So what you're saying is that RMS has the simplistic world view of a toddler, where everything is black and white, and no middle ground exists - say, where a person creating a book, or film, or song, is happy to share his creation with the world, but stipulates that anybody wanting to take a copy of that work should give him $2 as compensation? In this world view, either you share everything with everybody, or you share nothing and exist in isolation.
Any "forced" sharing or "forced" compensation is morally wrong. If a musician says, "I have created this song. If you want a copy, I want $1 from you," then there are three possible scenarios: 1) Is the song valuable to you? Do you enjoy it? Do you believe that $1 is an reasonable trade for the value that song represents to you, and are you okay with the "don't share with other people" restriction? If so, then conclude the transaction. 2) Is the song not valuable to you? Why would you want to take a copy at all, then? Patronize musicians whose business model and asking price are more palatable to you. 3) Is the song of some value to you, but you either disagree with the price or the "no redistribution" stipulation? Then open a negotiation with the musician - if you reach an agreement that both of you are happy with, conclude your transaction. If you can't reach a mutually agreeable plan, then the song is not worth the price, and you walk away from the transaction.
That is it - there is no "right" for you to take whatever you want whenever you want it. There is no "right" for the musician to take money from you if you don't want to give it - any answer to this "problem" that does not involve a mutually agreeable voluntary transaction between the purchaser and the seller is immoral.
Incidentally - why is it that people who hold this simplistic world view are also some of the most vocal critics of social media? If sharing is always ethical, shouldn't anything that encourages more sharing be an unequivocally ethical thing as well? And why do you care if somebody else gets value out of what you've shared? Sharing shouldn't have a price tag associated with it, right?
Bad example. Actually, as the owner of the dog, I have been potentially deprived of something - the market for that dog's sperm.
And by this argument, as the creator of a book, song, or film, I have been deprived of the market for my movie/film/song by your giving copies to other people for free.
So I'm not clear - you say you support sharing as long as it's not for financial gain... but then you say that giving something away (or providing a free copy of something) is depriving the creator/original owner of that item a market for their product.
You seem to be arguing that filesharing is okay, but you're trying to paint that the scenario above, where you're "deprived of a market for your product," is somehow injurious to you. So if someone's sharing activity is damaging to you... then how can it be morally correct? Whether they do it for a profit, or do it for free, it's simply a matter of how MUCH they've harmed you, not a question of whether or not they're harming you.
There are limitless applications of the internet which may deserve higher priority.
Let's consider a natural disaster - say, a massive earthquake and tsunami hits just off the coast of San Francisco - not inconceivable, and we saw the devastation wrought by just such an event in Japan just a little over a year ago.
So, you've got entire towns wiped out, roads impassable, electricity, phone, water service completely offline, but let's imagine cell service is still largely intact in the area. Now, think back to the last time you were anywhere like a sports event or other place where thousands of people congregated all at once, and think about how shitty or non-existent cell phone service was because the service was simply overloaded.
So... who should have higher priority for access to that limited bandwidth in an emergency situation? You, to make dick jokes on Twitter, or a group of rescue and emergency management personnel trying to save lives and establish control in the affected area?
I'm pretty sure you can make a GREAT case for government agencies getting priority access during emergencies. Your twitter one-liners do not take precedence over someone else's life.
reporting of the situation to keep the populace informed
This is far better accomplished by press releases and news conferences delivered BY the people directing relief efforts than it is to look for #ZOMGEarthquake hashtags on twitter. Local reports can be *compelling* but they do little to help people understand the scope or scale of the event, they do little to help emergency responders understand what's happening, and frankly, "the populace's" understanding of the event - at least that portion of the populace not directly endangered by the event - is less urgent than finding and rescuing survivors. That's a great reason to give the responders priority access.
routing food and water to those in need
And who do you think is going to be doing this? Right, FEMA, and your state EMA. Not random people via twitter. So you just argued a second time that government should get priority access in emergency situations.
just getting on with things if you're on the same cloud and not in the emergency area.
Anybody who can say the following with a straight face and mean it is a sociopath: "I know that those people are dying over there, but I *really* need to get to youtube to watch a dancing cat video." If saving people's lives in the aftermath of a disaster requires them to knock youtube offline for a while, then tough shit, disconnect and go get some fresh air.
Therefore, in September 2006, the design of the LG Prada was known and clearly was available to Apple.
Yes, and since Apple was no doubt testing prototypes long before September 2006, what's your point?
Do you think that shaking out design, hardware, and software bugs is something they would do in the final week of December?
The "lost" iPhone 4 prototype was lost in March, the hardware didn't go on sale until June. Three months ahead of the announcement, they had functional prototypes that looked like the finished model.
Yet you're suggesting that they didn't have any functional prototypes just 3 months before the announcement of the device? That's a rather extraordinary claim, considering Steve Jobs got up on stage with the phone in January - apparently you think they managed to design the entire case in just 3 months, and that they did it long after all the internals and software were written for it.
Mostly feel smugly superior that your phone has features that you don't use, but love to talk about on Slashdot.
If every person who talks about "freedom" and "hackability" and "modifying the source" every time Android phones come up was ACTUALLY writing software for them and hacking them? The Android Marketplace would have a lot more software in it than it does.
And I bet Apple has functional test models that look pretty startlingly like the finished iPhone that predate September 2006. If there was any merit to the "they copied it" thing, LG would have already put Apple through the wringer in court, and they would have won.
Yeah, there's a lot of "implication" and "innuendo," but there's no real evidence pointing to any misbehavior.
The "actual fact" is that Jobs was on the list for at least a month or two before he bought the house, numerous doctors were involved in assessing his candidacy and eligibility, and there is nothing that a single doctor could do to "speed up" his transplant - even if he gave that doctor an 850,000 house for free, the doctor would still need to convince other doctors and list administrators that his patient was a better candidate, and should somehow be at the top of the list. Is there evidence of Eason or Jobs paying off the other medical professionals involved in donor organ assignment? I see nothing in any of the links to indicate that there is.
Realistically, I expect what happened is Jobs bought the house only to recover in, with the intention of selling it after he recovered, and the doctor, having been to the house numerous times to followup with his patient, took a shine to the house and said "Hey, if you're selling it, I'm definitely interested. This is a nice place."
If there were "kickbacks" of some sort, I'd think Jobs could make the deal a little sweeter than "here, you can have the house I recovered in at my cost, doctor." I'd expect something more like, "Here doc, have a house." or "Here doc, why don't you let me buy you that house, an Aspen ski lodge, and a Tuscan villa for vacationing."
Not particularly, given his finances and the fact that he had a team of lawyers advising him about every deal he made. This could easily have been purchased this way for tax and liability reasons, with the expectation that it was a short-term purchase - buy the house, recover there, then sell it again as soon as you're done with it. When you have billions, sometimes it's worth a couple tens of thousands in lawyer's fees to set up a holding corporation to save some money and protect your assets.
It is of course fairly obvious the home was only purchased to game the transplant waiting list system in place in the U.S.
Why would you conclude that? He doesn't have to own a residence in the area to be on their list. He could have just as easily stayed at a rental property, or anywhere else that would allow him to reside there temporarily - heck, if he had a friend in Memphis, he could have easily just stayed at their place if they were willing to put him up.
To get on the list, he would have had to pay listing fees, and go through a battery of tests and interviews in each region he wanted to be on the list for - this is *certainly* where his money helped him ("average" people's insurance only pays for a single listing in their home region, and tests + travel + interviews + time off work is out of the reach of many regular folks), but there is no requirement that he have a residence in the region to get listed - just that he be able to travel to the transplant location within a certain time frame (this is where that private jet comes in handy, too).
You may be right, but I think you're putting too much weight on that subsidy.
Consider: 1) Component costs will continue to go down, meaning the cost to build will be lower, making it easier to lower the price of old models and still make a profit; 2) Apple will make some money off of book, music, video, and app sales to you; 3) Once you've bought an iPad, you're at least slightly more likely to keep buying Apple when you decide to upgrade, since you'll have an existing set of apps and other data, plus familiarity with the platform. 4) This move would open up the iPad to a wider worldwide audience, meaning more unit sales (and if you're selling an extra million units each quarter, even if you're making a small profit there, it's money you wouldn't otherwise have gotten, because the people buying the cheap models wouldn't have bought the expensive latest-and-greatest. 5) It opens up a wider market, and costs them absolutely zero r&d / engineering time. Why build a whole different product for "downmarket" segments, when you can just sell your last year's product for a bit cheaper?
Yep, and it may take them another year or two to begin the "market segmentation by model year" strategy like they're doing with the iPhone - they only announced that with the iPhone 4S release, don't forget. But I think it's fairly inevitable that they'll do it with the iPad, because it's been fairly successful with the iPhone, and requires almost no additional engineering effort.
And let's be honest - if early next year, with the iPad 4/Next Next Generation / New New iPad/whatever, they say: iPad 4: $499 iPad 3: $199 (or $249) iPad 2: $99 (or $149)
That'd be a pretty interesting segmentation strategy - iPad 3 will still be quite capable next year, and somebody looking to buy might suddenly find a lower price tag a lot more compelling a reason to buy. And if you're just browsing the web, reading, checking email? No need to update unless/until it stops working, or security becomes an issue if they stop issuing security updates to the version you're running.
Even $150 is hard to justify for an ultraportable product that I know I am going to drop and break eventually.
I'm sorry to hear about your muscular dystrophy. Please understand that most of us are not afflicted with that condition, and so carrying around a portable device does not generally come with a massive fear of dropping and smashing that device. If you take normal safety precautions with the device (i.e., don't treat it like a fucking Nerf football), there should be no danger of dropping and smashing a portable device. In fact, an iPad can hold up under a far more substantial fall than a laptop, which people regularly spend thousands of dollars on. By that measure of value, the iPad is a steal.
It is also worth noting that the introductory price for the [Bugatti Veyron Super Sport] - [1.65 million Euros] - has yet to be significantly challanged by any Veyron-killer coming to market. If it's really "overpriced" at that point, where are the host of competitors that offer the same (or better) features for a lower price?
First - the Bugatti *is* a luxury-only brand. Only 300 Bugatti Veyrons were made for sale, period, end of story. The iPad has sold tens of millions of units - 67.1 million, as of March. This Bugatti example is a red herring, and seems mostly based on the premise that "anything I can't personally afford is overpriced." I'm sorry to hear that your finances are so tight, but that doesn't mean that anything out of your price range is "overpriced." It simply means you can't afford it.
And when Apple does with the iPad what it started doing with the iPhone 4S, there goes that magical $199 price point: "The new iPad starts at $499. Last year's model is now $199, and the model before that is now $99." And for what it's worth - my first generation iPad is working just fine with the latest iOS release on it, I use it daily. 2 year old iPads would still work quite well for "light" usage.
It's also worth noting that the introductory price for the iPad - $499 - has yet to be significantly challenged by any "iPad killer" coming to market. If it's really "overpriced" at that point, where are the host of competitors that offer the same (or better) features for lower price? Motorola, Samsung, RIM and HP have all tried to compete around that price point, and the general response to all of those tablets is that they were junk.
The reason I linked to that was not for its overall conclusion, but more for the text at the very top talking about real-world examples.
Sorry, you can't "selectively" cite the parts of the study that support your argument while ignoring the bits that disagree with your fundamental premise. If you can't address them, you simply undermine your own point.
one explanation could be that there are some (even if not many) people are themselves "negatively" impacted by pornography
In other words, you have no fucking clue, but that won't stop you making shit up in an attempt to "prove" your point is valid. Do you have data to support your hypothetical explanation? No? Objection sustained, hypothesis rejected.
I know I was a child, and I know I knew the difference.
Yeah, and eyewitnesses are pretty much always unreliable. So if you're basing your entire argument on "I don't think I would have had any problems with that as a child, based on what I remember of being a child," then again: your point is irrelevant, and invalid.
I told them that I believe they're wrong, not that they are.
Go back and read what you wrote. You said "it's stupid." "it's wrong." "you're paranoid." Not "I believe that there are more effective ways." You also have yet to offer any credible scientific evidence that your suggestions are any better than blocking access, and you keep on focusing in on trying to "win" the disagreement through semantic sleight of hand. If you have a viable alternative to suggest, then by all means suggest it. But don't pretend that your opinion is any more fact-based than anybody else's opinion, unless you're prepared to back it up with facts. All you've done so far is try to throw question on the facts that HAVE been presented to you by saying, "I wonder how many kids are affected that way. I wonder what percentage of people this is a problem for." If you were really wondering those things, you'd be reading the data presented to you, and researching it. Attempting to cast doubt on the facts you're presented with while offering none of your own that would counter those facts or paint a substantially different picture simply suggests that you're trolling. And given that you account for nearly 10% of the posts in this comment thread, I suspect that's exactly what's happening.
For one thing, how do you know they're parents?
Because they've said so.
Why did they even need to be mentioned?
Because somebody who has *actually* spent time doing the work under discussion has some inherent credibility when speaking to its complexities and difficulties. Somebody whose knowledge of parenting comes strictly from what they've thought about while reading the fucking summary at the top of the page lacks that credibility.
Consider it this way: You're presented with 2 employees who disagree on a product strategy: one is an engineer with 5 years of relevant domain experience, the other is a kid fresh out of college with nothing but a couple years of book learning. Experienced engineer says, "We should do X," and accompanies that advice with facts and persuasive logic. Wet behind the ears kid says, "We should do Y," and accompanies that with a lot of petty semantic quibbling about the validity of experienced engineer's data, and no supporting evidence, data, or logic of his own. You're the manager, you're telling me you're going to overrule your experienced engineer with actual facts, experience & logic, in favor of an inexperienced new hire who doesn't know anything about the problem domain other than what he read in a book once, maybe?
He posted it publicly and was therefore open to criticism.
He posted a public question, not a public Request for Comments. You've proceeded to was
Way to dodge the question. I'll put it in here again, so you can answer it:
Why would we need to show preferred role models and "better pornography," if porn is fine and not harmful at all as it is?
So they can't tell that video games are fantasy?
In many ways, NO, they cannot. They are still learning cause and effect; They are still learning what's "real" and what's "imaginary" - If you've ever spent time around a child, you'd know that they frequently mimic behaviors, speech, and activities they've seen on television. Because that is one important way children learn: by watching the adults around them, and mimicking the behaviors, speech patterns, and activities of adults. A child who is sexually immature is not ready physically to learn about sex in graphic and clinical terms such as you'll see in porn, and they are not ready for it emotionally, either.
In light of this, it is entirely reasonable - and well within a parents' prerogative - to block access to porn (and any other "harmful" influence they wish). You've spent dozens of posts here telling a bunch of parents how wrong they are to want to raise their children in a manner they feel appropriate, and yet you can offer no evidence or argument as to why what they wish to do is harmful to the children. Numerous parents, on the flip side, have pointed out studies where prolonged exposure to porn has negative effects on a person's view of sexuality and ability to form intimate bonds with real people.
In summation: Your agreement is not required, and your sanction was not requested. If you have nothing to offer a parent looking for software that will help him block his children from accessing objectionable content, why bother crapping up the entire comment thread with your untested, unproven, and unsupported theories of child rearing?
First, we're not talking about "children growing up to be rapists" as a result of porn. Do you even bother to read the bullshit you're linking? your own link concludes:
I think it is better to expend our energies in two directions. 1) Make better pornography so that preferred role models are portrayed and more segments of society can come to appreciate or at least understand and tolerate its value; and 2) turn our research to other directions to eliminate or reduce the social ills of rape and other sex crimes. The best place to look is probably in the home during the first decade of life. But it is only by research that we can continue to understand how to most effectively meet this social challenge. Governments as well as the pornography industry itself would do well to finance and encourage such research.
Why would we need to show preferred role models and "better pornography," if porn is fine and not harmful at all as it is? There is a difference between *criminal behavior as a result of porn,* and long-term exposure to porn influencing children with unhealthy attitudes towards sex that will actually decrease their ability to have functional intimate relationships with others. Again: you need not be a rapist or a pedophile to have an unhealthy attitude towards sex.
Wait... lack credibility?
Yes, lack credibility. I didn't stutter. It's not an ad hominem attack to point out: 1) The study I linked concludes that prolonged exposure to porn reduces sensitivity to victims of sexual assault; 2) Your argument that preventing someone from displaying a video of someone being raped constitutes intolerable censorship shows a profound lack of sensitivity to victims of sexual assault; 3) You are claiming there are no negative consequences of prolonged (and early) exposure to porn, while exhibiting signs of one of the negative influences found in the NIH's study;
Given 1, 2 and 3 above - it's not an ad hominem attack to suggest that your unverified claims that "porn is fine for kids, trying to limit their unfettered access to it is intolerable!" lacks credibility. It is entirely consistent with the facts in evidence. To help you, an "ad hominem" attack would be to say, "cheekyjohnson is kind of a mouthy douchebag who shits up Slashdot. Therefore his views on porn are wrong." It is not an ad hominem attack to say, "Cheekyjohnson shows at least one of the negative signs found to be a result of long term exposure to porn. Therefore his unsubstantiated claims that 'porn is fine and never harmful,' are suspect, and lack credibility."
It's great to see that you agree with my opinion that pornography isn't harmful in most cases.
Sure, it's mostly in children and the mentally impaired that it can be harmful - because they lack the mental function to distinguish between "fantasy" and "reality," and that critical lack can lead to sexual and intimacy problems as adults. So we're agreed - it's perfectly reasonable to block your children's access to porn until they're mentally and emotionally capable of being exposed to it.
To be clear: I have no problem with porn. I enjoy it on occasion, and have even enjoyed it with girlfriends. That does not mean I believe it is appropriate, beneficial, or just "no big deal," to show porn to my children. There are influences that I'd prefer they not be subjected to until they're older - and if the technological means exists to help me prevent that influence, I will certainly use it, and it is entirely reasonable to do so. I don't want my daughter growing up thinking she needs implants to be sexy, or that bending over for every guy she meets will make her popular. I also don't want my son growing up believing that girls are nothing more than dick holsters who should be used and discarded at every opportunity. When they're older and do get exposed to porn, as they inevitably will, it will be wi
By the way, you have no idea whether or not I'm "insensitive" or simply reject censorship to such a degree that it doesn't matter.
That you would argue un-ironically that someone should be able to publicly display a video they recorded of someone's sexual assault pretty much answers the question of whether or not you're "insensitive."
Your bullshit about "rejecting censorship" sounds very nice, but any claim of rejecting censorship that says "It's fine to harm other people with my actions and speech," displays a lack of sensitivity so fundamental that you should probably be screened for autism-spectrum disorders, if you don't already have a diagnosis.
How accurate is the study? Does it provide actual, real-world evidence that conclusively shows that it's a problem for many people, and then links this to pornography?
Translation: I can't be assed to read it, or any of the references, because it might challenge my preconceptions, or I might be forced to offer counter-evidence. Since they disagree with me, I will simply hand-wave away the only concrete facts that have been presented to me.
That likely has nothing to do with pornography.
Actually, given the finding that prolonged exposure to pornography promotes insensitivity to victims of sexual assault, and given the fundamentally shocking insensitivity of the claim that someone SHOULD be allowed to display a video in which someone is being sexually assaulted, I'd say your arguments about how you're "totally fine!" after prolonged and early exposure to porn lack a certain credibility. I've provided a study conducted by the NIH that says long exposure to porn promotes these attitudes - do you have a piece of evidence that can counter that study? Or are you just trying to backpedal furiously, hoping I'll get distracted?
I didn't agree. Educate them on the matter, not block sites or force them to stay off certain sites.
Why not do both? Explain why you're blocking the sites, AND block the sites? Nobody's arguing that "the only thing you should do is set up Net Nanny." You're creating a straw man in an attempt to distract from the issue at hand, so one more time:
Do you have evidence you can offer that counters the conclusions of the NIH study I linked? If not, then I'm glad I could educate you. No doubt your attitudes towards exposing children to pornography have been changed by exposure to hard facts and scientific data showing that there are harmful effects!
You can start there. The summary of findings at the end are particularly helpful if you want a tl;dr. One takeaway is that yes, repeated exposure to pornography can "breed discontent with the physical appearance and sexual performance of intimate partners." In other words, it gives people unrealistic views of body types and sexual activity which are actually harmful to your ability to form healthy intimate relationships with real people.
I hope you're not assuming everyone on this website is like those people you mentioned that supposedly exist. I also hope you're not assuming any of those are caused by pornography.
I'm saying that many of the names I'm reading spouting opinions about how "porn is fine for kids, I had tons of access to porn and it didn't harm me at all!" are also names I see participating quite vocally in the types of discussions I stated.
Interestingly, from the NIH link above:
Prolonged exposure to nonviolent and violent pornography promotes insensitivity towards victims of sexual violence.
It's not as if she'll get raped each time someone decides to watch the film. She was already raped, and no amount of slippery-slope-style censorship will change that.
This, said in the context of a discussion of whether or not somebody should be allowed to post a video of someone being raped on a billboard, with you taking the "of course it should be allowed, to disallow it is evil censorship!" position. Connecting these two quotes is left as an exercise for the reader.
I never said anything about educational porn. I said that I think that parents need to guide their children, not keep them in bubbles.
And one way of guiding your child is by limiting what they can see on the internet - guiding them to "acceptable" web sites, as it were. So I'm glad you've come around and agree that limiting childrens' exposure to porn is a good thing! I look forward to your retractions.
One can have unhealthy views of sex and sexuality, and not be a rapist or a pedophile.
When I hear all the people here talking about how they had "tons of porn as a kid" and it didn't harm them at all, I have to check the URL bar to make sure I'm still at the site where: 1) any mention of "low numbers of Women in IT" is met with shouts of "It's because they're dumb at math, so they should stick to baking cookies / disinterested in math and more interested in needlepoint / it's not my fault they can't put up with dick jokes;" 2) any mention of marriage/divorce is met with a rousing cry of, "Marriage is for idiots - the laws are stacked against men, women have all the power and they use it to emasculate us - because they're evil!" 3) any talk of relationships and dating invariably turns to "women are evil bitches who just want to manipulate us, and they never see the GREAT GUY LIKE ME because they want bad boys and guys who treat them like jerks. They walk all over us while we love them from afar, so FUCK them."
Clearly, ready access to porn doesn't contribute to unhealthy views of sexuality. It's a good thing all of us with easy access to porn as kids developed healthy attitudes towards sex as adults! Otherwise, lots of guys here would probably have the view that women have one use: willing, nubile blow-up-doll replacements who are absolutely delighted by the idea that they can serve you and give you pleasure.
No, it's good that we had Anal Jizz Sluts (vols. 1-7 - production values really went south in vol. 8 and later, I think we can all agree) to teach us a healthy perspective on sex. Thank god for that educational porn!
(To underscore one more time: one need not be a rapist or a pedophile to have unhealthy views of sex.)
Turn on Voice Over on an iPhone, and play around with it. Hell, I use it occasionally in the car to have my iPhone read text messages and emails to me while I drive - those accessibility features are there for a reason, and people with disabilities can make fairly extensive use of the functionality, even without tactile feedback. However, the interface is somewhat clunky - double tapping, swiping around to find the button you want, three-fingered swipes to read... imagine if you could find the button you wanted by touch, and perform the same action (single tap) as anybody else, rather than having to swipe your finger around the screen until you found it?
Touchscreens were not the "holy grail" of interfaces, because, while they remove the layer of abstraction between mouse and screen (an improvement), they also removed any ability to "feel" what you're touching (a step backwards - try typing on an on-screen keyboard, versus a real keyboard. Try clicking "play" on an old click wheel iPod, and then in the Music app of an iPhone, or using your TV remote with all the lights off - bet you can use at least a few of the standard functions). An interface which combines useful tactile feedback with a touchscreen would combine the best elements of both.
And maybe you should spend a little time learning how to understand what you're reading.
Critics have alleged that the bodies on display were illegally disposed of corpses of executed prisoners. The response of the exhibitors is: 1) Our supplier has given us affidavits attesting that all bodies are legal donors; 2) We cannot independently verify whether or not they're lying to us;
There's a big difference between "We've been assured they're not, but we kind of have to take the suppliers' word for it," and "We use illegally appropriated bodies."
(And if they do have illegally appropriated bodies, those bodies should certainly be removed from display! There's been no hard evidence to support the assertion that these bodies are all illegally "donated" victims of Chinese execution that I've seen. If you have some, do share.)
Slashdot Mirror
So what you're saying is that RMS has the simplistic world view of a toddler, where everything is black and white, and no middle ground exists - say, where a person creating a book, or film, or song, is happy to share his creation with the world, but stipulates that anybody wanting to take a copy of that work should give him $2 as compensation? In this world view, either you share everything with everybody, or you share nothing and exist in isolation.
Any "forced" sharing or "forced" compensation is morally wrong. If a musician says, "I have created this song. If you want a copy, I want $1 from you," then there are three possible scenarios:
1) Is the song valuable to you? Do you enjoy it? Do you believe that $1 is an reasonable trade for the value that song represents to you, and are you okay with the "don't share with other people" restriction? If so, then conclude the transaction.
2) Is the song not valuable to you? Why would you want to take a copy at all, then? Patronize musicians whose business model and asking price are more palatable to you.
3) Is the song of some value to you, but you either disagree with the price or the "no redistribution" stipulation? Then open a negotiation with the musician - if you reach an agreement that both of you are happy with, conclude your transaction. If you can't reach a mutually agreeable plan, then the song is not worth the price, and you walk away from the transaction.
That is it - there is no "right" for you to take whatever you want whenever you want it. There is no "right" for the musician to take money from you if you don't want to give it - any answer to this "problem" that does not involve a mutually agreeable voluntary transaction between the purchaser and the seller is immoral.
Incidentally - why is it that people who hold this simplistic world view are also some of the most vocal critics of social media? If sharing is always ethical, shouldn't anything that encourages more sharing be an unequivocally ethical thing as well? And why do you care if somebody else gets value out of what you've shared? Sharing shouldn't have a price tag associated with it, right?
And by this argument, as the creator of a book, song, or film, I have been deprived of the market for my movie/film/song by your giving copies to other people for free.
So I'm not clear - you say you support sharing as long as it's not for financial gain... but then you say that giving something away (or providing a free copy of something) is depriving the creator/original owner of that item a market for their product.
You seem to be arguing that filesharing is okay, but you're trying to paint that the scenario above, where you're "deprived of a market for your product," is somehow injurious to you. So if someone's sharing activity is damaging to you... then how can it be morally correct? Whether they do it for a profit, or do it for free, it's simply a matter of how MUCH they've harmed you, not a question of whether or not they're harming you.
Let's consider a natural disaster - say, a massive earthquake and tsunami hits just off the coast of San Francisco - not inconceivable, and we saw the devastation wrought by just such an event in Japan just a little over a year ago.
So, you've got entire towns wiped out, roads impassable, electricity, phone, water service completely offline, but let's imagine cell service is still largely intact in the area. Now, think back to the last time you were anywhere like a sports event or other place where thousands of people congregated all at once, and think about how shitty or non-existent cell phone service was because the service was simply overloaded.
So... who should have higher priority for access to that limited bandwidth in an emergency situation? You, to make dick jokes on Twitter, or a group of rescue and emergency management personnel trying to save lives and establish control in the affected area?
I'm pretty sure you can make a GREAT case for government agencies getting priority access during emergencies. Your twitter one-liners do not take precedence over someone else's life.
This is far better accomplished by press releases and news conferences delivered BY the people directing relief efforts than it is to look for #ZOMGEarthquake hashtags on twitter. Local reports can be *compelling* but they do little to help people understand the scope or scale of the event, they do little to help emergency responders understand what's happening, and frankly, "the populace's" understanding of the event - at least that portion of the populace not directly endangered by the event - is less urgent than finding and rescuing survivors. That's a great reason to give the responders priority access.
And who do you think is going to be doing this? Right, FEMA, and your state EMA. Not random people via twitter. So you just argued a second time that government should get priority access in emergency situations.
Anybody who can say the following with a straight face and mean it is a sociopath: "I know that those people are dying over there, but I *really* need to get to youtube to watch a dancing cat video." If saving people's lives in the aftermath of a disaster requires them to knock youtube offline for a while, then tough shit, disconnect and go get some fresh air.
Mmmm. Sounds like somebody's come up with a new way to transfer MORE wealth from individual taxpayers into corporate coffers!
If you're not a senator now, son, you have all the makings of a successful one!
Yes, and since Apple was no doubt testing prototypes long before September 2006, what's your point?
Do you think that shaking out design, hardware, and software bugs is something they would do in the final week of December?
The "lost" iPhone 4 prototype was lost in March, the hardware didn't go on sale until June. Three months ahead of the announcement, they had functional prototypes that looked like the finished model.
Yet you're suggesting that they didn't have any functional prototypes just 3 months before the announcement of the device? That's a rather extraordinary claim, considering Steve Jobs got up on stage with the phone in January - apparently you think they managed to design the entire case in just 3 months, and that they did it long after all the internals and software were written for it.
Mostly feel smugly superior that your phone has features that you don't use, but love to talk about on Slashdot.
If every person who talks about "freedom" and "hackability" and "modifying the source" every time Android phones come up was ACTUALLY writing software for them and hacking them? The Android Marketplace would have a lot more software in it than it does.
And I bet Apple has functional test models that look pretty startlingly like the finished iPhone that predate September 2006. If there was any merit to the "they copied it" thing, LG would have already put Apple through the wringer in court, and they would have won.
Yeah, there's a lot of "implication" and "innuendo," but there's no real evidence pointing to any misbehavior.
The "actual fact" is that Jobs was on the list for at least a month or two before he bought the house, numerous doctors were involved in assessing his candidacy and eligibility, and there is nothing that a single doctor could do to "speed up" his transplant - even if he gave that doctor an 850,000 house for free, the doctor would still need to convince other doctors and list administrators that his patient was a better candidate, and should somehow be at the top of the list. Is there evidence of Eason or Jobs paying off the other medical professionals involved in donor organ assignment? I see nothing in any of the links to indicate that there is.
Realistically, I expect what happened is Jobs bought the house only to recover in, with the intention of selling it after he recovered, and the doctor, having been to the house numerous times to followup with his patient, took a shine to the house and said "Hey, if you're selling it, I'm definitely interested. This is a nice place."
If there were "kickbacks" of some sort, I'd think Jobs could make the deal a little sweeter than "here, you can have the house I recovered in at my cost, doctor." I'd expect something more like, "Here doc, have a house." or "Here doc, why don't you let me buy you that house, an Aspen ski lodge, and a Tuscan villa for vacationing."
Not particularly, given his finances and the fact that he had a team of lawyers advising him about every deal he made. This could easily have been purchased this way for tax and liability reasons, with the expectation that it was a short-term purchase - buy the house, recover there, then sell it again as soon as you're done with it. When you have billions, sometimes it's worth a couple tens of thousands in lawyer's fees to set up a holding corporation to save some money and protect your assets.
Why would you conclude that? He doesn't have to own a residence in the area to be on their list. He could have just as easily stayed at a rental property, or anywhere else that would allow him to reside there temporarily - heck, if he had a friend in Memphis, he could have easily just stayed at their place if they were willing to put him up.
To get on the list, he would have had to pay listing fees, and go through a battery of tests and interviews in each region he wanted to be on the list for - this is *certainly* where his money helped him ("average" people's insurance only pays for a single listing in their home region, and tests + travel + interviews + time off work is out of the reach of many regular folks), but there is no requirement that he have a residence in the region to get listed - just that he be able to travel to the transplant location within a certain time frame (this is where that private jet comes in handy, too).
You may be right, but I think you're putting too much weight on that subsidy.
Consider:
1) Component costs will continue to go down, meaning the cost to build will be lower, making it easier to lower the price of old models and still make a profit;
2) Apple will make some money off of book, music, video, and app sales to you;
3) Once you've bought an iPad, you're at least slightly more likely to keep buying Apple when you decide to upgrade, since you'll have an existing set of apps and other data, plus familiarity with the platform.
4) This move would open up the iPad to a wider worldwide audience, meaning more unit sales (and if you're selling an extra million units each quarter, even if you're making a small profit there, it's money you wouldn't otherwise have gotten, because the people buying the cheap models wouldn't have bought the expensive latest-and-greatest.
5) It opens up a wider market, and costs them absolutely zero r&d / engineering time. Why build a whole different product for "downmarket" segments, when you can just sell your last year's product for a bit cheaper?
Yep, and it may take them another year or two to begin the "market segmentation by model year" strategy like they're doing with the iPhone - they only announced that with the iPhone 4S release, don't forget. But I think it's fairly inevitable that they'll do it with the iPad, because it's been fairly successful with the iPhone, and requires almost no additional engineering effort.
And let's be honest - if early next year, with the iPad 4/Next Next Generation / New New iPad/whatever, they say:
iPad 4: $499
iPad 3: $199 (or $249)
iPad 2: $99 (or $149)
That'd be a pretty interesting segmentation strategy - iPad 3 will still be quite capable next year, and somebody looking to buy might suddenly find a lower price tag a lot more compelling a reason to buy. And if you're just browsing the web, reading, checking email? No need to update unless/until it stops working, or security becomes an issue if they stop issuing security updates to the version you're running.
I'm sorry to hear about your muscular dystrophy. Please understand that most of us are not afflicted with that condition, and so carrying around a portable device does not generally come with a massive fear of dropping and smashing that device. If you take normal safety precautions with the device (i.e., don't treat it like a fucking Nerf football), there should be no danger of dropping and smashing a portable device. In fact, an iPad can hold up under a far more substantial fall than a laptop, which people regularly spend thousands of dollars on. By that measure of value, the iPad is a steal.
First - the Bugatti *is* a luxury-only brand. Only 300 Bugatti Veyrons were made for sale, period, end of story. The iPad has sold tens of millions of units - 67.1 million, as of March. This Bugatti example is a red herring, and seems mostly based on the premise that "anything I can't personally afford is overpriced." I'm sorry to hear that your finances are so tight, but that doesn't mean that anything out of your price range is "overpriced." It simply means you can't afford it.
And when Apple does with the iPad what it started doing with the iPhone 4S, there goes that magical $199 price point: "The new iPad starts at $499. Last year's model is now $199, and the model before that is now $99." And for what it's worth - my first generation iPad is working just fine with the latest iOS release on it, I use it daily. 2 year old iPads would still work quite well for "light" usage.
It's also worth noting that the introductory price for the iPad - $499 - has yet to be significantly challenged by any "iPad killer" coming to market. If it's really "overpriced" at that point, where are the host of competitors that offer the same (or better) features for lower price? Motorola, Samsung, RIM and HP have all tried to compete around that price point, and the general response to all of those tablets is that they were junk.
Sorry, you can't "selectively" cite the parts of the study that support your argument while ignoring the bits that disagree with your fundamental premise. If you can't address them, you simply undermine your own point.
In other words, you have no fucking clue, but that won't stop you making shit up in an attempt to "prove" your point is valid. Do you have data to support your hypothetical explanation? No? Objection sustained, hypothesis rejected.
Yeah, and eyewitnesses are pretty much always unreliable. So if you're basing your entire argument on "I don't think I would have had any problems with that as a child, based on what I remember of being a child," then again: your point is irrelevant, and invalid.
Go back and read what you wrote. You said "it's stupid." "it's wrong." "you're paranoid." Not "I believe that there are more effective ways." You also have yet to offer any credible scientific evidence that your suggestions are any better than blocking access, and you keep on focusing in on trying to "win" the disagreement through semantic sleight of hand. If you have a viable alternative to suggest, then by all means suggest it. But don't pretend that your opinion is any more fact-based than anybody else's opinion, unless you're prepared to back it up with facts. All you've done so far is try to throw question on the facts that HAVE been presented to you by saying, "I wonder how many kids are affected that way. I wonder what percentage of people this is a problem for." If you were really wondering those things, you'd be reading the data presented to you, and researching it. Attempting to cast doubt on the facts you're presented with while offering none of your own that would counter those facts or paint a substantially different picture simply suggests that you're trolling. And given that you account for nearly 10% of the posts in this comment thread, I suspect that's exactly what's happening.
Because they've said so.
Because somebody who has *actually* spent time doing the work under discussion has some inherent credibility when speaking to its complexities and difficulties. Somebody whose knowledge of parenting comes strictly from what they've thought about while reading the fucking summary at the top of the page lacks that credibility.
Consider it this way: You're presented with 2 employees who disagree on a product strategy: one is an engineer with 5 years of relevant domain experience, the other is a kid fresh out of college with nothing but a couple years of book learning. Experienced engineer says, "We should do X," and accompanies that advice with facts and persuasive logic. Wet behind the ears kid says, "We should do Y," and accompanies that with a lot of petty semantic quibbling about the validity of experienced engineer's data, and no supporting evidence, data, or logic of his own. You're the manager, you're telling me you're going to overrule your experienced engineer with actual facts, experience & logic, in favor of an inexperienced new hire who doesn't know anything about the problem domain other than what he read in a book once, maybe?
He posted a public question, not a public Request for Comments. You've proceeded to was
Way to dodge the question. I'll put it in here again, so you can answer it:
Why would we need to show preferred role models and "better pornography," if porn is fine and not harmful at all as it is?
In many ways, NO, they cannot. They are still learning cause and effect; They are still learning what's "real" and what's "imaginary" - If you've ever spent time around a child, you'd know that they frequently mimic behaviors, speech, and activities they've seen on television. Because that is one important way children learn: by watching the adults around them, and mimicking the behaviors, speech patterns, and activities of adults. A child who is sexually immature is not ready physically to learn about sex in graphic and clinical terms such as you'll see in porn, and they are not ready for it emotionally, either.
In light of this, it is entirely reasonable - and well within a parents' prerogative - to block access to porn (and any other "harmful" influence they wish). You've spent dozens of posts here telling a bunch of parents how wrong they are to want to raise their children in a manner they feel appropriate, and yet you can offer no evidence or argument as to why what they wish to do is harmful to the children. Numerous parents, on the flip side, have pointed out studies where prolonged exposure to porn has negative effects on a person's view of sexuality and ability to form intimate bonds with real people.
In summation: Your agreement is not required , and your sanction was not requested . If you have nothing to offer a parent looking for software that will help him block his children from accessing objectionable content, why bother crapping up the entire comment thread with your untested, unproven, and unsupported theories of child rearing?
First, we're not talking about "children growing up to be rapists" as a result of porn. Do you even bother to read the bullshit you're linking? your own link concludes:
Why would we need to show preferred role models and "better pornography," if porn is fine and not harmful at all as it is? There is a difference between *criminal behavior as a result of porn,* and long-term exposure to porn influencing children with unhealthy attitudes towards sex that will actually decrease their ability to have functional intimate relationships with others. Again: you need not be a rapist or a pedophile to have an unhealthy attitude towards sex.
Yes, lack credibility. I didn't stutter. It's not an ad hominem attack to point out:
1) The study I linked concludes that prolonged exposure to porn reduces sensitivity to victims of sexual assault;
2) Your argument that preventing someone from displaying a video of someone being raped constitutes intolerable censorship shows a profound lack of sensitivity to victims of sexual assault;
3) You are claiming there are no negative consequences of prolonged (and early) exposure to porn, while exhibiting signs of one of the negative influences found in the NIH's study;
Given 1, 2 and 3 above - it's not an ad hominem attack to suggest that your unverified claims that "porn is fine for kids, trying to limit their unfettered access to it is intolerable!" lacks credibility. It is entirely consistent with the facts in evidence. To help you, an "ad hominem" attack would be to say, "cheekyjohnson is kind of a mouthy douchebag who shits up Slashdot. Therefore his views on porn are wrong." It is not an ad hominem attack to say, "Cheekyjohnson shows at least one of the negative signs found to be a result of long term exposure to porn. Therefore his unsubstantiated claims that 'porn is fine and never harmful,' are suspect, and lack credibility."
Sure, it's mostly in children and the mentally impaired that it can be harmful - because they lack the mental function to distinguish between "fantasy" and "reality," and that critical lack can lead to sexual and intimacy problems as adults. So we're agreed - it's perfectly reasonable to block your children's access to porn until they're mentally and emotionally capable of being exposed to it.
To be clear: I have no problem with porn. I enjoy it on occasion, and have even enjoyed it with girlfriends. That does not mean I believe it is appropriate, beneficial, or just "no big deal," to show porn to my children. There are influences that I'd prefer they not be subjected to until they're older - and if the technological means exists to help me prevent that influence, I will certainly use it, and it is entirely reasonable to do so. I don't want my daughter growing up thinking she needs implants to be sexy, or that bending over for every guy she meets will make her popular. I also don't want my son growing up believing that girls are nothing more than dick holsters who should be used and discarded at every opportunity. When they're older and do get exposed to porn, as they inevitably will, it will be wi
That you would argue un-ironically that someone should be able to publicly display a video they recorded of someone's sexual assault pretty much answers the question of whether or not you're "insensitive."
Your bullshit about "rejecting censorship" sounds very nice, but any claim of rejecting censorship that says "It's fine to harm other people with my actions and speech," displays a lack of sensitivity so fundamental that you should probably be screened for autism-spectrum disorders, if you don't already have a diagnosis.
Translation: I can't be assed to read it, or any of the references, because it might challenge my preconceptions, or I might be forced to offer counter-evidence. Since they disagree with me, I will simply hand-wave away the only concrete facts that have been presented to me.
Actually, given the finding that prolonged exposure to pornography promotes insensitivity to victims of sexual assault, and given the fundamentally shocking insensitivity of the claim that someone SHOULD be allowed to display a video in which someone is being sexually assaulted, I'd say your arguments about how you're "totally fine!" after prolonged and early exposure to porn lack a certain credibility. I've provided a study conducted by the NIH that says long exposure to porn promotes these attitudes - do you have a piece of evidence that can counter that study? Or are you just trying to backpedal furiously, hoping I'll get distracted?
Why not do both? Explain why you're blocking the sites, AND block the sites? Nobody's arguing that "the only thing you should do is set up Net Nanny." You're creating a straw man in an attempt to distract from the issue at hand, so one more time:
Do you have evidence you can offer that counters the conclusions of the NIH study I linked? If not, then I'm glad I could educate you. No doubt your attitudes towards exposing children to pornography have been changed by exposure to hard facts and scientific data showing that there are harmful effects!
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/NNBCKV.pdf
You can start there. The summary of findings at the end are particularly helpful if you want a tl;dr. One takeaway is that yes, repeated exposure to pornography can "breed discontent with the physical appearance and sexual performance of intimate partners." In other words, it gives people unrealistic views of body types and sexual activity which are actually harmful to your ability to form healthy intimate relationships with real people.
I'm saying that many of the names I'm reading spouting opinions about how "porn is fine for kids, I had tons of access to porn and it didn't harm me at all!" are also names I see participating quite vocally in the types of discussions I stated.
Interestingly, from the NIH link above:
From your recent comment in another article:
This, said in the context of a discussion of whether or not somebody should be allowed to post a video of someone being raped on a billboard, with you taking the "of course it should be allowed, to disallow it is evil censorship!" position. Connecting these two quotes is left as an exercise for the reader.
And one way of guiding your child is by limiting what they can see on the internet - guiding them to "acceptable" web sites, as it were. So I'm glad you've come around and agree that limiting childrens' exposure to porn is a good thing! I look forward to your retractions.
One can have unhealthy views of sex and sexuality, and not be a rapist or a pedophile.
When I hear all the people here talking about how they had "tons of porn as a kid" and it didn't harm them at all, I have to check the URL bar to make sure I'm still at the site where:
1) any mention of "low numbers of Women in IT" is met with shouts of "It's because they're dumb at math, so they should stick to baking cookies / disinterested in math and more interested in needlepoint / it's not my fault they can't put up with dick jokes;"
2) any mention of marriage/divorce is met with a rousing cry of, "Marriage is for idiots - the laws are stacked against men, women have all the power and they use it to emasculate us - because they're evil!"
3) any talk of relationships and dating invariably turns to "women are evil bitches who just want to manipulate us, and they never see the GREAT GUY LIKE ME because they want bad boys and guys who treat them like jerks. They walk all over us while we love them from afar, so FUCK them."
Clearly, ready access to porn doesn't contribute to unhealthy views of sexuality. It's a good thing all of us with easy access to porn as kids developed healthy attitudes towards sex as adults! Otherwise, lots of guys here would probably have the view that women have one use: willing, nubile blow-up-doll replacements who are absolutely delighted by the idea that they can serve you and give you pleasure.
No, it's good that we had Anal Jizz Sluts (vols. 1-7 - production values really went south in vol. 8 and later, I think we can all agree) to teach us a healthy perspective on sex. Thank god for that educational porn!
(To underscore one more time: one need not be a rapist or a pedophile to have unhealthy views of sex.)
Are you sure about that? The US has an extradition treaty with Ecuador which might allow it - depends on what he'd be charged with.
Problem is, he did his resume in MacPaint. He can't even update that resume because it's locked into a proprietary format by Apple's greed!
Turn on Voice Over on an iPhone, and play around with it. Hell, I use it occasionally in the car to have my iPhone read text messages and emails to me while I drive - those accessibility features are there for a reason, and people with disabilities can make fairly extensive use of the functionality, even without tactile feedback. However, the interface is somewhat clunky - double tapping, swiping around to find the button you want, three-fingered swipes to read... imagine if you could find the button you wanted by touch, and perform the same action (single tap) as anybody else, rather than having to swipe your finger around the screen until you found it?
Touchscreens were not the "holy grail" of interfaces, because, while they remove the layer of abstraction between mouse and screen (an improvement), they also removed any ability to "feel" what you're touching (a step backwards - try typing on an on-screen keyboard, versus a real keyboard. Try clicking "play" on an old click wheel iPod, and then in the Music app of an iPhone, or using your TV remote with all the lights off - bet you can use at least a few of the standard functions). An interface which combines useful tactile feedback with a touchscreen would combine the best elements of both.
And maybe you should spend a little time learning how to understand what you're reading.
Critics have alleged that the bodies on display were illegally disposed of corpses of executed prisoners. The response of the exhibitors is:
1) Our supplier has given us affidavits attesting that all bodies are legal donors;
2) We cannot independently verify whether or not they're lying to us;
There's a big difference between "We've been assured they're not, but we kind of have to take the suppliers' word for it," and "We use illegally appropriated bodies."
(And if they do have illegally appropriated bodies, those bodies should certainly be removed from display! There's been no hard evidence to support the assertion that these bodies are all illegally "donated" victims of Chinese execution that I've seen. If you have some, do share.)