And again, society decided that it doesn't work that way. If they're your subordinates, you're responsible for them. It's your duty to stop them if they do something evil.
And he is alive and well and has been since the dawn of man.
So what is evil?
What me might consider ok or even good in our society might be the bane of all forbidden sins known to someone else's.
You know... Like cartoons of a particular religious figure or killing cows or even saying bad things about the founder of your nation.
However, not only does this digression happen between societies it also can happen interpersonal.
As in... You kill a man and your neighbor is angry because he was his nation's hero and was father of 3, but others applaud you because the man had caused your nation death and destruction.
The truth (if such a thing exists) is that there is no such thing as true evil or true good.
Of course you can be really nice to people or an extreme asshole, but one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
It just so happens that society changes its mind.
If we were living in the 1950's and happen to live in the deep south in the USA and you were born and raised there and held common view with your society then chances are you would agree with segration. Same with Slavery if you were born in the South in the 1840's.
Today we see these things as "evil" so I wouldn't be suprised if someone we see as evil today is not so evil in the future. And maybe we'll have some societal change where something we see as good today will be evil in the future.
Therin lies the problem with good and evil. There are no methods for true definition that do not change.
Sorry for the rant... I hope it wasn't evil of me.
As I've had to attend Jury duty I'm aware that civil cases also can have trial by jury which I'm assuming would be better if you were a defendant since these people would often be like the average joe (who also maybe a filesharing themselves).
Could you go into more detail about how you get a trial by jury in a civil case and are there any downsides to this? (like fees)
If you think you can convince a judge that this isn't textbook circumvention, hey, go for it.
Or jury.
(which you might convince that Wookies on Endor are illogical so they must aquit)
If RIAA or Apple sued you civil suite, you could in theory get your lawyer to request a trial by jury. The downside of this, it causes the case to be extended exponentially and you'd better have deep pockets to pay your team of laywers.
The Chinese government should firghten any thinking person.
To be fair, so should the US Government.
A democracy that does not have an educated, interested, and non-apathetic, and self thinking populace that votes (or in our case chooses to not vote) is just as good as a benevolent dictorship... Or maybe less so so it is highly ineffficient.
Not that I'm advocating englightened despotism, but our votes are pretty much bought and sold by lobbyists, corporations, and self-interest groups.
Voting almost has the same effect as writing on a peice of paper and throwing it into a furnance. (well Diebold non-withstanding)
Sure we can harp on China and their bad policies all day long, but in truth when our government and corporations spin our media we might as well be listening to the People's Daily and not throwing the bastards out just because we all well do to finacially. You know... Term limits and less lobbying.
Look people. If we create something in lab that sucks the earth into a blackhole or ignites the atmosphere with an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction... We won't be around to notice the event.
Therefore, there are two universes. In one, the event kill us all, and in the other the event fails to do so.
I sent money to someone I didn't even really meet on the internet. I bought Secret of Mana for the SNES on Ebay. Should he then post my personal information?
Look dude. If I'm selling an SNES game on ebay and then start emailing me pictures of your cock in order to secure your bid, I think I'm going to post that information on the net somewhere.
Seriously though, the guys in question are not only pervs they are dumb pervs.
They are the kind of people that get caught on that stupid MSNBC show. He wasn't selling anything other than soliciting sex. They only thing these guys should be thankful for is that it was some guy playing a joke on them and not the FBI or Homeland trying to get someone arrested for soliciting a prostitute.
Secondly, end users do not sign privacy disclosures with each other nor get applied to any HIPAA, Banks, Credit Card company, Doctor, and Lawyer confidentiality laws.
You know those privacy agreements company have? There are only there to make the customer feel good if you happen to not be one of the afore mentioned types of businesses.
So in truth that guy you bought the Secret of Mana can post your info all he wants as long as it doesn't appear to not be threating your life or limb or doing some type of libel or slander. (IE putting your name and address on a site that tells people to kill you like an abortion doctor).
Other than that there are no privacy laws that protect you in this matter AFAIK (IANAL).
Among a billion and billion of stars, it is statistically likely to find a planet or two to have just the right condition to hold water at the right temperature. Proof? Look at our planet.
Had the conditions on Earth or in our local or even macro-universe levels had been any different perhaps we wouldn't be around to notice.
Only those places in the universe that support not only life, but the evolution of intelligent life... Or at least intelligent enough to observe and wonder if life is possible anywhere else in the universe... can we ever have those discussion or explorations on such a topic or research.
Frankly it could be quite possible that life is very common in the universe, but it is not common for intelligent life to happen.
I personally subscribe to the Rare Earth hyposthesis mostly because I believe it takes more than just billions of stars to have a single instance of life (much less intelligence).
Otherwise where are all the life forms?
Unless of course happen to first, intelligent life would find a way to metabolize the universe in order to prevent Heat Death or reverse the second laws of thermodynamic or have either altruism in order to save all forms of sentient life or out of fear exterminate all forms of other lifeforms to make sure it remains to the top dog sentient being out there.
So far we haven't seen any evidence of anything like this going on... So either life is not very common in the universe or we just happen to be the first to acheive our level of intelligence.
Or at least very close to others who maybe at an industrial or information technology level in their civilization...
Better not buy a Mac, because every Mac comes with iTunes and evil iTunes DRM. And don't buy a DVD player, because those have DRM too. Don't get digital cable, don't use a satellite dish, don't buy an iPod, don't buy a new TV. And, whatever you do, don't use Windows Me, Windows 2000, or Windows XP (all have DRM).
I hate to say this but that is tarded, because my iPod, OS X, and iTunes doesn't have a single lick of DRM in it. It would if I purchased DRM'ed files from iTunes, but I don't. iTunes lets me rip my cds to mp3s and I can put them on my iPod.
The point being is that OS X, DVDs, and all those others have non-obstrusive DRM (in a sense).
However, Vista, HD-DVD, and Bluray have obstrusive (or obstructive might be a better word) DRM that makes normal operations a living hell.
The fact of the matter is that people don't mind DRM until it gets in their face and causes them greif issues.
OK, I get that it's bundling; and I get why that's "bad".
Internet Explorer
Sure its not bad per se, but without competition there is no incentive to improve it, fix bugs, or innovate. If it wasn't for Firefox, IE 7 would still wouldn't have Tabs and advanced security options.
Hrm... Often times prison labor makes up for this shortfall. Most prison systems personel that I have had discussions with will note that the majority of activity the prisions do is to earn money for the state or private businesses.
And they don't have to pay them minimum wages either.
Depends on the state on what kind of prison.
Obviously, they can put multi-count murderers in the work field or textile plants due to aggressive behavior.
Telemarketers though, I have to choose between getting up during dinner / sleeping to answer the phone or dealing with the damn thing ringing every 5 minutes.
Ever since I started to use a cell phone for my primary means of communication the "telemarketer" problem has gone away.
Mostly because its illegal for telemarketers to call cell phones.
I know many people don't like cell phones, but I only have a LAN line in my house for the alarm system but I could hook an old POTS phone up to it to call out if I lost my cell phone.
Once the old people can no longer look after themselves, they will be put into a care home, and kept alive for decades using modern technology.
Ummm... If you were 80 years old and had the body and the mind of a 20 year old... Well... I don't think there is going to be a need for you to retire... EVER!
Maybe a scary prospect having to keep a day job for the next 1,000 years, but I'd take that over having my mind rotting away and me crapping myself for a good 30 years in some rest home.
The problem is that this guy and his company accepted money from US citizens who were on US soil in exchange for providing a service that is illegal in the US.
Oh shit... I shouldn't have donated money to the Dali Lama and went to Beijing for my vacation.
You know, with Microsoft's vast fortune; you think they would be in a position to dictate terms to the MPAA / RIAA, just like they do with computer and hardware manufactures.
Actually they are, but the MPAA/RIAA hasn't caught on.
The only reason Microsoft fixed the hole was because it allowed people to take their Windows Media files to other formats which may or not be compatible with non-Windows operating systems. Yeah... OS X has Windows Media Players... well sort of... but they are broke and usesless for a reason... mostly Microsoft's reasons.
That is why they fixed it... Not because some Hollywood mogul told them to.
Same here, and I've had my computer on practically 24/7 (some nights turning it off when there's nothing to torrent). Those who claim XP is unstable are nothing more than trolls, or are running it on faulty hardware.
To be fair you've never had to deal with more than just your machine.
For us that have to deal with tech support and/or corporate IT (as in those who have to deal with hundreds if not thousands of boxes) you have to wonder about XPs stability.
That said what you should really say that XP with all the most recent updates, service packs, and patches is quite stable when you compare it to Win XP circa 2001 before SP1.
So yeah... XP had a lot of problems when it first came out, but these days not so much.
This is why many of us in the corporate areana are kind of wary of switching to Vista.
We'll let the consumers burn it in for us until they hit SP1 or SP2 again.
And then there is this new physX card - which sounds like a neat idea, but you have the same kind of situation. You can kind of model physics looking a bit better for the player with the card - but all actual physical actions must be reproducible for the non-card having players
That isn't an actual problem since most of what the Physics cards do is smoke and mirrors.
As in... It doesn't do bullet or rocket projectiles, but the effects of the particles which do nothing to the player.
You know... Smoke... Debris... And various other objects that if they came in contact with the player would not cause any harm or any effect.
So if a player turned this off or did not have a card it shouldn't do anything to their game player other than not look as good.
Slashdot Mirror
And again, society decided that it doesn't work that way. If they're your subordinates, you're responsible for them. It's your duty to stop them if they do something evil.
Let me introduce you to my little friend here...
His name is Moral Relativism
And he is alive and well and has been since the dawn of man.
So what is evil?
What me might consider ok or even good in our society might be the bane of all forbidden sins known to someone else's.
You know... Like cartoons of a particular religious figure or killing cows or even saying bad things about the founder of your nation.
However, not only does this digression happen between societies it also can happen interpersonal.
As in... You kill a man and your neighbor is angry because he was his nation's hero and was father of 3, but others applaud you because the man had caused your nation death and destruction.
The truth (if such a thing exists) is that there is no such thing as true evil or true good.
Of course you can be really nice to people or an extreme asshole, but one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
It just so happens that society changes its mind.
If we were living in the 1950's and happen to live in the deep south in the USA and you were born and raised there and held common view with your society then chances are you would agree with segration. Same with Slavery if you were born in the South in the 1840's.
Today we see these things as "evil" so I wouldn't be suprised if someone we see as evil today is not so evil in the future. And maybe we'll have some societal change where something we see as good today will be evil in the future.
Therin lies the problem with good and evil. There are no methods for true definition that do not change.
Sorry for the rant... I hope it wasn't evil of me.
As I've had to attend Jury duty I'm aware that civil cases also can have trial by jury which I'm assuming would be better if you were a defendant since these people would often be like the average joe (who also maybe a filesharing themselves).
Could you go into more detail about how you get a trial by jury in a civil case and are there any downsides to this? (like fees)
So when do get full prosthetic bodies?
Or at least one like hers?
Don't worry. If you really read what's going on with that bill, you'd know that 1) It's for people communicating the terrorists
So who or what constitutes a terrorist?
What happens if the target is on some type of say... Medication or drug that inhibbits pain receptors.
Like cocaine induced militia soldiers on the streets of Mogudishu, Somalia (yes they were often paid in drugs)?
Or do it have much more of an effect?
If you think you can convince a judge that this isn't textbook circumvention, hey, go for it.
Or jury.
(which you might convince that Wookies on Endor are illogical so they must aquit)
If RIAA or Apple sued you civil suite, you could in theory get your lawyer to request a trial by jury. The downside of this, it causes the case to be extended exponentially and you'd better have deep pockets to pay your team of laywers.
Hey... It worked for OJ.
But less people use Firefox, so they don't write as many exploits for it.
But more webservers use Apache over IIS, so why are there more eploits for IIS?
Give it another 30 years and we will see an amazing culture as long as we dont stifle it.
Although, in another 30 years we might have a technological singularity on our hands and raising kids will be a moot point.
Kent's Farm is where Superboy grew up before he became Superman. It was a rights issue.
See... We told everyone Trusted Computing was a bad idea.
The Chinese government should firghten any thinking person.
To be fair, so should the US Government.
A democracy that does not have an educated, interested, and non-apathetic, and self thinking populace that votes (or in our case chooses to not vote) is just as good as a benevolent dictorship... Or maybe less so so it is highly ineffficient.
Not that I'm advocating englightened despotism, but our votes are pretty much bought and sold by lobbyists, corporations, and self-interest groups.
Voting almost has the same effect as writing on a peice of paper and throwing it into a furnance. (well Diebold non-withstanding)
Sure we can harp on China and their bad policies all day long, but in truth when our government and corporations spin our media we might as well be listening to the People's Daily and not throwing the bastards out just because we all well do to finacially. You know... Term limits and less lobbying.
Look people. If we create something in lab that sucks the earth into a blackhole or ignites the atmosphere with an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction... We won't be around to notice the event.
Therefore, there are two universes. In one, the event kill us all, and in the other the event fails to do so.
It is as simple as that.
I sent money to someone I didn't even really meet on the internet. I bought Secret of Mana for the SNES on Ebay. Should he then post my personal information?
Look dude. If I'm selling an SNES game on ebay and then start emailing me pictures of your cock in order to secure your bid, I think I'm going to post that information on the net somewhere.
Seriously though, the guys in question are not only pervs they are dumb pervs.
They are the kind of people that get caught on that stupid MSNBC show. He wasn't selling anything other than soliciting sex. They only thing these guys should be thankful for is that it was some guy playing a joke on them and not the FBI or Homeland trying to get someone arrested for soliciting a prostitute.
Secondly, end users do not sign privacy disclosures with each other nor get applied to any HIPAA, Banks, Credit Card company, Doctor, and Lawyer confidentiality laws.
You know those privacy agreements company have? There are only there to make the customer feel good if you happen to not be one of the afore mentioned types of businesses.
So in truth that guy you bought the Secret of Mana can post your info all he wants as long as it doesn't appear to not be threating your life or limb or doing some type of libel or slander. (IE putting your name and address on a site that tells people to kill you like an abortion doctor).
Other than that there are no privacy laws that protect you in this matter AFAIK (IANAL).
Among a billion and billion of stars, it is statistically likely to find a planet or two to have just the right condition to hold water at the right temperature. Proof? Look at our planet.
Oh but you run into the problem (or just case) of Anthropic Principle.
Had the conditions on Earth or in our local or even macro-universe levels had been any different perhaps we wouldn't be around to notice.
Only those places in the universe that support not only life, but the evolution of intelligent life... Or at least intelligent enough to observe and wonder if life is possible anywhere else in the universe... can we ever have those discussion or explorations on such a topic or research.
Frankly it could be quite possible that life is very common in the universe, but it is not common for intelligent life to happen.
I personally subscribe to the Rare Earth hyposthesis mostly because I believe it takes more than just billions of stars to have a single instance of life (much less intelligence).
Otherwise where are all the life forms?
Unless of course happen to first, intelligent life would find a way to metabolize the universe in order to prevent Heat Death or reverse the second laws of thermodynamic or have either altruism in order to save all forms of sentient life or out of fear exterminate all forms of other lifeforms to make sure it remains to the top dog sentient being out there.
So far we haven't seen any evidence of anything like this going on... So either life is not very common in the universe or we just happen to be the first to acheive our level of intelligence.
Or at least very close to others who maybe at an industrial or information technology level in their civilization...
Better not buy a Mac, because every Mac comes with iTunes and evil iTunes DRM. And don't buy a DVD player, because those have DRM too. Don't get digital cable, don't use a satellite dish, don't buy an iPod, don't buy a new TV. And, whatever you do, don't use Windows Me, Windows 2000, or Windows XP (all have DRM).
I hate to say this but that is tarded, because my iPod, OS X, and iTunes doesn't have a single lick of DRM in it. It would if I purchased DRM'ed files from iTunes, but I don't. iTunes lets me rip my cds to mp3s and I can put them on my iPod.
The point being is that OS X, DVDs, and all those others have non-obstrusive DRM (in a sense).
However, Vista, HD-DVD, and Bluray have obstrusive (or obstructive might be a better word) DRM that makes normal operations a living hell.
The fact of the matter is that people don't mind DRM until it gets in their face and causes them greif issues.
OK, I get that it's bundling; and I get why that's "bad".
Internet Explorer
Sure its not bad per se, but without competition there is no incentive to improve it, fix bugs, or innovate. If it wasn't for Firefox, IE 7 would still wouldn't have Tabs and advanced security options.
ow, now the taxpayers of Virginia have to pay
Hrm... Often times prison labor makes up for this shortfall. Most prison systems personel that I have had discussions with will note that the majority of activity the prisions do is to earn money for the state or private businesses.
And they don't have to pay them minimum wages either.
Depends on the state on what kind of prison.
Obviously, they can put multi-count murderers in the work field or textile plants due to aggressive behavior.
Telemarketers though, I have to choose between getting up during dinner / sleeping to answer the phone or dealing with the damn thing ringing every 5 minutes.
Ever since I started to use a cell phone for my primary means of communication the "telemarketer" problem has gone away.
Mostly because its illegal for telemarketers to call cell phones.
I know many people don't like cell phones, but I only have a LAN line in my house for the alarm system but I could hook an old POTS phone up to it to call out if I lost my cell phone.
Once the old people can no longer look after themselves, they will be put into a care home, and kept alive for decades using modern technology.
Ummm... If you were 80 years old and had the body and the mind of a 20 year old... Well... I don't think there is going to be a need for you to retire... EVER!
Maybe a scary prospect having to keep a day job for the next 1,000 years, but I'd take that over having my mind rotting away and me crapping myself for a good 30 years in some rest home.
They should've fought, legal fees would very likely be less than $1M.
IANAL but....
HAHAAHAAHAHAAHAH!
The problem is that this guy and his company accepted money from US citizens who were on US soil in exchange for providing a service that is illegal in the US.
Oh shit... I shouldn't have donated money to the Dali Lama and went to Beijing for my vacation.
You know, with Microsoft's vast fortune; you think they would be in a position to dictate terms to the MPAA / RIAA, just like they do with computer and hardware manufactures.
Actually they are, but the MPAA/RIAA hasn't caught on.
The only reason Microsoft fixed the hole was because it allowed people to take their Windows Media files to other formats which may or not be compatible with non-Windows operating systems. Yeah... OS X has Windows Media Players... well sort of... but they are broke and usesless for a reason... mostly Microsoft's reasons.
That is why they fixed it... Not because some Hollywood mogul told them to.
That's why we have laws and penalties. What we need is stiffer penalties for privacy violations by companies.
Unfortunately, because of corporate charters, most companies can do things that would land an individual person in jail for a very long time.
If an individual did the same thing as the Sony Rootkit, he would be faced with hard jail time.
Where as Sony just got a slap on the wrist and no one... Not a single developer, intern, manager, or CEO went to jail or even were placed in court.
We need a better system of punishing people who do illegal things via their corporate proxy.
Same here, and I've had my computer on practically 24/7 (some nights turning it off when there's nothing to torrent). Those who claim XP is unstable are nothing more than trolls, or are running it on faulty hardware.
To be fair you've never had to deal with more than just your machine.
For us that have to deal with tech support and/or corporate IT (as in those who have to deal with hundreds if not thousands of boxes) you have to wonder about XPs stability.
That said what you should really say that XP with all the most recent updates, service packs, and patches is quite stable when you compare it to Win XP circa 2001 before SP1.
So yeah... XP had a lot of problems when it first came out, but these days not so much.
This is why many of us in the corporate areana are kind of wary of switching to Vista.
We'll let the consumers burn it in for us until they hit SP1 or SP2 again.
And apart from nanotechnology and cool pyramids, what have the Egyptians ever done for us?
A catchy 80's song?
And then there is this new physX card - which sounds like a neat idea, but you have the same kind of situation. You can kind of model physics looking a bit better for the player with the card - but all actual physical actions must be reproducible for the non-card having players
That isn't an actual problem since most of what the Physics cards do is smoke and mirrors.
As in... It doesn't do bullet or rocket projectiles, but the effects of the particles which do nothing to the player.
You know... Smoke... Debris... And various other objects that if they came in contact with the player would not cause any harm or any effect.
So if a player turned this off or did not have a card it shouldn't do anything to their game player other than not look as good.