It just confuses the issue which, at bottom, is that it takes two to tango.
This entire discussion is really offtopic, but I wanted to comment here, as this hit home very, very personally.
I don't know you, so it'd be unfair of me to say you're an abusive father. However, I personally grew up in an environment with an abusive family, and this "two to tango" line was the justification. It still echos in my ears.
You see, my sister is younger than me, and took great advantage of that two-to-tango line. I have several scars from her scratches, I'd take a great deal of physical abuse from her because at the time, it was drilled in to my head that I couldn't fight back. After she'd get done with her assaults, which could involve anything from fingernails to a lamp, inevitably my parents would get involved, which meant the both of us got punished. Using the two-to-tango logic, I was the more guilty party being older, and as such I got a second beating from whichever parent happened to find out.
So now, yes, I say you should be finding out what happened, and not be being a lazy parent at best, or an abusive one at worst. Self defense still applies even if it takes some effort on your part to find out what happened and teach your kids right from wrong.
Exactly when is it a good defense? When you know the kid you're messing with doesn't have a knife in his pocket? And how do you know that?
Umm, "Self Defense" is always a valid defense, regardless of the size/type of the weapons of your opponents. "Self Defense" refers to whether you should punish the victim, like the GP apparantly feels about his cousin.
You can make an argument about escalating violence, but in general you are justified in self defense for raising the violence level by one degree. IANAL, so I don't have all of them memorized. Maybe someone can dig up a good link for you. Basically, if someone hits you with their fists, punch him back (same level), or whip out the pepper spray (non lethal weapons). Then you're cool legally, and as far as I am concerned, morally as well.
Up until the point they show you the weapon, I would definately say you should fight back. At that point they've raised their own bar to attempted murder, and you need to decide whether you are capable of defending against the weapon in question. If you took the aforementioned martial arts classes, with a proper focus on self defense, a knife should be no problem. Depending on your skill level, a handgun probably isn't a problem either. If you're not capable of the requisite level of defense, then run. In either case however, it is the aggressor who is guilty, not the kid getting bullied.
If you're going to just cower and get beat on because someone might have a bigger weapon in hiding, you need the martial arts class just as bad as the poor kid in the GP post.
Further, even the way you phrase it shows you are a product of this ridiculous parenting method. The kid that "might have a knife in his pocket" is messing with you, not the other way around.
You sound like my 5 year old cousin whining after he gets caught.. "but he hit me first".
Someone should teach this child, and you apparantly, about the idea of "Self Defense". "But he hit me first" IS a valid defense. Get this kid in a martial arts class before your family turns him in to an overweight pussy. The exercise, self confidence, and perhaps most importantly -- skill to control his abilities -- will prove incredibly valuable.
As usual your comments are spot on. After someone corrected me on the Nixon thing, I was afraid the point was really going to be lost in the minutae on that (okay, he didn't go to trial, but the point was they threw him out).
I just wanted to point out as well (partly too for earlier parts of the thread), that while you were correct you "could" make it, it really seems more like a fluke and not one that seems to be tolerated very well.
Going back to the Diebold base issue, ultimately, it is this type of fluke that the election machine fraud is really designed to prevent. I think even the apathetic American public would "catch on" if no one but Republicans won elections for the next 25 years. So the trick here is, allow some old boy demo's to get through, preserve the all valuable "bi partisan" illusion, but just make sure no more Clinton's happen and rally the peasants too much.
Um, you may need to refresh your US Presidential knowledge. Nixon resigned before he had a chance to get impeached. The only two Presidents to ever be impeached are Clinton and Andrew Johnson. Johnson was impeached over a cabinet staffing issue that was later deemed Unconstitutional, but that was really just a red herring because Johnson was interfering with Congress' stick it to the South method or reconstruction.
I stand corrected, thank you. Nice tidbit about Johnson, that I didn't know. I think my overall point is still valid, even if Nixon did get run out before he could "actually" be impeached.
Both Clinton (D) and Nixon (R) were born poor, and made their political careers on their wits. Neither made any significant money outside their political careers, except books published after they left office. Even though they became rich by politics, they came from a disadvantaged underclass, exploiting America's class mobility to get power.
For your example, did you realize you picked the only two Presidents to get impeached? So yea, they made it, great for them. But the Good Old Boys sure didn't want them there.
Nixon's illegal actions were sure nothing compared to Bush Jr.'s bullshit, especially during the second term as we are seeing now. I'm not excusing Nixon, but we have to face the reality that spying happens all time, whether Nixon gets fried for it or not.
Clinton got strung up and put on the spot over a sexual affair that has nothing to do with commiting crimes against the nation or anyone else for that matter. He didn't help himself with the perjury, but again here, getting put on the spot in front of the nation and lying about a BJ is on a whole different scale than the war crimes and downright treason Bush Jr. has committed. The only thing that ultimately kept Clinton in office was the fact that the economy was absolutely fantastic and overall he was a very, very well liked President. (It's another discussion whether you feel he actually caused it)
My point in all of this is, they may have made it, but in both cases I find it odd that the two that didn't come from the Old Boys Network end up facing impeachment over comparatively minor things. Now gee, in all of it all, and this isn't a party thing as bot (D) and (R) are represented on both sides of this expression, who might want to get rid of the little peasants who think they can play in their game?
(4) The "I'm manager because I can everybody's job better than they could" manager. Hardly bears description. On the flip side, if you're honest with yourself, you'll admit that as an engineer, deep in your heart of hearts, this is you. The obviously awesome weapons of the engineering paradigm can slay any dragon.
Okay, you knew someone was gonna stick up for engineers around here, so here I am. I'm going to pick up on your previous Star Trek analogy too, for maximum geek-factor.
There will of course be engineers like this, just like there are managers that think they are engineers. A good crew however, doesn't work like this.
Geordi LaForge doesn't WANT to be Captain. In fact, aside from some minor rank bumps early in the shows career when he moved from helmsman to Chief Engineer, Geordi showed no signs of wanting to move up at all. He was already EXACTLY where he belonged, in the engine room of the fleet flagship, under a great Captain.
Good engineers don't want to be out fighting Klingons and worrying about Ferengi ripping them off and Romulans stealing their toys. That's what good CAPTAINS are for. Picard gave Geordi engineering problems, and listened to him when Geordi said he design a way to tie the holodeck to the warp core and fix the particle of the week. There were also plenty of times they went to that meeting room, and Geordi sat there with his hands in his lap because it wasn't an engineering problem, and the best he could offer was to carry a tricorder on the away team.
This is like a good engineer wet dream -- all the best toys to play with, with a gung ho first officer and an angry klingon between you and everything else that can get in your way, from Cardassians to Starfleet Brass.
Punishing the Pusher (of pirated software or narcotics) will not solve the problem because another pusher will just appear to sell his stuff to the same set of users. Let us try a different approach.
Punish the user.
You mention narcotics, so I guess I should ask... How's that working out in the "War on Drugs"?
A company like Microsoft creates 2 versions of Vista. One version is the real McCoy. The other is a specially modified version that deliberately sabotages your computer system. Then, Microsoft creates a front company that contacts piracy rings in the West and in Asia. This front company "sells" the sabotaged version for 25 cents per pop.
Uhm, no. If Microsoft deliberately creates a software that damages my system, then creates their own company to sell their own software, regardless of the price, they are guilty of all kinds of crimes. I don't think it takes a lawyer to figure out what a bad idea this is.
Further, I think you gloriously underestimate the ability of the software piracy world to sniff something like this out and then continue to get a copy of Vista Corporate from an insider, just like they always have and always will.
My gmail address is valuable to me yes, granted. Right now, Google offers me a fair trade -- Some services I can use, with no extra bullshit hassles on my part, in return for some marketing information.
Believe me, if they go pay only, they'll lose their entire customer base. I can get a paid account somewhere else that offers me IMAP, 10x the storage, and guarenteed privacy.
It's not really a solution to the disk being f'd up,
Exactly. If it doesn't solve the disc being f'd up problem, it is not a suitable backup for fair use purposes. Without solving the problem at the fair use level, it does not "eliminate the backup excuse" as per DrXym's post.
Well the backup excuse could be done away with if the HD was able to cache game content so you didn't need the disc in the drive to play it. If more than one PS3 is found to have used the game with the same code, it challenges you to insert the disc to continue.
Uhhh...
Explain to me please again how this allows me to not need a backup after my disc is scratched / cracked in half / otherwise damaged beyond readability?
~Rebecca
Re:Not THAT surprising...
on
Region-free PS3
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Its simple, offer free replacment for scratched disc.
This solution does not account for what happens if $GameProducer:
Goes belly up.
Provides 'mail in rebate' level of support.
Realizes in the year 2075 that producing the discs on demand is no longer a good idea.
These are the reasons "Fair Use" allows for us to make our own backups. We as the owner of the product need to be the ones in charge of taking care of our stuff, not some distant third party who sees it as an expense they wish they didn't have.
First we shout the Govt. to get Off our backs on this issue, and when they actually fail to come up with any solutions (because we told them NOT to), we wham them for not guiding us/providing us with any solution.
You are failing to realize that the same person is not talking in both cases. Also, while Slashdot as a whole leans to the left, the same issue can have articles written by, and about people on, both sides. The only thing that is happening here is that someone thought a discussion about a software for image identification and its future impact on us would be a good thread, and here we are.
You tie both my hands behind my back, then you blame me for not shooting at the thief!
The fallacy lies in missing that the ties hands speaker is not the same speaker as the one doing the blaming.
The definitions of public and private that you use are valid definitions but are not applied to companies since no one refers to government owned operations as public companies but instead as government agencies, organizations, etc.
I will have to respectfully disagree. The idea of the public/private sector is quite common, and was the definition that brunes69 was using in his original post. Attempting to say that brunes69 is incorrect and Google is not a private company, and by connection has some obligation to Kinderstart, is simply factually incorrect.
If the GP was implying that public and private companies had different obligations regarding free speech, then your critique is applicable.
The idea of this being a free speech issue is closely related to this misunderstanding as well. The First Amendment applies only to the government (public); and not to (private) citizens or corporations of private citizens. While there are seperate laws that regulate some types of speech in the private sector, the First Amendment isn't it. Since a lot of this confusion is tied up in defintions, let me add that a "Freedom of Speech" issue refers exclusively to matters of the First Amendment, and not other issues such as incitement, defamation, or bigotry.
He was, though as noted above it is not a free speech issue, but a matter of business practices. Here is the complete line from brunes69's post, that ClosedSource was replying to:
Google is a private company. It has no obligation to endorse Kinderstart's company than any others.
ClosedSource did not quote the second line, but it remains that it was part of the discussion. At the time of my posting, he was up to (+4, Informative) for his retort.
brunes69 was (correctly) explaining that because Google is private, and thus not the government, Google is not bound to be "fair". So long a Google does not become a monopoly, and break monopoly laws -- we are free to ignore them if we so choose.
No, Google is a public company. You see there's this obscure institution called the "stock market"...
No, Google offered some shares to be exchanged on a particular market, making them a publically traded company, but they are in fact, a private entity all the same. In this short review of high school level Social Studies, the public sector is the Government, and the private sector is everything else. The unrelated term "publically traded" simply means that there are no buyer restrictions on who may own or trade their stocks. There is such a thing as stocks that are not publically traded as well.
Regardless of the trading of their stock certificates in the marketplace, Google does not gain some new requirement to rank companies/sites according to anyone elses wishes on how they should be ranked.
How far would you take this? Would Slashdot be a red site, since it links to gentoo.org, which links to cafepress.com which links to cometcursor.com, a red site? What about site that link to Slashdot?
The thread earlier had mentioned two levels of seperation, which I think is fair. That is only asking people (or Gentoo.Org) to say "I won't do business with you, because you do business with scumbags."
Gentoo.org links to cafepress.com which links to cometcursor.com, a red site.
Wouldn't marking Gentoo.org as a Red Site be the proper method of dealing with scum like CometCursor.com?
If every company who supported these scumbags was put on a Red List, CometCursor would be dropped like the rotten meat that it is, and not supported for pay-per-click arrangements that produce money by cracking in to people's systems.
Since the site in question is a Linux Distro page famous for its fanboys, I am sure to get a flamebait/troll mod on this post. I still think it is the right idea, though. Cut off the money, and embarrass those that support this trash.
Can't tell from the article if it applies, but I can sure think of a few reasons why e-mail is not the best evidence.
I was thinking about this, and you know, Google gets a lot of flak for the storage-archive-nothings-ever-deleted thing; but could this be at least one positive side for most people?
I mean, really, it would be pretty preposterous to suggest that most people are capable of hacking and forging email on Google's servers, complete with Google's logs and metadata on the message transmission. Compared to a company's (or a person's) own private servers, it seems having a reputable 3rd party involved would add legitimacy in this case.
The Extra Packages page shows some really bad form. Calling the user "you hoser"? I know Gentoo is a hobbyists distro but c'mon, should at least maintain a level of professionalism.
Someone earlier mentioned "Christian", but I'd like to expand that to the faiths that share the same diety.
The scouts support the entire line, Zoroastrian, Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism, and Islam. Realize please that these are all the "same faith", in essence. I'm sure someone is going to criticize me for not being more specific -- but these faiths are all based around the same God, the same series of events, the same scripture (with later faiths accepting more or different scripture and new interpretations).
So, other than the Judeo-Christian line, the scouts accept Buddhism and Hinduism. I'm willing to be the recent influx of H1B visas has put more than a few Indian children in the scouts in recent years, all with fathers with good high paying tech salaries who want only the best for their children (aka $donations$). Also, these two religions are eastern, but generally do not invoke public disgust when mentioned.
I don't think the Scouts have a program for faiths that exist outside of the Scouts organizations self interest in PR. Now please, show me the Satanic, Druidic, or Scientology badges.
The problem with "How does evolution cause this to happen?", I think, ultimately comes down to the target audience. That is a thesis-level question, and to many people, when they are unprepared to deal with the question, rather than admit such (as science types are usually particularly proud and would see it as 'admitting incompetance'), the safer answer to the ego is to attack the questioner.
Is there a point that invades privacy too much? I'm sure there is. Fingerprints, retical scans, and other harmless, non-intrusive collections of data are not in that list. They aren't consenting to a wiretap or letting the government read their mail/email, they are just proving they are who they are, daily, with little hassle.
I heard almost that exact quote said to me almost 15 years ago, only they were saying they were sure that updating your residence info to the DMV wasn't it, after all it is not like the government wants retinal scans or fingerprints.
Slashdot Mirror
It just confuses the issue which, at bottom, is that it takes two to tango.
This entire discussion is really offtopic, but I wanted to comment here, as this hit home very, very personally.
I don't know you, so it'd be unfair of me to say you're an abusive father. However, I personally grew up in an environment with an abusive family, and this "two to tango" line was the justification. It still echos in my ears.
You see, my sister is younger than me, and took great advantage of that two-to-tango line. I have several scars from her scratches, I'd take a great deal of physical abuse from her because at the time, it was drilled in to my head that I couldn't fight back. After she'd get done with her assaults, which could involve anything from fingernails to a lamp, inevitably my parents would get involved, which meant the both of us got punished. Using the two-to-tango logic, I was the more guilty party being older, and as such I got a second beating from whichever parent happened to find out.
So now, yes, I say you should be finding out what happened, and not be being a lazy parent at best, or an abusive one at worst. Self defense still applies even if it takes some effort on your part to find out what happened and teach your kids right from wrong.
~Rebecca
Exactly when is it a good defense? When you know the kid you're messing with doesn't have a knife in his pocket? And how do you know that?
Umm, "Self Defense" is always a valid defense, regardless of the size/type of the weapons of your opponents. "Self Defense" refers to whether you should punish the victim, like the GP apparantly feels about his cousin.
You can make an argument about escalating violence, but in general you are justified in self defense for raising the violence level by one degree. IANAL, so I don't have all of them memorized. Maybe someone can dig up a good link for you. Basically, if someone hits you with their fists, punch him back (same level), or whip out the pepper spray (non lethal weapons). Then you're cool legally, and as far as I am concerned, morally as well.
Up until the point they show you the weapon, I would definately say you should fight back. At that point they've raised their own bar to attempted murder, and you need to decide whether you are capable of defending against the weapon in question. If you took the aforementioned martial arts classes, with a proper focus on self defense, a knife should be no problem. Depending on your skill level, a handgun probably isn't a problem either. If you're not capable of the requisite level of defense, then run. In either case however, it is the aggressor who is guilty, not the kid getting bullied.
If you're going to just cower and get beat on because someone might have a bigger weapon in hiding, you need the martial arts class just as bad as the poor kid in the GP post.
Further, even the way you phrase it shows you are a product of this ridiculous parenting method. The kid that "might have a knife in his pocket" is messing with you, not the other way around.
~Rebecca
You sound like my 5 year old cousin whining after he gets caught.. "but he hit me first".
Someone should teach this child, and you apparantly, about the idea of "Self Defense". "But he hit me first" IS a valid defense. Get this kid in a martial arts class before your family turns him in to an overweight pussy. The exercise, self confidence, and perhaps most importantly -- skill to control his abilities -- will prove incredibly valuable.
~Rebecca
What planet are you from? His purgury wasn't because he stood in front of the antion and denied an affair,
:)
You really need to go look up the definition of perjury. It might help your search to spell it like I do, too.
I'm left wondering how much of this you realy do understand.
The feeling is mutual I assure you
~Rebecca
Doc,
As usual your comments are spot on. After someone corrected me on the Nixon thing, I was afraid the point was really going to be lost in the minutae on that (okay, he didn't go to trial, but the point was they threw him out).
I just wanted to point out as well (partly too for earlier parts of the thread), that while you were correct you "could" make it, it really seems more like a fluke and not one that seems to be tolerated very well.
Going back to the Diebold base issue, ultimately, it is this type of fluke that the election machine fraud is really designed to prevent. I think even the apathetic American public would "catch on" if no one but Republicans won elections for the next 25 years. So the trick here is, allow some old boy demo's to get through, preserve the all valuable "bi partisan" illusion, but just make sure no more Clinton's happen and rally the peasants too much.
~Rebecca
Um, you may need to refresh your US Presidential knowledge. Nixon resigned before he had a chance to get impeached. The only two Presidents to ever be impeached are Clinton and Andrew Johnson. Johnson was impeached over a cabinet staffing issue that was later deemed Unconstitutional, but that was really just a red herring because Johnson was interfering with Congress' stick it to the South method or reconstruction.
I stand corrected, thank you. Nice tidbit about Johnson, that I didn't know. I think my overall point is still valid, even if Nixon did get run out before he could "actually" be impeached.
~Rebecca
Both Clinton (D) and Nixon (R) were born poor, and made their political careers on their wits. Neither made any significant money outside their political careers, except books published after they left office. Even though they became rich by politics, they came from a disadvantaged underclass, exploiting America's class mobility to get power.
For your example, did you realize you picked the only two Presidents to get impeached? So yea, they made it, great for them. But the Good Old Boys sure didn't want them there.
Nixon's illegal actions were sure nothing compared to Bush Jr.'s bullshit, especially during the second term as we are seeing now. I'm not excusing Nixon, but we have to face the reality that spying happens all time, whether Nixon gets fried for it or not.
Clinton got strung up and put on the spot over a sexual affair that has nothing to do with commiting crimes against the nation or anyone else for that matter. He didn't help himself with the perjury, but again here, getting put on the spot in front of the nation and lying about a BJ is on a whole different scale than the war crimes and downright treason Bush Jr. has committed. The only thing that ultimately kept Clinton in office was the fact that the economy was absolutely fantastic and overall he was a very, very well liked President. (It's another discussion whether you feel he actually caused it)
My point in all of this is, they may have made it, but in both cases I find it odd that the two that didn't come from the Old Boys Network end up facing impeachment over comparatively minor things. Now gee, in all of it all, and this isn't a party thing as bot (D) and (R) are represented on both sides of this expression, who might want to get rid of the little peasants who think they can play in their game?
~Rebecca
(4) The "I'm manager because I can everybody's job better than they could" manager. Hardly bears description. On the flip side, if you're honest with yourself, you'll admit that as an engineer, deep in your heart of hearts, this is you. The obviously awesome weapons of the engineering paradigm can slay any dragon.
Okay, you knew someone was gonna stick up for engineers around here, so here I am. I'm going to pick up on your previous Star Trek analogy too, for maximum geek-factor.
There will of course be engineers like this, just like there are managers that think they are engineers. A good crew however, doesn't work like this.
Geordi LaForge doesn't WANT to be Captain. In fact, aside from some minor rank bumps early in the shows career when he moved from helmsman to Chief Engineer, Geordi showed no signs of wanting to move up at all. He was already EXACTLY where he belonged, in the engine room of the fleet flagship, under a great Captain.
Good engineers don't want to be out fighting Klingons and worrying about Ferengi ripping them off and Romulans stealing their toys. That's what good CAPTAINS are for. Picard gave Geordi engineering problems, and listened to him when Geordi said he design a way to tie the holodeck to the warp core and fix the particle of the week. There were also plenty of times they went to that meeting room, and Geordi sat there with his hands in his lap because it wasn't an engineering problem, and the best he could offer was to carry a tricorder on the away team.
This is like a good engineer wet dream -- all the best toys to play with, with a gung ho first officer and an angry klingon between you and everything else that can get in your way, from Cardassians to Starfleet Brass.
~Rebecca
Punishing the Pusher (of pirated software or narcotics) will not solve the problem because another pusher will just appear to sell his stuff to the same set of users. Let us try a different approach.
... How's that working out in the "War on Drugs"?
Punish the user.
You mention narcotics, so I guess I should ask
A company like Microsoft creates 2 versions of Vista. One version is the real McCoy. The other is a specially modified version that deliberately sabotages your computer system. Then, Microsoft creates a front company that contacts piracy rings in the West and in Asia. This front company "sells" the sabotaged version for 25 cents per pop.
Uhm, no. If Microsoft deliberately creates a software that damages my system, then creates their own company to sell their own software, regardless of the price, they are guilty of all kinds of crimes. I don't think it takes a lawyer to figure out what a bad idea this is.
Further, I think you gloriously underestimate the ability of the software piracy world to sniff something like this out and then continue to get a copy of Vista Corporate from an insider, just like they always have and always will.
~Rebecca
Charging for Gmail, maybe?
My gmail address is valuable to me yes, granted. Right now, Google offers me a fair trade -- Some services I can use, with no extra bullshit hassles on my part, in return for some marketing information.
Believe me, if they go pay only, they'll lose their entire customer base. I can get a paid account somewhere else that offers me IMAP, 10x the storage, and guarenteed privacy.
~Rebecca
It's not really a solution to the disk being f'd up,
Exactly. If it doesn't solve the disc being f'd up problem, it is not a suitable backup for fair use purposes. Without solving the problem at the fair use level, it does not "eliminate the backup excuse" as per DrXym's post.
~Rebecca
A better one would have been "I'd hate to miss out on digging a hole because I refuse to use a shovel."
How about "I'd hate to miss out on digging a hole because I refuse to use Microsoft Brand Shovel with NEW! Bent Handle and Seive-blade Technology!"
~Rebecca
Well the backup excuse could be done away with if the HD was able to cache game content so you didn't need the disc in the drive to play it.
If more than one PS3 is found to have used the game with the same code, it challenges you to insert the disc to continue.
Uhhh...
Explain to me please again how this allows me to not need a backup after my disc is scratched / cracked in half / otherwise damaged beyond readability?
~Rebecca
This solution does not account for what happens if $GameProducer:
These are the reasons "Fair Use" allows for us to make our own backups. We as the owner of the product need to be the ones in charge of taking care of our stuff, not some distant third party who sees it as an expense they wish they didn't have.
~Rebecca
Does it work on everyone's favorite image, hello.jpg?
A goatse reference that is helpful and useful? Inconceivable!
I would buy this software if it could filter me from seeing that ever again.(I jest, but only slightly)
~Rebecca
I simply don't get it.
... and you fell for it.
First we shout the Govt. to get Off our backs on this issue, and when they actually fail to come up with any solutions (because we told them NOT to), we wham them for not guiding us/providing us with any solution.
You are failing to realize that the same person is not talking in both cases. Also, while Slashdot as a whole leans to the left, the same issue can have articles written by, and about people on, both sides. The only thing that is happening here is that someone thought a discussion about a software for image identification and its future impact on us would be a good thread, and here we are.
You tie both my hands behind my back, then you blame me for not shooting at the thief!
The fallacy lies in missing that the ties hands speaker is not the same speaker as the one doing the blaming.
Make more sense now?
~Rebecca
The definitions of public and private that you use are valid definitions but are not applied to companies since no one refers to government owned operations as public companies but instead as government agencies, organizations, etc.
I will have to respectfully disagree. The idea of the public/private sector is quite common, and was the definition that brunes69 was using in his original post. Attempting to say that brunes69 is incorrect and Google is not a private company, and by connection has some obligation to Kinderstart, is simply factually incorrect.
If the GP was implying that public and private companies had different obligations regarding free speech, then your critique is applicable.
The idea of this being a free speech issue is closely related to this misunderstanding as well. The First Amendment applies only to the government (public); and not to (private) citizens or corporations of private citizens. While there are seperate laws that regulate some types of speech in the private sector, the First Amendment isn't it. Since a lot of this confusion is tied up in defintions, let me add that a "Freedom of Speech" issue refers exclusively to matters of the First Amendment, and not other issues such as incitement, defamation, or bigotry.
He was, though as noted above it is not a free speech issue, but a matter of business practices. Here is the complete line from brunes69's post, that ClosedSource was replying to:
Google is a private company. It has no obligation to endorse Kinderstart's company than any others.
ClosedSource did not quote the second line, but it remains that it was part of the discussion. At the time of my posting, he was up to (+4, Informative) for his retort.
brunes69 was (correctly) explaining that because Google is private, and thus not the government, Google is not bound to be "fair". So long a Google does not become a monopoly, and break monopoly laws -- we are free to ignore them if we so choose.
Cheers,
~Rebecca
Mod Parent (-1, Wrong)
No, Google is a public company. You see there's this obscure institution called the "stock market"...
No, Google offered some shares to be exchanged on a particular market, making them a publically traded company, but they are in fact, a private entity all the same. In this short review of high school level Social Studies, the public sector is the Government, and the private sector is everything else. The unrelated term "publically traded" simply means that there are no buyer restrictions on who may own or trade their stocks. There is such a thing as stocks that are not publically traded as well.
Regardless of the trading of their stock certificates in the marketplace, Google does not gain some new requirement to rank companies/sites according to anyone elses wishes on how they should be ranked.
~Rebecca
How far would you take this? Would Slashdot be a red site, since it links to gentoo.org, which links to cafepress.com which links to cometcursor.com, a red site? What about site that link to Slashdot?
The thread earlier had mentioned two levels of seperation, which I think is fair. That is only asking people (or Gentoo.Org) to say "I won't do business with you, because you do business with scumbags."
~Rebecca
Gentoo.org links to cafepress.com which links to cometcursor.com, a red site.
Wouldn't marking Gentoo.org as a Red Site be the proper method of dealing with scum like CometCursor.com?
If every company who supported these scumbags was put on a Red List, CometCursor would be dropped like the rotten meat that it is, and not supported for pay-per-click arrangements that produce money by cracking in to people's systems.
Since the site in question is a Linux Distro page famous for its fanboys, I am sure to get a flamebait/troll mod on this post. I still think it is the right idea, though. Cut off the money, and embarrass those that support this trash.
~Rebecca
Can't tell from the article if it applies, but I can sure think of a few reasons why e-mail is not the best evidence.
I was thinking about this, and you know, Google gets a lot of flak for the storage-archive-nothings-ever-deleted thing; but could this be at least one positive side for most people?
I mean, really, it would be pretty preposterous to suggest that most people are capable of hacking and forging email on Google's servers, complete with Google's logs and metadata on the message transmission. Compared to a company's (or a person's) own private servers, it seems having a reputable 3rd party involved would add legitimacy in this case.
Thoughts?
~Rebecca
The Extra Packages page shows some really bad form. Calling the user "you hoser"? I know Gentoo is a hobbyists distro but c'mon, should at least maintain a level of professionalism.
~Rebecca
Someone earlier mentioned "Christian", but I'd like to expand that to the faiths that share the same diety.
The scouts support the entire line, Zoroastrian, Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism, and Islam. Realize please that these are all the "same faith", in essence. I'm sure someone is going to criticize me for not being more specific -- but these faiths are all based around the same God, the same series of events, the same scripture (with later faiths accepting more or different scripture and new interpretations).
So, other than the Judeo-Christian line, the scouts accept Buddhism and Hinduism. I'm willing to be the recent influx of H1B visas has put more than a few Indian children in the scouts in recent years, all with fathers with good high paying tech salaries who want only the best for their children (aka $donations$). Also, these two religions are eastern, but generally do not invoke public disgust when mentioned.
I don't think the Scouts have a program for faiths that exist outside of the Scouts organizations self interest in PR. Now please, show me the Satanic, Druidic, or Scientology badges.
~Rebecca
The problem with "How does evolution cause this to happen?", I think, ultimately comes down to the target audience. That is a thesis-level question, and to many people, when they are unprepared to deal with the question, rather than admit such (as science types are usually particularly proud and would see it as 'admitting incompetance'), the safer answer to the ego is to attack the questioner.
~Rebecca
Is there a point that invades privacy too much? I'm sure there is. Fingerprints, retical scans, and other harmless, non-intrusive collections of data are not in that list. They aren't consenting to a wiretap or letting the government read their mail/email, they are just proving they are who they are, daily, with little hassle.
I heard almost that exact quote said to me almost 15 years ago, only they were saying they were sure that updating your residence info to the DMV wasn't it, after all it is not like the government wants retinal scans or fingerprints.
~Rebecca