and even more remarkably, unlike most grand scale human accomplishments (the pyramids, the cathedrals, the a-bomb), thousands didn't have to die building it, thousands more aren't being killed to maintain and grow it....
nope, but "the net" was originally designed around the idea OF thousands (read: millions) dying, do that count?
Your state ignored some votes, so your nation isn't democratic? We'll just set aside the fact pointed out in another post - the USA is not a democracy anyway, never has been and has never claimed to be. (For that matter, the "original democracy" didn't allow a majority of its population - women and slaves - to vote at all.)
America has been an interventionist country since 1916 or so. Fact of life, sorry old sport, and all that. Interventionist countries do things like try to protect themselves. The guiding policy here is American politicians feel the moral obligation - rightly or wrongly - to try to help other countries become more free. They don't always necessarily choose the correct way to do so.
If you don't like how things are run, then DO something to change it - that's the beauty of living in a nation with democratic principles. If you don't think your votes change anything, and you aren't willing to try to effect change yourself, your borders are open! Nothing's stopping you from leaving. Read some Aristotle.
I can see being sued for it. Your worm that connects to my system and patches it for me is just as wrong as somebody else's worm that connects to my system and infects it for me. You're using resources without permission, for one. You're also opening yourself to litigation: what if your patch breaks something in a mission-critical server? Yes, that server should have been patched versus Code Red long ago, but that doesn't give you the moral right to fix it for me. ("You" is being used here in the generic sense, not in the sense of "you, acidrain, to whose post I am responding".) I would feel just as free to submit generous LARTs to somebody who was "just trying to help" as I would to somebody who was proving their manlihood before the "virus writing community".
Among the sad parts about many of the B&E cases is use of poor locks. Adobe used a horribly weak door/lock in their main offices. If companies really wanted to protect their files, they should use stronger locks that are difficult to pick. By using cheap locks, they are practically asking for people to break into their offices so they can slap that person (or persons) with criminal charges and civil suits.
Even if it was, how does that count as restricting your RIGHTS online? "User foo has right bar because they only have one broadband ISP. User baz doesn't get right bar because they have two broadband ISPs." Forgive me if I think this is applying the term "right" in a very liberal manner.
Morally, you're correct. In the Real World(tm), being right morally sometimes doesn't get you anything but a bad credit rating. For example, under Ontario law, if something is wrong with your apartment, you can NOT, under ANY circumstances, withold rent. It doesn't matter if it's something like a window has a crack in it, or the front door swings wide open every time you fart. You are never right to withold rent, and you can be sued for the rent. There are other avenues of getting what you want, including talking to the rentalsman's office and to your lawyers, but both offices will tell you: PAY YOUR RENT, and THEN follow up. It's the same situation for the judge: yes, morally, she shouldn't have to pay for services she hasn't received, but legally, she does. Having said that, I'm sure she knows this - and hey, how badly can missing a few payments on a $50 bill reflect on your credit rating?
"The military" already does testing like this, it's called field exercises. (At least, the Canadian Forces do, I can't imagine that there's any other serious military force that doesn't.)
The point of using a computer is to reduce costs - it's expensive to keep people in the field - and time involved. That being said, IMO the only way to simulate your reactions after marching 16 hours in extreme heat is to... well, march 16 hours in extreme heat.
I had some pretty surprising orders passed down to me in field exercises with commanders under stress, and I'm glad these were exercises and not Real Life(tm).
"Dr. Silverman said one of his students had recently asked him why he even bothered with his research when there are games like Age of Empires, Microsoft's popular warfare strategy series."
That's a laugh... there's a HUGE difference between a game like AoE and real military operations. Just goes to show that being a CS student doesn't automatically make you smart. A world of difference between how a simulated unit in a *game* reacts to certain commands within strict parameters, and how a human reacts in a situation... be interesting to see technology like this developed and applied to CRPGs though.
It's not like Logitech has done any great wrong to the buying public here. If your common sense doesn't twig at "wireless keyboard... hmm, MAYBE THIS COULD BE A SECURITY RISK!" then you don't deserve to be running any computers with sensitive data on them anyway.
This issue is nowhere near as big as some would have it, IMO.
Personally, I don't like the wireless mice/keyboards anyway.
Re:By-Pass Free Registration (Privacy Invasion)
on
The Not-So-Free Web
·
· Score: 1
fair enough to post a URL to the registration-less site... but pray tell, how is a company requesting you register to use their FREE SERVICES a privacy invasion? (For that matter, it's not like they ask that you sign an indemnity stating that all information you provide is accurate upon pain of death.) I find a comment title like "Privacy Invasion" particularly ironic, coming from somebody who lists their homepage in their user info, and on said homepage tells the world - or at least those who use WWW browsers - where he goes to school, who he works for, and has a picture.
... then my opinion woul d be that your people aren't practised enough. If people always reacted badly in crisis situations even with training, then why would the military bother training? After all, it doesn't get much more high-tension than seeing the person next to you get blown to bits...
Granted, continuous training isn't always worth the time lost in it, but still, don't dismiss an idea like this out of hand just because.
In all the world there is no opportunity for people to manage via Role-Playing - why the fuck not? I think there should be.
I think the quick and simple answer would be "because how could it work?". But that's just me.
If you mean your question to be less literal - well, there are certainly seminars whereby management roleplays workers, etc, to get a better feel for what actually goes on. I think the spoof article meant they roleplayed managing in something like AD&D, though.
My humour filters may be broken, however.
Believe what you like. Speaking for myself, I'm posting this using Opera on a Mandrake box. I work somewhere that is not Microsoft. Just because somebody is not critical of Microsoft, or corrects somebody who is obviously wrong in their interpretation of something, does not mean the comments are pro-MS.
This article does not IMPLY anything, it says it STRAIGHT OUT, and I quote:
Therefore, we strongly advise that each new PC that will be running a Microsoft Operating System be pre- installed with an OEM version of the Operating System.
Why?
Because they don't do volume site licensing on OEM OSes any more. In other words, if you know your customer intends to install a MS OS, best to make sure they purchase an OEM licence, because there's no other legal way to do it unless they buy a retail version - and that would cost more.
Yeah, they're checking for mass piraters - but they're also doing people who don't know their site licensing terms & conditions a favour.
Why don't y'all try *reading* the articles first? All the way through. Read them for content.
Oops, too much work, easier to just assume that MS is out to get you and set flame mode on.
as edinho said, it isn't really a one-off cost. It's a one-off cost every several years. While businesses who're able to pay admins $90k, or pay $40k for licenses, tend to be a bit more conservative with adopting new technology (our own IT department is still looking at Win2k, for example), eventually they do adopt the new stuff (mainly because MS gives them no choice - support for older platforms is dropped).
And yeah, most $90k admins are generally able to do more than just admin - they typically have programming skills as well. (However, you don't want to hand over an integral part of your programming effort to an admin who may be called away at a moment's notice to deal with a haxx0r attack.)
YES, it takes more time (generally) to set up something under *nix than it does similar Windows services. However, would you rather put your budget into hiring a $90k admin who knows what s/he's doing, or into hiring a $50k admin who may or may not + $40k for licenses?
Yeah, I have to admit, when I joined the Army Reserves I was thinking "boy, I'm glad they gave me this C7, I really want to defend my Prime Minister, but not the civilians I know, boy oh boy, you know, I sure hope I get the chance to stop a bullet for the PM!" Please. Just because members of armed forces in your country and mine choose a dangerous profession, doesn't make them as all-out stupid as some Hollywood movies and some activists would have you believe.
I fail to see how killing an adult is a lesser crime than killing an adult. It may be more distasteful, yes, but if you want to stand on religious ground, I don't recall ages being taken into account in the Commandments. Then again, I'm no Bible scholar - perhaps you'd care to point it out?
Some would argue that the US *didn't* take the moral high ground. At least, I didn't see anything on recruiting posters regarding saving the Jews from genocide - again, perhaps you could point it out for me? I seem to recall the recruiting being all about killing the evil Hun and saving the world from fascism and a little man with a funny moustache. Further, as you said, you all weren't herding people into gas chambers. You can't say "thou shalt not kill", and then follow it up by ambushing somebody and, um... killing them. Sorry, it doesn't wash.
In order to legalize abortion, the left didn't do this. They got an activist court to legislate from the bench. How can you demand that we go about doing this in this way, when you side didn't?
You cannot claim a moral high ground if you're using the same tactics as your opposition. You must be above them in *all* respects. I notice you didn't respond fully to the part you quoted, either.
It's been some time, but I recall a passage near (at?) the end of _Animal Farm_: the animals looked in the windows, and could no longer tell the difference between the pigs and the humans.
Looking at abortion doctors accused of murder, and activists accused of murdering the doctors, I can't tell the difference.
Another thing that bothers me is the lack of traditional Christian morals that are being instilled in today's youth. You never hear about a Reverand's son or a child of a devoutly religious family shooting up a school.
No, but I've heard of plenty of altarboys who were abused by priests. Newfoundland, CA, ring any bells?
I believe part of it may be a lack of moral techings; I don't believe that Christian morals are any better than those of most of the other major religions (but then again, I'm not Christian myself).
I agree with you however, that part of it is a distinct pressure in today's society to not take responsibility for your own actions; instead, it's society's fault you're a killer! Whatever.
If you're THAT displeased with your government, by all means, change it. If you feel it cannot be changed and you cannot live under such an oppressive organ of state, what are you still doing there? There's plenty of other countries that won't crack down on you for copying CDs, if that's what you really want to do.
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and even more remarkably, unlike most grand scale human accomplishments (the pyramids, the cathedrals, the a-bomb), thousands didn't have to die building it, thousands more aren't being killed to maintain and grow it....
nope, but "the net" was originally designed around the idea OF thousands (read: millions) dying, do that count?
Your state ignored some votes, so your nation isn't democratic? We'll just set aside the fact pointed out in another post - the USA is not a democracy anyway, never has been and has never claimed to be. (For that matter, the "original democracy" didn't allow a majority of its population - women and slaves - to vote at all.)
America has been an interventionist country since 1916 or so. Fact of life, sorry old sport, and all that. Interventionist countries do things like try to protect themselves. The guiding policy here is American politicians feel the moral obligation - rightly or wrongly - to try to help other countries become more free. They don't always necessarily choose the correct way to do so.
If you don't like how things are run, then DO something to change it - that's the beauty of living in a nation with democratic principles. If you don't think your votes change anything, and you aren't willing to try to effect change yourself, your borders are open! Nothing's stopping you from leaving. Read some Aristotle.
I can see being sued for it. Your worm that connects to my system and patches it for me is just as wrong as somebody else's worm that connects to my system and infects it for me. You're using resources without permission, for one. You're also opening yourself to litigation: what if your patch breaks something in a mission-critical server? Yes, that server should have been patched versus Code Red long ago, but that doesn't give you the moral right to fix it for me. ("You" is being used here in the generic sense, not in the sense of "you, acidrain, to whose post I am responding".) I would feel just as free to submit generous LARTs to somebody who was "just trying to help" as I would to somebody who was proving their manlihood before the "virus writing community".
Among the sad parts about many of the B&E cases is use of poor locks. Adobe used a horribly weak door/lock in their main offices. If companies really wanted to protect their files, they should use stronger locks that are difficult to pick. By using cheap locks, they are practically asking for people to break into their offices so they can slap that person (or persons) with criminal charges and civil suits.
Whatever.
Even if it was, how does that count as restricting your RIGHTS online? "User foo has right bar because they only have one broadband ISP. User baz doesn't get right bar because they have two broadband ISPs." Forgive me if I think this is applying the term "right" in a very liberal manner.
Morally, you're correct. In the Real World(tm), being right morally sometimes doesn't get you anything but a bad credit rating. For example, under Ontario law, if something is wrong with your apartment, you can NOT, under ANY circumstances, withold rent. It doesn't matter if it's something like a window has a crack in it, or the front door swings wide open every time you fart. You are never right to withold rent, and you can be sued for the rent. There are other avenues of getting what you want, including talking to the rentalsman's office and to your lawyers, but both offices will tell you: PAY YOUR RENT, and THEN follow up. It's the same situation for the judge: yes, morally, she shouldn't have to pay for services she hasn't received, but legally, she does. Having said that, I'm sure she knows this - and hey, how badly can missing a few payments on a $50 bill reflect on your credit rating?
"The military" already does testing like this, it's called field exercises. (At least, the Canadian Forces do, I can't imagine that there's any other serious military force that doesn't.)
The point of using a computer is to reduce costs - it's expensive to keep people in the field - and time involved. That being said, IMO the only way to simulate your reactions after marching 16 hours in extreme heat is to... well, march 16 hours in extreme heat.
I had some pretty surprising orders passed down to me in field exercises with commanders under stress, and I'm glad these were exercises and not Real Life(tm).
"Dr. Silverman said one of his students had recently asked him why he even bothered with his research when there are games like Age of Empires, Microsoft's popular warfare strategy series."
That's a laugh... there's a HUGE difference between a game like AoE and real military operations. Just goes to show that being a CS student doesn't automatically make you smart. A world of difference between how a simulated unit in a *game* reacts to certain commands within strict parameters, and how a human reacts in a situation... be interesting to see technology like this developed and applied to CRPGs though.
As far as the general attitude of "why the hell don't you work on something more important?"
Amen. Indeed, why don't we all say that to anybody that isn't working on something that's important to us personally?
Anything, anywhere, will be unimportant to somebody else somewhere else. That includes you, me, and our dogs too.
It's not like Logitech has done any great wrong to the buying public here. If your common sense doesn't twig at "wireless keyboard... hmm, MAYBE THIS COULD BE A SECURITY RISK!" then you don't deserve to be running any computers with sensitive data on them anyway.
This issue is nowhere near as big as some would have it, IMO.
Personally, I don't like the wireless mice/keyboards anyway.
fair enough to post a URL to the registration-less site... but pray tell, how is a company requesting you register to use their FREE SERVICES a privacy invasion? (For that matter, it's not like they ask that you sign an indemnity stating that all information you provide is accurate upon pain of death.) I find a comment title like "Privacy Invasion" particularly ironic, coming from somebody who lists their homepage in their user info, and on said homepage tells the world - or at least those who use WWW browsers - where he goes to school, who he works for, and has a picture.
... then my opinion woul d be that your people aren't practised enough. If people always reacted badly in crisis situations even with training, then why would the military bother training? After all, it doesn't get much more high-tension than seeing the person next to you get blown to bits...
Granted, continuous training isn't always worth the time lost in it, but still, don't dismiss an idea like this out of hand just because.
In all the world there is no opportunity for people to manage via Role-Playing - why the fuck not? I think there should be.
I think the quick and simple answer would be "because how could it work?". But that's just me.
If you mean your question to be less literal - well, there are certainly seminars whereby management roleplays workers, etc, to get a better feel for what actually goes on. I think the spoof article meant they roleplayed managing in something like AD&D, though.
My humour filters may be broken, however.
Believe what you like. Speaking for myself, I'm posting this using Opera on a Mandrake box. I work somewhere that is not Microsoft. Just because somebody is not critical of Microsoft, or corrects somebody who is obviously wrong in their interpretation of something, does not mean the comments are pro-MS.
Who said common sense had anything to do with "modern" software companies?
Of COURSE the terms are out to get you - MS isn't a multi-billion dollar company by mistake. I'm not saying it's RIGHT, just that's how it is.
it is your imagination.
This article does not IMPLY anything, it says it STRAIGHT OUT, and I quote:
Therefore, we strongly advise that each new PC that will be running a Microsoft Operating System be pre- installed with an OEM version of the Operating System.
Why?
Because they don't do volume site licensing on OEM OSes any more. In other words, if you know your customer intends to install a MS OS, best to make sure they purchase an OEM licence, because there's no other legal way to do it unless they buy a retail version - and that would cost more.
Yeah, they're checking for mass piraters - but they're also doing people who don't know their site licensing terms & conditions a favour.
Why don't y'all try *reading* the articles first? All the way through. Read them for content.
Oops, too much work, easier to just assume that MS is out to get you and set flame mode on.
as edinho said, it isn't really a one-off cost. It's a one-off cost every several years. While businesses who're able to pay admins $90k, or pay $40k for licenses, tend to be a bit more conservative with adopting new technology (our own IT department is still looking at Win2k, for example), eventually they do adopt the new stuff (mainly because MS gives them no choice - support for older platforms is dropped).
And yeah, most $90k admins are generally able to do more than just admin - they typically have programming skills as well. (However, you don't want to hand over an integral part of your programming effort to an admin who may be called away at a moment's notice to deal with a haxx0r attack.)
ditto.
YES, it takes more time (generally) to set up something under *nix than it does similar Windows services. However, would you rather put your budget into hiring a $90k admin who knows what s/he's doing, or into hiring a $50k admin who may or may not + $40k for licenses?
Yeah, I have to admit, when I joined the Army Reserves I was thinking "boy, I'm glad they gave me this C7, I really want to defend my Prime Minister, but not the civilians I know, boy oh boy, you know, I sure hope I get the chance to stop a bullet for the PM!" Please. Just because members of armed forces in your country and mine choose a dangerous profession, doesn't make them as all-out stupid as some Hollywood movies and some activists would have you believe.
Gah, I can't proofread. I fail to see how killing an adult is a lesser crime than killing a child. That'll learn me to preview before posting.
I fail to see how killing an adult is a lesser crime than killing an adult. It may be more distasteful, yes, but if you want to stand on religious ground, I don't recall ages being taken into account in the Commandments. Then again, I'm no Bible scholar - perhaps you'd care to point it out?
Some would argue that the US *didn't* take the moral high ground. At least, I didn't see anything on recruiting posters regarding saving the Jews from genocide - again, perhaps you could point it out for me? I seem to recall the recruiting being all about killing the evil Hun and saving the world from fascism and a little man with a funny moustache. Further, as you said, you all weren't herding people into gas chambers.
You can't say "thou shalt not kill", and then follow it up by ambushing somebody and, um... killing them. Sorry, it doesn't wash.
In order to legalize abortion, the left didn't do this. They got an activist court to legislate from the bench. How can you demand that we go about doing this in this way, when you side didn't?
You cannot claim a moral high ground if you're using the same tactics as your opposition. You must be above them in *all* respects. I notice you didn't respond fully to the part you quoted, either.
It's been some time, but I recall a passage near (at?) the end of _Animal Farm_: the animals looked in the windows, and could no longer tell the difference between the pigs and the humans.
Looking at abortion doctors accused of murder, and activists accused of murdering the doctors, I can't tell the difference.
Another thing that bothers me is the lack of traditional Christian morals that are being instilled in today's youth. You never hear about a Reverand's son or a child of a devoutly religious family shooting up a school.
No, but I've heard of plenty of altarboys who were abused by priests. Newfoundland, CA, ring any bells?
I believe part of it may be a lack of moral techings; I don't believe that Christian morals are any better than those of most of the other major religions (but then again, I'm not Christian myself).
I agree with you however, that part of it is a distinct pressure in today's society to not take responsibility for your own actions; instead, it's society's fault you're a killer!
Whatever.
Sure, but what says the RIAA MUST sell their artits' CDs in a format that's easily copied?
BULLSHIT!
Great logic, there.
Do you not live in a democracy?
If you're THAT displeased with your government, by all means, change it. If you feel it cannot be changed and you cannot live under such an oppressive organ of state, what are you still doing there? There's plenty of other countries that won't crack down on you for copying CDs, if that's what you really want to do.