Any parent would - which doesn't make it a good idea. We are fundamentally built to look after our own best interests, not those of humanity as a whole.
.Forgeting about "morality" for a second -- which is a distinctly human concept
Wait, what? Last I checked, we all were human... so is this human concept, which has evolved along with us over millions of years, somehow wrong?
but isn't the scenario you postulate *exactly* what natural selection is all about
Of course it is, albeit accelerated by many, many orders of magnitude. But by that logic we should go ahead and kill off anyone with genes that say they've increased risk for disease today, it's only a matter of a few hundred thousand generations before their lines die off anyway.
Re:One gene != one characteristic
on
Designer Babies
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· Score: 2, Insightful
They're not choosing on the vast majority of the genes in the human genome. Your hair color, for example, doesn't really confer any selective advantage when it comes to resitance to infectious disease. Diversity, even among those superficial genes, also probably won't be lost
Wait, do you have some insight into genetics that you've been holding out from the rest of the world? Or are you trying to say that because we have only found one purpose for a given gene means that there must only be one purpose?
Re:This too was foreseen
on
Designer Babies
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Sorry, but I'm 100% in favor of non-cosmetic Eugenics. Maybe you'd feel the same if you knew someone with cancer, diabetes or countless other horrible conditions.
I/had/ cancer, and I"m still not sure that I'm in favor of it. The thought of the current relatively minor money-based class separation eventually becoming codified genetically (this service ain't gonna be cheap) is more than a little disturbing.
You eventually end up with the descendants of the wealthy and middle class (yay consumer finance) who are guaranteed no major health problems, and the descendants of the poor who remain prone to the many diseases. These people are already at a disadvantage financially, now they become a heavy burden on a society since the only ones who actually get seriously ill.
How many generations until the healthy class stops paying for them?
But what if they weren't just getting their facts from AP stories? What if they also got facts from another hot-news source that had information the AP didn't? Shouldn't they be able to combine the facts from two stories in a new narrative to create a more complete story?
It seems other useful actions may run afoul of this, including providing a translation service. Are only the people who read a hot news item's original published languages deserving to be informed?
Well, isn't the point that they're NOT doing these things? If they were, perhaps the suit would not have come up...
However, this is being posted on an astro physics website.
And as such, wouldn't it make sense that they assume certain knowledge (such as the fact that the impact of events here on Earth will occur on a timeline relative to the distance from the event) without needing to spell it out?
Would you expect a math journal to explain how addition works before using it in a proof?
As for how forgiving you'd be: we'll see if that's still true when tens of thousands of your users suddenly can't open a critical document without crashing or other instability.
It's ultimately a judgment call: they need to decide if getting an urgent patch out is worth the risk that an urgent patch introduces. In the case of a product with this large an installed userbase, and given the fact that this hole has been out there for quite a while already, I think that they took the only responsible course of action available. Though I'm not going to get into the stupidity of allowing embedded script in the first place...
As anyone who has developed complex software with a large installed userbase can attest to, you/cannot/ simply slap together a fix and push it out to millions of people.
Even the simplest one line code change change requires extensive (if targeted) testing when you operate on that scale - the consequences of an "oops" that could result from a hasty fix could easily get far worse than the original issue.
Before that's possible, a standard would need to emerge and be respected by all web browsers. Right now, everyone kind of does their own thing...
I think that can help; but only for a subset of situations. If the URL in the address bar appears to match the site in the window, and the little icon is present, that would be as far you can get most people to go. Which won't help the larger issue of URLs crafted to look legit when they're not (coupled with MIM 'attacks')
Am I missing something? Was the book somehow related to management, or retaining employees, or...? Because I find it odd to think that he'd sent, say, the first book of Wheel of Time to everyone while commenting on how management might benefit from a little reading.
Education won't actually help. Most users do not know what a certificate is for. They have been trained to know that if a secure icon is present it's good. Many will have a basic knowledge that a secure connection is a sign that the info they send can't be eavesdropped; and maybe that it has something to do with being stored safely on the bank's (or whatever) web site.
When web browsers or people start talking about certificates, eyes glaze over. Most people don't know what a certificate is. If they get an expired warning, or get denied due to a cert being self-signed, they have no idea what that means - beyond the fact that something is preventing them from completing their transaction. At this point they get frustrated, not educated.
Now: all of this/can/ theoretically be fixed with education. But most computer users don't want to be educated. They want to go make their purchase, and be reasonably comfortable in the fact that a) their information is only seen by the people they want, and b) that nobody is going to steal it.
BUsiness and people have gone a long way to making the web accessible and friendly to non-technical people. e-commerce and banking web sites are built around analogies designed to make people think of a storefront transaction - and when you're making a transaction with a store or a bank, you know who you're working with because you went there yourself. Trying to educate people that the storefront transaction that they've long since trained to accept as the real thing, might not actually be the real thing, is a losing battle.
Phrased differently: try explaining the concept that even though someone drove to the bank, they might not be at the bank unless the teller shows them official identification. And then try explaining that even when the teller shows identification, they STILL might not be who they say, you should also call the official bank phone number and see if the teller's phone rings. But wait, even THAT isn't enough, you should contact the state licensing board to ensure that yes, they licensed THIS TELLER to handle your money.
This would be great, except that most users don't read warnings. They click through them in whatever looks like the most likely path to allow them to finish what they started.
Cruelty by definition implies intent, or at minimum an emotional state of being. Do you really think this was something done intentionally or maliciously?
Yet it's probably a safe assumption that nearly all iPhone owners will have a PC or Mac as well - and those devices/can/ access the Internet.
Just because a single device can't access content does not mean that a user can't access it. While I think the phrasing attributed to Adobe is a bit iffy, I also think it's fairly safe to say that 99% of Internet users can view Flash-based content.
Check my journal for my concern with google analytics in my websites. Until I can be sure that it won't cause me downtime as shown, I won't/can't use it.
Erm.... this had nothing to do with Mozilla. Sun's java updater installed a firefox plugin. Mozilla didn't install it. Mozilla didn't endorse it. In fact, all mozilla did was build a browser.
There are technical reasons for DNS as part of the low-level plumbing of the internet, certainly, but are there really any good reasons for a non-technical user to be aware of it?
Of course there are. It gives you a specific and presumably permanent location that Person or Company X may always be found at.
Saying that search or directories can somehow replace this is like saying we could business addresses with the yellow pages.
Slashdot Mirror
Valid point. Let's talk about it when we have universal health care...
Any parent would - which doesn't make it a good idea. We are fundamentally built to look after our own best interests, not those of humanity as a whole.
.Forgeting about "morality" for a second -- which is a distinctly human concept
Wait, what? Last I checked, we all were human... so is this human concept, which has evolved along with us over millions of years, somehow wrong?
but isn't the scenario you postulate *exactly* what natural selection is all about
Of course it is, albeit accelerated by many, many orders of magnitude. But by that logic we should go ahead and kill off anyone with genes that say they've increased risk for disease today, it's only a matter of a few hundred thousand generations before their lines die off anyway.
They're not choosing on the vast majority of the genes in the human genome. Your hair color, for example, doesn't really confer any selective advantage when it comes to resitance to infectious disease. Diversity, even among those superficial genes, also probably won't be lost
Wait, do you have some insight into genetics that you've been holding out from the rest of the world? Or are you trying to say that because we have only found one purpose for a given gene means that there must only be one purpose?
Sorry, but I'm 100% in favor of non-cosmetic Eugenics. Maybe you'd feel the same if you knew someone with cancer, diabetes or countless other horrible conditions.
I /had/ cancer, and I"m still not sure that I'm in favor of it. The thought of the current relatively minor money-based class separation eventually becoming codified genetically (this service ain't gonna be cheap) is more than a little disturbing.
You eventually end up with the descendants of the wealthy and middle class (yay consumer finance) who are guaranteed no major health problems, and the descendants of the poor who remain prone to the many diseases. These people are already at a disadvantage financially, now they become a heavy burden on a society since the only ones who actually get seriously ill.
How many generations until the healthy class stops paying for them?
If you were really sorry, you would not post anonymously ;)
Also, disable the embedded reader for PDFs... that way no documents can be opened without your knowledge.
But what if they weren't just getting their facts from AP stories? What if they also got facts from another hot-news source that had information the AP didn't? Shouldn't they be able to combine the facts from two stories in a new narrative to create a more complete story? It seems other useful actions may run afoul of this, including providing a translation service. Are only the people who read a hot news item's original published languages deserving to be informed?
Well, isn't the point that they're NOT doing these things? If they were, perhaps the suit would not have come up...
However, this is being posted on an astro physics website.
And as such, wouldn't it make sense that they assume certain knowledge (such as the fact that the impact of events here on Earth will occur on a timeline relative to the distance from the event) without needing to spell it out?
Would you expect a math journal to explain how addition works before using it in a proof?
As for how forgiving you'd be: we'll see if that's still true when tens of thousands of your users suddenly can't open a critical document without crashing or other instability.
It's ultimately a judgment call: they need to decide if getting an urgent patch out is worth the risk that an urgent patch introduces. In the case of a product with this large an installed userbase, and given the fact that this hole has been out there for quite a while already, I think that they took the only responsible course of action available. Though I'm not going to get into the stupidity of allowing embedded script in the first place...
As anyone who has developed complex software with a large installed userbase can attest to, you /cannot/ simply slap together a fix and push it out to millions of people.
Even the simplest one line code change change requires extensive (if targeted) testing when you operate on that scale - the consequences of an "oops" that could result from a hasty fix could easily get far worse than the original issue.
Before that's possible, a standard would need to emerge and be respected by all web browsers. Right now, everyone kind of does their own thing...
I think that can help; but only for a subset of situations. If the URL in the address bar appears to match the site in the window, and the little icon is present, that would be as far you can get most people to go. Which won't help the larger issue of URLs crafted to look legit when they're not (coupled with MIM 'attacks')
Ahh, ok - thanks; makes a bit more sense in that context :)
Am I missing something? Was the book somehow related to management, or retaining employees, or...? Because I find it odd to think that he'd sent, say, the first book of Wheel of Time to everyone while commenting on how management might benefit from a little reading.
Education won't actually help. Most users do not know what a certificate is for. They have been trained to know that if a secure icon is present it's good. Many will have a basic knowledge that a secure connection is a sign that the info they send can't be eavesdropped; and maybe that it has something to do with being stored safely on the bank's (or whatever) web site.
When web browsers or people start talking about certificates, eyes glaze over. Most people don't know what a certificate is. If they get an expired warning, or get denied due to a cert being self-signed, they have no idea what that means - beyond the fact that something is preventing them from completing their transaction. At this point they get frustrated, not educated.
Now: all of this /can/ theoretically be fixed with education. But most computer users don't want to be educated. They want to go make their purchase, and be reasonably comfortable in the fact that a) their information is only seen by the people they want, and b) that nobody is going to steal it.
BUsiness and people have gone a long way to making the web accessible and friendly to non-technical people. e-commerce and banking web sites are built around analogies designed to make people think of a storefront transaction - and when you're making a transaction with a store or a bank, you know who you're working with because you went there yourself. Trying to educate people that the storefront transaction that they've long since trained to accept as the real thing, might not actually be the real thing, is a losing battle.
Phrased differently: try explaining the concept that even though someone drove to the bank, they might not be at the bank unless the teller shows them official identification. And then try explaining that even when the teller shows identification, they STILL might not be who they say, you should also call the official bank phone number and see if the teller's phone rings. But wait, even THAT isn't enough, you should contact the state licensing board to ensure that yes, they licensed THIS TELLER to handle your money.
This would be great, except that most users don't read warnings. They click through them in whatever looks like the most likely path to allow them to finish what they started.
Aha, good to know - thanks.
Cruelty by definition implies intent, or at minimum an emotional state of being. Do you really think this was something done intentionally or maliciously?
Well said. Not that GP will get it, he seemed to be having too much fun tossing insults about ;)
Yet it's probably a safe assumption that nearly all iPhone owners will have a PC or Mac as well - and those devices /can/ access the Internet.
Just because a single device can't access content does not mean that a user can't access it. While I think the phrasing attributed to Adobe is a bit iffy, I also think it's fairly safe to say that 99% of Internet users can view Flash-based content.
Check my journal for my concern with google analytics in my websites. Until I can be sure that it won't cause me downtime as shown, I won't/can't use it.
Combine 15% truth with 85% bullshit, and voila! Instant troll mix!
But hey, don't let the facts get in your way...
Pronounce it dhup if you wish. Me, I pronounce it "George" every time I read it.
There are technical reasons for DNS as part of the low-level plumbing of the internet, certainly, but are there really any good reasons for a non-technical user to be aware of it?
Of course there are. It gives you a specific and presumably permanent location that Person or Company X may always be found at.
Saying that search or directories can somehow replace this is like saying we could business addresses with the yellow pages.