How can I, as an average reader, distinguish between a shill and a legitemate reviewer? I see that the author of this review has a blog on which he's reviewed two (maybe more?) of the Packt books, but it's possible that that's because he is active in the field and found genuine value in the book.
I'm still more likely to buy the Pragmatic one, but this I felt was a good review: it focused on what was in the book: cookbook style, mainly focused on UI (rather than the SDK), etc. These are all very valuable things to know about a book if I'm looking to buy one (I am), because it helps me choose a book based on content, not merely on a 7/10 (or 4/10) review score. I dont' care as much about the review score when I read one here, and more on what sorts of topics it covers and any weaknesses that are identified.
Those same tools can be (ab)used to implement a police state, where every other citizen is (potentially) your enemy, and you are considered a potential-terrorist by every law enforcement officer.
Increasing the threshold of effort needed to investigate someone will reduce the number of people investigated (and thus) prosecuted; police don't like that, as it makes their job harder. Politicians don't like it, as they appear "soft on crime/pedos/terrorists" to the constituents.
Reducing the threshold of effort needed to investigate someone means that more people (eventually everyone) will be under investigation, constantly, even when the laws say we should not be, until (if ever) agencies are called on it and a suit or trial is successfully executed to force them to stop. It's a slippery slope.
If we had universal black boxes in cars that recorded your speeding, the result would not be that fewer people would speed, but that the state would say "cha-ching!" and prosecute us all. (Currently, many people speed "safely" and officers often only arrest those that are flagrantly disregarding the safety of others while driving.) If a database exists on everyone, the likelihood of fishing expeditions (if not the legality), or even probabalistic crime-prevention (e.g. Minority Report, with more actuaries and less psychics) increases dramatically. If the FBI or any other enforcement agency could put tracking devices on all of our vehicles, they WOULD, because it makes enforcement/research easier. Instead of having to actively tail someone, they can simply look up a handly web interface tying their database with some mapping software and see where anyone's been, or where they are. (We see this all the time in science-fiction shows like CSI.)
The laws will (intially) say that such surveillance can only be enacted with a warrant (or probable cause); I'm pretty sure most of us would be OK with that, if we could depend on the laws being followed and not changed later to be less restrictive. In practice, they'll collect everything they can (Google's adventures with Street View's network data shows that this is possible to do inadvertantly), and then argue that it doesn't constitute search until they query the database. At that point, it's a trivial matter to expand the effective power of the surveillance by writing another web app, or a set of database triggers which notify them whenever anyone does something "suspicious" (like buy a one way plane ticket, or order black powder for ammo reloading).
History shows us that such things are easy to foist upon the populace by degrees, that beaureaucracies will follow precedents that make their job easier (even if the legal hasn't been challenged), and that such systems WILL be abused. Recall the bruhaha from a year ago (a couple of years?) when AT&T was wiretapping mass amounts of communication for the government. Implementers of the policy will be granted immunity for doing it, and the agencies involved will either deny it ever happening or classify it as secret enough that we're not allowed to talk about it (or gather evidence).
In a perfect world, this wouldn't happen. I'm sure it doesn't happen to the degree that we fear, but the potential is still there, and human nature makes us believe that it will eventually happen. Who ever thought two decades ago that we'd be (electronically) strip searched and forced to take off our shoes in order to fly on an airplane? You're free to dismiss this as tin-foil-hat nuttery, but look at the sort of information which J Edgar Hoover gathered (illegally? I forget) because he could, and imagine what a few People With Power (or committees) could do with this technology if they decided to act immorally or illegally. The next iteration of McCarthyism would be directly enabled by technology like this to be far more invasive and destructive.
However, I'm sure they're quite capable of coming up with any reason for Not Hiring You, such as "we thought candidate Y had a more desirable skillset".
Wait until you read about the immigration checkpoints in Arizona. It's a rabbit hole of WTF with similar time-wasting potential as a link to TVTropes, but with added horror.
If you drive with less {sufficient} "spare" braking distance at {any} speed you don't deserve a license.
In many areas, such as all of southern California (it seems), no one leaves sufficient baking distance between them and the car in front of them. (I regularly try.) If you do, people cut in front of you to fill the space, until there's generally about two to four car lengths of space between any given car... going 70 miles per hour. Most peoples' stopping time is a lot farther than that, and we (collectively) are basically gambling that we'll notice when the guy five cars in front of us puts on his brake lights. That's pretty reasonable for "normal" rush-hour traffic, but completely idiotic when you factor in that some people that are far within your braking distance might have an unexpected reason to stop (collision, car trouble, someone cuts them off, mattress falls off the truck in front, etc).
This is mitigated somewhat by absolute paranoia while driving -- expecting that people will cut you off, and making room so they can safely do so -- but I'm pretty certain that almost no one on the southern california highways drives safely enough... including me, I'm ashamed to say.
I've read several accounts of this happening at stores like Best Buy - things are either incorrectly re-boxed, or the like. When you buy any electronic equipment, insist at the door that they open the box and verify that what is inside is what you bought -- instead of, say, floor tiles or an old stapler. This protects you from the nightmare of trying to return it, because they will never believe you when you say, "yes, but the box never had the product in it".
The original poster never said that the thieves were armed, merely that they were loading your stuff into a large truck. (Heck, masquerading as movers would be a pretty ballsy but probably effective con: your neighbors might never realize it wasn't for real.)
My point was that if you're not being physically threatened, it's better to gather evidence than to dispense vigilante justice. If you ARE being threatened, respond with necessary force to preserve your life and others. I agree wholeheartedly about the value of armed citizens when violent crime happens (even as I realize that this could lead to an escalation in what the criminals assume you are carrying).
If they're stealing your stuff at gunpoint, you let them take it, and offer them cookies. Better than dead, and you have insurance. If they aren't waving guns at you, you have no reason to point a gun at THEM (except in very few jurisdictions where lethal force is OK to use to stop crimes against property, rather than people). Moreover, it's much more legal (I assume in most places) to videotape someone than to shoot them (or threaten to shoot them).
By definition, nerds pedantically correct people's statements for the sake of accuracy (of minutiae, or to show off knowledge). Being different is a side effect of other people generally not caring about correctness in detail.:)
His point was that 1st-world armies don't use silencers, normally (as that would require subsonic rounds), and that other armies can't be choosy enough to do so either.
It's far better to shoot the thieves with a video camera and then use the video evidence to apprehend them later. Physical possessions can (mostly) be replaced. Of course, if they threaten you with bodily harm for filming them....
Does the contract specify the means by which one is tethering? If you're not using the tethering service they offer, is that still covered by the contract?
I'm not sure I agree. Sure, I'd LIKE to know that a potential associate/coworker/babysitter had been convicted or something, and I imagine it's beneficial to the employer to be able to look for that. However, it seems like it basically counters the idea that a criminal can reform. If people don't feel like they have a chance to reform, to repent their mistakes and live life better (rather than being permanently branded, virtually or not, with their past mistakes), what incentive do they have to do so?
I'd prefer the idea that an ex-carjacker can turn their life around and be a force for good in their community. I realize it's idealistic, but there's NO chance of that happening if we (society, etc) don't let them move on once their court-mandated punishment is done. I believe that's excessive punishment.
- Google has all of the pirated links, Isohunt only has some of them.;) - I thought IsoHunt had been fairly quick on takedowns when requested? I might be mixing them up with someone else.
Consider Minesweeper, Angry Birds, Robot Unicorn Attack, and the myriad Tower Defense games. Sure, they don't cost a lot to make, but seemingly everyone and their mom has played something of roughly that caliber of game. That seems like the market to aim for, frankly.
Slashdot Mirror
The Chronicles of Hefner?
They're trading music in Fight Club? Ouch, that's some hard core dedication to sharing.
Find an indie artist and use different music for your youtube videos. You can still be ethical.
How can I, as an average reader, distinguish between a shill and a legitemate reviewer? I see that the author of this review has a blog on which he's reviewed two (maybe more?) of the Packt books, but it's possible that that's because he is active in the field and found genuine value in the book.
I'm still more likely to buy the Pragmatic one, but this I felt was a good review: it focused on what was in the book: cookbook style, mainly focused on UI (rather than the SDK), etc. These are all very valuable things to know about a book if I'm looking to buy one (I am), because it helps me choose a book based on content, not merely on a 7/10 (or 4/10) review score. I dont' care as much about the review score when I read one here, and more on what sorts of topics it covers and any weaknesses that are identified.
Those same tools can be (ab)used to implement a police state, where every other citizen is (potentially) your enemy, and you are considered a potential-terrorist by every law enforcement officer.
Increasing the threshold of effort needed to investigate someone will reduce the number of people investigated (and thus) prosecuted; police don't like that, as it makes their job harder. Politicians don't like it, as they appear "soft on crime/pedos/terrorists" to the constituents.
Reducing the threshold of effort needed to investigate someone means that more people (eventually everyone) will be under investigation, constantly, even when the laws say we should not be, until (if ever) agencies are called on it and a suit or trial is successfully executed to force them to stop. It's a slippery slope.
If we had universal black boxes in cars that recorded your speeding, the result would not be that fewer people would speed, but that the state would say "cha-ching!" and prosecute us all. (Currently, many people speed "safely" and officers often only arrest those that are flagrantly disregarding the safety of others while driving.) If a database exists on everyone, the likelihood of fishing expeditions (if not the legality), or even probabalistic crime-prevention (e.g. Minority Report, with more actuaries and less psychics) increases dramatically. If the FBI or any other enforcement agency could put tracking devices on all of our vehicles, they WOULD, because it makes enforcement/research easier. Instead of having to actively tail someone, they can simply look up a handly web interface tying their database with some mapping software and see where anyone's been, or where they are. (We see this all the time in science-fiction shows like CSI.)
The laws will (intially) say that such surveillance can only be enacted with a warrant (or probable cause); I'm pretty sure most of us would be OK with that, if we could depend on the laws being followed and not changed later to be less restrictive. In practice, they'll collect everything they can (Google's adventures with Street View's network data shows that this is possible to do inadvertantly), and then argue that it doesn't constitute search until they query the database. At that point, it's a trivial matter to expand the effective power of the surveillance by writing another web app, or a set of database triggers which notify them whenever anyone does something "suspicious" (like buy a one way plane ticket, or order black powder for ammo reloading).
History shows us that such things are easy to foist upon the populace by degrees, that beaureaucracies will follow precedents that make their job easier (even if the legal hasn't been challenged), and that such systems WILL be abused. Recall the bruhaha from a year ago (a couple of years?) when AT&T was wiretapping mass amounts of communication for the government. Implementers of the policy will be granted immunity for doing it, and the agencies involved will either deny it ever happening or classify it as secret enough that we're not allowed to talk about it (or gather evidence).
In a perfect world, this wouldn't happen. I'm sure it doesn't happen to the degree that we fear, but the potential is still there, and human nature makes us believe that it will eventually happen. Who ever thought two decades ago that we'd be (electronically) strip searched and forced to take off our shoes in order to fly on an airplane? You're free to dismiss this as tin-foil-hat nuttery, but look at the sort of information which J Edgar Hoover gathered (illegally? I forget) because he could, and imagine what a few People With Power (or committees) could do with this technology if they decided to act immorally or illegally. The next iteration of McCarthyism would be directly enabled by technology like this to be far more invasive and destructive.
They'll argue (and likely get court approval) that refusing to get a fingerprint is sufficient probable cause for further investigation.
However, I'm sure they're quite capable of coming up with any reason for Not Hiring You, such as "we thought candidate Y had a more desirable skillset".
Wait until you read about the immigration checkpoints in Arizona. It's a rabbit hole of WTF with similar time-wasting potential as a link to TVTropes, but with added horror.
If you drive with less {sufficient} "spare" braking distance at {any} speed you don't deserve a license.
In many areas, such as all of southern California (it seems), no one leaves sufficient baking distance between them and the car in front of them. (I regularly try.) If you do, people cut in front of you to fill the space, until there's generally about two to four car lengths of space between any given car... going 70 miles per hour. Most peoples' stopping time is a lot farther than that, and we (collectively) are basically gambling that we'll notice when the guy five cars in front of us puts on his brake lights. That's pretty reasonable for "normal" rush-hour traffic, but completely idiotic when you factor in that some people that are far within your braking distance might have an unexpected reason to stop (collision, car trouble, someone cuts them off, mattress falls off the truck in front, etc).
This is mitigated somewhat by absolute paranoia while driving -- expecting that people will cut you off, and making room so they can safely do so -- but I'm pretty certain that almost no one on the southern california highways drives safely enough... including me, I'm ashamed to say.
For anyone who's ever been to one, you know that there are good dealers and bad dealers. You need to know which is which.
How does one (especially someone new to a computer fair) discriminate the good dealers from the bad ones? What precautions do you suggest taking?
I've read several accounts of this happening at stores like Best Buy - things are either incorrectly re-boxed, or the like. When you buy any electronic equipment, insist at the door that they open the box and verify that what is inside is what you bought -- instead of, say, floor tiles or an old stapler. This protects you from the nightmare of trying to return it, because they will never believe you when you say, "yes, but the box never had the product in it".
So ... to recover, you put the disk in a new / different Mac, create an account with the same passphrase, and then log in?
The original poster never said that the thieves were armed, merely that they were loading your stuff into a large truck. (Heck, masquerading as movers would be a pretty ballsy but probably effective con: your neighbors might never realize it wasn't for real.)
My point was that if you're not being physically threatened, it's better to gather evidence than to dispense vigilante justice. If you ARE being threatened, respond with necessary force to preserve your life and others. I agree wholeheartedly about the value of armed citizens when violent crime happens (even as I realize that this could lead to an escalation in what the criminals assume you are carrying).
If they're stealing your stuff at gunpoint, you let them take it, and offer them cookies. Better than dead, and you have insurance. If they aren't waving guns at you, you have no reason to point a gun at THEM (except in very few jurisdictions where lethal force is OK to use to stop crimes against property, rather than people). Moreover, it's much more legal (I assume in most places) to videotape someone than to shoot them (or threaten to shoot them).
By definition, nerds pedantically correct people's statements for the sake of accuracy (of minutiae, or to show off knowledge). Being different is a side effect of other people generally not caring about correctness in detail. :)
His point was that 1st-world armies don't use silencers, normally (as that would require subsonic rounds), and that other armies can't be choosy enough to do so either.
It's far better to shoot the thieves with a video camera and then use the video evidence to apprehend them later. Physical possessions can (mostly) be replaced. Of course, if they threaten you with bodily harm for filming them ....
Are we contractually obligated to behave in the way that they expected us to, though?
Does the contract specify the means by which one is tethering? If you're not using the tethering service they offer, is that still covered by the contract?
Usually they just tell us they're not increasing salaries, because they need to invest in X, Y, and Z, inflation be damned. (:
I'm not sure I agree. Sure, I'd LIKE to know that a potential associate/coworker/babysitter had been convicted or something, and I imagine it's beneficial to the employer to be able to look for that. However, it seems like it basically counters the idea that a criminal can reform. If people don't feel like they have a chance to reform, to repent their mistakes and live life better (rather than being permanently branded, virtually or not, with their past mistakes), what incentive do they have to do so?
I'd prefer the idea that an ex-carjacker can turn their life around and be a force for good in their community. I realize it's idealistic, but there's NO chance of that happening if we (society, etc) don't let them move on once their court-mandated punishment is done. I believe that's excessive punishment.
- Google has all of the pirated links, Isohunt only has some of them. ;)
- I thought IsoHunt had been fairly quick on takedowns when requested? I might be mixing them up with someone else.
And soon, they will execute that plan!
Sorry, my kid's been watching too much Bolt.
Consider Minesweeper, Angry Birds, Robot Unicorn Attack, and the myriad Tower Defense games. Sure, they don't cost a lot to make, but seemingly everyone and their mom has played something of roughly that caliber of game. That seems like the market to aim for, frankly.
Size matters not.
(: