Unfortunately, the US hasn't done much in the way of large scale infrastructural improvement since the building of the highway system in the 1950s.
Unless you count, you know, the Internet. Surely that counts as infrastructure, doesn't it? The ability to move data offsets some of the need to move people and goods.
This ruling not only screws the little guy, it supports federal authority trampling state law, and seems to me to directly contradict the Seventh Amendment (IANAL). My mind boggles that the justices who wrote it are considered "conservative". The word has lost its meaning.
I'm as unhappy with the decision as anyone, but let's think more deeply about what it means. Surely the arbitration clause in a contract only affects action related to that contract, so while indeed the SCOTUS upheld corporate immunity from class-action suits for breach of contract, other forms of class-action suits (specifically, liability) would still apply. So this applies pretty much just to getting cheated on your bill and/or not having the promised services delivered, and wouldn't stop for example a future Erin Brockovich. IANAL
Here's a hopeful note: many members of Congress are trial lawyers. It may be possible to muster the political will to repeal the Federal Arbitration Act.
Also, if you take a look at the module itself, you'll see that by default it will not crash IE6. That's simply an option that can be enabled if you're feeling particularly malicious.
If you indulge your malicious feelings, you're a contemptible sys admin.
Harming your users doesn't seem to me a good idea at all. Adding more bad behavior to the Internet is unlikely to improve anyone's situation. And crashing their browsers? That crosses an ethical line, in my opinion. What's next, infecting them with malware out of spite?
Let's face it, this research is geared toward users with disabilities. A microphone works for some of those people but not all. From TFA,
"There are many directions we could take this, including development of technology to restore communication for patients who have lost speech due to brain injury or damage to their vocal cords or airway," says author Eric C. Leuthardt, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Science isn't about what you believe, it's about how you determine fact. I think someone who doesn't believe in evolution, who is able to perform disciplined, formal, falsifiable experiments to attempt to refute the theory of evolution (and properly interpret the results) would make an excellent scientist. I also don't believe such a person exists. I've read some of the "creation science" claptrap and as far as I can tell it is based on supposition and faulty logic.
Making hiring decisions on the basis of quality of research and scholarship should still be OK.
Also, most biological research isn't about evolution, so if the creationist is producing good research about some more current topic in biology, again I don't see the problem. IANAB (I am not a biologist).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." (actually that is a popular misquote, properly attributed to Evelyn Beatrice Hall). Our society in general, and academe in particular, could benefit from living up to that ideal.
Of course I have mixed feelings about the Texas legislature introducing this bill, because I strongly suspect their motives in doing so are rather the opposite of Hall's quotation. If they do the right thing for the wrong reason, should I approve?
Just because one car insurance company is offering a 30% discount to customers who agree to GPS tracking to prove they don't drive in rush hour traffic (and how many fit that profile?), it doesn't follow that one can save 30% on all "basic living expenses" by totally giving up privacy. As to the major living expenses: rent/mortgage, taxes, food... no one has made a plausible claim those expenses can be reduced at all.
This is a thought experiment only, and not a well-considered one at that. If we assume that marketers are economically rational beings, the only way they would let you "save" money by giving up your privacy is if they can make more money from it than you "save." Maybe in a few cases such as car insurance that can be done by increasing efficiency, but more likely it will be done by pushing your buttons to get you to buy overpriced crap you don't need.
It is more likely that you'll start seeing companies start making backroom deals to get preferential access to end users. Which is what the last-mile providers have wanted all along.
If you want a book now you can get it in a digital version
Two points: First, I can "easily" get it in digital version subject to the publisher's whim, and on the publisher's terms (which are subject to change at any time), and assuming someone bothered to digitize it. That's great, until it's not.
Second, *I* can easily get e-books because I can afford a computer and $50 a month for broadband access. However, not everyone is so fortunate. Internet access is expensive to someone who's paid subsistence wages and below. I think the segment of people who can't easily afford such things is larger than you think, based on the number of computer users I see when I walk into my local library.
Actually, if someone steals your idea and patents it, IANAL but I would think you could sue their pants off. Their application for the patent would be fraudulent, and if you keep accurate records of when you produced key artifacts (documents, drawings, prototypes, whatever) it should be easy to convince a jury that you came up with the complete invention long before your crooked competitor filed the patent.
Plus if you have half a brain you will take basic precautions like getting a signed and notarized Non-Disclosure Agreement that describes the basics of your idea, before you show the details to anyone, which you can then use in court to beat the crap out of anyone who double-crosses you.
TFA makes it sound like a printer for a much simpler organ (bladder) has been used in at least one human trial. I wonder if there is anything published in medical literature about this kind of thing? (I'm not in medicine or biotech, so I wouldn't necessarily know).
Actually it is very common for painters even today to paint their own variations and re-interpretations of Mona Lisa. It's called a "study." Of course, it's different. The challenge in a study is to bring something new and create new art based on the same subject.
Your department is expecting you to attend a conference where you're presenting at your own expense? Buddy, you are in the wrong department, or at least you have the wrong adviser. Your research sponsor and/or department should have the money to finance and registration expenses. If they don't, they you have to start asking why the hell not.
Yeah, the Grammys have a soundtrack category but it looks like it's for film and television only. So having the song (re)-released on an album is what made it eligible for consideration.
On the other hand, I wonder what the numbers would look like if the survey asked teachers if they were reluctant to teach creationism in class. Probably much higher, in public schools at least. (Given that trying to teach religion in public school is *illegal* for good reason).
I'm not sure there is anything to worry about here. Unless you happen to be a creationist.
I use telnet clients from time to time, in the lab. You can use it connect and send data to any old port, not just 23. I would never run the telnet daemon though, and seven times never on a box that's exposed to the public Internet.
"We believe what we did was ethical," Auernheimer told Computerworld last June. "What we did was right."
The federal prosecutor disagrees. If you follow the link in TFA, you'll find:
Rather than contact AT&T directly with what they'd uncovered, Goatse [Security] tipped off an unnamed third party, who in turn reported the design flaw to AT&T. Goatse took that route, Auernheimer said, to prevent AT&T from preventing the group from publicizing the e-mail address exposure.
So, they found a flaw, then hid their identity, and didn't contact AT&T directly, instead disclosing the flaw to a third party (who can be trusted because...?), because they thought AT&T might react differently than how they wanted it to. This is ethical exactly how?
Have you noticed that this radio executive has unilaterally expanded the definition of "piracy" to include recording a broadcast? He's just overturned the Betamax Case. Note the progression here: from piracy = mass producing copyrighted material for unlicensed sale (1980's) to piracy = copying a single recording from the Internet (2000's) to piracy = legally protected fair use (2011).
Yes, I know this story is from the U.K. where the laws are different, but I would be very surprised if taping a signal from the public airwaves is illegal there.
"Piracy" as used by music executives is becoming a buzzword with no meaning other than "people deciding to listen to music without buying it."
For those who don't recognize the name, Jared Loughner is the fellow accused of the shooting spree in Tuscon that claimed six lives and seriously wounded a U.S. Representative. Given that he was arrested at the scene and two eyewitnesses reported having wrested a smoking gun from his grasp, I mean, innocent till proven guilty and all, but it would be hard to argue that calling him a "suspect" is jumping to conclusions.
Deterrence only works on comparatively cowardly, pampered criminals who feel that they have something to lose by dying.
I question your unstated assertion that carrying a firearm protects anyone from anything. If you are confronted by an assailant who has a weapon in his hand, it's too late to draw yours. In the time it takes you to draw your gun, he can rush you from 20 feet away and inflict a fatal stab wound. If both parties have guns, it's extremely likely he'll put a bullet in you before you get yours out of the holster. Your chance of survival relies on the assailant not realizing you are reaching for a gun and just standing there like an idiot while you shoot him down.
By all means continue to believe your Wild West myth of being able to "defend yourself" with a gun. Carry one if it makes you feel safe; I don't object to law-abiding citizens carrying weapons wherever they want. However, if you get mugged, your survival rests in the mugger's desire not to kill you. Trying to actually use your concealed weapon changes that equation pretty dramatically.
This is the same reason why merchant vessels are reluctant to carry weapons. As Captain Barbosa said in Pirates of the Carribean, "people are easier to search once they're dead." It would just motivate the pirates to kill most of the crew first, then still ransom the survivors for ten million dollars.
The real world is more complicated than your romanticized, action-hero fantasy where having a gun makes you into Dirty Harry.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you count, you know, the Internet. Surely that counts as infrastructure, doesn't it? The ability to move data offsets some of the need to move people and goods.
This ruling not only screws the little guy, it supports federal authority trampling state law, and seems to me to directly contradict the Seventh Amendment (IANAL). My mind boggles that the justices who wrote it are considered "conservative". The word has lost its meaning.
I'm as unhappy with the decision as anyone, but let's think more deeply about what it means. Surely the arbitration clause in a contract only affects action related to that contract, so while indeed the SCOTUS upheld corporate immunity from class-action suits for breach of contract, other forms of class-action suits (specifically, liability) would still apply. So this applies pretty much just to getting cheated on your bill and/or not having the promised services delivered, and wouldn't stop for example a future Erin Brockovich. IANAL
Here's a hopeful note: many members of Congress are trial lawyers. It may be possible to muster the political will to repeal the Federal Arbitration Act.
If you indulge your malicious feelings, you're a contemptible sys admin.
Harming your users doesn't seem to me a good idea at all. Adding more bad behavior to the Internet is unlikely to improve anyone's situation. And crashing their browsers? That crosses an ethical line, in my opinion. What's next, infecting them with malware out of spite?
(emphasis added)
Science isn't about what you believe, it's about how you determine fact. I think someone who doesn't believe in evolution, who is able to perform disciplined, formal, falsifiable experiments to attempt to refute the theory of evolution (and properly interpret the results) would make an excellent scientist. I also don't believe such a person exists. I've read some of the "creation science" claptrap and as far as I can tell it is based on supposition and faulty logic.
Making hiring decisions on the basis of quality of research and scholarship should still be OK.
Also, most biological research isn't about evolution, so if the creationist is producing good research about some more current topic in biology, again I don't see the problem. IANAB (I am not a biologist).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." (actually that is a popular misquote, properly attributed to Evelyn Beatrice Hall). Our society in general, and academe in particular, could benefit from living up to that ideal.
Of course I have mixed feelings about the Texas legislature introducing this bill, because I strongly suspect their motives in doing so are rather the opposite of Hall's quotation. If they do the right thing for the wrong reason, should I approve?
Just because one car insurance company is offering a 30% discount to customers who agree to GPS tracking to prove they don't drive in rush hour traffic (and how many fit that profile?), it doesn't follow that one can save 30% on all "basic living expenses" by totally giving up privacy. As to the major living expenses: rent/mortgage, taxes, food ... no one has made a plausible claim those expenses can be reduced at all.
This is a thought experiment only, and not a well-considered one at that. If we assume that marketers are economically rational beings, the only way they would let you "save" money by giving up your privacy is if they can make more money from it than you "save." Maybe in a few cases such as car insurance that can be done by increasing efficiency, but more likely it will be done by pushing your buttons to get you to buy overpriced crap you don't need.
It is more likely that you'll start seeing companies start making backroom deals to get preferential access to end users. Which is what the last-mile providers have wanted all along.
Two points: First, I can "easily" get it in digital version subject to the publisher's whim, and on the publisher's terms (which are subject to change at any time), and assuming someone bothered to digitize it. That's great, until it's not. Second, *I* can easily get e-books because I can afford a computer and $50 a month for broadband access. However, not everyone is so fortunate. Internet access is expensive to someone who's paid subsistence wages and below. I think the segment of people who can't easily afford such things is larger than you think, based on the number of computer users I see when I walk into my local library.
Actually, if someone steals your idea and patents it, IANAL but I would think you could sue their pants off. Their application for the patent would be fraudulent, and if you keep accurate records of when you produced key artifacts (documents, drawings, prototypes, whatever) it should be easy to convince a jury that you came up with the complete invention long before your crooked competitor filed the patent.
Plus if you have half a brain you will take basic precautions like getting a signed and notarized Non-Disclosure Agreement that describes the basics of your idea, before you show the details to anyone, which you can then use in court to beat the crap out of anyone who double-crosses you.
TFA makes it sound like a printer for a much simpler organ (bladder) has been used in at least one human trial. I wonder if there is anything published in medical literature about this kind of thing? (I'm not in medicine or biotech, so I wouldn't necessarily know).
Hawaii was not a state at the time of the attack, though.
Actually it is very common for painters even today to paint their own variations and re-interpretations of Mona Lisa. It's called a "study." Of course, it's different. The challenge in a study is to bring something new and create new art based on the same subject.
Your department is expecting you to attend a conference where you're presenting at your own expense? Buddy, you are in the wrong department, or at least you have the wrong adviser. Your research sponsor and/or department should have the money to finance and registration expenses. If they don't, they you have to start asking why the hell not.
Yeah, the Grammys have a soundtrack category but it looks like it's for film and television only. So having the song (re)-released on an album is what made it eligible for consideration.
On the other hand, I wonder what the numbers would look like if the survey asked teachers if they were reluctant to teach creationism in class. Probably much higher, in public schools at least. (Given that trying to teach religion in public school is *illegal* for good reason). I'm not sure there is anything to worry about here. Unless you happen to be a creationist.
I use telnet clients from time to time, in the lab. You can use it connect and send data to any old port, not just 23. I would never run the telnet daemon though, and seven times never on a box that's exposed to the public Internet.
usually we do not post defamation statements, unless we can back them up.
Umm... you must be confused. This is Slashdot.
The federal prosecutor disagrees. If you follow the link in TFA, you'll find:
So, they found a flaw, then hid their identity, and didn't contact AT&T directly, instead disclosing the flaw to a third party (who can be trusted because ...?), because they thought AT&T might react differently than how they wanted it to. This is ethical exactly how?
Have you noticed that this radio executive has unilaterally expanded the definition of "piracy" to include recording a broadcast? He's just overturned the Betamax Case. Note the progression here: from piracy = mass producing copyrighted material for unlicensed sale (1980's) to piracy = copying a single recording from the Internet (2000's) to piracy = legally protected fair use (2011).
Yes, I know this story is from the U.K. where the laws are different, but I would be very surprised if taping a signal from the public airwaves is illegal there.
"Piracy" as used by music executives is becoming a buzzword with no meaning other than "people deciding to listen to music without buying it."
For those who don't recognize the name, Jared Loughner is the fellow accused of the shooting spree in Tuscon that claimed six lives and seriously wounded a U.S. Representative. Given that he was arrested at the scene and two eyewitnesses reported having wrested a smoking gun from his grasp, I mean, innocent till proven guilty and all, but it would be hard to argue that calling him a "suspect" is jumping to conclusions.
Deterrence only works on comparatively cowardly, pampered criminals who feel that they have something to lose by dying.
I question your unstated assertion that carrying a firearm protects anyone from anything. If you are confronted by an assailant who has a weapon in his hand, it's too late to draw yours. In the time it takes you to draw your gun, he can rush you from 20 feet away and inflict a fatal stab wound. If both parties have guns, it's extremely likely he'll put a bullet in you before you get yours out of the holster. Your chance of survival relies on the assailant not realizing you are reaching for a gun and just standing there like an idiot while you shoot him down.
By all means continue to believe your Wild West myth of being able to "defend yourself" with a gun. Carry one if it makes you feel safe; I don't object to law-abiding citizens carrying weapons wherever they want. However, if you get mugged, your survival rests in the mugger's desire not to kill you. Trying to actually use your concealed weapon changes that equation pretty dramatically.
This is the same reason why merchant vessels are reluctant to carry weapons. As Captain Barbosa said in Pirates of the Carribean, "people are easier to search once they're dead." It would just motivate the pirates to kill most of the crew first, then still ransom the survivors for ten million dollars.
The real world is more complicated than your romanticized, action-hero fantasy where having a gun makes you into Dirty Harry.
For the Bible, that's happening now. http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project