There is a certain poetry in the fact that this article appears immediately after the TSA/Schneier hearing article in which the TSA's silencing of Bruce Schneier's testimony against it in Congress is discussed.
I don't mean to be obtuse, but worker friendly means something entirely different in the US versus China.
Living wage? No slavery? Worker's comp?
Foxconn workers ARE paid a "living wage"... moreso, in fact. Costs are not the same. Context matters. Foxconn workers are not starving, are not sleeping under a bridge, and have medical care. That's more than can be said for many people in the US, entire non-Chinese nations, or many Chinese who aren't Foxconn workers. Question: is it okay for the US to force Western democracies and economies on any country it chooses, by any means necessary? If so, why all the protests about Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.?
Slavery? They can leave any time they want. There are thousands of people lined up clamoring to get into that job. People at Foxconn are there because they want to be there, and because it's better than anything else within reach. Nobody is holding a gun to their heads (that's the job of the Party bosses and Chinese military anyway).
Workman's comp? Yeah, that's important. But there are plenty of jobs in the US and Europe (some of which are high-paying) which do not have workman's comp. And "workman's comp" can mean many different things with many different levels of protection. Foxconn workers do have SOME degree of workman's comp. It's not zero. Anything else is a grade of grey.
If you're on a computer (ANY computer), you're "exploiting" these people too. There are no 100% Western-made computers or smartphones. None. So, by the mere fact that you are here on Slashdot, you ARE the "problem". Yes, YOU.
Those uncontacted tribes also have child mortality rates (defined as "does the child make it to its fifth birthday" of 50% and life expectancies in the 40's. Not so idyllic.
At Sprint's current valuation, Apple could buy Sprint with petty cash. Hell, they could buy a majority of Google's publicly traded shares. The entire reason Apple is sitting on a mountain of cash is that they're smart enough to not get into low-margin businesses with limited growth opportunities. Phone carriers are consolidating, not diversifying. Also, if Apple were to compete directly with AT&T and Verizon, they'd drop the iPhone in an instant. As it is, the carriers fork over a ton of cash to Apple for the privilege of being able to resell the iPhone (and in the process the carriers make a lot of money too), and Apple happily sells to everyone.
Why in the world would Apple WANT to get into the carrier business? Whatever else can be said (fairly or falsely) about Apple, "stupid" is nowhere on the list.
But if someone were to beat the living shit out of Ravi as he deserved, that person would go to jail.
When assholes and bullies get to run crying to the police and hide behind anonymity when karma comes looking, they will just become emboldened to increase the severity of their antisocial behavior. And when karma finally does catch up with them, it tends to do so to extremes. I don't feel even slightly sorry for Ravi. He's paying for what he, and thousands like him, have done.
The wrong person died. Ravi got off light.
What part of "queer-bashing earns you a lifetime of payback" do people like Ravi not understand?
World of Goo is one of the most highly-acclaimed independent games in history. Nobody can argue it's crap or in any way worthless, nor can any claim be made that its developers are "evil" in some way. It was released DRM-free and had awards piled onto it. There is an extensive demo available in the form of the first few levels, with a couple of hours' worth of gameplay... plenty of opportunity to find out exactly what the game is all about.
Piracy rate: 90%. So much for "DRM is why piracy exists".
Price: 20 bucks, and on sale it frequently goes as low as 5 bucks. So much for "piracy exists because games are too expensive".
There simply is no excuse for not paying for World of Goo if you play it. It's very high quality, it's not released by a big-bad-boogeyman megacorporation, there is zero need to pirate the full game to learn what gameplay is like, it's dirt-cheap. Every pro-piracy argument: shot down. Yet 9 out of 10 players pirate it anyway. Pirates don't care about price; the cost of ANY game for a pirate is zero. Hell, people pirate 99-cent apps on phones (somehow, they can afford 80 bucks a month for their data plan but can't afford 99 cents for an app, and somehow there are apps that are worth having and keeping but aren't worth 99 cents). All the arguments presented by the pro-piracy crowd simply are not true, and this is proven beyond any doubt by cases like World of Goo. Seriously, people pirate games and media because they're too cheap to do the right thing at any cost, and can be certain there are no consequences for this (regardless of whether there actually are consequences... enjoy your malware, torrent-crawlers!).
Anything else is just an attempt to justify taking something you should be paying for without paying for it.
So tell me, if piracy is acceptable if you're poor, why isn't piracy acceptable if you simply don't feel like paying? Why should someone who DOES have money be required to pay for something that people who don't have money get for free? What possible incentive is there to be honest when there is no consequence for dishonesty?
Why should ANYONE have to pay for movies, music, books or software? Corollary: Why should only SOME people have to pay for movies, music, books or software? Corollary^2: Why should anyone get PAID for making movies, music, books or software? Conclusion: Actors, musicians, authors and programmers are worthless, as are their works.
That's not reducto ad absurdum. That's the exact model (and conclusion) that media and software pirates advocate and promote.
Oh look, Little AC learned the word "Astroturf". Homework assignment: use it in a sentence.
All I am saying is that lithium, exactly like like oil, is largely (not entirely) sourced from hostile nations, and exactly like like oil, is a finite resource with known reserves insufficient for multi-century supply. We need to take that into account before we shove a poorly-thought-out forced-conversion law which simply trades one set of very serious problems for a different set of very serious problems. How is that "astrotufing"? I am saying that lithium batteries are suitable only for land-based transport, and cannot be legislatively be forced into being the energy storage mechanism for aircraft (one of the largest consumers of petrochemicals). How is that "astroturfing"?
Typical attempt by an AC zealot to stifle discussion with ad hominem attacks.
The problem with batteries is sourcing the materials to make them.
The best batteries currently are all variants on lithium-ion. Where does the lithium come from? Much of it is in Bolivia, China, and Afghanistan. I'm not sure if changing control of a critical infrastructure mineral from the current oil producing cast of clowns to cocaine cartels, masters of corruption and religious fanatic heroin-pusher fucktards is a win. Who is worse; the House of Saud or the Taliban? Also, how much lithium is there? How much lithium would we need to replace automotive motors with battery systems? I'll leave as an exercise to the reader whether we'd run out of oil or minable lithium first if we converted fossil fuel surface-based* vehicles and homes/businesses to electric. Add up the energy capacity of the fuel tanks when filled with gas/diesel. You might not like the answer.
*Battery-powered air vehicles are a no-go. No battery technology comes close to the energy density per gram of hydrocarbon. You can move an airplane, its cargo and its fuel halfway around the globe with JP-A. Can't do that with batteries. Just not enough joules per gram of battery, plus batteries don't become (appreciably) lighter as you discharge them; spent chemical fuel doesn't have to be carried once it's burned.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah... but now it's libel "with a computer". Quick, patent it before someone else does!
Prior art: Slashdot.
Fine her? How about "jail her for extortion" and "seize everything she owns under RICO"?. Last time I checked extortion and racketeering were felonies. She's just damned lucky that her target didn't decide to settle it with 230 grains of lead (which is, in my not-at-all-humble opinion the only proper way to deal with blackmailers and extortionists, especially when they threaten children like this bitch did).
Freedom of speech does not include freedom to slander.
On the other hand, nobody is entitled to enter a given market without the capital to operate in it. I'm not entitled to be a wireless operator just because I feel like it.
As loathe as I am to give even an inch to the entitlement crowd (nobody on Earth is ENTITLED to Internet access, cable TV, make-my-weenie-hard pills or a smartphone), this is an area in which there is at least some argument in favor of some degree of regulation. There is a finite amount of spectrum available, you can't make more (you hear me, Lightspeed bribemasters?), and once that spectrum is allocated you're done. Sounds like a public utility to me! That being said, increased regulation of access and sale will inevitably come with increased regulation of content and control; a major telco bill is the perfect platform to sneak in yet another layer of warrantless monitoring of every American citizen while searching for political opponents (excuse me, should I have said "terrorists"?), "subversives", climate-change skeptics and/or gay rights activists by the Department of Homeland Brownshirts and the racketeers at the RIAA. Once the monitoring is in place, it will be used against whoever is playing the role of 1933-era Jew to whatever bread-and-circuses Democratic Socialist or goose-stepping Christian Reich is in power at the moment.
Would you accept a truly unlimited data plan at 20 a month if that rate came with a mandatory monitoring clause, and the law explicitly forbade a more expensive but unmonitored alternative? Price controls and government intrusion are be inseparable, at least in the real world.
Their response hardly qualifies as a tantrum. What we're seeing here on Slashdot... does.
My sympathies lie entirely with CBS. The law is on their side, the basic fairness of "they paid for it, they should be able to control what they paid for" applies, and the behavior of people saying "we will take anything we want anytime we want" is infantile.
Time to write CBS a letter praising them for defending their rights, and in the process defending the rights of copyright owners everywhere.
Truth and beauty, not fact. Your perspective would be different if your ability to pay the rent depended upon getting paid to create copyrightable material.
CBS doesn't need your sympathy, or a cause. It's already theirs. It's the fans who have to play nice and who have to abide by CBS's wishes in this matter, and no amount of "I'm entitled to take anything I see for free regardless of law or contract or right or wrong" attitude will ever change that.
It's their property, they can do what they want with it, and that's the end of it. They don't have to explain why, and they don't have to accommodate you. They said No, and throwing a tantrum will not change that to a Yes; the tantrum will only make a future No all the more likely.
Did it occur to any of you that perhaps, just perhaps, CBS isn't hoarding? That the ownership of the script produced and submitted within the Hollywood structure (particularly the one that existed back in the 60's) includes a clause that forbids reassignment? That there may exist terms with the Screen Writers' Guild that forbids subcontracting SWG scripts for production by non SWG-signatory producers (like, y'know, fans)? Crap like that goes on all the time in Hollywood.
Screeching "GIMME GIMME GIMME MINE MINE MINE" like a two-year-old in the toy aisle of a supermarket isn't going to make CBS (or other owners of popular franchises) more likely to cooperate. In fact, it makes them more likely to start cruising through YouTube on a takedown spree. If the fringe fans become more trouble than they're worth, they're going to get shut down.
Except that Google (and other non-governmental entities) must respond when caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
One of many examples: such as when Congress hauls their butt into a hearing over their privacy practices.
The government, after all, is jealously seeking a monopoly on invasive privacy violations.
With, of course, the certainty that the data mining capabilities will never be used for evil such as monitoring American citizens for the purposes of identifying nonviolent (but loud) political dissidents.
The difference between this and Google is that you can haul Google into court when they do evil.
Then you can't be monetized, and therefore are not of interest to Gawker. From his perspective, you take but contribute nothing in return. Cynical, but Gawker's a business not a charity. They're also criminals, but that's another matter.
Denton's right about comment sections being basically useless, though. Just look around you. Look at Slashdot's comments. Just a bunch of adolescent OS bigots who don't know shit.
Yes, I am aware of the irony.
Yeah, like you're going to get an objective answer here. Slashdot doesn't have experts. It has OS bigots.
That being said, the most secure mobile OS is the one on the phone operated by someone who doesn't install ad-supported "free" apps, who password-protects the phone, doesn't load pirated software, and who enables remote wipe/locate-my-phone functionality.
There is a certain poetry in the fact that this article appears immediately after the TSA/Schneier hearing article in which the TSA's silencing of Bruce Schneier's testimony against it in Congress is discussed.
Or, to paraphrase in a manner that applies to everything from politics to "light" beer:
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
I don't mean to be obtuse, but worker friendly means something entirely different in the US versus China.
Living wage? No slavery? Worker's comp?
Foxconn workers ARE paid a "living wage"... moreso, in fact. Costs are not the same. Context matters. Foxconn workers are not starving, are not sleeping under a bridge, and have medical care. That's more than can be said for many people in the US, entire non-Chinese nations, or many Chinese who aren't Foxconn workers. Question: is it okay for the US to force Western democracies and economies on any country it chooses, by any means necessary? If so, why all the protests about Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.?
Slavery? They can leave any time they want. There are thousands of people lined up clamoring to get into that job. People at Foxconn are there because they want to be there, and because it's better than anything else within reach. Nobody is holding a gun to their heads (that's the job of the Party bosses and Chinese military anyway).
Workman's comp? Yeah, that's important. But there are plenty of jobs in the US and Europe (some of which are high-paying) which do not have workman's comp. And "workman's comp" can mean many different things with many different levels of protection. Foxconn workers do have SOME degree of workman's comp. It's not zero. Anything else is a grade of grey.
If you're on a computer (ANY computer), you're "exploiting" these people too. There are no 100% Western-made computers or smartphones. None. So, by the mere fact that you are here on Slashdot, you ARE the "problem". Yes, YOU.
Those uncontacted tribes also have child mortality rates (defined as "does the child make it to its fifth birthday" of 50% and life expectancies in the 40's. Not so idyllic.
At Sprint's current valuation, Apple could buy Sprint with petty cash. Hell, they could buy a majority of Google's publicly traded shares. The entire reason Apple is sitting on a mountain of cash is that they're smart enough to not get into low-margin businesses with limited growth opportunities. Phone carriers are consolidating, not diversifying. Also, if Apple were to compete directly with AT&T and Verizon, they'd drop the iPhone in an instant. As it is, the carriers fork over a ton of cash to Apple for the privilege of being able to resell the iPhone (and in the process the carriers make a lot of money too), and Apple happily sells to everyone.
Why in the world would Apple WANT to get into the carrier business? Whatever else can be said (fairly or falsely) about Apple, "stupid" is nowhere on the list.
AT LEAST one of the two OR MORE sides is completely lying.
FTFY.
But if someone were to beat the living shit out of Ravi as he deserved, that person would go to jail.
When assholes and bullies get to run crying to the police and hide behind anonymity when karma comes looking, they will just become emboldened to increase the severity of their antisocial behavior. And when karma finally does catch up with them, it tends to do so to extremes. I don't feel even slightly sorry for Ravi. He's paying for what he, and thousands like him, have done.
The wrong person died. Ravi got off light.
What part of "queer-bashing earns you a lifetime of payback" do people like Ravi not understand?
Where I come from, we call that a "bribe". But I guess institutionalizing it makes it okay!
What's the difference between the TSA and the Gestapo? Gestapo employees got paid a good wage.
How would anyone afford Photoshop without piracy?
They wouldn't. If they can't afford it, they don't get to have it. You don't get to have whatever you want just because you want it.
Not at all. Let's use an example, shall we?
World of Goo is one of the most highly-acclaimed independent games in history. Nobody can argue it's crap or in any way worthless, nor can any claim be made that its developers are "evil" in some way. It was released DRM-free and had awards piled onto it. There is an extensive demo available in the form of the first few levels, with a couple of hours' worth of gameplay... plenty of opportunity to find out exactly what the game is all about.
Piracy rate: 90%. So much for "DRM is why piracy exists".
Price: 20 bucks, and on sale it frequently goes as low as 5 bucks. So much for "piracy exists because games are too expensive".
There simply is no excuse for not paying for World of Goo if you play it. It's very high quality, it's not released by a big-bad-boogeyman megacorporation, there is zero need to pirate the full game to learn what gameplay is like, it's dirt-cheap. Every pro-piracy argument: shot down. Yet 9 out of 10 players pirate it anyway. Pirates don't care about price; the cost of ANY game for a pirate is zero. Hell, people pirate 99-cent apps on phones (somehow, they can afford 80 bucks a month for their data plan but can't afford 99 cents for an app, and somehow there are apps that are worth having and keeping but aren't worth 99 cents). All the arguments presented by the pro-piracy crowd simply are not true, and this is proven beyond any doubt by cases like World of Goo. Seriously, people pirate games and media because they're too cheap to do the right thing at any cost, and can be certain there are no consequences for this (regardless of whether there actually are consequences... enjoy your malware, torrent-crawlers!).
Anything else is just an attempt to justify taking something you should be paying for without paying for it.
So tell me, if piracy is acceptable if you're poor, why isn't piracy acceptable if you simply don't feel like paying? Why should someone who DOES have money be required to pay for something that people who don't have money get for free? What possible incentive is there to be honest when there is no consequence for dishonesty?
Why should ANYONE have to pay for movies, music, books or software?
Corollary: Why should only SOME people have to pay for movies, music, books or software?
Corollary^2: Why should anyone get PAID for making movies, music, books or software?
Conclusion: Actors, musicians, authors and programmers are worthless, as are their works.
That's not reducto ad absurdum. That's the exact model (and conclusion) that media and software pirates advocate and promote.
LPR. Mine's 192.168.1.200 ... and yes, I could make my printer available to the Internet with a NAT rule on my router (65.something) if I so chose.
Now you know.
And knowing is half the battle.
Go, Joe!
Oh look, Little AC learned the word "Astroturf". Homework assignment: use it in a sentence.
All I am saying is that lithium, exactly like like oil, is largely (not entirely) sourced from hostile nations, and exactly like like oil, is a finite resource with known reserves insufficient for multi-century supply. We need to take that into account before we shove a poorly-thought-out forced-conversion law which simply trades one set of very serious problems for a different set of very serious problems. How is that "astrotufing"? I am saying that lithium batteries are suitable only for land-based transport, and cannot be legislatively be forced into being the energy storage mechanism for aircraft (one of the largest consumers of petrochemicals). How is that "astroturfing"?
Typical attempt by an AC zealot to stifle discussion with ad hominem attacks.
The problem with batteries is sourcing the materials to make them.
The best batteries currently are all variants on lithium-ion. Where does the lithium come from? Much of it is in Bolivia, China, and Afghanistan. I'm not sure if changing control of a critical infrastructure mineral from the current oil producing cast of clowns to cocaine cartels, masters of corruption and religious fanatic heroin-pusher fucktards is a win. Who is worse; the House of Saud or the Taliban? Also, how much lithium is there? How much lithium would we need to replace automotive motors with battery systems? I'll leave as an exercise to the reader whether we'd run out of oil or minable lithium first if we converted fossil fuel surface-based* vehicles and homes/businesses to electric. Add up the energy capacity of the fuel tanks when filled with gas/diesel. You might not like the answer.
*Battery-powered air vehicles are a no-go. No battery technology comes close to the energy density per gram of hydrocarbon. You can move an airplane, its cargo and its fuel halfway around the globe with JP-A. Can't do that with batteries. Just not enough joules per gram of battery, plus batteries don't become (appreciably) lighter as you discharge them; spent chemical fuel doesn't have to be carried once it's burned.