After reading the Hatta/Obfuscant exchange, I think this post sheds some light on the issue.
Hatta is right that you have a free speech right to express the knowledge that your neighbor is on vacation. However, if you expressed that knowledge to a known burglar, you could also be criminally liable for aiding and abetting, and even if you passed the information on innocently, you could at least theoretically be civilly liable for negligence in passing on such information...all without needing to violate your right to free speech.
But this old joke pretty much sums up why there's no "right to be forgotten".
I've had the "Why aren't you on Facebook?" discussion with family and friends so many times that it has been boiled down to one sound byte: "You are not their customer, you are their product." And while at the time they will simply reply with "Oh, well, that doesn't really bother me", almost invariably when some issue related to Facebook user policies surfaces, there is some level of modest complaint that will directly or subtly imply that Facebook somehow owes them something as a user. They say the words that they understand Facebook's business model, but clearly there's a level of disconnect that they somehow still think they are the customer. And, in general I'm talking about people that I otherwise consider to be smart and thoughtful.
There is some surprise for developers with this console.
"There is a surprise" or "there are some surprises" but never "there is some."
Since I feel it's fair to grammar-nazi a grammar-nazi:
Actually, surprise can be used a mass noun, which makes the usage correct, even if it's a bit awkward. AC above is also correct in pointing out that even if used as a countable noun, "some surprise" is not wrong either. ("That was some surprise!")
Insurance is something you buy to protect against known, but comparatively rare, risks, so that you don't have to constantly maintain a large cash supply (harder than maintaining a cash flow). SS is sold as insurance, but it's not insurance. It's instead a pay-as-you-go retirement plan. It may or may not be a good idea (I suspect not, but that's irrelevant), and may or may not actually prevent destitution among the elderly (also irrelevant to my point), but it is most assuredly not insurance.
By this definition, permanent life insurance (as opposed to term life insurance - see here) is also not insurance. In the purest sense, it may be true, but only in the same sense that Brahms is not strictly 'classical' music as he composed in the Romantic, not Classical era. It may be pedantically correct in one sense, but not to the point that it makes it incorrect to refer to SS as 'insurance' or Brahms as 'classical music'.
Now just before Bush came into office in 2001, as an example, 1 American dollar was worth about 1.75 British pounds...After Bush left office...1 American dollar was worth about.55 {cent/pent} in British currency.
You are clearly mistaken about the exchange rates. The USD has never been worth anywhere near 1.75 GBP, at least going back to 1953.
The rate was 1.48 GBP to 1 USD in Jan 2001 (when Bush takes office) , and 1.45 GBP to 1 USD in Jan 2009 (when Bush leaves office). It did go as high as 2.10 in the interim, but there was no trend even close what you are suggesting.
Not that I'm defending Bush, nor do I think that any of the rest of your post is remotely accurate, but those figures just stuck out to me as being entirely wrong.
I have never really understood why many Americans are so hostile to unionization. There appears to be decades of brainwashing in action and mythos regarding correlation between hardwork and financial success.
I think there's more to it than that. The sad fact is that in way too many cases, US unions became little more than protection rackets, where in order to get anything done one had to accept high levels of incompetency, featherbedding and lollygagging, not to mention instances of leadership by mob goons. Even at the height of unionization in the US, the majority of the workforce was non-unionized, and what they saw of organized labor did not generate much sympathy.
Myself, I am quite sympathetic to the idea of workers organizing for greater leverage with their employers; however, every experience in my working life I ever had that brushed up against unions gave me the impression that they rarely brought any value to the table for anyone but them. It's a common perception, and perhaps that view is colored by brainwashing and mythology but there is more than a grain of truth to it.
Or as a wiser man than I put it:
Once upon a time the idea was good
If only they'd a done what they said they would
It ain't no better, they's makin' it worse
The labor movement's got the mafia curse
For you. Not everybody happens to live within range of fiber to the home. Nor does everybody happen to do all their web browsing at home; some people browse using a cellular connection on the public transit commute to and from work.
This implies that one would need no less than FTTH speeds just to surf the web *without* AdBlock. Has it gotten *that* bad? (I wouldn't know, since I use AdBlock.)
Better yet, always add a bit to every can of coffee you brew. Of course it'll take extensive tests to determine the ideal mix. Very extensive i bet; any volunteers?
Unfortunately, THC is not soluble in water. Therefore, you'll have to brew your coffee/cannabis mix with grain alcohol instead of water. Oh wait, were we trying to avoid blindness?
I'm a atheist liberal utahn, some would even say socialist, and I'm here to tell you that John Huntsman does NOT belong with that group of whackos. I even think he'd make a really good president.
He'd have gotten my vote solely by virtue of the fact that he's an avowed Captain Beefheart fan..
I wonder if it's a coincidence that this came out within two weeks of the death of the asshole who was widely credited with originating this propaganda.
If you'd RTFA, you'd see that depressed people do these things more than normal people, and they chat in a seemingly random pattern because they exhibit an inability to focus, which is a sign of depression.
I read the article and I'd say the GP's point is valid. All it does is claim that depressed people do more of the very generic internet activities mentioned and switch between these activities more often, while making no mention of what things non-depressed people do instead. Therefore, at most I see a claim that depressed people may surf the web *more*, but no compelling evidence of how they do so *differently*.
On the other hand, if you feel that 'big brother' is silently watching your every move, then you must have a huge ego.
You don't need to be personally paranoid to realize that the worry is not necessarily constant active surveillance by 'big brother', rather that by making virtually every facet of your life recordable, the authorities will now have the ultimate version of Cardinal Richelieu's proverbial "six lines written by the most honorable of men". I don't think anyone is watching me nor would they have any reason to, but I can honestly say the way things are going would make me far less likely to, for example, become publicly active in a controversial political cause.
That's exactly the issue I bring up to people when they dismiss privacy issues such as this. Even if you don't post "drunk photos", there are a number of things like health issues that you might consider innocent information in most contexts, that could be used against you in other contexts like when applying for a job.
In amounts [of caffeine] the equivalent of say, snorting a line of cocaine, you would cause *serious damage.
Citation please.
In my misspent youth circa the early 80s, there were commonly available "fake speed" caffeine pills circulating...made to look like real 'pink hearts' or 'black beauties'..which were sold legally and prominently advertised in High Times. And kids would bust them open and snort them, something I tried exactly once. It burned like hell, but nobody died, went to the hospital, or even got particularly high from them.
And just to look at numbers...the typical cup of coffee has 100mg of caffeine, a can of Jolt has 280mg. So 4 cans of Jolt is more damaging than ingesting a entire gram of pure cocaine? I don't see it.
Not that I'm saying approving this is a good idea, even as someone pretty heartily opposed to drug prohibition in all its forms. But I don't think the proposition that pure caffeine is more dangerous than cocaine stands up to the facts.
And while, yes, the oldest verified person died at 122 years and 164 days, also note from the list that a) she is the only person verified to have passed her 120th birthday, b) only 9 people are verified to have passed their 116th birthday,c) only 27 people are verified to have passed their 115th birthday, and d) 90 had passed their 114th birthday.
No, it's not a magic barrier per se, but you can't look at that list and see that 114 does appear to be a fairly hard limit outside of a handful of outliers.
I was raised Presbyterian (a protestant branch), and although they used small pieces of regular white bread and grape juice instead of wafers and wine, I can attest that the flesh-eating, blood-drinking ritual is certainly not restricted to Catholics.
Mod this up. Too many people apply Hanlon's Razor by giving far too much leeway to "adequate stupidity". When you see any large institutional system that seems incredibly stupid, look behind the curtain because it just may be incredibly smart for someone else's benefit.
Slashdot Mirror
After reading the Hatta/Obfuscant exchange, I think this post sheds some light on the issue.
Hatta is right that you have a free speech right to express the knowledge that your neighbor is on vacation. However, if you expressed that knowledge to a known burglar, you could also be criminally liable for aiding and abetting, and even if you passed the information on innocently, you could at least theoretically be civilly liable for negligence in passing on such information...all without needing to violate your right to free speech.
But this old joke pretty much sums up why there's no "right to be forgotten".
If you don't like it, then don't use Facebook.
Exactly.
I've had the "Why aren't you on Facebook?" discussion with family and friends so many times that it has been boiled down to one sound byte: "You are not their customer, you are their product." And while at the time they will simply reply with "Oh, well, that doesn't really bother me", almost invariably when some issue related to Facebook user policies surfaces, there is some level of modest complaint that will directly or subtly imply that Facebook somehow owes them something as a user. They say the words that they understand Facebook's business model, but clearly there's a level of disconnect that they somehow still think they are the customer. And, in general I'm talking about people that I otherwise consider to be smart and thoughtful.
Caveat subscriptor.
"There is a surprise" or "there are some surprises" but never "there is some."
Since I feel it's fair to grammar-nazi a grammar-nazi:
Actually, surprise can be used a mass noun, which makes the usage correct, even if it's a bit awkward. AC above is also correct in pointing out that even if used as a countable noun, "some surprise" is not wrong either. ("That was some surprise!")
Not to mention, that wasn't a sentence.
replying to my own post to correct:
I just re-read this, and those rates should read 1.48/1.45 USD to 1 GBP. The point still stands.
Insurance is something you buy to protect against known, but comparatively rare, risks, so that you don't have to constantly maintain a large cash supply (harder than maintaining a cash flow). SS is sold as insurance, but it's not insurance. It's instead a pay-as-you-go retirement plan. It may or may not be a good idea (I suspect not, but that's irrelevant), and may or may not actually prevent destitution among the elderly (also irrelevant to my point), but it is most assuredly not insurance.
By this definition, permanent life insurance (as opposed to term life insurance - see here) is also not insurance. In the purest sense, it may be true, but only in the same sense that Brahms is not strictly 'classical' music as he composed in the Romantic, not Classical era. It may be pedantically correct in one sense, but not to the point that it makes it incorrect to refer to SS as 'insurance' or Brahms as 'classical music'.
Now just before Bush came into office in 2001, as an example, 1 American dollar was worth about 1.75 British pounds...After Bush left office...1 American dollar was worth about .55 {cent/pent} in British currency.
You are clearly mistaken about the exchange rates. The USD has never been worth anywhere near 1.75 GBP, at least going back to 1953.
The rate was 1.48 GBP to 1 USD in Jan 2001 (when Bush takes office) , and 1.45 GBP to 1 USD in Jan 2009 (when Bush leaves office). It did go as high as 2.10 in the interim, but there was no trend even close what you are suggesting.
Not that I'm defending Bush, nor do I think that any of the rest of your post is remotely accurate, but those figures just stuck out to me as being entirely wrong.
I have never really understood why many Americans are so hostile to unionization. There appears to be decades of brainwashing in action and mythos regarding correlation between hardwork and financial success.
I think there's more to it than that. The sad fact is that in way too many cases, US unions became little more than protection rackets, where in order to get anything done one had to accept high levels of incompetency, featherbedding and lollygagging, not to mention instances of leadership by mob goons. Even at the height of unionization in the US, the majority of the workforce was non-unionized, and what they saw of organized labor did not generate much sympathy.
Myself, I am quite sympathetic to the idea of workers organizing for greater leverage with their employers; however, every experience in my working life I ever had that brushed up against unions gave me the impression that they rarely brought any value to the table for anyone but them. It's a common perception, and perhaps that view is colored by brainwashing and mythology but there is more than a grain of truth to it.
Or as a wiser man than I put it:
Once upon a time the idea was good
If only they'd a done what they said they would
It ain't no better, they's makin' it worse
The labor movement's got the mafia curse
Frank Zappa - "Stick Together"
With home bandwidth getting higher
For you. Not everybody happens to live within range of fiber to the home. Nor does everybody happen to do all their web browsing at home; some people browse using a cellular connection on the public transit commute to and from work.
This implies that one would need no less than FTTH speeds just to surf the web *without* AdBlock. Has it gotten *that* bad? (I wouldn't know, since I use AdBlock.)
Shouldn't that be...? Blook...blook blook...and a blook.
Better yet, always add a bit to every can of coffee you brew. Of course it'll take extensive tests to determine the ideal mix. Very extensive i bet; any volunteers?
Unfortunately, THC is not soluble in water. Therefore, you'll have to brew your coffee/cannabis mix with grain alcohol instead of water. Oh wait, were we trying to avoid blindness?
I'm a atheist liberal utahn, some would even say socialist, and I'm here to tell you that John Huntsman does NOT belong with that group of whackos. I even think he'd make a really good president.
He'd have gotten my vote solely by virtue of the fact that he's an avowed Captain Beefheart fan..
I wonder if it's a coincidence that this came out within two weeks of the death of the asshole who was widely credited with originating this propaganda.
What does BMW stand for?
Big Money Waster.
The best one I've heard is Behold My Wealth.
If you'd RTFA, you'd see that depressed people do these things more than normal people, and they chat in a seemingly random pattern because they exhibit an inability to focus, which is a sign of depression.
I read the article and I'd say the GP's point is valid. All it does is claim that depressed people do more of the very generic internet activities mentioned and switch between these activities more often, while making no mention of what things non-depressed people do instead. Therefore, at most I see a claim that depressed people may surf the web *more*, but no compelling evidence of how they do so *differently*.
Well, I studied a little Spanish in high school, but not enough to really be BI....
Bricka bracka firecracker CIS-boom-PA!
Creeping fascism! Creeping fascism! RAH RAH RAH!
...and human minds are engineered to be molded by our culture.
See what you did there?
On the other hand, if you feel that 'big brother' is silently watching your every move, then you must have a huge ego.
You don't need to be personally paranoid to realize that the worry is not necessarily constant active surveillance by 'big brother', rather that by making virtually every facet of your life recordable, the authorities will now have the ultimate version of Cardinal Richelieu's proverbial "six lines written by the most honorable of men". I don't think anyone is watching me nor would they have any reason to, but I can honestly say the way things are going would make me far less likely to, for example, become publicly active in a controversial political cause.
That's exactly the issue I bring up to people when they dismiss privacy issues such as this. Even if you don't post "drunk photos", there are a number of things like health issues that you might consider innocent information in most contexts, that could be used against you in other contexts like when applying for a job.
In amounts [of caffeine] the equivalent of say, snorting a line of cocaine, you would cause *serious damage.
Citation please.
In my misspent youth circa the early 80s, there were commonly available "fake speed" caffeine pills circulating...made to look like real 'pink hearts' or 'black beauties'..which were sold legally and prominently advertised in High Times. And kids would bust them open and snort them, something I tried exactly once. It burned like hell, but nobody died, went to the hospital, or even got particularly high from them.
And just to look at numbers...the typical cup of coffee has 100mg of caffeine, a can of Jolt has 280mg. So 4 cans of Jolt is more damaging than ingesting a entire gram of pure cocaine? I don't see it.
Not that I'm saying approving this is a good idea, even as someone pretty heartily opposed to drug prohibition in all its forms. But I don't think the proposition that pure caffeine is more dangerous than cocaine stands up to the facts.
grrr...I meant: you can't look at that list and not see that 114 does appear to be a fairly hard limit outside of a handful of outliers.
No, I didn't read the article. It really doesn't matter. 114 is not some magic barrier.
By whatever small coincidence I was just perusing the Wikipedia article on the world's verified oldest people the other day.
And while, yes, the oldest verified person died at 122 years and 164 days, also note from the list that a) she is the only person verified to have passed her 120th birthday, b) only 9 people are verified to have passed their 116th birthday,c) only 27 people are verified to have passed their 115th birthday, and d) 90 had passed their 114th birthday.
No, it's not a magic barrier per se, but you can't look at that list and see that 114 does appear to be a fairly hard limit outside of a handful of outliers.
I was raised Presbyterian (a protestant branch), and although they used small pieces of regular white bread and grape juice instead of wafers and wine, I can attest that the flesh-eating, blood-drinking ritual is certainly not restricted to Catholics.
Mod this up. Too many people apply Hanlon's Razor by giving far too much leeway to "adequate stupidity". When you see any large institutional system that seems incredibly stupid, look behind the curtain because it just may be incredibly smart for someone else's benefit.
We're not, we've moved on to project SPARKLE.
I hear that project is a magnet for foodstuffs...and will banish dirt to the land of wind and ghosts.