I don't trust strangers but if you think this should be "expected" then you must have serious problems functioning in a society with other people. If I realized someone saw my password and thought "hey, maybe they'll plant child porn on my computer, report it to the police and alert the media to ruin my life and send me to prison for god-knows-how long" then I'd be an hermit living in a cave far, far away from everyone else.
If I realized someone knew my password, I'd change the thing as fast as I could, precisely for those reasons.
Perhaps it's that my main introduction to computing was in high school, where we (and others) were constantly trying to sneak things past the librarians (such as Ultima games on the library computer) or hiding Doom on the lab machines, but I am extremely cautious about my user account. I am certainly paranoid about someone knowing my login credentials, because I know exactly the sort of dreck someone could stick in my profile if they were out to be mean. I don't go around actively assuming that people are out to screw me, but at the same time I'm very aware of the fragility of "my" user account. To behave otherwise is irresponsible and naive.
Ah, if only I could edit to add something I forgot: Others have mentioned that courts have ruled that seeding isn't infringement; I think this is incorrect, but would be happy to be proved wrong. If you have references you can link (or a Ray Beckerman citation;)) which indicates this, by all means please do... but until I see that explained by a lawyer, I think I will err on the side of caution.
I believe you misunderstand the "making available" issue.
When you make a file available, it's not infringement.
When your computer actually sends bits of that file to another computer, however, it is infringement. In short, seeding or otherwise sending people copies (or partial copies) of a copyrighted work is still infringement, no matter how you obfuscate or subdivide the file. Even a single bit would be infringing, if the colour were such that the downloader knew which bit of a copyrighted work it was.
A hallucination of an event which they all claim to have seen? I find it hard to believe that people would all be hallucinating the same thing at the same time.
my sister is quite possibly the most selfish and arrogant person to walk this planet
It's much easier and more accurate to say "my sister is a bitch" which everyone understands more clearly.
I disagree. When one says "Jane is a bitch", we are not being precice. Which of these do we mean?
- she's deliberately mean to others - she's arrogant - she's selfish - she's inconsiderate - her obsession with the rules annoys everyone - she's someone's lackey - she's confident and I'm threatened by that
All of these could be implied by "bitch" -- whether we use it about someone that cuts us off in traffic, or about the nosy busybody across the street that is measuring our grass to ensure it meets HOA regulations. Simply saying "she's a bitch" is not at all accurate enough, at least not when trying to educate a child. If Jane is a bitch, considier elaborating why at least some of the time: "Jane is inconsiderate and mean-spirited".
"Jane's a bitch" is much easier to use, I grant, but I don't see how anyone can consider it more accurate or informative.
Videos are harder to edit in an unobtrusive way. They still have the bias of the cameraman (you can't see what's off-screen), and anyone talking may likely be biased (or perhaps even lying)... but it's still valuable. Not everyone that posts a video is making stuff up; people posting videos where they talk about corruption may simply be doing it so that you can (a) see that the audio hasn't been spliced together and (b)identify the speaker as a Person, not as just Some Guy. Reading an article on the web (or in a paper) has less weight than watching a person speak to you. (Not that it SHOULD, but it does.)
as soon as I can avoid any interaction with law enforcement for around 15 years and then drop a couple hundred dollars (at least) on a lawyer to do it for me.
Avoiding interaction with law enforcement: I assume you mean don't get arrested for anything, and don't get speeding tickets/etc, right? Is this all that difficult to do? Living ethically and in a low-profile manner (e.g., obeying speed limits, paying taxes) seems like it would make this pretty easy -- wouldn't you already be behaving this way?
Drop a few hundred on a lawyer: Really? This is peanuts compared to having your criminal record altered. If anything, consider it as additional cost of buying your first gun - you'd already be spending money on instruction, hardware, ammo, and possibly range membership. A one-time fee to a lawyer is a drop in the bucket.
That's a really good point. For gaming, I have to use my dominant hand. I/cannot/ play Starcraft left-handed, for example, or FPSes. Using a paint program usually is OK, but sometimes I have to swap hands if I get frustrated. I'm having to think too much about the input, I guess.
How many people know about this awesome tool, though? It's not built-in, and many neophyte users wouldn't even know it existed. (I haven't used Linux in so long, I didn't know Go existed either.)
I mouse with my left hand at work, and my right while playing games or surfing the web at home. I've been doing this for almost eight years, now that I think about it. I found that NOT swapping the buttons, but merely changing which hand I hold the mouse with, works beautifully. May I ask what problems you are having with learning to mouse with a different hand?
For me, it started when I was playing Counter-strike enough to make my wrists hurt. So, at work, I started using a pen tablet with my right (dominant) hand. However, some thing just seemed to work better with a mouse, so I kept my mosue on the left side of the keyboard. Eventually, I just kept using it that way. It helps that I don't think of using the mouse in terms of which finger I press, but rather which side the button is on.
It's interesting, though. Do we like these kinds of games because we are innately gifted at such puzzle-solving, or did playing those games make us good at it? Did I like playing with Lego because I had (have?) good 3d-visualization skills and common engineering-sense, or did I develop that from playing with Lego?
I was astounded to see how much I've (unconsciously) learned by playing FPS games. I tried to introduce my father in law to COD4, and watching him puzzle out how to look around, move, and do both, was both fascinating and cringe-inducing. I guess it's what drivers feel when they like watch non-drivers learn.
If they're going to hire someone for a pre-planned amount of time, they should put that in the employment contract. "You are being hired for X months. At the end of this time, you will either be promoted to something better, or let go". This lets the employee plan for being let go, rather than think that they might have a fair shot at a normal job.
Of course, the company won't want to do that - they won't think the employee is invested in the company if they're already looking for the next job. (A company that wants to hire people for only a short period like that, though, isn't very invested in the employee either.)
1. I should spend a month or two of engineering time to write specifications for a block that isn't part of my core competency?
Don't try to describe it all, just point out that function calls X/Y/Z are used, point them out, and talk about what they're expected to do.
I don't believe the "implemented in a week" claim, but at least someone could build a black box that might meet your needs. If you said, "This sorts the $FLORBS", or "This needs to quickly calculate checksums for integrity" or "This needs to do ${COMPLICATED_MATH} quickly on ${STUFF}", people can at least try to implement it. An inefficient but working implementation will meet some people's needs, even if your proprietary drivers use code thich has been heavily optimized for speed, reliability, or correctness. Assuming anyone cares enough to write them.
$40M before taxes. Let's say that you lose 90% of that to taxes... that's still $4M. That would be enough for me to buy my house, my car, my parents' houses, fund my child's education, fund graduate degrees for me and my wife in any field I cared about, build my own archery range, and so forth. It's pretty damned close to "never work again" for anyone that would spend it frugally... or at the very least, "not worry about Social Security Failing".
It's hard to not notice that there's SOME level of difference in income when friends are struggling to make rent, or invite you to go boating with them. One of my closest friends is struggling to find work that pays decently. Some of my other friends have been well-paid, single engineers for longer than I've been out of school, and have therefore been able to buy house(s), boats, RVs, and many other toys which I will never be able to afford. (Eh, that's the price of marriage and a kid.:))
Don't go talking about income with everyone, but chances are your true friends will still be your friends even if they know you make more than they do, and leeches (should there be any) will have already recognized your comparative wealth even if you say nothing.
I have projects to complete, and they have to be done on time. Nobody cares if I take a week vacation or a week of jury duty or whatever. However, projects still need to be done on time. If I spend a week in a jury box, that means I spend a week of my OWN TIME catching up. So, either way I'm not compensated for that time.
If your employer does not adjust project planning and your personal deadlines to reflect you doing your legally required duty, you're working for the wrong people. If they fire you for not completing stuff while you're on jury duty, would that be able to be considered wrongful termination?
The logic here is that these are special privileges granted to journalists, and that bloggers and sites like wikileaks do not qualify for them. If everyone who puts up a post about what they had for lunch is suddenly a journalist, then everyone will have those privileges
If, on the other hand, the blogger chooses to blog about local political corruption, or the abuses they witness commited by local police, why should they not be accorded the same priveleges and held to the same responsibilities? What differentitates someone who investigates for The Daily Rag from someone who investigates and publishes on his personal blog? How is a newspaper (or Time Magazine, or the WSJ) fundamentally different from a collective of bloggers who have organized to publish information on abuse, corruption, or wartime errors? (I'm not saying that Wikileaks is any of these.)
Selling papers and getting eyeballs is not always at odds with publishing things of vital interest to the public.
When in the past when propaganda has masqueraded as fact, it has often been denounced in history books as "yellow journalism". When investigative reporters have delved deeply into affairs others might wish private, and worked hard to inform the public, it has often resulted in both critical acclaim and very good sales -- such as in the cases of the Watergate scandal and of Edward R. Murrow's opposition to McCarthy.
The journalism that we as a culture claim to hold most dear is investigative reporting of critically important information. (Paparazzi and gossip mags/shows seem to indicate that the Other Kind is highly valued by masses of people too.) Wikileaks does the collection and dissemination of things in a similar vein, though it doesn't editorialize to the same degree that most reporters would need to in order to write an article or produce a TV show. I don't see how it can't be considered journalism, though.
Any person who didn't already know that civilian casualties occur in wars would have to be a drooling moron. What new information did wilikeals bring to the table? What do we know now about wars that we didn't know before Pope Assange the First graced us with his presence?
Sure, mistakes happen in war. We know now, however, what the price in civilian lives has been for our "war". We know how many civilians have been killed, how many times we've screwed up and had friendly fire accidents, etc. It helps the civilian population decide that at some point, the cost of policing some other country isn't worth the number of soldiers we've lost plus the number of civilians we've accidentally killed.
It's harder to keep supporting conflict in another country, ostensibly a "revenge" mission to prevent future terrorism, once we've learned that we've killed more civilians in their country than they have in ours, or that we've lost more soldiers there than they killed here, etc.
Perhaps, given that they don't enjoy the taste of alcohol, they don't really understand the draw of drinking it "for fun".
I drink only rarely because other stuff tastes better, doesn't give me a headache, and doesn't impair my function. Taste is a big factor, though -- I've had some tasty drinks on vacation that were quite nice.
I'd rather drink Dr. Pepper or even water nearly any day of the week.
Exactly. I rather dislike seeing IMDB links for this reason. Why not link to the Wikipedia page for the film, or even simply say "the Running man", and hyperlink that to IMDB? It's much more courteous to the reader. Wikipedia links have the benefit of being nearly as easy to search for as IMDB movie links yet still being human-readable.
If there's not enough demand for it, then you're unlikely to have many other seeders -- in which case they're still paying for the bandwidth. If you talk to them, they might be fine with it -- go ask! If you have bandwidth to donate, awesome, but I imagine that the current holders of the bits can't afford the costs of seeding.
OTOH, imagine how awesome it would be to be able to read these on your IPad or similar, after downloading some 10-30 gig torrent. Perhaps there is a "market" for it, in terms of having enough people to support a torrent. I hope so.
Slashdot Mirror
If I realized someone knew my password, I'd change the thing as fast as I could, precisely for those reasons.
Perhaps it's that my main introduction to computing was in high school, where we (and others) were constantly trying to sneak things past the librarians (such as Ultima games on the library computer) or hiding Doom on the lab machines, but I am extremely cautious about my user account. I am certainly paranoid about someone knowing my login credentials, because I know exactly the sort of dreck someone could stick in my profile if they were out to be mean. I don't go around actively assuming that people are out to screw me, but at the same time I'm very aware of the fragility of "my" user account. To behave otherwise is irresponsible and naive.
Ah, if only I could edit to add something I forgot: Others have mentioned that courts have ruled that seeding isn't infringement; I think this is incorrect, but would be happy to be proved wrong. If you have references you can link (or a Ray Beckerman citation ;)) which indicates this, by all means please do... but until I see that explained by a lawyer, I think I will err on the side of caution.
I believe you misunderstand the "making available" issue.
When you make a file available, it's not infringement.
When your computer actually sends bits of that file to another computer, however, it is infringement. In short, seeding or otherwise sending people copies (or partial copies) of a copyrighted work is still infringement, no matter how you obfuscate or subdivide the file. Even a single bit would be infringing, if the colour were such that the downloader knew which bit of a copyrighted work it was.
Have you considered buying a keyboard with a working shift key? Capitalization would make your prose much easier to read.
A hallucination of an event which they all claim to have seen? I find it hard to believe that people would all be hallucinating the same thing at the same time.
I disagree. When one says "Jane is a bitch", we are not being precice. Which of these do we mean?
- she's deliberately mean to others
- she's arrogant
- she's selfish
- she's inconsiderate
- her obsession with the rules annoys everyone
- she's someone's lackey
- she's confident and I'm threatened by that
All of these could be implied by "bitch" -- whether we use it about someone that cuts us off in traffic, or about the nosy busybody across the street that is measuring our grass to ensure it meets HOA regulations. Simply saying "she's a bitch" is not at all accurate enough, at least not when trying to educate a child. If Jane is a bitch, considier elaborating why at least some of the time: "Jane is inconsiderate and mean-spirited".
"Jane's a bitch" is much easier to use, I grant, but I don't see how anyone can consider it more accurate or informative.
Videos are harder to edit in an unobtrusive way. They still have the bias of the cameraman (you can't see what's off-screen), and anyone talking may likely be biased (or perhaps even lying)... but it's still valuable. Not everyone that posts a video is making stuff up; people posting videos where they talk about corruption may simply be doing it so that you can (a) see that the audio hasn't been spliced together and (b)identify the speaker as a Person, not as just Some Guy. Reading an article on the web (or in a paper) has less weight than watching a person speak to you. (Not that it SHOULD, but it does.)
Avoiding interaction with law enforcement: I assume you mean don't get arrested for anything, and don't get speeding tickets/etc, right? Is this all that difficult to do? Living ethically and in a low-profile manner (e.g., obeying speed limits, paying taxes) seems like it would make this pretty easy -- wouldn't you already be behaving this way?
Drop a few hundred on a lawyer: Really? This is peanuts compared to having your criminal record altered. If anything, consider it as additional cost of buying your first gun - you'd already be spending money on instruction, hardware, ammo, and possibly range membership. A one-time fee to a lawyer is a drop in the bucket.
That's a really good point. For gaming, I have to use my dominant hand. I /cannot/ play Starcraft left-handed, for example, or FPSes. Using a paint program usually is OK, but sometimes I have to swap hands if I get frustrated. I'm having to think too much about the input, I guess.
How many people know about this awesome tool, though? It's not built-in, and many neophyte users wouldn't even know it existed. (I haven't used Linux in so long, I didn't know Go existed either.)
I mouse with my left hand at work, and my right while playing games or surfing the web at home. I've been doing this for almost eight years, now that I think about it. I found that NOT swapping the buttons, but merely changing which hand I hold the mouse with, works beautifully. May I ask what problems you are having with learning to mouse with a different hand?
For me, it started when I was playing Counter-strike enough to make my wrists hurt. So, at work, I started using a pen tablet with my right (dominant) hand. However, some thing just seemed to work better with a mouse, so I kept my mosue on the left side of the keyboard. Eventually, I just kept using it that way. It helps that I don't think of using the mouse in terms of which finger I press, but rather which side the button is on.
It's interesting, though. Do we like these kinds of games because we are innately gifted at such puzzle-solving, or did playing those games make us good at it? Did I like playing with Lego because I had (have?) good 3d-visualization skills and common engineering-sense, or did I develop that from playing with Lego?
I was astounded to see how much I've (unconsciously) learned by playing FPS games. I tried to introduce my father in law to COD4, and watching him puzzle out how to look around, move, and do both, was both fascinating and cringe-inducing. I guess it's what drivers feel when they like watch non-drivers learn.
If they're going to hire someone for a pre-planned amount of time, they should put that in the employment contract. "You are being hired for X months. At the end of this time, you will either be promoted to something better, or let go". This lets the employee plan for being let go, rather than think that they might have a fair shot at a normal job.
Of course, the company won't want to do that - they won't think the employee is invested in the company if they're already looking for the next job. (A company that wants to hire people for only a short period like that, though, isn't very invested in the employee either.)
Don't try to describe it all, just point out that function calls X/Y/Z are used, point them out, and talk about what they're expected to do.
I don't believe the "implemented in a week" claim, but at least someone could build a black box that might meet your needs. If you said, "This sorts the $FLORBS", or "This needs to quickly calculate checksums for integrity" or "This needs to do ${COMPLICATED_MATH} quickly on ${STUFF}", people can at least try to implement it. An inefficient but working implementation will meet some people's needs, even if your proprietary drivers use code thich has been heavily optimized for speed, reliability, or correctness. Assuming anyone cares enough to write them.
$40M before taxes. Let's say that you lose 90% of that to taxes ... that's still $4M. That would be enough for me to buy my house, my car, my parents' houses, fund my child's education, fund graduate degrees for me and my wife in any field I cared about, build my own archery range, and so forth. It's pretty damned close to "never work again" for anyone that would spend it frugally... or at the very least, "not worry about Social Security Failing".
It's hard to not notice that there's SOME level of difference in income when friends are struggling to make rent, or invite you to go boating with them. One of my closest friends is struggling to find work that pays decently. Some of my other friends have been well-paid, single engineers for longer than I've been out of school, and have therefore been able to buy house(s), boats, RVs, and many other toys which I will never be able to afford. (Eh, that's the price of marriage and a kid. :))
Don't go talking about income with everyone, but chances are your true friends will still be your friends even if they know you make more than they do, and leeches (should there be any) will have already recognized your comparative wealth even if you say nothing.
If your employer does not adjust project planning and your personal deadlines to reflect you doing your legally required duty, you're working for the wrong people. If they fire you for not completing stuff while you're on jury duty, would that be able to be considered wrongful termination?
If, on the other hand, the blogger chooses to blog about local political corruption, or the abuses they witness commited by local police, why should they not be accorded the same priveleges and held to the same responsibilities? What differentitates someone who investigates for The Daily Rag from someone who investigates and publishes on his personal blog? How is a newspaper (or Time Magazine, or the WSJ) fundamentally different from a collective of bloggers who have organized to publish information on abuse, corruption, or wartime errors? (I'm not saying that Wikileaks is any of these.)
Selling papers and getting eyeballs is not always at odds with publishing things of vital interest to the public.
When in the past when propaganda has masqueraded as fact, it has often been denounced in history books as "yellow journalism". When investigative reporters have delved deeply into affairs others might wish private, and worked hard to inform the public, it has often resulted in both critical acclaim and very good sales -- such as in the cases of the Watergate scandal and of Edward R. Murrow's opposition to McCarthy.
The journalism that we as a culture claim to hold most dear is investigative reporting of critically important information. (Paparazzi and gossip mags/shows seem to indicate that the Other Kind is highly valued by masses of people too.) Wikileaks does the collection and dissemination of things in a similar vein, though it doesn't editorialize to the same degree that most reporters would need to in order to write an article or produce a TV show. I don't see how it can't be considered journalism, though.
That's great and true, but doesn't help us much if we're the ones on the inside that will be routed around by the rest of the world.
Sure, mistakes happen in war. We know now, however, what the price in civilian lives has been for our "war". We know how many civilians have been killed, how many times we've screwed up and had friendly fire accidents, etc. It helps the civilian population decide that at some point, the cost of policing some other country isn't worth the number of soldiers we've lost plus the number of civilians we've accidentally killed.
It's harder to keep supporting conflict in another country, ostensibly a "revenge" mission to prevent future terrorism, once we've learned that we've killed more civilians in their country than they have in ours, or that we've lost more soldiers there than they killed here, etc.
How does harassment differ from a compliment? (Not that I'd say that to someone on the street or at work, I'm just curious.)
Perhaps, given that they don't enjoy the taste of alcohol, they don't really understand the draw of drinking it "for fun".
I drink only rarely because other stuff tastes better, doesn't give me a headache, and doesn't impair my function. Taste is a big factor, though -- I've had some tasty drinks on vacation that were quite nice.
I'd rather drink Dr. Pepper or even water nearly any day of the week.
Exactly. I rather dislike seeing IMDB links for this reason. Why not link to the Wikipedia page for the film, or even simply say "the Running man", and hyperlink that to IMDB? It's much more courteous to the reader. Wikipedia links have the benefit of being nearly as easy to search for as IMDB movie links yet still being human-readable.
If there's not enough demand for it, then you're unlikely to have many other seeders -- in which case they're still paying for the bandwidth. If you talk to them, they might be fine with it -- go ask! If you have bandwidth to donate, awesome, but I imagine that the current holders of the bits can't afford the costs of seeding.
OTOH, imagine how awesome it would be to be able to read these on your IPad or similar, after downloading some 10-30 gig torrent. Perhaps there is a "market" for it, in terms of having enough people to support a torrent. I hope so.