I think the medical tubing issue is a red herring, in terms of safety. Plugging the wrong tube into the wrong device is user error, not a problem with the safety of the tubes. The nurse in question needs to be paying attention. If you look at the original article, the mix-up highlighted was truly moronic. Even a nurse on his/her first day of work should be alert enough not to connect a feeding tube to an IV.
In the case of the exoskeleton, all the legs need to do is support the patient's weight, and walk. Anything preventing the exoskeleton from doing that would also prevent it from leaving clinical trials. About the only failure points I can see would be mechanical, which you can't fix with a firmware update.
Besides that, there's not a lot of DIY going on in wheelchair repair.
Actually, a friend of mine who uses an electric chair has turned to friends for repair a few times, because wait times for "authorized" repair were too long. Now, this was simple stuff like loose connections, but the idea of DIY firmware updates isn't completely out-of-bounds.
I've done repairs on my manual wheelchair, as well. It's not too hard to replace a pneumatic tire, but once you start getting into the solid inserts, there's more expensive equipment involved. And if you're talking about frame adjustments, that's not something the user should be doing by his/herself.
Now, as far as firmware goes, I can't imagine why a manufacturer would even want people upgrading the firmware themselves. A medical device like this isn't something you code a mod for. It's something you leave alone unless you have reason to do otherwise. The most rational way to handle firmware upgrades would be the same way they handle bug fixes in cars: You send a letter issuing a recall, and upgrade the users in the shop where they bought the device.
How do you suppose they program the unit for people with different length legs? Or people with limited range of motion?
They would be pre-programmed, just as wheelchairs are custom-designed for different sizes, shapes, and range of motion for people. Different lengths of legs isn't a programmatic problem, anyway. That's a design issue. Naturally, the exoskeleton is going to have to be fitted for each person.
Why would you make everyone buy a new exoskeleton when a simple firmware update would fix the issue?
Personally, I wouldn't force anyone to buy a new exoskeleton for an update. But it's not an uncommon practice to make someone buy new software if they want the new features. And there's more than enough examples in the car industry to bear that out. Last year's model often has fewer software features than this year's model. And sure, you might not have to pay for fixes on your car's systems if they're the fault of the manufacturer, but you often have to send them back to the dealership to have them do the updates. You don't download the updates to a USB stick and put them in your car.
With more and more devices allowing and requiring firmware updates, it wouldn't be so surprising to have to hook up these legs to a computer occasionally to upgrade the control software. This would leave it open to attack in many ways. Many people who bought the movie Avatar complained about the need for a firmware update just to watch the movie, when you have software controlling your leg movement (or assisting, whatever) what is to say that there won't be bug fixes, or even modifications to the software for a persons personal leg gait.
I think you're looking at this like it's an electronic device. For purposes of testing, it's not. It's a medical device. If there's some bug in the controls, they're most likely going to be found and fixed in clinical trials. This isn't like a drug, where different people might have unpredictable (or at least, difficult to predict) adverse events. All this skeleton has to do is a) hold the patient's weight, and b) walk. I could foresee a desire to make the exoskeleton walk faster, but that's a mechanical fix, not a software one. There aren't going to be updates to program in line dancing or breakdance moves. The exoskeleton is designed to do one thing: walk. Why would they mess with that? Even if they did add features or improvements to the system, they wouldn't do firmware updates. They'd sell them as new models, just as they do when they add features to other medical equipment.
Besides that, there's not a lot of DIY going on in wheelchair repair. Mostly, you call a surgical supply store, and they either come to you, or you go to them. I can't imagine this would be much different.
I don't think you're going to see lardasses using exoskeletons within your lifetime, at least.
Exoskeletons are not going to be cheap, and insurance (of any sort) isn't going to pay for them just because you're too slovenly to lay off the Ho-Hos. In fact, I think that's part of the problem with devices like these: Insurance companies want to be convinced of "medical necessity" before they pony up the money for medical devices. It would not surprise me at all if insurance companies denied claims for the exoskeletons on the basis that users don't "need" them when there are perfectly good motorized and manual wheelchairs around.
Is there any reason why the exoskeleton should have any vulnerabilities to viruses? I can't see a reason you'd put a USB port, an optical drive, or Internet access on one of these. I mean, I suppose you could somehow flash the virus into the circuitry, if you had that kind of access to it, but for an end user product, how likely is that?
The article you are referencing only proves the Taliban are using the leaked documents to scare Afghan informants. Of course they are threatening to kill anyone hinted at in the documents; it's in their interest to make being an informant to the US military seem as dangerous as possible.
You might not have noticed this, but the Taliban haven't exactly been models of restraint and decency. They have a history of killing informants, and there's every reason to believe that the informants will be killed. Since the documents weren't sanitized, they obviously contain information that can identify informants. A classified report where the principals in the report weren't identified would hardly be useful to the military. And again, you have to weigh that against any theoretical benefit from leaking the documents. (See below.)
If the government withholds information that shows how badly the war is going, or how many innocents are killed in it, the war may be unnecessarily prolonged, and even more lives lost. The public needs to know the truth to make an informed decision about whether to support the war.
If the documents actually showed more military or civilian personnel dying than has been reported already in the media, it might influence public opinion. But that's not what I've seen -- at least in what the NY Times released. The documents they reviewed talked about things like the Pakistanis working both sides of the fence, and drones being shot down by heat-seeking missiles, rather than conventional weapons. Here's the summary of what the NY Times found about the papers:
Over all, the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. But in some cases the documents show that the American military made misleading public statements — attributing the downing of a helicopter to conventional weapons instead of heat-seeking missiles or giving Afghans credit for missions carried out by Special Operations commandos.
[Emphasis added]
The proof is in the aftermath. With all the documents released, do you hear Congress calling for hearings? Is there a Million Peacenik March? I sure don't see this Kumbaya effect. All Assange did was endanger people for his own political purposes and his own personal aggrandizement.
You are aware that Wikilekas has offered the US government to sanitise the documents before they release any more, but that the US government has declined, aren't you?
Yes, I'm aware of that particular extortion attempt. As I've said elsewhere on Slashdot, if you want to publish classified information (which you didn't even get legally), then it's on you to sanitize the information, and if you can't sanitize it, you should have the common sense not to publish it. The fact that it contains such sensitive information is why it's classified in the first place.
The problem is the intersection of science and policy. Scientists have every reason to refine, adjust, and even abandon their ideas, when the evidence warrants it. Politicians don't have that same incentive. And as we've seen in the past, when you're beholden to the politicians for your funding,
There is no evidence the release of the Afghan documents has hurt anyone; even the Pentagon admits so.
There's absolutely evidence that the release of the papers has put people at risk. When the Taliban kill people, they're not going to hang citations from the Afghan documents around their necks
There is a possibility that an informant may be killed because of the leak, but that has to be weighed against how many lives are risked by keeping the truth about the war from the public.
Okay, I'll bite. Where is there any evidence that any lives were lost from the public not knowing who informants were, or any other details revealed in the papers? The fact that the Pakistanis were playing both sides in this thing has been known by anyone paying attention for quite some time now. And most of what the NY Times has reported has been about the paucity of resources allocated to the fight. Not only that, but the documents aren't up to date, so they can't form an intelligent picture of what it looks like on the ground in Afghanistan now.
The documents were released because Assange has an obvious agenda, which he doesn't even bother to hide, and he released the documents the way he did to give the U.S. forces a black eye in the PR department.
Personally, I do not believe that speech which causes direct harm should, *necessarily*, be banned. That is a very dangerous idea -- who decides what is to be banned -- you? Or me? Or (in reality) some faceless politician who cares nothing about either of us except whether he will get our vote (or, convince us not to vote, leaving a -1 smaller pool of other voters to persuade in his direction)?
In reality, it's all of us that decide what is to be banned -- albeit indirectly. In the U.S. system, we elect people to represent us in the government, and it's these representatives who make the laws, subject to the restrictions in the Constitution. Sometimes these people are trustworthy, and sometimes, not. But that's the way we've set things up.
Libel and slander are prohibited because you're affecting someone's ability to make a living and do other things that are partially based upon reputation. Now, if the things you say are true, then you don't have to worry about libel. But if they're false, then why shouldn't you be held legally responsible? Free speech in general serves a public purpose, but spreading misinformation actually works against the very principles that free speech are supposed to nourish in a free society.
As far as "harm" goes, I think you're on the right track, but I think it covers a little more ground than you're giving it. If Assange leaked out U.S. battle plans, or the locations of certain facilities that would be useful for the enemy to destroy (along with the people inside, of course), this ought to be prohibited, even though it's not quite as direct as your launch sequence scenario.
I'm not sure it's "essential" anywhere, but it's certainly helpful. If your result link can be found in a couple of keystrokes, that's a lot better than having to type a full phrase and click "Enter", or having to scroll down to the suggesting you want and click "Enter", isn't it? Sure, it sounds minor, but it can add up.
If from your POV supporting the right to a fair trial for anybody translates to "defending Assange" then I'm unashamedly "defending Assange". OTOH it could just be that your comprehension sucks.
I'm all for a fair trial, but you need to read TFA again. The only person asserting Assange's probable guilt is the prosecutor. The other woman in the story was only saying that the charges probably weren't the result of someone's vendetta over the Afghan diary papers. AFAIK, the prosecutor (at least, in the American system -- it may certainly vary elsewhere) is free to say they believe someone is guilty. In fact, they should believe someone is guilty, if they're going to prosecute them.
So yeah, I consider that going out of your way to defend Assange, because there's no possible violation of due process here that I can see.
Or do you just enjoy having less people be able to view your content?
Probably, it's a reluctance to learn a (relatively) new technology to satisfy the needs of 1% of a market, when the other 99% (those not using iPods, iPads, or mobile phones) can see the video just fine. When the market changes, and most people are viewing the sites on mobile devices, it'll make sense to change. Until then, why bother? It's not like people who have these other mobile devices don't have desktops or laptops.
Let's assume that you're correct that Flash would use up 80% of your CPU. What else are you planning on doing while you're watching a 2-hour+ video on quantum computing and quantum mechanics? I mean, okay, you could compile code with those clock cycles, I suppose, but other than some automated task (which will still putter along while you watch the video, by the way), what would you need the CPU for in the meantime? I highly doubt you'd get anything out of the video if you tried to play Call of Duty 4 in another window while you watched it.
Clock cycles aren't an irreplaceable resource, either. Once the video ends, you get them back. Applications borrow them, they don't steal them.
I don't think the police were, in this case, guilty of not protecting Assange. As I understand it, the person who got the information was a member of the WikiLeaks organization, and (presumably, at least) entitled to it.
If I'm not mistaken, the problem is a misunderstanding of exactly who is saying what. The prosecutor was the person opining that Assange is guilty (as well she should, if she's going to prosecute him). The person involved w/ WikiLeaks was merely saying that she doesn't believe that Assange is being targeted for the sexual charges because of the Afghanistan information. That's a bit different from saying he's guilty of anything, per se.
Of course, I could be completely wrong on that. If the police actually did provide information to someone who wasn't entitled to it, I agree wholeheartedly that that's wrong.
I was replying to a comment, as is customary on slashdot I did not RTFA and made no reference to it. OTOH, you did a great job of demolishing your own strawman.
The point I was making had nothing to do with TFA specifically. You said:
Free speech takes a back seat when it directly causes harm, calling "fire" is the most famous example.
Now, perhaps you didn't mean that as a defense of Assange, but it certainly seemed as though you did, as you were using the argument to attack what was said about him.
Using that to defend Assange -- a guy who clearly doesn't give a rat's ass who the release of the Afgan war diary documents hurt -- is ridiculous.
I don't know why it was marked as flamebait at the time, but hopefully the parent was trying to be sarcastic (or at least ironic). No one who supports Assange should, with a straight face, talk about the sanctity of secret documents.
Sorry but only the "profoundly ignorant" think that free speech is absolute.
Free speech takes a back seat when it directly causes harm, calling "fire" is the most famous example.
First of all, do you have any idea how ironic that is, using that argument in this situation? One could say the exact same thing about Assange.
Secondly, according to TFA, the person referenced wasn't saying that Assange is guilty of the sexual assault charges.
Birgitta Jonsdottir told Internet news site The Daily Beast that she did not believe Assange's repeated assertion that the allegations of rape and molestation made against him were part of a US-backed smear campaign to distract attention from documents posted on the site laying bare US involvement in the war in Afghanistan and further promised revelations.
What she doesn't believe is that the allegations were being made because of Assange's decision to leak the Afghan War documents. That's very different from saying that she doesn't believe he's innocent of the charges levied against him in the other case.
From the article, the only person I can find who says anything about his innocence on those charges is the prosecutor, Marianne Ny, who, as the prosecutor is supposed to believe a crime has been committed (or else, why bring the case in the first place)?
If I sounded condescending, it's only because this is a very basic concept, which anyone with actual pharmaceutical experience would not have to be told. None of this is very hard to understand, if you understand the industry and have been following the results of the investigations.
I'd be happy to admit I was wrong, but in this case, I'm not. (There are numerous threads on/. where I've admitted being wrong, in fact.) I just quoted you the definition of "drug" as used by the FDA, which is the only definition that matters (this being a discussion about drugs in the U.S.). You can define a drug as "a shiny metallic object" if you really want to, but that doesn't make it so. The definition of "drug", as used by the FDA, uses the word "intended". That's what distinguishes plants and neutriceuticals (which is where this all started) from drugs. If the substance is intended to have an effect, then it's a drug.
To put this simply:
Caffeine in coffee: Not a drug (because it's naturally occurring).
Caffeine pills: Drug (because the caffeine is manufactured in pill form).
See the difference?
Now, to be 100% consistent, marijuana plants shouldn't be illegal to grow, but that's a separate issue. All kinds of inconsistent laws exist on the books.
What is true is that neutriceuticals aren't necessarily just placebos. They certainly could have some effect, intended or unintended. But what you're buying hasn't gone through any of the testing that would tell you if it has an effect, and the ads have disclaimers to tell you they don't have the effect they're marketing is trying to imply.
Because your differentiion is quite simply wrong!
A drug is a drug is a drug!
Weed is a drug whether you smoke the source or extract the active ingredient.
Please learn to read before you respond. (This being/., I know that's a lot to ask, but at least give it a try.)
I was talking about something very specific in my post: The difference between a drug and a neutriceutical. Here's what the FDA says a drug is:
The FD&C Act defines drugs, in part, by their intended use, as "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease" and "articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals" [FD&C Act, sec. 201(g)(1)].
A marijuana plant doesn't have an intended use. A marijuana cigarette has an intended use. That's the difference.
Average users aren't going to be that confused much more than a transition to a newer version of Windows, and they can generally do less damage in Ubuntu.
it really depends on the configuration. You can get a KDE interface that looks reasonably familiar to Windows users (at least as far as the menuing system goes), and if that's all they need, that's great. But if you've got an environment where users are used to installing their own applications, you'll likely have a lot more trouble. Suddenly, things they download just won't install.
If you don't have users who install their own programs, you won't have to deal with that issue, but there will be lots of people just confused by the differences between OpenOffice Writer and Microsoft Word.
If you upgrade the average user from, say, Windows XP to Windows 7, there won't be nearly as many issues with the learning curve. That doesn't make it better, but it is easier.
I don't think you can pay that much attention to "normal"users. There are people I know who are confused by the interface differences between Firefox and IE (and I'm talking about for very basic browsing tasks, not for advanced preferences, privacy settings, or anything like that). You can't (or at least shouldn't, IMHO) hold your organization back because an employee's Windows 2000 desktop is just the way he likes it and he doesn't want to be bothered with change. That leaves the organization vulnerable for no good reason.
For anyone other than someone who has the ability to fire you, the answer should be, "This is what we'll be using. These are the advantages (x, y, z). If you don't like it, go find yourself another position in some other company."
Clearly, you have to have a justification for a major change, but resistance to change itself shouldn't be a reason to avoid it.
Quite true. The Supreme Court has done a lot of stupid things over the years that don't actually follow logically.
Quite so. And perhaps someday, they'll reverse themselves on the drug laws. However, until then, the drug laws are constitutional. It's the Supreme Court that makes the final determination on that point. If they made a mistake, either a) they have to overturn the decision in another case, or b) Congress needs to enact legislation that specifically deals with the ruling in a constitutional way.
If you look back at what I actually wrote, rather than using just one sentence from it, you can clearly see I was talking about manufactured and marketed products, not plants you picked out of the ground.
Jalapenos are not drugs because they're not created. If you were to extract the active ingredient that give jalapenos their effect, that would be a drug.
Why is this difference so difficult for people to grasp?
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Which, as the mess regarding medical tubes shows, does not mean that it is subject to meaningful safety regulations.
I think the medical tubing issue is a red herring, in terms of safety. Plugging the wrong tube into the wrong device is user error, not a problem with the safety of the tubes. The nurse in question needs to be paying attention. If you look at the original article, the mix-up highlighted was truly moronic. Even a nurse on his/her first day of work should be alert enough not to connect a feeding tube to an IV.
In the case of the exoskeleton, all the legs need to do is support the patient's weight, and walk. Anything preventing the exoskeleton from doing that would also prevent it from leaving clinical trials. About the only failure points I can see would be mechanical, which you can't fix with a firmware update.
Actually, a friend of mine who uses an electric chair has turned to friends for repair a few times, because wait times for "authorized" repair were too long. Now, this was simple stuff like loose connections, but the idea of DIY firmware updates isn't completely out-of-bounds.
I've done repairs on my manual wheelchair, as well. It's not too hard to replace a pneumatic tire, but once you start getting into the solid inserts, there's more expensive equipment involved. And if you're talking about frame adjustments, that's not something the user should be doing by his/herself.
Now, as far as firmware goes, I can't imagine why a manufacturer would even want people upgrading the firmware themselves. A medical device like this isn't something you code a mod for. It's something you leave alone unless you have reason to do otherwise. The most rational way to handle firmware upgrades would be the same way they handle bug fixes in cars: You send a letter issuing a recall, and upgrade the users in the shop where they bought the device.
How do you suppose they program the unit for people with different length legs? Or people with limited range of motion?
They would be pre-programmed, just as wheelchairs are custom-designed for different sizes, shapes, and range of motion for people. Different lengths of legs isn't a programmatic problem, anyway. That's a design issue. Naturally, the exoskeleton is going to have to be fitted for each person.
Why would you make everyone buy a new exoskeleton when a simple firmware update would fix the issue?
Personally, I wouldn't force anyone to buy a new exoskeleton for an update. But it's not an uncommon practice to make someone buy new software if they want the new features. And there's more than enough examples in the car industry to bear that out. Last year's model often has fewer software features than this year's model. And sure, you might not have to pay for fixes on your car's systems if they're the fault of the manufacturer, but you often have to send them back to the dealership to have them do the updates. You don't download the updates to a USB stick and put them in your car.
With more and more devices allowing and requiring firmware updates, it wouldn't be so surprising to have to hook up these legs to a computer occasionally to upgrade the control software. This would leave it open to attack in many ways. Many people who bought the movie Avatar complained about the need for a firmware update just to watch the movie, when you have software controlling your leg movement (or assisting, whatever) what is to say that there won't be bug fixes, or even modifications to the software for a persons personal leg gait.
I think you're looking at this like it's an electronic device. For purposes of testing, it's not. It's a medical device. If there's some bug in the controls, they're most likely going to be found and fixed in clinical trials. This isn't like a drug, where different people might have unpredictable (or at least, difficult to predict) adverse events. All this skeleton has to do is a) hold the patient's weight, and b) walk. I could foresee a desire to make the exoskeleton walk faster, but that's a mechanical fix, not a software one. There aren't going to be updates to program in line dancing or breakdance moves. The exoskeleton is designed to do one thing: walk. Why would they mess with that? Even if they did add features or improvements to the system, they wouldn't do firmware updates. They'd sell them as new models, just as they do when they add features to other medical equipment.
Besides that, there's not a lot of DIY going on in wheelchair repair. Mostly, you call a surgical supply store, and they either come to you, or you go to them. I can't imagine this would be much different.
I don't think you're going to see lardasses using exoskeletons within your lifetime, at least.
Exoskeletons are not going to be cheap, and insurance (of any sort) isn't going to pay for them just because you're too slovenly to lay off the Ho-Hos. In fact, I think that's part of the problem with devices like these: Insurance companies want to be convinced of "medical necessity" before they pony up the money for medical devices. It would not surprise me at all if insurance companies denied claims for the exoskeletons on the basis that users don't "need" them when there are perfectly good motorized and manual wheelchairs around.
Is there any reason why the exoskeleton should have any vulnerabilities to viruses? I can't see a reason you'd put a USB port, an optical drive, or Internet access on one of these. I mean, I suppose you could somehow flash the virus into the circuitry, if you had that kind of access to it, but for an end user product, how likely is that?
The article you are referencing only proves the Taliban are using the leaked documents to scare Afghan informants. Of course they are threatening to kill anyone hinted at in the documents; it's in their interest to make being an informant to the US military seem as dangerous as possible.
You might not have noticed this, but the Taliban haven't exactly been models of restraint and decency. They have a history of killing informants, and there's every reason to believe that the informants will be killed. Since the documents weren't sanitized, they obviously contain information that can identify informants. A classified report where the principals in the report weren't identified would hardly be useful to the military. And again, you have to weigh that against any theoretical benefit from leaking the documents. (See below.)
If the government withholds information that shows how badly the war is going, or how many innocents are killed in it, the war may be unnecessarily prolonged, and even more lives lost. The public needs to know the truth to make an informed decision about whether to support the war.
If the documents actually showed more military or civilian personnel dying than has been reported already in the media, it might influence public opinion. But that's not what I've seen -- at least in what the NY Times released. The documents they reviewed talked about things like the Pakistanis working both sides of the fence, and drones being shot down by heat-seeking missiles, rather than conventional weapons. Here's the summary of what the NY Times found about the papers:
Over all, the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. But in some cases the documents show that the American military made misleading public statements — attributing the downing of a helicopter to conventional weapons instead of heat-seeking missiles or giving Afghans credit for missions carried out by Special Operations commandos.
[Emphasis added]
The proof is in the aftermath. With all the documents released, do you hear Congress calling for hearings? Is there a Million Peacenik March? I sure don't see this Kumbaya effect. All Assange did was endanger people for his own political purposes and his own personal aggrandizement.
You are aware that Wikilekas has offered the US government to sanitise the documents before they release any more, but that the US government has declined, aren't you?
Yes, I'm aware of that particular extortion attempt. As I've said elsewhere on Slashdot, if you want to publish classified information (which you didn't even get legally), then it's on you to sanitize the information, and if you can't sanitize it, you should have the common sense not to publish it. The fact that it contains such sensitive information is why it's classified in the first place.
The problem is the intersection of science and policy. Scientists have every reason to refine, adjust, and even abandon their ideas, when the evidence warrants it. Politicians don't have that same incentive. And as we've seen in the past, when you're beholden to the politicians for your funding,
There is no evidence the release of the Afghan documents has hurt anyone; even the Pentagon admits so.
There's absolutely evidence that the release of the papers has put people at risk. When the Taliban kill people, they're not going to hang citations from the Afghan documents around their necks
There is a possibility that an informant may be killed because of the leak, but that has to be weighed against how many lives are risked by keeping the truth about the war from the public.
Okay, I'll bite. Where is there any evidence that any lives were lost from the public not knowing who informants were, or any other details revealed in the papers? The fact that the Pakistanis were playing both sides in this thing has been known by anyone paying attention for quite some time now. And most of what the NY Times has reported has been about the paucity of resources allocated to the fight. Not only that, but the documents aren't up to date, so they can't form an intelligent picture of what it looks like on the ground in Afghanistan now.
The documents were released because Assange has an obvious agenda, which he doesn't even bother to hide, and he released the documents the way he did to give the U.S. forces a black eye in the PR department.
Personally, I do not believe that speech which causes direct harm should, *necessarily*, be banned. That is a very dangerous idea -- who decides what is to be banned -- you? Or me? Or (in reality) some faceless politician who cares nothing about either of us except whether he will get our vote (or, convince us not to vote, leaving a -1 smaller pool of other voters to persuade in his direction)?
In reality, it's all of us that decide what is to be banned -- albeit indirectly. In the U.S. system, we elect people to represent us in the government, and it's these representatives who make the laws, subject to the restrictions in the Constitution. Sometimes these people are trustworthy, and sometimes, not. But that's the way we've set things up.
Libel and slander are prohibited because you're affecting someone's ability to make a living and do other things that are partially based upon reputation. Now, if the things you say are true, then you don't have to worry about libel. But if they're false, then why shouldn't you be held legally responsible? Free speech in general serves a public purpose, but spreading misinformation actually works against the very principles that free speech are supposed to nourish in a free society.
As far as "harm" goes, I think you're on the right track, but I think it covers a little more ground than you're giving it. If Assange leaked out U.S. battle plans, or the locations of certain facilities that would be useful for the enemy to destroy (along with the people inside, of course), this ought to be prohibited, even though it's not quite as direct as your launch sequence scenario.
I'm not sure it's "essential" anywhere, but it's certainly helpful. If your result link can be found in a couple of keystrokes, that's a lot better than having to type a full phrase and click "Enter", or having to scroll down to the suggesting you want and click "Enter", isn't it? Sure, it sounds minor, but it can add up.
If from your POV supporting the right to a fair trial for anybody translates to "defending Assange" then I'm unashamedly "defending Assange". OTOH it could just be that your comprehension sucks.
I'm all for a fair trial, but you need to read TFA again. The only person asserting Assange's probable guilt is the prosecutor. The other woman in the story was only saying that the charges probably weren't the result of someone's vendetta over the Afghan diary papers. AFAIK, the prosecutor (at least, in the American system -- it may certainly vary elsewhere) is free to say they believe someone is guilty. In fact, they should believe someone is guilty, if they're going to prosecute them.
So yeah, I consider that going out of your way to defend Assange, because there's no possible violation of due process here that I can see.
Works on my Pre, too. I'm just saying it won't work with all mobiles.
Or do you just enjoy having less people be able to view your content?
Probably, it's a reluctance to learn a (relatively) new technology to satisfy the needs of 1% of a market, when the other 99% (those not using iPods, iPads, or mobile phones) can see the video just fine. When the market changes, and most people are viewing the sites on mobile devices, it'll make sense to change. Until then, why bother? It's not like people who have these other mobile devices don't have desktops or laptops.
Let's assume that you're correct that Flash would use up 80% of your CPU. What else are you planning on doing while you're watching a 2-hour+ video on quantum computing and quantum mechanics? I mean, okay, you could compile code with those clock cycles, I suppose, but other than some automated task (which will still putter along while you watch the video, by the way), what would you need the CPU for in the meantime? I highly doubt you'd get anything out of the video if you tried to play Call of Duty 4 in another window while you watched it.
Clock cycles aren't an irreplaceable resource, either. Once the video ends, you get them back. Applications borrow them, they don't steal them.
I don't think the police were, in this case, guilty of not protecting Assange. As I understand it, the person who got the information was a member of the WikiLeaks organization, and (presumably, at least) entitled to it.
If I'm not mistaken, the problem is a misunderstanding of exactly who is saying what. The prosecutor was the person opining that Assange is guilty (as well she should, if she's going to prosecute him). The person involved w/ WikiLeaks was merely saying that she doesn't believe that Assange is being targeted for the sexual charges because of the Afghanistan information. That's a bit different from saying he's guilty of anything, per se.
Of course, I could be completely wrong on that. If the police actually did provide information to someone who wasn't entitled to it, I agree wholeheartedly that that's wrong.
Is that on the iPad or iPod Touch? :)
I was replying to a comment, as is customary on slashdot I did not RTFA and made no reference to it. OTOH, you did a great job of demolishing your own strawman.
The point I was making had nothing to do with TFA specifically. You said:
Free speech takes a back seat when it directly causes harm, calling "fire" is the most famous example.
Now, perhaps you didn't mean that as a defense of Assange, but it certainly seemed as though you did, as you were using the argument to attack what was said about him.
Using that to defend Assange -- a guy who clearly doesn't give a rat's ass who the release of the Afgan war diary documents hurt -- is ridiculous.
I don't know why it was marked as flamebait at the time, but hopefully the parent was trying to be sarcastic (or at least ironic). No one who supports Assange should, with a straight face, talk about the sanctity of secret documents.
Sorry but only the "profoundly ignorant" think that free speech is absolute.
Free speech takes a back seat when it directly causes harm, calling "fire" is the most famous example.
First of all, do you have any idea how ironic that is, using that argument in this situation? One could say the exact same thing about Assange.
Secondly, according to TFA, the person referenced wasn't saying that Assange is guilty of the sexual assault charges.
Birgitta Jonsdottir told Internet news site The Daily Beast that she did not believe Assange's repeated assertion that the allegations of rape and molestation made against him were part of a US-backed smear campaign to distract attention from documents posted on the site laying bare US involvement in the war in Afghanistan and further promised revelations.
What she doesn't believe is that the allegations were being made because of Assange's decision to leak the Afghan War documents. That's very different from saying that she doesn't believe he's innocent of the charges levied against him in the other case.
From the article, the only person I can find who says anything about his innocence on those charges is the prosecutor, Marianne Ny, who, as the prosecutor is supposed to believe a crime has been committed (or else, why bring the case in the first place)?
If I sounded condescending, it's only because this is a very basic concept, which anyone with actual pharmaceutical experience would not have to be told. None of this is very hard to understand, if you understand the industry and have been following the results of the investigations.
I'd be happy to admit I was wrong, but in this case, I'm not. (There are numerous threads on /. where I've admitted being wrong, in fact.) I just quoted you the definition of "drug" as used by the FDA, which is the only definition that matters (this being a discussion about drugs in the U.S.). You can define a drug as "a shiny metallic object" if you really want to, but that doesn't make it so. The definition of "drug", as used by the FDA, uses the word "intended". That's what distinguishes plants and neutriceuticals (which is where this all started) from drugs. If the substance is intended to have an effect, then it's a drug.
To put this simply:
Caffeine in coffee: Not a drug (because it's naturally occurring).
Caffeine pills: Drug (because the caffeine is manufactured in pill form).
See the difference?
Now, to be 100% consistent, marijuana plants shouldn't be illegal to grow, but that's a separate issue. All kinds of inconsistent laws exist on the books.
What is true is that neutriceuticals aren't necessarily just placebos. They certainly could have some effect, intended or unintended. But what you're buying hasn't gone through any of the testing that would tell you if it has an effect, and the ads have disclaimers to tell you they don't have the effect they're marketing is trying to imply.
Because your differentiion is quite simply wrong! A drug is a drug is a drug! Weed is a drug whether you smoke the source or extract the active ingredient.
Please learn to read before you respond. (This being /., I know that's a lot to ask, but at least give it a try.)
I was talking about something very specific in my post: The difference between a drug and a neutriceutical. Here's what the FDA says a drug is:
The FD&C Act defines drugs, in part, by their intended use, as "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease" and "articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals" [FD&C Act, sec. 201(g)(1)].
A marijuana plant doesn't have an intended use. A marijuana cigarette has an intended use. That's the difference.
Average users aren't going to be that confused much more than a transition to a newer version of Windows, and they can generally do less damage in Ubuntu.
it really depends on the configuration. You can get a KDE interface that looks reasonably familiar to Windows users (at least as far as the menuing system goes), and if that's all they need, that's great. But if you've got an environment where users are used to installing their own applications, you'll likely have a lot more trouble. Suddenly, things they download just won't install.
If you don't have users who install their own programs, you won't have to deal with that issue, but there will be lots of people just confused by the differences between OpenOffice Writer and Microsoft Word.
If you upgrade the average user from, say, Windows XP to Windows 7, there won't be nearly as many issues with the learning curve. That doesn't make it better, but it is easier.
I don't think you can pay that much attention to "normal"users. There are people I know who are confused by the interface differences between Firefox and IE (and I'm talking about for very basic browsing tasks, not for advanced preferences, privacy settings, or anything like that). You can't (or at least shouldn't, IMHO) hold your organization back because an employee's Windows 2000 desktop is just the way he likes it and he doesn't want to be bothered with change. That leaves the organization vulnerable for no good reason.
For anyone other than someone who has the ability to fire you, the answer should be, "This is what we'll be using. These are the advantages (x, y, z). If you don't like it, go find yourself another position in some other company."
Clearly, you have to have a justification for a major change, but resistance to change itself shouldn't be a reason to avoid it.
Quite true. The Supreme Court has done a lot of stupid things over the years that don't actually follow logically.
Quite so. And perhaps someday, they'll reverse themselves on the drug laws. However, until then, the drug laws are constitutional. It's the Supreme Court that makes the final determination on that point. If they made a mistake, either a) they have to overturn the decision in another case, or b) Congress needs to enact legislation that specifically deals with the ruling in a constitutional way.
If you look back at what I actually wrote, rather than using just one sentence from it, you can clearly see I was talking about manufactured and marketed products, not plants you picked out of the ground.
Jalapenos are not drugs because they're not created. If you were to extract the active ingredient that give jalapenos their effect, that would be a drug.
Why is this difference so difficult for people to grasp?