It's been said, roughly 1000 times, but I want to say it again anyways: are your fucking daft!? You're completely thinking of this from a male's perspective instead of empathizing with the new female joining the team. "It is guaranteed that there will be remarks, double entendres and innuendos with huge potential of getting worse" - so, you're team is all high school boys? Did you guys miss the memo about being polite in a workplace? What about just being respectful? Do you get on a bus and make lude comments to the women on it because it's how your mind works?
The best mitigation for this behavior is to disallow it from the get-go, and having an environment where this is the norm (be it all male or not, currently) is not a good thing from a business perspective. What if your team is making jokes like this on a day when a supervisor happens to pop in and be on the other side of the cubical wall? If you're going to act like jackasses, expect to be treated like it when you get FIRED for harassment.
So far he's raised just over $100,000 for Bears Good, Cancer Bad. Also, the writeup doesn't really sum up the whole situation:
> Oatmeal's content was on FunnyJunuk > Oatmeal asked them to remove said content, they kind of complied but not really > Oatmeal writes blog post > FunnyJunk threatens to sue > Oatmeal starts campaign to raise $20,000 for Bears Good, Cancer Bad; ignores FunnyJunk threat
Some of FJ's complaints, particularly about the "attacks in your source code" part are so laughable you'd almost have to assume that this, in itself, some "funny junk" they're pulling for the lols. Do they seriously consider an ASCII pterodactyl to be a threat against FunnyJunk? Do they seriously think that the word "FunnyJunk" on a web page is taking away their status in Google's search results? FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk Slashdot doesn't like too much repitition FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk at least let's see if I can break it up FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk with some text here FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk come on, Slashdot FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk I just *know* that this will bump FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk your Google search results when people FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk search for FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk
Watch out Slashdot, FJ is coming for you next for knocking them down in Google's results ZOMGTHEINTERNETTHISISHOWITWORKS!
Mod this guy up! An open, well-tested and well-monitored solution could someday be viable, but it has to be as open and clear as possible to avoid the problems associated with electronic voting, particularly over the internet. I think it will happen, but who knows when...probably when people start getting more unsatisfied with politics at a larger scale than they currently are.
Agreed, a lot of things came about either from religion or around the same time of religion, and both camps (and many religions) have borrowed from each other.
Slow down there, cowboy, I didn't mean to say that laws aren't good. I don't think we need religion as a basis for our laws or morals anymore though - I think we can all pretty much agree that there are things that shouldn't happen in society. I'm much more in favor of police than God smiting the evil-doers - of course, if he did, I suppose we'd have fewer police...
I was very involved in church for a long time - grew up Episcopalian and then started going to "hardcore" non-denominational. After that, the religion kind of shed off like a good skin when I was younger, but blocking me personally as it didn't apply to the life I wanted to live...particularly because of the people. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people, regardless of religion, are nice and mean well in their religion. But I also knew plenty of people who wanted to push religion onto others with the "you're going to hell" and all that kind of talk, judging, stealing, fornicating, cheating on spouses, women in my congregation were approached on numerous occasions by our then-pastor who tried to force himself on them.
Catholicism is full of pedophiles.
Some angry people in the middle east have given Islam a terrible name because of their violence.
The jews...they've been through a lot but Israel does make me mad.
Hell, I'm sure there's been at least a buddhist or two who murdered, raped, stole, etc.
Throw in any religion and you find people who are really trying to do good, and those that don't CARE either way. Christians just happen to be the worst (IMHO) because they can just ask for forgiveness - there is a lack of honor at all, and when they say offensive things, push for offensive/restricting laws, or push they're religion forcefully they always point to Jesus or the Bible as justification.
I don't need religion for my morals - it may have helped teach them when I was growing up, but I eventually figured it out:
- Santa isn't real, and I can actually get what I want by having a job - The Easter bunny isn't real, and I don't much care for chocolate anymore - The tooth fairy isn't real and dental care is important as a matter of hygiene, not money - Jesus isn't real and I don't need the fear of hell / the hope of heaven anymore to control myself or to be respectful to others
BTW "isn't real" - you can't prove it either way, but the evidence I have that those myths are just that far outweighs the other conclusions
Religion was great for values and ethics for early man because it was hard to get anyone to listen to one guy saying "Hey, don't do that" - much easier to listen to one guy saying "Hey, there's an ever-present, all-knowing being up there in the clouds that will totally not like it if you kill each other." These days, we should be able to get past this whole notion of "if you don't have religion, where do you get your morals?" This argument is plain ignorant in this day and age; morals/ethics/values/et al aren't something we need referenced from a book written by people who were spoken to by heavenly voices thousands of years ago - they are plain and simple guidelines that even children can understand: don't hurt others, don't kill, don't steal, don't etc. If a kid asks "why not?" we don't have to say "because God said not to" anymore, we can easily explain that those actions hurt others, and we wouldn't want someone doing that to us now would we?
Unfortunately, that may be what comes out of "stepping up." The fact is though, if they don't step up then corruption continues. So:
1) Officer A pulls over a young woman at night and asks to search her vehicle, only to commit an act against this woman (see: NY police as of late). Officer B gets a complaint filed against Officer A and decides it's best if A takes a vacation until everything cools down and, in the meantime, cans the report claiming it was lost or misplaced or whatever.
Things really worked out well, right? At least for the police.
2) Officer B takes the complaint and pushes for an investigation, gets one, and gets Officer A thrown out. A bunch of people really liked Officer A, and couldn't believe B would do that. B is out on a domestic violence call and, upon arriving, hears gun shots. He radios for backup - now, all of A's friends are still a little hot about the whole thing, so they take their time or "forget" or whatever. B gets shot and dies in the line of duty. Now, do you suppose that the SBI, FBI or anyone else would look into this situation? Why wasn't B given the backup he requested? Surely at least one other officer had to be nearby, right? Hmm, I guess heads would roll for letting something like that happen in the department.
It sucks that B would die in such a terrible way, but that's part of the problem - if we don't have good cops, then we just get bad cops. If good cops step up, they take many risks, but if they don't then they are just putting the citizens they are meant to SERVER AND PROTECT into harms way by letting corrupt, evil, twisted people wear uniforms and badges that are supposed to be symbolic of safety and honor.
"Thou shalt not *blah*" were fine when they were needed, the point is that we should be at a place in our societies where we can derive moral guidance from logic, not from old books. Laws have a role that requires them to evolve with society, and basing laws off of books that don't evolve leave us with ridiculous laws like "life starting 2 weeks before conception" - WTF is that? Anti-marriage laws are passed not because LGBT couples marrying hurts anyone, but because religious doctrine pushed in laws that should never have seen the light of day.
Granted, this issue has many facets - one being that THOSE OPPOSED RARELY GO AND VOTE. At least in these cases. I'm from NC and the recent passage or Amendment 1 is ridiculous, particularly because there are so many people I know who complain about it but didn't bother to take 15 minutes to fill out a ballot.
The foremost reason for the illegality of drugs is money (not "law and order") - plain and simple. Hemp threatened the lumber industry, among others, because it could provide better *everything* - paper lasts longer, ropes are stronger, clothes are more durable. The smear campaign launched against many drugs has been in the interest of preserving other business, regardless of their ability to provide a comprable product.
And, while some drugs are quite harmful from a public standpoint because of the way they cause people to act (PCP, alcohol, meth), other drugs are simply illegal for business reasons. The AMA originally found that marijuana had no reason to be illegal, yet the federal government classifies it as Schedule I: "(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse. (B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. (C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision."
Cocaine has a lower schedule because of it's accepted medical uses, whereas marijuana's countless studies about lack of physical addiction, medical benefit, insanely low toxicity, etc are thrown out the window because politicians won't touch the subject.
I think that a society that values a programatic approach to laws - both in writing them and interpreting them - is the best method.
Does anyone have a quick writeup of what versions of Windows are affected? The...summary...declares "32-bit versions of Windows" - so, just 32-bit - is that everything? Does it stop at XP? What about some poor fool running Windows ME - how is s/he going to cope or does s/he even have to worry? Is it really just 32-bit Windows versions or will this affect a 64-bit Windows install running a 32-bit version of Avira? I really appreciate it when we get a summary with no actual article on it, just links to Avira's forums and website.
You beat me to it! I had it ready to copy-edit - maybe/. should hire us to be editors? Of course, now I can do my own rewrite instead of the grammatically correct one you posted above:
I'm not bothering to RTFA, as from my standpoint I'm not too worried about software replacing photographers. Some conveniences will come into play - an automated system at Rite Aid to take your photo, maybe a kiosk downtown that takes your picture and then makes a caricature. But then, the summary seems to focus on rendering vs actual photographs, which I think we won't really see much of - sometimes it's easier to render, but most of the time you pay a lot less to have someone go out and snap 20 photos vs having a 3D designer toil away on sketches, mockups, renderings, etc.
No one's going to get killed if their PC gets pwned by malware in an image file
Hypothetical here, but: At a hospital, they request the help of a 3rd party designer for their upcoming charity event. Designer is sent to work on-site at hospital with PR department. The designer's computer is running Photoshop CS5 and the designer gets an e-mail from an unknown source. New to the people at the hospital, s/he figures it may be from one of them and it's flagged with "high importance" - inside is a PSD file named just cleverly enough to lend it some credibility (also note: designer != tech savy, the person may just be trusting or non-caring about these kinds of things). Designer opens said file, and it's blank - they shrug and continue working. Behind the scenes, however, the PSD file has taken advantage of said backdoor and remote attackers have begun sniffing the hospital's network, looking for more machines to pwn, and generally causing trouble. One of those machines is in radiology and running Windows XP.
Unlikely != impossible - and that's just one of many, many possible scenarios where someone could seriously be harmed by malware in an image file.
On the whole, I think this "solution" offered by Adobe is crap, but legally they're probably fine. The people who don't care will upgrade, those who don't care and/or don't have the means to upgrade will stay with CS5; the people that know better will either pirate CS6 or move off of Photoshop all together.
Agreed - if car ads have to show "Driver on a closed course" and "Sunroof option not available on all models" as a legal CYA, I don't see why advertisers for clothes should behave any differently. "Unrealistic and unsustainable body image shown. This person is a profession idiot - do not attempt."
I modded this up, so I apologize for taking it away (you're still +4 Interesting though!) I didn't really consider replying until I started reading some of the other replies. I would say that my own piracy has hurt the music industry, but then again I'm not sure about that. While I don't shell out for CDs because they'll get ripped and then immediately become either frisbees or coasters, I DO shell out for tickets, merchandise and DVDs (from bands...who the heck pays for movies?!?) I prefer to support bands by buying tickets, because then I'm also supporting local venues and, in some cases, local vendors where permitted. I can't justify buying CDs the way the music industry wants me to - I spent too much money in high school on "music" that would serve as a good soundtrack for a torture chamber (N*Sync, anyone?) There have been cases of purchasing CDs or vinyls for albums I really really enjoyed, but that's only after downloading the album first and really knowing that I could listen to the whole thing front-to-back and be satisfied the whole way through - buying a CD for one, maybe two good tracks is a terrible purchase, but it's the way the music industry continues to work.
Discussions like this happen all the time. A lot of proposals never see the light of day or have drastically changed when the source is finally pushed.
Exactly. So, this isn't really news for anyone except for someone on the UI team who missed the discussion - for the rest of us, this is "meh" and some filler until today's news cycle picks up (which, on/., means I'll finally figure out what happened Monday through Wednesday...of last week.)
this beasty combines genetic characteristics across plant, animal, and fungal kingdoms
This is never actually mentioned in the article, in fact...
From TFA (emphasis mine):
They found it doesn't genetically fit into any of the previously discovered kingdoms of life. It's an organism with membrane-bound internal structures, called a eukaryote, but genetically it isn't an animal, plant, fungi, algae or protist (the five main groups of eukaryotes).
To me, at least, that doesn't say that it necessarily has characteristics from all of those kingdoms, and certainly doesn't imply that it "combines" them.
I somewhat recall something about Adam having an "affair" with Lilith, and she in turn gave birth to man, and that's where the people in Nod (and elsewhere) came from.
But, you know, that doesn't quite fit EVERY religious version of history out there...
While it may not be an inalienable right, it certainly has been defended by the supreme court that freedom of speech applies in all situations.*
* Except for when it will offend other people who have no way of avoiding your free speech. For instance, you can't directly block the entrance to, say, an office building by exercising your 1st amendment rights if that's the only way for someone who is offended by your message to enter. You may not hold an offensive rally (think pro-Nazi rallies on college campuses) if your free speech prevents someone from going from point A to point B without being offended.
While there is no right not to be offended, the offender may have restrictions on their rights if they are making it unreasonable or impossible for someone else to go about their daily life.
I mean, seriously, Gawker's comment system is a wreck - as are the comment sections of most sites - and this doesn't really bother me. I think it could even be a Good Thing in some regards, as you're likely to find bigoted idiots posting something offensive in the comments for a new Mario Party game on Kotaku - it's ridiculous the things some people say on Gawker sites, enough so that I tend to avoid their sites in general these days (comments + terrible new layout = no thanks).
Slashdot Mirror
It's been said, roughly 1000 times, but I want to say it again anyways: are your fucking daft!? You're completely thinking of this from a male's perspective instead of empathizing with the new female joining the team. "It is guaranteed that there will be remarks, double entendres and innuendos with huge potential of getting worse" - so, you're team is all high school boys? Did you guys miss the memo about being polite in a workplace? What about just being respectful? Do you get on a bus and make lude comments to the women on it because it's how your mind works?
The best mitigation for this behavior is to disallow it from the get-go, and having an environment where this is the norm (be it all male or not, currently) is not a good thing from a business perspective. What if your team is making jokes like this on a day when a supervisor happens to pop in and be on the other side of the cubical wall? If you're going to act like jackasses, expect to be treated like it when you get FIRED for harassment.
(myself included)
Also, as long as we're on the topic, it's "IT'S," not "its."
(missing an apostrofee)
So far he's raised just over $100,000 for Bears Good, Cancer Bad. Also, the writeup doesn't really sum up the whole situation:
> Oatmeal's content was on FunnyJunuk
> Oatmeal asked them to remove said content, they kind of complied but not really
> Oatmeal writes blog post
> FunnyJunk threatens to sue
> Oatmeal starts campaign to raise $20,000 for Bears Good, Cancer Bad; ignores FunnyJunk threat
Some of FJ's complaints, particularly about the "attacks in your source code" part are so laughable you'd almost have to assume that this, in itself, some "funny junk" they're pulling for the lols. Do they seriously consider an ASCII pterodactyl to be a threat against FunnyJunk? Do they seriously think that the word "FunnyJunk" on a web page is taking away their status in Google's search results? FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk Slashdot doesn't like too much repitition FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk at least let's see if I can break it up FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk with some text here FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk come on, Slashdot FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk I just *know* that this will bump FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk your Google search results when people FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk search for FunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunkFunnyJunk
Watch out Slashdot, FJ is coming for you next for knocking them down in Google's results ZOMGTHEINTERNETTHISISHOWITWORKS!
Mod this guy up! An open, well-tested and well-monitored solution could someday be viable, but it has to be as open and clear as possible to avoid the problems associated with electronic voting, particularly over the internet. I think it will happen, but who knows when...probably when people start getting more unsatisfied with politics at a larger scale than they currently are.
Agreed, a lot of things came about either from religion or around the same time of religion, and both camps (and many religions) have borrowed from each other.
Slow down there, cowboy, I didn't mean to say that laws aren't good. I don't think we need religion as a basis for our laws or morals anymore though - I think we can all pretty much agree that there are things that shouldn't happen in society. I'm much more in favor of police than God smiting the evil-doers - of course, if he did, I suppose we'd have fewer police...
in the absence of the church?
I was very involved in church for a long time - grew up Episcopalian and then started going to "hardcore" non-denominational. After that, the religion kind of shed off like a good skin when I was younger, but blocking me personally as it didn't apply to the life I wanted to live...particularly because of the people. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people, regardless of religion, are nice and mean well in their religion. But I also knew plenty of people who wanted to push religion onto others with the "you're going to hell" and all that kind of talk, judging, stealing, fornicating, cheating on spouses, women in my congregation were approached on numerous occasions by our then-pastor who tried to force himself on them.
Catholicism is full of pedophiles.
Some angry people in the middle east have given Islam a terrible name because of their violence.
The jews...they've been through a lot but Israel does make me mad.
Hell, I'm sure there's been at least a buddhist or two who murdered, raped, stole, etc.
Throw in any religion and you find people who are really trying to do good, and those that don't CARE either way. Christians just happen to be the worst (IMHO) because they can just ask for forgiveness - there is a lack of honor at all, and when they say offensive things, push for offensive/restricting laws, or push they're religion forcefully they always point to Jesus or the Bible as justification.
I don't need religion for my morals - it may have helped teach them when I was growing up, but I eventually figured it out:
- Santa isn't real, and I can actually get what I want by having a job
- The Easter bunny isn't real, and I don't much care for chocolate anymore
- The tooth fairy isn't real and dental care is important as a matter of hygiene, not money
- Jesus isn't real and I don't need the fear of hell / the hope of heaven anymore to control myself or to be respectful to others
BTW "isn't real" - you can't prove it either way, but the evidence I have that those myths are just that far outweighs the other conclusions
Religion was great for values and ethics for early man because it was hard to get anyone to listen to one guy saying "Hey, don't do that" - much easier to listen to one guy saying "Hey, there's an ever-present, all-knowing being up there in the clouds that will totally not like it if you kill each other." These days, we should be able to get past this whole notion of "if you don't have religion, where do you get your morals?" This argument is plain ignorant in this day and age; morals/ethics/values/et al aren't something we need referenced from a book written by people who were spoken to by heavenly voices thousands of years ago - they are plain and simple guidelines that even children can understand: don't hurt others, don't kill, don't steal, don't etc. If a kid asks "why not?" we don't have to say "because God said not to" anymore, we can easily explain that those actions hurt others, and we wouldn't want someone doing that to us now would we?
Unfortunately, that may be what comes out of "stepping up." The fact is though, if they don't step up then corruption continues. So:
1) Officer A pulls over a young woman at night and asks to search her vehicle, only to commit an act against this woman (see: NY police as of late). Officer B gets a complaint filed against Officer A and decides it's best if A takes a vacation until everything cools down and, in the meantime, cans the report claiming it was lost or misplaced or whatever.
Things really worked out well, right? At least for the police.
2) Officer B takes the complaint and pushes for an investigation, gets one, and gets Officer A thrown out. A bunch of people really liked Officer A, and couldn't believe B would do that. B is out on a domestic violence call and, upon arriving, hears gun shots. He radios for backup - now, all of A's friends are still a little hot about the whole thing, so they take their time or "forget" or whatever. B gets shot and dies in the line of duty. Now, do you suppose that the SBI, FBI or anyone else would look into this situation? Why wasn't B given the backup he requested? Surely at least one other officer had to be nearby, right? Hmm, I guess heads would roll for letting something like that happen in the department.
It sucks that B would die in such a terrible way, but that's part of the problem - if we don't have good cops, then we just get bad cops. If good cops step up, they take many risks, but if they don't then they are just putting the citizens they are meant to SERVER AND PROTECT into harms way by letting corrupt, evil, twisted people wear uniforms and badges that are supposed to be symbolic of safety and honor.
"Thou shalt not *blah*" were fine when they were needed, the point is that we should be at a place in our societies where we can derive moral guidance from logic, not from old books. Laws have a role that requires them to evolve with society, and basing laws off of books that don't evolve leave us with ridiculous laws like "life starting 2 weeks before conception" - WTF is that? Anti-marriage laws are passed not because LGBT couples marrying hurts anyone, but because religious doctrine pushed in laws that should never have seen the light of day.
Granted, this issue has many facets - one being that THOSE OPPOSED RARELY GO AND VOTE. At least in these cases. I'm from NC and the recent passage or Amendment 1 is ridiculous, particularly because there are so many people I know who complain about it but didn't bother to take 15 minutes to fill out a ballot.
The foremost reason for the illegality of drugs is money (not "law and order") - plain and simple. Hemp threatened the lumber industry, among others, because it could provide better *everything* - paper lasts longer, ropes are stronger, clothes are more durable. The smear campaign launched against many drugs has been in the interest of preserving other business, regardless of their ability to provide a comprable product.
And, while some drugs are quite harmful from a public standpoint because of the way they cause people to act (PCP, alcohol, meth), other drugs are simply illegal for business reasons. The AMA originally found that marijuana had no reason to be illegal, yet the federal government classifies it as Schedule I: "(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision."
Cocaine has a lower schedule because of it's accepted medical uses, whereas marijuana's countless studies about lack of physical addiction, medical benefit, insanely low toxicity, etc are thrown out the window because politicians won't touch the subject.
I think that a society that values a programatic approach to laws - both in writing them and interpreting them - is the best method.
Does anyone have a quick writeup of what versions of Windows are affected? The...summary...declares "32-bit versions of Windows" - so, just 32-bit - is that everything? Does it stop at XP? What about some poor fool running Windows ME - how is s/he going to cope or does s/he even have to worry? Is it really just 32-bit Windows versions or will this affect a 64-bit Windows install running a 32-bit version of Avira? I really appreciate it when we get a summary with no actual article on it, just links to Avira's forums and website.
You beat me to it! I had it ready to copy-edit - maybe /. should hire us to be editors? Of course, now I can do my own rewrite instead of the grammatically correct one you posted above:
Avira totally pisses off customers.
I think that sums it up
> "easy-of-use"
> software replacing photographers = outsourcing?
I'm not bothering to RTFA, as from my standpoint I'm not too worried about software replacing photographers. Some conveniences will come into play - an automated system at Rite Aid to take your photo, maybe a kiosk downtown that takes your picture and then makes a caricature. But then, the summary seems to focus on rendering vs actual photographs, which I think we won't really see much of - sometimes it's easier to render, but most of the time you pay a lot less to have someone go out and snap 20 photos vs having a 3D designer toil away on sketches, mockups, renderings, etc.
How hard is it to start an editor flamewar these days? Ah, well, glad we could be civil about this...
Oh, just saw your UID - wow. Awesome. Dang.
:%s/Emacs/Vim/g
ftfy
No one's going to get killed if their PC gets pwned by malware in an image file
Hypothetical here, but: At a hospital, they request the help of a 3rd party designer for their upcoming charity event. Designer is sent to work on-site at hospital with PR department. The designer's computer is running Photoshop CS5 and the designer gets an e-mail from an unknown source. New to the people at the hospital, s/he figures it may be from one of them and it's flagged with "high importance" - inside is a PSD file named just cleverly enough to lend it some credibility (also note: designer != tech savy, the person may just be trusting or non-caring about these kinds of things). Designer opens said file, and it's blank - they shrug and continue working. Behind the scenes, however, the PSD file has taken advantage of said backdoor and remote attackers have begun sniffing the hospital's network, looking for more machines to pwn, and generally causing trouble. One of those machines is in radiology and running Windows XP.
Unlikely != impossible - and that's just one of many, many possible scenarios where someone could seriously be harmed by malware in an image file.
On the whole, I think this "solution" offered by Adobe is crap, but legally they're probably fine. The people who don't care will upgrade, those who don't care and/or don't have the means to upgrade will stay with CS5; the people that know better will either pirate CS6 or move off of Photoshop all together.
For the Love of Dog, someone mod this anon up!
Agreed - if car ads have to show "Driver on a closed course" and "Sunroof option not available on all models" as a legal CYA, I don't see why advertisers for clothes should behave any differently. "Unrealistic and unsustainable body image shown. This person is a profession idiot - do not attempt."
I modded this up, so I apologize for taking it away (you're still +4 Interesting though!) I didn't really consider replying until I started reading some of the other replies. I would say that my own piracy has hurt the music industry, but then again I'm not sure about that. While I don't shell out for CDs because they'll get ripped and then immediately become either frisbees or coasters, I DO shell out for tickets, merchandise and DVDs (from bands...who the heck pays for movies?!?) I prefer to support bands by buying tickets, because then I'm also supporting local venues and, in some cases, local vendors where permitted. I can't justify buying CDs the way the music industry wants me to - I spent too much money in high school on "music" that would serve as a good soundtrack for a torture chamber (N*Sync, anyone?) There have been cases of purchasing CDs or vinyls for albums I really really enjoyed, but that's only after downloading the album first and really knowing that I could listen to the whole thing front-to-back and be satisfied the whole way through - buying a CD for one, maybe two good tracks is a terrible purchase, but it's the way the music industry continues to work.
Discussions like this happen all the time. A lot of proposals never see the light of day or have drastically changed when the source is finally pushed.
Exactly. So, this isn't really news for anyone except for someone on the UI team who missed the discussion - for the rest of us, this is "meh" and some filler until today's news cycle picks up (which, on /., means I'll finally figure out what happened Monday through Wednesday...of last week.)
From The Herp Derp Summary:
this beasty combines genetic characteristics across plant, animal, and fungal kingdoms
This is never actually mentioned in the article, in fact...
From TFA (emphasis mine):
They found it doesn't genetically fit into any of the previously discovered kingdoms of life. It's an organism with membrane-bound internal structures, called a eukaryote, but genetically it isn't an animal, plant, fungi, algae or protist (the five main groups of eukaryotes).
To me, at least, that doesn't say that it necessarily has characteristics from all of those kingdoms, and certainly doesn't imply that it "combines" them.
I somewhat recall something about Adam having an "affair" with Lilith, and she in turn gave birth to man, and that's where the people in Nod (and elsewhere) came from.
But, you know, that doesn't quite fit EVERY religious version of history out there...
While it may not be an inalienable right, it certainly has been defended by the supreme court that freedom of speech applies in all situations.*
* Except for when it will offend other people who have no way of avoiding your free speech. For instance, you can't directly block the entrance to, say, an office building by exercising your 1st amendment rights if that's the only way for someone who is offended by your message to enter. You may not hold an offensive rally (think pro-Nazi rallies on college campuses) if your free speech prevents someone from going from point A to point B without being offended.
While there is no right not to be offended, the offender may have restrictions on their rights if they are making it unreasonable or impossible for someone else to go about their daily life.
I mean, seriously, Gawker's comment system is a wreck - as are the comment sections of most sites - and this doesn't really bother me. I think it could even be a Good Thing in some regards, as you're likely to find bigoted idiots posting something offensive in the comments for a new Mario Party game on Kotaku - it's ridiculous the things some people say on Gawker sites, enough so that I tend to avoid their sites in general these days (comments + terrible new layout = no thanks).