From the article: "The view that there is a core group of altruistic companies and true believers driving open source forward is simply false. The view that open source participants are idealistic Davids fighting against software Goliaths is also false....
Open source is not a religion. It is not an ideology. It can be used for both good and bad. It does not inhabit the higher moral ground, nor is it a more ethical way to conduct business. It just is, and it will continue to grow and expand"
Well...there is a lot of overlap actually, from what I understand:
"The 75th Ranger Regiment --also known as the United States Army Rangers-- is a Special Operations Force of the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC); with headquarters in Fort Benning, Georgia. The Regiment is a flexible, highly trained and rapidly deployable light infantry force with specialized skills that enables it to be employed against a variety of conventional and special operations targets.
The force specializes in Airborne, Air Assault, light-infantry and Direct Action operations, conducting raids, infiltration and exfiltration by air, land or sea, airfield seizure, recovery of personnel and special equipment, and support of general purpose forces (GPF) among others. Each Ranger Battalion can deploy anywhere in the world with 18 hours' notice." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Rangers
"The United States Army Special Forces --also known as the Green Berets or simply Special Forces (capitalized)-- is a Special Operations Force of the U.S. Army trained for unconventional warfare and special operations." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Sp ecial_Forces
....Americans always think there's some sort of magical technical solution to something they have always been extremely crap at - guerilla warfare....Whether it's something about the American psyche I don't know, but guerilla warfare is a skill that involves using your brain....
First of all, your statement is completely bogus. Americans employ the most highly trained and honed guerilla fighting teams...they are called the Rangers and Special Forces. They seem to have done an amazing job in Afganistan and Iraq.
Now, if you are saying that house to house urban combat is difficult while fighting guerillas...you would be correct. But, you have to ask why it is a problem. One of the problems, of course, are innocent civilians. Trust me, if the US didn't give a flying fuck about civilians, the US would just carpet bomb/firebomb the entire city or mini-nuke it. They wouldn't use expensive precision guided bombs and rockets in a populated area if the US didnt give a shit. That being said, fuckups happen, and civilians get killed sometimes, accidently. The difference between a US Soldier and an Iraqi Insurgent is that the Iraqi Insurrgent wants to blow up innocent iraqi civilians, such as those guys standing in line to get jobs.
If you have ever done a room entry...playing paintball...in a computer game...in real life with real guns...whatever...you know that walking into a room blind is dangerous. Knowing exactly how many people are in a room is VERY important. Knowing where they are is even MORE important. Any device...a wire camera...a mirror...is helpful to figure out what the tactical situation is in the room. Hopefully, a radar device would help you see who is carrying a gun and who isnt. It would also show you if any small people are in the room, huddled in the corner, who could be kids or a family.
American soldiers have amazing mastery of combat arms and techniques. They are well trained, and they know right from wrong. Any technological device which helps them do their job better is worth it.
So, radar that sees thru walls and can show soldiers 3-D images of your traitorous red-coat ass? I'll support it.
A statement can only be libelous if it's proven to be untrue...You can't prove statements of pure opinion to be untrue...
In the US, a true opinion isn't libelous. But...an opinion can be defamatory if it conveys to the recipient a provably false assertion of fact. Whether such an interpretation was conveyed is a factual question to be determined at a trial.
Typically, slander has 3 elements:
1)Is this statement defamatory (puts the person in a false light)?
2)Was this statement made publically?
3)Was there damage to the plaintiff's reputation?
If the statement is subjective, ask the following:
1) Is the statement addressing a matter of public concern?
2) Is the statement expressed in a manner that is not provably true or false?
3) Can the statement be reasonably interpreted as intended to convey actual facts about a person?
4) How precise and specific is the statement?
5) Is the statement verifiable?
6) What is the literary and social context of the statement?
7) What is the public context of the statement?
So, whether something is an opinion is very complicated, legally speaking. Most of your examples could, in fact, be libelous. And if not libelous, could be characterized as an invasion of privacy (placing someone in a false light, which is a tort).
Furthermore, stating that someone is a pedophile is almost lible per-se since the lable of pedophile, by itself, has stigma.
Your kidding, right? This is exactly the one-dimentional thinking that is killing computers. Who the flying fuck really cares about how GoboLinux uses a different file hierarchy? Sure its nice....but its an old idea. The issue isn't file systems. It is how we interact with the computer. meh.
IMHO, we do need a new OS paradigm. Linux, BSD, Windows....they all suck. They are useful, sure, but god-damn, they all do have problems. I'm not going to even list examples....I am sure you can all think of at least 10 problems with each OS. We need to fundementally change the way in which we interact with computers. Like Scotty said, "a keyboard...how quaint". I mean, good grief, I haven't even seen a consumer level touch screen for a computer.
I recently bought the family a Canon SD-500. Works like a charm. Not only is it great for point and shoot photography, it has lots of manual and special controls. Very low shutter lag. And it is small enough to carry around on my belt with the optional case.
And I agree wholeheartedly that the best shot is the one you got. There are so many interesting things to take photos of...and if you don't have your camera with you, you miss the shot.
I've also learned that a long zoom is a crutch...115mm (3X) is sufficient! And don't forget to use the macro of your digital camera!
Technically, your wrong. Not every instance of "breaking the law" is a crime. For example, if you enter into a contract, and break a material term of that contract, you have technically "broken the law"; however, you have not committed a crime. A crime is usually specifically defined by statute or common law. For example, the U.S. Congress has made it a criminal offense to infringe on copyrights. To complicate matters, copyright infringment can also be a civil (non-criminal) offense. (Sort of like O.J. getting off for murder, but being held liable for his wife's wrongful death.)
But I have to wonder, at what point does a law become impotent....If laws are something akin to a collectively agreed to moral pact that benefits and protects the majority of the citizens, isn't the law moot if the majority of the citizens choose to ignore said law?
Yes...and No.
Laws which are natural laws...such as the right to our own bodily integrety...can not be given away by an act of a government or the social contract. Thus murder, rape, and assault will always be crimes, because
every person, no matter what the system, has a natural right to live and be free of unlawful physical contacts. If not, everyone could maime and kill at leisure, and society would probably fall apart.
However, a law protecting a non-fundemental right, such as the right to hold a property interest in something which is not tangible...could easily be modified, created, or given away by social compact. Thus, if a legitimate government creates a protection, such as copyright, it should be respected by the people.
So, what happens if a governmental body, duly empowered by the people, passes a law that is unpopular? Well, first, the people could vote out those representitives who voted for the law. Or lobby those representitives to change the law. Executive branch officials could intervene and refuse to enforce the law or enforce the law narrowly. The courts could narrow the scope of the law...or rule it unconstitutional. If all of those steps outlined in the social contract (the constitution) fail, then what should happen? Well, amend the social contract! Like they did for the 18th amendment. But what if that doesn't work?
99.9% of the time, you have to sit back and take it. Eventually common sense will reign...democratic systems are slow to change.
But, if the law clearly goes against the text and history of the social compact, or against natural law, the social contract has been breached, and the citizens can by force of arms make the government cede back its rights. For example, if George W. Bush decided that every American had to house a National Guardsman, and the courts and congress were powerless to intervene, then armed resistance is allowable and justifiable. Non-violent civil disobedience is also a course of action in this case.
So, is non-violent civil disobedience appropriate in the case of copyright law? I don't think it has reached that point yet. There is enough legal grey area in this field to cause lots of confusion. The courts haven't definitively decided what our rights are...the process is not yet finished working.
I agree. I think that the biggest advance in open source software was the streamlining of Debian into Ubuntu. Its simplicity, ease of use, and the fact that it just works out of the box makes it a winner. Any idiot, including myself or my company's IT staff could install it.
Well, the store is neither blackmailing nor bribing me. Both terms are inexact here. I was using the term loosely.
Blackmail is threatening to reveal information about a person to someone unless a demand is met.
Bribery is offering something to a person in order to persuade him or her to perform an action.
In my rebate example, the store induced me into a contract under false pretenses. They deceptively advertised the rebate. In the U.S., this is a statutory tort that carries not only compensatory damages, but punitive damages, often 3 times the amount. So, if I paid $50 for something worth $20, I would be entitled to treble damages of 90 dollars. Usually the statutes provide a minimum of $100 of damages.
Rebate offers are deceptive because, in my experience, you walk up to the shelf, and you are confronted by a sales sticker: "$19.95 after rebate". Then in very small print, it says "other terms and conditions may apply". Then you open the box, and find a post card. You fill out the post card with your address. The post card does not say that you have to fill out all of the information. 6 months go by, and there is no refund to be seen. You call up the company...eventually talk to someone...and they say, "you didnt qualify for the rebate because you didn't fill out your email address, or your job, or income" etc.
In my book, this is an elaborate "baiting" scheme. You were promised the product for $19.95. You paid $50. Nowhere did it state, small print or not, that you had to provide the information as a condition of the rebate. Then the company unilaterally decides to change the rules on you. Thats not fair.
So, no, I am not expecting something for nothing. I am expecting to enter into a contract knowing all of of the terms. I don't consider myself bound by a one-sided contract that doesn't disclose all of the terms to me. In fact, in most countries additional or different terms alter a contract materially forcing these additional terms to either drop out of the contract or null the contract entirely.
Nor am I expected to go out of my way to call up a company or dig through the box to unearth a contract and read it AFTER THE FACT. It isn't lazyness or failing to do due diligence. A person of average intelligence should not have to be bothered reading a complex legal document in 6 point type to determine their rights under a contract in a CONSUMER setting.
If they are upfront that I need to provide some demographic information, I don't necessarily have a problem with that, so long as my privacy is insured.
>...stop whining and pay the retail price like everyone else.
Cooltechzone's Gundeep Hora ends his article entitiled "Are we too Paranoid about Privacy?" with a telling sentence: "Maybe I'm missing something here, but this situation makes me believe that maybe we are being too paranoid about privacy in some cases."
What Mr. Hora is missing is an understanding of what privacy means. Sure he throws out a vapid definition of privacy from dictionary.com and a general statement of what privacy means from wikipedia. His poor definition of privacy leads to a bad conclusion.
Privacy includes a right to seclusion, the right to keep your name, likeness and identity to yourself unless you concent, the right to not be defamed, the right to do what you will in your home, and the right to make autonomous decisions about your body and person. Thus, privacy is the right of individuals and organizations to control the collection, storage, and dissemination of information about themselves.
Traditionally, when you buy something at the store, all you do is hand the merchant your money. You don't sit around and tell the store owner where you live, how much you make each year, and what you do for a living. That information is my business. It's private. I don't go around telling strangers how much money I make each year.
So, if I walk into a store, buy an item that is on sale with a rebate...and then I find out when I go home that I have to supply additional information, beyond my mailing address, to get the rebate check, I get pissed. Why? Because I was tricked. I made a deal with the store - I'll pay you $50 for this, if I get a $10 rebate. I did not bargain to give away my private information.
So how far is too far? When the government circumvents legal processes, such as obtaining warrents for searches. When corporations blackmail you into providing confidential information about yourself. When companies trade your private information with out your permission for a profit.
Can you be too paranoid? Absolutely. No tin-foil hat here. But I regularly opt-out of lots of stuff to keep my personal information private.
Perhaps he recognized that open-source and free operating systems like GNU/Linux posed a significant challenge to implementing DRM solutions that movie studios could live with. Perhaps they think that an open-source DRM solution would be easily hacked. Or that a significant/important segment of their customer base can bypass DRM with free software is a problem. Or, as is more likely...he simply doesn't have a clue.
Neither the participants nor the study coordinator should know what operating system the test subjects are using! You might laugh, but all you need are people who have only used Windows or Mac!
Also, make sure to use more than Gnome or KDE! Use XFCE, Fluxbox, and other XWindows managers.
And don't forget to make sure that the study has the appropriate "power"!
And make sure that everyone is using the same system configuration (motherboard, processor, underlying flavor of linux)
...find that all of the linux desktop solutions leave a lot to be desired. I find KDE to be buggy and to contain way too much eye-candy for my preferences. I like gnome, because it is stable, but find it to be hard to configure, and I also find it to be sorta...ugly. I like XFCE...but it is wayyy to spartan for my tastes...but it sure does run fast. What I think we need is a unified UNIX desktop environment...sort of a base standard...that people can build around.
I use the home edition of Avast! and ClamWin together. It successfully caught some internet cooties I caught in Times Square and kept it from infecting my home computer. For more details, check out my Slashdot blog.
"I don't know if it's just coincidence or if they are related," he said. "It's very hard to prove this scientifically, but it's just as hard to disprove it."
I lied. It was a Commodore 16. I also remember the not-so-pleasant experiece word processing a paper in the 8th grade on an Atari game system, that had a keyboard and a word processing cartridge because the school wouldn't let us use the computer lab. Bastards.
Now that I think about it somemore, the first computer I ever used was the Commodore 64 at my uncle's house. I remember it having neat games. And I remember doing some very simple programing in BASIC as an 8 or 9 year old on an Apple II at summer camp. I also remember my first Macintosh experience...with a mouse and a real GUI...I was impressed. And...I also remember my first horrific interaction with a Windows based computer in High School, at a friends house. It was not intuitive. And it was slow. And ugly. I avoided Windows 3.1 computers at college unless the Mac labs were full, and I wanted to check email. I made the switch to an IBM Gateway PC in 1998, as I graduated from college and went into Grad School. (Why? Because I knew and trusted Gateway...the university science labs were using them!) But I always knew that the serious machines were the Sun Solaris machines running UNIX. They were always intriging to me and I would always try to do stuff on the actual email server machines that we telneted to because they were so fast. Although I didn't really realize it at the time, I was learning UNIX commands when I created webpages and did stuff on the SPARC stations. If only if I had learned C instead of BASIC to start...lol.
Does the computer operating system a person uses as a child have any predictive value in forseeing what OS a person will use as an adult? [snip] What OS a person starts out with when young will have ZERO impact on what OS they stay with.
I disagree. There are very sophisticated marketing and advertising models out there that suggest the opposite of what you are saying. Why do you think Pepsi and Coca-cola fight to get their branded machines into schools? Why do you think that the Apple I-Pod was such a success with the under 25 market? I bet that it has something to do with the brand recognition Apple has, from being the dominant computer company in the educational market. (And lots of clever advertising.)
However, I also agree with you that for most people, what OS they use as a kid doesn't really matter. Why? Because the OS will be radically different by the time the child graduates from elementry school. And the OS the child uses in junior high will be obsolete when s/he gets to college. And so on.
But, if kids learn how to use EDUbuntu early on, they hopefully will get a basic grounding in how to use a UNIX type operating system that will well serve them into the future. The UNIX environment hasn't changed its basics that much over the past 25 or so years...
I also agree with you that an OS is like a tool, and that the more technical amoung us will see out the best tool for the job, regardless of the OS. However, the less computer savy amoung us will just follow the herd mentality, and get what ever is popular...or what they know. That was why my first computer was a MAC...because I used it in High School. And thats why after 3 years of seeing how the MAC sucked in comparison to my friend's PCs, I made the switch to Windows. I got into Linux gradually, because it was difficult for me to learn, but eventually, I got proficient and use it all the time. I loved using those SPARC stations on campus!
If I had been started off on a powerful UNIX type operating system, all of the mystique of using LINUX would not have been a barrier to entry. Right now, the learning curve of using Linux is preventing wider adoption. Ubuntu, MacOS X, and now EDUbuntu have made that barrier to entry into the UNIX world easier.
Since when can't Jewish people be gangsters? I bet Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Irving Wexler would love to put a cap in your ass! That being said, I agree with the parent poster, that I couldn't imagine any of these ultra-orthodox types being mixed up with the mob....but its certainly possible. Not to mention the Russian-Jewish mob...
Just like there are bad Christian merchants...there are bad Jewish Merchants. And lots of good ones too.
For the record, I believe that personal stories about wars are extremely important. I do not doubt your great-grandfather's account at all. I am 99% positive that he percieved the cannon balls bouncing across the battlefield. My point was that I did not think it was likely that he could have seen the ball itself...merely the effects of the ball...heat trails...distortion...bodies...dust from the bounce.
Now onto debunk the rest of your post by making more Argumentum ad Logicams! (i.e. saying that your argument isn't logical and thus can not be logical...is in itself a fallacy. doesnt logic suck? haha. Wait, without fallacies, we wouldn't have Slashdot!)
Your statement "personal anecdotes are illogical" is a logical fallacy because many personal accounts are true
My understanding of the use of anecdotes in both social and physical sciences are that personal stories alone are not conclusive evidence. Anecdotes are used to illustrate a thesis, not to prove it.
Of course, I never said that "personal anecdotes are illogical". What I said was using "personal anecdote(s) is bad logic." I was trying to suggest that using a story to explain a scientific phenomenon is not science.
What really took me off guard from your post was point #2:
Scientists routinely accept the personal accounts of scientists in other fields. i.e. Physicists routinely accept the work of Biologist without scietific verification.
Woah! Nothing could be further from the truth. "The work" of a scientist is not a personal anecdote! A scientific paper is the product of the scientific method, subject to peer review, and falisification by other scientists. That being said, you are correct in implying that scientists routinely accept other scientists peer reviewed papers and conclusions. Is this bad? Sometimes. Which is why I'll agree with you on point #5 that relying on a TV show is stupid. However, they did use the scientific method to come to conclusions...
Scientifically, you can't prove WW2 happened because it is not repeatable.
This is somewhat true. However, a non-repeatable event/phenomenon can be verified by corroborating evidence. I cannot devise an experiment in a lab to recreate WW2. However, I can unearth hundreds of thousands of pages of maps, planning documents, field orders, death certificates, soldiers diaries, personal accounts and archaelogical evidence that something happened on the magnitude of a World War. What is repeatable here is that one type of documentary evidence leads to hard physical evidence. Document A says that we are going to invade Normandy here. Going to Normandy yeilds a huge cemetary and unexploded bombs.
In science, trying to prove that the big bang or evolution happened is similar. We can observe evolution happening in the fossil record...and we can observe evolution happening in front of us too by tinkering with plants and animals genetics. We can observe that our galaxy is moving away from other galaxies. And yes, we can actually LOOK BACK IN TIME, by looking through a telescope, and see the beginnings of the origins of the universe, contrary to your assertion that "Too bad we can't go back in time to see [the creation of] the universe."
Of course, our whole argument in this thread revolves around what is it that we are trying to prove. If we are to prove that science exists to show what is true...then, of course...we can have a philosophical debate for days. (I don't think that either science or logic are absolute laws which govern the universe and explain or predict everything...they are merely helpful and accurate tools).
Interestingly, you stated in your previous post that Courts accept...evidence to establish truth. I disagree. Courts exist not only to find truth, but to provide finality, provide compensation to victims, prevent blood feuds, and to make our government work efficiently. That is why courts will not hear cases if they don't have jurisdiction or if th
Personal accounts by a Civil War era soldier (my great grandfather) say that the cannon balls looked like softballs bouncing across the field. He said that you would think you could put your foot out and stop it, but if you did, you'd lose your leg.
Of course, you know that a personal anecdote is bad logic, and thus bad science, since it is a well-known logical fallacy.
However, I think your great-grandfather's story is very compelling and really cool...and matches what I saw on that tv show...although I didn't see the ball itself though...just the dust hitting the ground...and it roughly looked like a softball bouncing across the field. Perhaps someone with better eyes could have seen it.
I also remember that the canon balls do slow down at the limit of their range...so, at that point, you could see it, if it was going slow enough! Or bouncing near you! I still think it would be a big blur though. At least to me.
Also, when the light is right, I've seen 22 bullets in flight. (22 Long Rifle) I was a doubter until someone showed me.
I've also heard that trained marksmen can see bullets in flight. Makes sense to me...that over a long distance, right behind a projectile, you might be able to see it in flight. I know that I have thought I have seen a projectile after shooting a rifle, but I chalk that up to my imagination.
The nice thing about science is that we do know for a fact that cannon balls bounce...we don't have to rely on our intuition or personal stories...we can go out and test the theory for ourselves.
If everyone would RTFA, the actual quote is Eventually, the repulsive charges become so strong that grains are launched off the surface "like cannonballs" not "Moondust bounces like cannonballs" as the slashdot summary states.
However, as the previous poster mentioned, cannonballs do in fact bounce. However, I doubt that it would be possible to actually see the bouncing cannon ball itself, as it is probably moving at least 300 m/s or so. (I imagine that most of the collisions were highly elastic...allowing a bounce) especially since archeologically recovered canonballs dont have too much damage to them. However, you could probably see the dust rising from where the canon ball is skipping...as well as the effect on any troops in the way. I remember watching a show on the Military Channel where they filmed different types of cannon shot...in slow motion...so you could see how the ball skipped/bounced and lost energy.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.pewtrusts.com/pdf/The_Literacy_of_Ameri can_College_Students.pdf
How many slashdotter's have the literacy to read it? hah!
The Nature article suggests some golden rules of creating a good-looking website:
1) Strictly limited graphics limited to a single eye-catching image.
"It's not about getting as much stuff on the page as possible," he says.
2) A "puritan" approach to web pages which get information across in the quickest, simplest way possible.
3)Make sure that your web pages load quickly.
From the article:
"The view that there is a core group of altruistic companies and true believers driving open source forward is simply false. The view that open source participants are idealistic Davids fighting against software Goliaths is also false....
Open source is not a religion. It is not an ideology. It can be used for both good and bad. It does not inhabit the higher moral ground, nor is it a more ethical way to conduct business. It just is, and it will continue to grow and expand"
Well said!
Well...there is a lot of overlap actually, from what I understand:
p ecial_Forces
"The 75th Ranger Regiment --also known as the United States Army Rangers-- is a Special Operations Force of the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC); with headquarters in Fort Benning, Georgia. The Regiment is a flexible, highly trained and rapidly deployable light infantry force with specialized skills that enables it to be employed against a variety of conventional and special operations targets.
The force specializes in Airborne, Air Assault, light-infantry and Direct Action operations, conducting raids, infiltration and exfiltration by air, land or sea, airfield seizure, recovery of personnel and special equipment, and support of general purpose forces (GPF) among others. Each Ranger Battalion can deploy anywhere in the world with 18 hours' notice."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Rangers
"The United States Army Special Forces --also known as the Green Berets or simply Special Forces (capitalized)-- is a Special Operations Force of the U.S. Army trained for unconventional warfare and special operations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_S
First of all, your statement is completely bogus. Americans employ the most highly trained and honed guerilla fighting teams...they are called the Rangers and Special Forces. They seem to have done an amazing job in Afganistan and Iraq.
Now, if you are saying that house to house urban combat is difficult while fighting guerillas...you would be correct. But, you have to ask why it is a problem. One of the problems, of course, are innocent civilians. Trust me, if the US didn't give a flying fuck about civilians, the US would just carpet bomb/firebomb the entire city or mini-nuke it. They wouldn't use expensive precision guided bombs and rockets in a populated area if the US didnt give a shit. That being said, fuckups happen, and civilians get killed sometimes, accidently. The difference between a US Soldier and an Iraqi Insurgent is that the Iraqi Insurrgent wants to blow up innocent iraqi civilians, such as those guys standing in line to get jobs.
If you have ever done a room entry...playing paintball...in a computer game...in real life with real guns...whatever...you know that walking into a room blind is dangerous. Knowing exactly how many people are in a room is VERY important. Knowing where they are is even MORE important. Any device...a wire camera...a mirror...is helpful to figure out what the tactical situation is in the room. Hopefully, a radar device would help you see who is carrying a gun and who isnt. It would also show you if any small people are in the room, huddled in the corner, who could be kids or a family.
American soldiers have amazing mastery of combat arms and techniques. They are well trained, and they know right from wrong. Any technological device which helps them do their job better is worth it.
So, radar that sees thru walls and can show soldiers 3-D images of your traitorous red-coat ass? I'll support it.
In the US, a true opinion isn't libelous. But...an opinion can be defamatory if it conveys to the recipient a provably false assertion of fact. Whether such an interpretation was conveyed is a factual question to be determined at a trial.
Typically, slander has 3 elements:
1)Is this statement defamatory (puts the person in a false light)?
2)Was this statement made publically?
3)Was there damage to the plaintiff's reputation?
If the statement is subjective, ask the following:
1) Is the statement addressing a matter of public concern?
2) Is the statement expressed in a manner that is not provably true or false?
3) Can the statement be reasonably interpreted as intended to convey actual facts about a person?
4) How precise and specific is the statement?
5) Is the statement verifiable?
6) What is the literary and social context of the statement?
7) What is the public context of the statement?
So, whether something is an opinion is very complicated, legally speaking. Most of your examples could, in fact, be libelous. And if not libelous, could be characterized as an invasion of privacy (placing someone in a false light, which is a tort).
Furthermore, stating that someone is a pedophile is almost lible per-se since the lable of pedophile, by itself, has stigma.
Your kidding, right? This is exactly the one-dimentional thinking that is killing computers. Who the flying fuck really cares about how GoboLinux uses a different file hierarchy? Sure its nice....but its an old idea. The issue isn't file systems. It is how we interact with the computer. meh.
IMHO, we do need a new OS paradigm. Linux, BSD, Windows....they all suck. They are useful, sure, but god-damn, they all do have problems. I'm not going to even list examples....I am sure you can all think of at least 10 problems with each OS. We need to fundementally change the way in which we interact with computers. Like Scotty said, "a keyboard...how quaint". I mean, good grief, I haven't even seen a consumer level touch screen for a computer.
I recently bought the family a Canon SD-500. Works like a charm. Not only is it great for point and shoot photography, it has lots of manual and special controls. Very low shutter lag. And it is small enough to carry around on my belt with the optional case.
And I agree wholeheartedly that the best shot is the one you got. There are so many interesting things to take photos of...and if you don't have your camera with you, you miss the shot.
I've also learned that a long zoom is a crutch...115mm (3X) is sufficient! And don't forget to use the macro of your digital camera!
Technically, your wrong. Not every instance of "breaking the law" is a crime. For example, if you enter into a contract, and break a material term of that contract, you have technically "broken the law"; however, you have not committed a crime. A crime is usually specifically defined by statute or common law. For example, the U.S. Congress has made it a criminal offense to infringe on copyrights. To complicate matters, copyright infringment can also be a civil (non-criminal) offense. (Sort of like O.J. getting off for murder, but being held liable for his wife's wrongful death.)
But I have to wonder, at what point does a law become impotent....If laws are something akin to a collectively agreed to moral pact that benefits and protects the majority of the citizens, isn't the law moot if the majority of the citizens choose to ignore said law?
Yes...and No.
Laws which are natural laws...such as the right to our own bodily integrety...can not be given away by an act of a government or the social contract. Thus murder, rape, and assault will always be crimes, because every person, no matter what the system, has a natural right to live and be free of unlawful physical contacts. If not, everyone could maime and kill at leisure, and society would probably fall apart.
However, a law protecting a non-fundemental right, such as the right to hold a property interest in something which is not tangible...could easily be modified, created, or given away by social compact. Thus, if a legitimate government creates a protection, such as copyright, it should be respected by the people.
So, what happens if a governmental body, duly empowered by the people, passes a law that is unpopular? Well, first, the people could vote out those representitives who voted for the law. Or lobby those representitives to change the law. Executive branch officials could intervene and refuse to enforce the law or enforce the law narrowly. The courts could narrow the scope of the law...or rule it unconstitutional. If all of those steps outlined in the social contract (the constitution) fail, then what should happen? Well, amend the social contract! Like they did for the 18th amendment. But what if that doesn't work?
99.9% of the time, you have to sit back and take it. Eventually common sense will reign...democratic systems are slow to change.
But, if the law clearly goes against the text and history of the social compact, or against natural law, the social contract has been breached, and the citizens can by force of arms make the government cede back its rights. For example, if George W. Bush decided that every American had to house a National Guardsman, and the courts and congress were powerless to intervene, then armed resistance is allowable and justifiable. Non-violent civil disobedience is also a course of action in this case.
So, is non-violent civil disobedience appropriate in the case of copyright law? I don't think it has reached that point yet. There is enough legal grey area in this field to cause lots of confusion. The courts haven't definitively decided what our rights are...the process is not yet finished working.
That being said, the RIAA can go fuck itself :-)
I agree. I think that the biggest advance in open source software was the streamlining of Debian into Ubuntu. Its simplicity, ease of use, and the fact that it just works out of the box makes it a winner. Any idiot, including myself or my company's IT staff could install it.
Well, the store is neither blackmailing nor bribing me. Both terms are inexact here. I was using the term loosely.
:-P
Blackmail is threatening to reveal information about a person to someone unless a demand is met.
Bribery is offering something to a person in order to persuade him or her to perform an action.
In my rebate example, the store induced me into a contract under false pretenses. They deceptively advertised the rebate. In the U.S., this is a statutory tort that carries not only compensatory damages, but punitive damages, often 3 times the amount. So, if I paid $50 for something worth $20, I would be entitled to treble damages of 90 dollars. Usually the statutes provide a minimum of $100 of damages.
Rebate offers are deceptive because, in my experience, you walk up to the shelf, and you are confronted by a sales sticker: "$19.95 after rebate". Then in very small print, it says "other terms and conditions may apply". Then you open the box, and find a post card. You fill out the post card with your address. The post card does not say that you have to fill out all of the information. 6 months go by, and there is no refund to be seen. You call up the company...eventually talk to someone...and they say, "you didnt qualify for the rebate because you didn't fill out your email address, or your job, or income" etc.
In my book, this is an elaborate "baiting" scheme. You were promised the product for $19.95. You paid $50. Nowhere did it state, small print or not, that you had to provide the information as a condition of the rebate. Then the company unilaterally decides to change the rules on you. Thats not fair.
So, no, I am not expecting something for nothing. I am expecting to enter into a contract knowing all of of the terms. I don't consider myself bound by a one-sided contract that doesn't disclose all of the terms to me. In fact, in most countries additional or different terms alter a contract materially forcing these additional terms to either drop out of the contract or null the contract entirely.
Nor am I expected to go out of my way to call up a company or dig through the box to unearth a contract and read it AFTER THE FACT. It isn't lazyness or failing to do due diligence. A person of average intelligence should not have to be bothered reading a complex legal document in 6 point type to determine their rights under a contract in a CONSUMER setting.
If they are upfront that I need to provide some demographic information, I don't necessarily have a problem with that, so long as my privacy is insured.
>...stop whining and pay the retail price like everyone else.
Only goys pay retail.
Cooltechzone's Gundeep Hora ends his article entitiled "Are we too Paranoid about Privacy?" with a telling sentence: "Maybe I'm missing something here, but this situation makes me believe that maybe we are being too paranoid about privacy in some cases."
What Mr. Hora is missing is an understanding of what privacy means. Sure he throws out a vapid definition of privacy from dictionary.com and a general statement of what privacy means from wikipedia. His poor definition of privacy leads to a bad conclusion.
Privacy includes a right to seclusion, the right to keep your name, likeness and identity to yourself unless you concent, the right to not be defamed, the right to do what you will in your home, and the right to make autonomous decisions about your body and person. Thus, privacy is the right of individuals and organizations to control the collection, storage, and dissemination of information about themselves.
Traditionally, when you buy something at the store, all you do is hand the merchant your money. You don't sit around and tell the store owner where you live, how much you make each year, and what you do for a living. That information is my business. It's private. I don't go around telling strangers how much money I make each year.
So, if I walk into a store, buy an item that is on sale with a rebate...and then I find out when I go home that I have to supply additional information, beyond my mailing address, to get the rebate check, I get pissed. Why? Because I was tricked. I made a deal with the store - I'll pay you $50 for this, if I get a $10 rebate. I did not bargain to give away my private information.
So how far is too far? When the government circumvents legal processes, such as obtaining warrents for searches. When corporations blackmail you into providing confidential information about yourself. When companies trade your private information with out your permission for a profit.
Can you be too paranoid? Absolutely. No tin-foil hat here. But I regularly opt-out of lots of stuff to keep my personal information private.
Perhaps he recognized that open-source and free operating systems like GNU/Linux posed a significant challenge to implementing DRM solutions that movie studios could live with. Perhaps they think that an open-source DRM solution would be easily hacked. Or that a significant/important segment of their customer base can bypass DRM with free software is a problem. Or, as is more likely...he simply doesn't have a clue.
Neither the participants nor the study coordinator should know what operating system the test subjects are using! You might laugh, but all you need are people who have only used Windows or Mac!
Also, make sure to use more than Gnome or KDE! Use XFCE, Fluxbox, and other XWindows managers.
And don't forget to make sure that the study has the appropriate "power"!
And make sure that everyone is using the same system configuration (motherboard, processor, underlying flavor of linux)
...find that all of the linux desktop solutions leave a lot to be desired. I find KDE to be buggy and to contain way too much eye-candy for my preferences. I like gnome, because it is stable, but find it to be hard to configure, and I also find it to be sorta...ugly. I like XFCE...but it is wayyy to spartan for my tastes...but it sure does run fast. What I think we need is a unified UNIX desktop environment...sort of a base standard...that people can build around.
I use the home edition of Avast! and ClamWin together. It successfully caught some internet cooties I caught in Times Square and kept it from infecting my home computer. For more details, check out my Slashdot blog.
"I don't know if it's just coincidence or if they are related," he said. "It's very hard to prove this scientifically, but it's just as hard to disprove it."
What the fuck kind of scientist is this dude?
I lied. It was a Commodore 16. I also remember the not-so-pleasant experiece word processing a paper in the 8th grade on an Atari game system, that had a keyboard and a word processing cartridge because the school wouldn't let us use the computer lab. Bastards.
Now that I think about it somemore, the first computer I ever used was the Commodore 64 at my uncle's house. I remember it having neat games. And I remember doing some very simple programing in BASIC as an 8 or 9 year old on an Apple II at summer camp. I also remember my first Macintosh experience...with a mouse and a real GUI...I was impressed. And...I also remember my first horrific interaction with a Windows based computer in High School, at a friends house. It was not intuitive. And it was slow. And ugly. I avoided Windows 3.1 computers at college unless the Mac labs were full, and I wanted to check email. I made the switch to an IBM Gateway PC in 1998, as I graduated from college and went into Grad School. (Why? Because I knew and trusted Gateway...the university science labs were using them!) But I always knew that the serious machines were the Sun Solaris machines running UNIX. They were always intriging to me and I would always try to do stuff on the actual email server machines that we telneted to because they were so fast. Although I didn't really realize it at the time, I was learning UNIX commands when I created webpages and did stuff on the SPARC stations. If only if I had learned C instead of BASIC to start...lol.
I disagree. There are very sophisticated marketing and advertising models out there that suggest the opposite of what you are saying. Why do you think Pepsi and Coca-cola fight to get their branded machines into schools? Why do you think that the Apple I-Pod was such a success with the under 25 market? I bet that it has something to do with the brand recognition Apple has, from being the dominant computer company in the educational market. (And lots of clever advertising.)
However, I also agree with you that for most people, what OS they use as a kid doesn't really matter. Why? Because the OS will be radically different by the time the child graduates from elementry school. And the OS the child uses in junior high will be obsolete when s/he gets to college. And so on.
But, if kids learn how to use EDUbuntu early on, they hopefully will get a basic grounding in how to use a UNIX type operating system that will well serve them into the future. The UNIX environment hasn't changed its basics that much over the past 25 or so years...
I also agree with you that an OS is like a tool, and that the more technical amoung us will see out the best tool for the job, regardless of the OS. However, the less computer savy amoung us will just follow the herd mentality, and get what ever is popular...or what they know. That was why my first computer was a MAC...because I used it in High School. And thats why after 3 years of seeing how the MAC sucked in comparison to my friend's PCs, I made the switch to Windows. I got into Linux gradually, because it was difficult for me to learn, but eventually, I got proficient and use it all the time. I loved using those SPARC stations on campus!
If I had been started off on a powerful UNIX type operating system, all of the mystique of using LINUX would not have been a barrier to entry. Right now, the learning curve of using Linux is preventing wider adoption. Ubuntu, MacOS X, and now EDUbuntu have made that barrier to entry into the UNIX world easier.
Since when can't Jewish people be gangsters? I bet Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Irving Wexler would love to put a cap in your ass! That being said, I agree with the parent poster, that I couldn't imagine any of these ultra-orthodox types being mixed up with the mob....but its certainly possible. Not to mention the Russian-Jewish mob...
Just like there are bad Christian merchants...there are bad Jewish Merchants. And lots of good ones too.
Now onto debunk the rest of your post by making more Argumentum ad Logicams! (i.e. saying that your argument isn't logical and thus can not be logical...is in itself a fallacy. doesnt logic suck? haha. Wait, without fallacies, we wouldn't have Slashdot!)
Your statement "personal anecdotes are illogical" is a logical fallacy because many personal accounts are true
My understanding of the use of anecdotes in both social and physical sciences are that personal stories alone are not conclusive evidence. Anecdotes are used to illustrate a thesis, not to prove it.
Of course, I never said that "personal anecdotes are illogical". What I said was using "personal anecdote(s) is bad logic." I was trying to suggest that using a story to explain a scientific phenomenon is not science.
What really took me off guard from your post was point #2:
Scientists routinely accept the personal accounts of scientists in other fields. i.e. Physicists routinely accept the work of Biologist without scietific verification.
Woah! Nothing could be further from the truth. "The work" of a scientist is not a personal anecdote! A scientific paper is the product of the scientific method, subject to peer review, and falisification by other scientists. That being said, you are correct in implying that scientists routinely accept other scientists peer reviewed papers and conclusions. Is this bad? Sometimes. Which is why I'll agree with you on point #5 that relying on a TV show is stupid. However, they did use the scientific method to come to conclusions...
Scientifically, you can't prove WW2 happened because it is not repeatable.
This is somewhat true. However, a non-repeatable event/phenomenon can be verified by corroborating evidence. I cannot devise an experiment in a lab to recreate WW2. However, I can unearth hundreds of thousands of pages of maps, planning documents, field orders, death certificates, soldiers diaries, personal accounts and archaelogical evidence that something happened on the magnitude of a World War. What is repeatable here is that one type of documentary evidence leads to hard physical evidence. Document A says that we are going to invade Normandy here. Going to Normandy yeilds a huge cemetary and unexploded bombs.
In science, trying to prove that the big bang or evolution happened is similar. We can observe evolution happening in the fossil record...and we can observe evolution happening in front of us too by tinkering with plants and animals genetics. We can observe that our galaxy is moving away from other galaxies. And yes, we can actually LOOK BACK IN TIME, by looking through a telescope, and see the beginnings of the origins of the universe, contrary to your assertion that "Too bad we can't go back in time to see [the creation of] the universe."
Of course, our whole argument in this thread revolves around what is it that we are trying to prove. If we are to prove that science exists to show what is true...then, of course...we can have a philosophical debate for days. (I don't think that either science or logic are absolute laws which govern the universe and explain or predict everything...they are merely helpful and accurate tools).
Interestingly, you stated in your previous post that Courts accept...evidence to establish truth. I disagree. Courts exist not only to find truth, but to provide finality, provide compensation to victims, prevent blood feuds, and to make our government work efficiently. That is why courts will not hear cases if they don't have jurisdiction or if th
Of course, you know that a personal anecdote is bad logic, and thus bad science, since it is a well-known logical fallacy.
However, I think your great-grandfather's story is very compelling and really cool...and matches what I saw on that tv show...although I didn't see the ball itself though...just the dust hitting the ground...and it roughly looked like a softball bouncing across the field. Perhaps someone with better eyes could have seen it.
I also remember that the canon balls do slow down at the limit of their range...so, at that point, you could see it, if it was going slow enough! Or bouncing near you! I still think it would be a big blur though. At least to me.
Also, when the light is right, I've seen 22 bullets in flight. (22 Long Rifle) I was a doubter until someone showed me.
I've also heard that trained marksmen can see bullets in flight. Makes sense to me...that over a long distance, right behind a projectile, you might be able to see it in flight. I know that I have thought I have seen a projectile after shooting a rifle, but I chalk that up to my imagination.
The nice thing about science is that we do know for a fact that cannon balls bounce...we don't have to rely on our intuition or personal stories...we can go out and test the theory for ourselves.
However, as the previous poster mentioned, cannonballs do in fact bounce. However, I doubt that it would be possible to actually see the bouncing cannon ball itself, as it is probably moving at least 300 m/s or so. (I imagine that most of the collisions were highly elastic...allowing a bounce) especially since archeologically recovered canonballs dont have too much damage to them. However, you could probably see the dust rising from where the canon ball is skipping...as well as the effect on any troops in the way. I remember watching a show on the Military Channel where they filmed different types of cannon shot...in slow motion...so you could see how the ball skipped/bounced and lost energy.