I read it over after I posted and noticed, Slashdot's lack of ability to edit posts makes me want to cry sometimes, but then, editing of posts would lead to much more fuckwadery so it's probably for the best, even if it does allow you to make yourself look like a tit sometimes!
I dunno, I think the controller was part of it too. Really, when I come home from work after a stressful day I just kinda want to veg on the couch and blow some stuff to peices. The last thing I want to do is jump around like a retard with reminders about how I should take a break getting in my way every 5 minutes
Even on a weekend though I didn't find it particularly great for deep immersive experiences, partly because well, the Wii just didn't have any, but partly because it's easier to mindlessly use a controller with your thumbs whilst you're transfixed on what's happening on screen than it is to again have to jump around, take breaks every now and again, and sometimes fight the imprecise nature of the original Wii mote as it fails to do what you wanted it too.
It's a great console for when you have friends over, you can have a real good time playing the party games, but you just can't really veg and chill too it, or get deeply immersed in games with it like you can the 360 / PS3.
The Wii U does look set to fix this but I'm not really confident Nintendo are going to pull it off right. Their displays of games were all footage taken from 360s/PS3s and when asked whether the Wii U would be able to look as good graphically as the 360 / PS3 rather than give a straight "yes" Nintendo instead gave an evasive "We're not sure"- that'll be a no then? A PR release from a company no one's ever heard of then followed this a few weeks later with an "estimate" that it'll be a billion times as good or something like that, but with that uncertainty from even Nintendo itself initially, I think I'll wait to see what it's actually like before I get too excited. I'm concerned about the talk of how the game can migrate to the controller too if you want the screen back- a controller wont be specced as well as the console so that means all games either have to have a very low detail mode, or the console isn't going to be that well specced in the first place after all.
Now they come forward with "Oh we don't care about the internet too much" or whatever it was they said and it sounds like they're being half arsed on that too.
I dunno, maybe it'll rock, but thus far signals from even Nintendo themselves don't seem terribly encouraging.
"Thus implying that I thought you couldn't train an older dog"
That's your take on it, but it's not what was intended, nor how it was meant to be read. If you're going to take every comment as an insult rather than recognise it for what it is (i.e. in this case, a mere discussion of common attitudes to dog training in general), perhaps the internet isn't for you.
"I disagree with the first part on the grounds that most breeders care about dogs as much as anyone and are thoroughly decent types."
Yes, but they care about profit more, and that's a problem. If they didn't care about profit more, they would simply offer shelter for rescued dogs instead.
"I think you're not in full command of the facts and your view of the KC in particular is as one-sided as "Pedigree Dogs Exposed". "
Or perhaps it's the counter- clearly you've shown an awful lack of knowledge about rescue centres. At least my assertion about the KC is backed up with documentary evidence.
"However, nobody should be forced to rescue a dog or not have a dog at all. There must be a choice"
No there mustn't, because rescue dogs are just the same as bred dogs, and in fact, many are bred dogs gone stray, mistreated, or abandoned. You're still working on this false premise that rescue dogs are somehow different to dogs from breeders- on the contrary, rescue dogs contain breeder dogs, and then some on top- that is, it encompasses all the species available from breeders, in a larger choice of age groups, with a larger range of personalities. There's just no point to breeders other than for them to make personal profit and to contribute to the problem of too many dogs, not enough homes.
"and you are wrong to assume that someone decides to get a puppy rather than a rescue dog out of ignorance, selfishness or idiocy."
This is probably your most stupid comment yet though, you contrast puppy against rescue dog- you seem to have some stunningly incorrect belief that rescue centres don't ever have puppies. I suggest you go visit one if you still sincerely believe this is the case so that you can find how utterly wrong you are. You can get a dog that is just the same from a rescue centre, as you can get from a breeder. The difference is it'll be cheaper, you'll have more support, and you wont be contributing to the problem of too many dogs, not enough homes.
It seems pretty clear you still don't have a grasp of even the most basic facts about rescue centres, you still seem to have this mistaken belief that breeders offer something different to rescue centres. Until you can understand that you are wrong about this, then it's no wonder you're struggling to understand why I, and others, have pointed out that your argument is stupid, and wrong. Breeders are unnecessary and exist only to create profit for themselves, that is bound to have knock on effects and it does. It really is that simple.
"and secondly to illustrate the difficulty of training certain things with an older dog, which I had thought was common knowledge amongst dog owners."
Common knowledge as a myth, certainly. Even a quick Google search for something like "training older dogs" will debunk it for you though with numerous links to advice from professional trainers.
"And I will point out that working dog breeders are not rare at all. The most popular breeds are gundogs and sheep dogs;"
Again, this is a false conclusion on your part, you're assuming that just because the breeds are popular, that all animals of that breed are being bred as working dogs. This couldn't be further from the truth, of those dogs of these breeds that are bred and sold, only an absolute minority of them are ever bred as working dogs.
"Could it be that the bad breeders are actually in a minority?"
Well there are different degrees of bad of course, the really bad ones probably are in a minority, but so are the genuinely good ones. The middle range would tend to be those who wouldn't intentional let their bred animals suffer with say poor conditions but also don't particularly care about ensuring their welfare or temperant are good either. Regardless of how good and bad breeders are though, it still doesn't change the fact that such breeds are still in abundance in dogs homes for rehoming, a point you've still completely tried to avoid- the fact is breeding in itself is irresponsible when we already have more strays of identical breeds which we can't home, it merely exacerbates the problem needlessly, because their dogs are no better than rescued dogs (yet tend to cost far more too!).
"First you claimed I said "you can't teach an old dog new tricks""
No I did not, I merely cited it as a common phrase, which is misleading and incorrect.
"and now you claim that I "can't see the difference between breeding for looks... and breeding dogs to be healthy""
Well that's not exactly what I said is it?, but if you stand by your previous claim, then yes, I stand by my point, so either you said something you didn't really mean or at least didn't think through in terms of correctness of said statement, or you do genuinely hold the view that modern breeders should somehow be respected, because were it not for human breeding of dogs originally, dogs as they are today wouldn't exist.
Look, I'm not saying you should be chastised for buying from a breeder or anything like that- you did what you believed was right and that's fine, many people do because they don't know better, again I'm sure you have some lovely dogs too, all I'm saying is that you're not helping the rescue situation, and that by supporting breeders are indirectly contributing to the problem unnecessarily so. All I'm saying is that you firstly shouldn't assume that rescue dogs are more problematic- that couldn't be further from the truth, and that if you ever get another dog- please consider adopting from a rescue centre, apart from the fact that you're then helping the rescue situation, and giving a potentially previously abused or neglected dog a great new life, you've also got a massive selection of breeds and personalities to choose from that you simply wont get from a breeder. Sure you might even be right that there are some struggling rescue centres out there, but if you go to the RSPCA or The Dogs Trust then they really will guide you through the different breeds and so forth- they might point you at something you never even considered but which turns out to be an amazing match, they certainly did with me.
"And I must be clear that I am not talking about tricks. I am talking about key elements of socialisation. Aggressive and/or timid dogs were not properly socialised as pups and it is incredibly hard to reverse this later;"
Incredibly hard is overstating it somewhat, some things are still very easy to teach even in adult hood, such as toilet training.
You cite your greyhound example, but it's pointless to use a single example because some dogs are problematic in much the same way that no matter how hard society tries to teach that violence is bad, some humans are violent regardless- this is why I didn't bother responding to it previously because I could equally point to a number of dogs from breeders that even from puppyhood no matter how hard their owners tried to train them they were problematic.
But this is precisely again why I cite the advantages of rehoming- because you can get a dog whose personality and abilities are known in depth, and don't have to worry about the uncertainty.
"These are tests to detect various hereditary problems which are being eliminated from the gene pool by that horrible old "selective breeding" that everyone hates so much, though no dog would exist without it."
Oh come now, what an utterly rediculous statement. If you can't see the difference between breeding for looks without care for the health problems this can lead to and by going as far as encouraging inbreeding to try and exagerate such looks and breeding dogs to be healthy and effective in some role then there's little point debating this with you. Dogs historically were bred to be useful and to be useful they inherently had to be healthy- that situation is a far cry from modern breeders where health and usefulness go entirely out the window in favour of looks amongst most breeders. Working dog breeders are the rare exception of course.
Yes, I'd say really that situations like this are even the exception in the industry rather than the norm now too.
From what I understand, much of Rockstar has historically always been like this, I have a close friend who worked in Rockstar Vienna before it collapsed, he got out about a month beforehand and was telling me long before it collapsed how messed up it was with very similar issues as those mentioned here.
The game industry has had to improve somewhat because developers have begun to realise that there's far more money in business software, and far less stress, because employers are more frequently treated like humans.
I've also never had a problem doing software development, my hours are 8:30 - 4:30pm Mon - Thurs, and 8:30 - 4pm Friday and I've never had to work a minute of overtime. My last job was only slightly worse in that I finished at 5pm each day, and the pay wasn't as good, but that's really just because of career progression.
No, I'm not suggesting we regulate hampster breeding or anything quite that extreme (and no CCTV in the UK isn't that bad, unless you live in London centre where all the paranoid politicians do whatever it is politicians supposedly do). I was more referring to animals like dogs, and certainly here in the UK, animals like horses, where there are also a lot of irresponsible breeders.
For what it's worth I'm quite a fan of plants too- greenhouse with 3000 different cacti spanning hundreds of different species in it, and a conservatory with an awful lot of orchids! It's a nice excuse to take a break from sitting on the computer, well, other than walking and playing with the dogs of course!
This is how it works in the UK, there are 5 breeds listed as dangerous which it is illegal to breed and own as pets.
Regardless the GP is right about visits, if you ignore the sensibility of the legality of pitbulls it's worth pointing out that some pitbulls don't necessarily carry the killer trait, although most do. Just say for a moment that a pitbull has been dropped at a rehoming centre not because it's been abused but because it's owner died or lost all their money and it has no history of aggression towards people, but knowing it's an aggressive breed then this is precisely what the visits are intended to deal with- to check it'll have a secure place to be kept "just in case", to check it wont be around small children and that sort of thing.
I do generally agree though, animals with a killer mindset probably aren't a good option to allow as pets whether we're talking pitbulls, tigers, or alligators.
"Some breeders are bad people, but many are not. They are just as concerned with the health and wellbeing of their dogs as you are. But you seem to think that absolutely all of them are bad people"
Not at all, I just think their method of income is unnecessary, and pointless, when they'd be better off offering a rehoming service when there are so many great rescued pets available.
"My view is that the KC is an important de-facto regulator for dog breeding, with extensive power to prevent inbreeding and genetic problems while also setting a high minimum standard for breeders."
Not that high a minimum standard, and not very effective, seeing as it fails to achieve these goals to this day on an even close to consistent basis.
"As you surely know, when a dog has got past puppyhood, he is much more difficult to train"
This simply isn't true, the phrase "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is a complete myth. Providing your dog doesn't have more serious underlying issues (which in themselves can often still be fixed) there's no reason it'd be harder to teach an adult dog than a young dog- I was teaching my old dog new tricks up until it was 15.
"I believe that rescue dogs require owners who are either experienced or lucky. As you surely know, when a dog has got past puppyhood, he is much more difficult to train, and bad behaviour is not easy to correct. A beginner may be lucky and get a dog who has already been properly socialised and trained. Then again, he may get a dog that requires expert assistance, which would be unfortunate for the dog as well as the owner. "
Right, but as I said, the rehoming centres know precisely which dogs these are, and can match them up based on experience so again you're trying to create an issue where there isn't one. The well trained dogs will be matches with inexperienced owners, it's quite simple, it's very effective, it's also in the rehoming centre's interest because the last thing they want is for the dogs to go back to them. In contrast, once a breeder has your money, they wont give a fuck what problems you have.
"and to be quite honest it is somewhat upsetting that you should tell me that I'm doing it wrong"
I'm not saying it's wrong per-se, it's your decision, I'm just saying it's better for everyone not to support breeders when you can do just as well from a rehoming centre. I'm sure you have a lovely pair of dogs, but I can guarantee you there are many other lovely dogs who have had a shit upbringing and would love a nice home- the point is why not give a previously neglected dog a good life rather than support the breeding of dogs for profit when there are already more that need homes and are perfectly good pets out there? Even if you want a puppy, rehoming centres have these too, one of my old dogs (the doberman/jack russell cross) was a litter of 9 dumped in a box at the dogs home at only 2 months old.
"In the UK you cannot buy a dog in any shop. You must go directly to a breeder. This requires research and investigation."
This isn't true, there are shops in the UK that legally allow you to simply purchase dogs. It's a disgusting practice, and it exists.
The Kennel Club in particular is a fine example of who not to use, because not only have their breeders been some of the worst responsible for genetic disorders through inbreeding, they even tried to whitewash an investigation into it with the party line "We do our best to ensure blah blah blah":
But again the real question is why go to a breeder at all? They'll have the same breeds in rescue centres, and your view that rescued dogs are only for experienced owners is completely false. Unlike with most breeders rescue centres have canine behaviour specialists, they often have the dog's background (i.e. if the dog was handed in because the owner died, or went into debt) and many other details about it- you can find a dog much more fitting for your experience and lifestyle than you ever could guarantee buying a puppy from a breeder. The Dogs Trust for example makes you fill in a form before you're even allowed to look at the dogs available for rehoming, and they will help match a dog to you.
You cannot ever guarantee a new puppy will have not develop behavioural problems but you can be pretty certain say, a year or two old rescue dog with a history that has no behavioural problems will stay that way, so your assertion that rescue dogs are more problematic couldn't be more in contrast with reality. Unless you specifically adopt a problem rescue dog on the understanding that you can look after it, rescue dogs are much easier for new and inexperienced owners.
Again, there is absolutely no beneficial reason to go to a breeder for an animal like a dog or a cat.
Well if point 1 is true, then I agree this particular law is a bad one. In reponse to point 2 yes, certainly there are some animals pet shops could reasonably stock, in fact, it's much better that pet shops breed things like marine fish rather than pillage them from corals but for animals which there is often an abundance of strays/rescues like dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, goats and chickens (in the UK!) that's the sort of thing that needn't be sold in shops. Point 3 is really irrelevant, I'm not really interested in a discussion about PETA!
I think the point of this law has been entirely missed by the kneejerk croud here on Slashdot.
It's a law that wouldn't effect me because I live in the UK but I could quite appreciate perhaps not such a drastic measure but something along those lines here in the UK.
Pet breeders all too often treat animals as little more than stock that makes money, they keep them in shitty conditions that whilst may not make the animal look scruffy will cause it distress and can lead to behaviour problems. They don't care about that because once they've sold the animal they deem it not their problem any more. Further, there's no real checks on breeders here, they can sell to whoever they want, and that can mean selling to people who will let their 3 year old kid throw their hamster or whatever around like a toy, or accidently stand on it, somewhat brutally crushing it to death- these sorts of things happen all the time.
Meanwhile we have rehoming centres absolutely full to the brim of animals that have been abandoned, or previously mistreated, whose behaviour issues have been noted, or corrected. They're full of animals of all shapes and sizes just begging for a home, and these rehoming centres do home visits to check suitability of a household for a pet before they allow someone to adopt. Further, they even have clauses that allow them to reclaim pets that are found to be mistreated so that they can seize them from incompetent or outright malicious owners. They will also neuter pets such that they do not go on to add to the problem of growing numbers of strays.
Really, in the UK at minimum there needs to be stricter licensing on breeding. Such measures might not put an end to the problems entirely, and black markets might exist- just as they do for banned dangerous dog breeds, but it would at least stop parents going out and buying a hampster for little timmy just because timmy cried about wanting one and they didn't have the balls to tell him he's not responsible enough to look after him, a pet that might then die in any number of horrid ways in which kids manage to kill their pets through not knowing better.
It's about stopping the market of pets as "accessories" and improving welfare for many animals as a result. It's about maximising adoption of rescued animals by more responsible and trustworthy pet owners, rather than going to their local shop out of convenience and leaving the stray problem a problem because so many strays go unadopted.
Personally I've always had rescued dogs through my entire life, and wouldn't dream of getting one from a shop, ignoring the countless genetic defects, and behaviour issues that arise from inbreeding and mistreatment amongst such breeders, rescued dogs just come in shapes and sizes you'd never expect (I had a jack russel / doberman cross once- no I don't know which was the mother and which was the father), and for me, have always been full of character and extremely loyal.
The point is there's not even a need for a pet industry when it's proven itself often untrustworthy and sometimes contributory to the stray problem (which your tax dollars have to deal with) when excess / imperfect animals are chucked out on the streets. When there's already a problem of too many pets needing homes out there in the first place such that a lack of pet shops would decrease the stray problem (hence saving your tax dollars) then it's ludicrous to go on allowing such an irresponsible industry to at least carry on without regulation.
I suspect this will be an unpopular view with Slashdot's liberal idealists where any mention of government is seen as a bad thing but oh well, it's just my personal opinion, this is at least one area where some kind of regulation can actually improve things for tax payers, animal charities, and animals alike, at the cost only of the detriment to an industry that more often causes detriment to those 3 sections of society.
"Exploitation of natural resources without thought of sustainability has been standard human practice since at least the Old Stone Age."
To nowhere near the extent of that under the baby boomers though. The relative levels of strip mining, deforestation, overfishing, and so on all peaked under the boomers.
"Oh, and it was Boomers who first started the "green" movement.""
No, it was a mere few concerned boomers who recognised how badly the rest of their generation was fucking up the world. Not the generation as a whole- it was the very fact the boomers were so destructive that the green movement came about as a knee-jerk response in the first place, there wouldn't have even needed to be a green movement if they'd worked to be more responsible and sustainable from the outset.
They raped this planet hard, and to this day are still the biggest barrier to fixing it.
Well, it's quite obvious, most people learn after only a few years in school that when you burn fossil fuels and forests to clear room for crops that it takes a long while for such large areas of forests to grow back and for such vast amounts of fossil fuels to be replaced.
Even where the resource itself hasn't been changed into something less useful then recycling still in itself uses further resources.
Even int he case of things like over-fishing it takes years for populations of fish to recover.
I understand you're trying to make the point that the atoms comprising those resources are still on this earth and you're quite right, the problem is they're no longer useful because they were used without care for efficiency or future reusability or recyclability.
Well it is natures way too, but herein lies the problem, it's also natures way of dealing with us as a destructive force on the planet. That is, if we continue to cause other species to go extinct, and continue to cause ecosystem collapse, then there will begin to be food shortages for us, and eventually it may well be our own extinction that comes along.
The question isn't whether we should try and preserve everything, or try and maintain Earth at a static point in time, but how we can live in a manner where our contribution to extinction events is minimised, so as to decrease the chance of our very own extinction, or at best, avoid large scale decline of the human race.
Some things we can do quite easily- when we allow fishermen to drag nets right across the ocean floor destroying reefs on the bottom, and catching far more fish than quotas allow them to keep such that they just throw a load back in and kill en-masse in an ecosystem destroying manner to bring back only maybe a small percentage of what they destroy for actual consumption it seems clear we could quite trivially at least be doing a lot there to improve efficiency in terms of sustaining both our food supplies, and ensuring a healthy ecosystem that can support continued food supplies. In contrast weening ourselves off fossil fuels is much more of a challenge.
It's about recognising that whilst nature will indeed do what nature does, that if we don't play ball, then we might not like what nature does, and may not have much say in it either. It may be unfortunate that we all get whiped out tommorrow by an asteroid, but it also may not, if it's not and we have at least thousands of years in us yet, then it pays off to reduce our effect on the planet. Well, that is of course, if we care about future generations, and not just ourselves- which was really the problem with the baby boom generation, and why we have the problems we do now in the first place- they stripped the earth of more of many types of raw resources in their life times than in the whole of human history combined- because they only gave a shit about themselves, and their lifetime, and not what happened afterwards. That's also why they're sat on things like big fat final salary pension schemes that the rest of us will pay for, but can't have ourselves.
"Nonetheless, I think almost everybody understands on a gut level that this sort of thing is ethically wrong."
It really depends, 10 years ago I'd have fully agreed with this viewpoint, but when the music and movie industry have tried, through corporate lobbying, excessive DRM, illegal price fixing and so forth to have my freedoms and rights reduced over the years I'm not convinced it is anymore- these are people I'm not convinced there is anything wrong in taking what you want from and giving nothing back.
Even 5 years ago, probably 3 years ago I'd have agreed with you, but the constant barrage of attacks on consumer rights and personal freedoms from them has chipped away at me more and more, made me more and more apathetic to the idea that they're even deserving of any kind of recompense.
Of course it depends on the product, and the company- there are still far more ethical companies out there whom I don't hold this view and whom I'd agree with you deserve recompense for their product, but I certainly don't hold that view universally anymore- honestly, the more people that pirate from the music and movie industry the better, I'll enjoy their product with no detriment to me whilst it's here, but I wont miss it when it's gone.
It's one of those issues where there's far too many variables, and what your own personal experiences with a company are- someone whose had good service from Best Buy may well be less inclined to use this kind of app in their store than say, someone who has been fucked over by them because they sold them a warranty on a false premise and refused to honour it when their $2k TV or whatever bust well before it should have. The latter person may well in fact believe they're perfectly in the right if they have a firm belief that morally, Best Buy owes them, even if they don't legally because of anti-consumer practices or the like.
Fundamentally though whatever the app does, I'm not sure it's a decision Google should be making for people. In fact, this sort of app is precisely the sort of thing that could open up new business models- say you're in a pub that is playing music and you think "Hey, I like this song, but I don't know what it is", there's no reason we couldn't have vending machines where you enter your card, are charged say £1, and it displays the barcode of the current playing track so you can download it. In fact, there's no reason with NFC you couldn't skip the card phase and just do it all on your phone. It's precisely this sort of tech that should be allowed to go mainstream so that it kicks the lazy ass music industry into producing it's own solution. Simply censoring against such applications just stifles innovation and reinforces the false view that the likes of the music industry can win by just bunkering down and try to protect it's dying business model with litigation.
It's a question of rate of change. Whilst long term change is inevitable, if change is happening quickly because of man's actions then those habitats may not have time to adapt. If you consider that coral reefs might be able to adapt to say a 3c increase over 10,000 years, it doesn't mean they will over 100 years- you need a number of generations of a species to adapt to the change, the pressures are just too great over a shorter period.
This is what many people don't get with the climate change issue- you have sites that cater to dumb people like The Register parroting on about how parts of the world were much hotter hundreds of years ago than they are now and the world and life didn't end as a result of that change, completely ignoring that such changes happened gradually over hundreds of thousands of years, not over a hundred years.
It is there that the problem lies. Change is indeed good, and in fact inevitable, it just has to happen at nature's pace, not our pace, else it leads to extinction.
Tell me, what have you ever done in terms of standing up for what you believe in that could risk a long jail term?
No? Nothing? No, sorry, whinging on Slashdot about your government doesn't count.
Let's be realistic, agree with them or not, they've put their ass on the line to a far greater extent than people like you ever will, yet you feel you're well positioned to somehow suggest they're weak?
Yes, we finally got the cunts to do this just the year before last.
I say finally because many attempts for such a thing had been rejected so many times before, even since the millenium which shows how utterly fucking pathetic governments are at accepting that sometimes they didn't do the right thing.
It's shameful that it took so long, it's shameful that even in recent years it was still rejected, but at least they finally did it.
As for commemorating him, that's really gone ahead without the government, there are numerous ways in which he's commemorated around the country, generally funded by private or academic institutions.
No think about my example of spammers, they cause real financial damage in the world and are a major burden to businesses, yet how many go uncaught? Even in the case where we're talking about criminals using pre-built tools without really understanding them the authorities have yet to show much strength in being able to deal with the problem.
I'm suggesting that when you've been thinking about such things long enough there's very little room to make mistakes, and that if you have, you'll tend to know about it. The hacker mindset is one of meticulous attention to detail and obsessive thought about a subject on their mind, you can guarantee that particularly when paranoid about being caught which is going to be more the case with such announcements as this that the scope for mistakes will be so small, and the scope for mistakes that can't be cleaned up after the fact and before discovery is even smaller.
I'm not saying they couldn't be outsmarted by the feds, simply that they wont be outsmarted by someone foolish enough to post on the internet "We know the leader's identity", before he's actually been brought to justice. I also suspect that to actually catch them they're likely to somewhat cheat, and throw due process out the window- they may have a rough idea who is involved but not have the evidence to legitimately question them or seize their kit, so they'll make up some false charge to seize it and build up evidence upon that anyway. They may not even have a case then but the authorities including the judiciary seem quite competent at ruling against people even when the evidence is unacceptably weak in the first place.
They probably will get them some way or another, but it may not be through a legitimate thoroughly proper and clean legal process. Sure many such hackers have been caught in the end, but how many haven't over the years? How many spammers go untouched, how many criminal hackers do the authorities not even know the rought whereabouts of? how many DDOS attacks against major corporations even before anonymous started doing them went unpunished? you only have to look at the rather famous case of Al Capone, where physical evidence should theoretically have been much easier to come by and see that they had to do him on tax evasion in the end to see that sometimes, achieving proper justice against criminals can be quite the impossible task. The result then is either failure to deal with them at all, or a bending of the law.
I think more realistically you're underestimating the ability of smart criminals, particularly in the digital world to evade justice. For all the feel good stories about "criminal X has been caught" hammered into us on the news, and newspapers, there's plenty more who are not. It's perfectly possible they will fall into this category, and it seems blurting out to the world that you know the identities of these people even if you don't announce said identity is only going to make life that much harder for the authorities who may truly find any potential evidence has already been burnt and shredded already whether in the physical or digital sense. A smart investigation would simply not announce knowledge of the identity of the target until they were already in custody, anything else is just foolish penis waving.
"They refused to disclose the identities of LulzSec chief, saying it would cause the members to burn the evidence of attacks and scatter.""
Yes, because announcing you know his identity on the internet wont do that anyway will it?
Obviously not the sharpest tool in the box, such a comment doesn't instill much confidence that they have in fact got the right people.
Let's be honest, the LulzSec people will know if they've let their identity loose to anyone or not, if they have they'll already be watching their backs, if they haven't, then they'll know they have nothing to worry about. Doing what they're doing, attacking the targets they are means you're bound to recognise that keeping evidence around in the first place would be foolish.
Yes, but in contrast I don't personally know anyone that's quit. Personal anecdotes are even more meaningless than a study that doesn't explain it's methods.
Well I don't think TFA is even true, this story has popped up elsewhere over the last few days, Slashdot is a bit late getting to it. Facebook themselves and another 3rd party have both said these numbers are bunk, and I think they're probably right.
The same study suggests 1.5million Canadians also quit in a single month, that's 5% of Canada's entire population quitting Facebook in May. Now, to me that seems pretty odd, why so many, why May? For this to be realistic there'd almost certainly have to have been some good reason why so many chose that specific month to all leave together but I'm not aware of any event that would've caused such a mass exodus.
I think Facebook might well be in slight decline in early adopting countries, but to the degree, with the numbers listed in TFA? Seems pretty unlikely, the numbers are just far too large for so many people to coincidentally all just pick one month to leave.
The original articles on it suggested it was about privacy, but perhaps more realistically people haven't actually quit because of privacy, but have in fact boosted their privacy settings causing problems for whatever arbitrary method was used to measure these user counts.
I couldn't really care what happens to Facebook personally, but I'm sick of seeing this story because frankly, it seems to almost certainly be completely and utterly full of shit- a classic attention whoring attempt using sensationalist tosh.
Slashdot Mirror
I read it over after I posted and noticed, Slashdot's lack of ability to edit posts makes me want to cry sometimes, but then, editing of posts would lead to much more fuckwadery so it's probably for the best, even if it does allow you to make yourself look like a tit sometimes!
I dunno, I think the controller was part of it too. Really, when I come home from work after a stressful day I just kinda want to veg on the couch and blow some stuff to peices. The last thing I want to do is jump around like a retard with reminders about how I should take a break getting in my way every 5 minutes
Even on a weekend though I didn't find it particularly great for deep immersive experiences, partly because well, the Wii just didn't have any, but partly because it's easier to mindlessly use a controller with your thumbs whilst you're transfixed on what's happening on screen than it is to again have to jump around, take breaks every now and again, and sometimes fight the imprecise nature of the original Wii mote as it fails to do what you wanted it too.
It's a great console for when you have friends over, you can have a real good time playing the party games, but you just can't really veg and chill too it, or get deeply immersed in games with it like you can the 360 / PS3.
The Wii U does look set to fix this but I'm not really confident Nintendo are going to pull it off right. Their displays of games were all footage taken from 360s/PS3s and when asked whether the Wii U would be able to look as good graphically as the 360 / PS3 rather than give a straight "yes" Nintendo instead gave an evasive "We're not sure"- that'll be a no then? A PR release from a company no one's ever heard of then followed this a few weeks later with an "estimate" that it'll be a billion times as good or something like that, but with that uncertainty from even Nintendo itself initially, I think I'll wait to see what it's actually like before I get too excited. I'm concerned about the talk of how the game can migrate to the controller too if you want the screen back- a controller wont be specced as well as the console so that means all games either have to have a very low detail mode, or the console isn't going to be that well specced in the first place after all.
Now they come forward with "Oh we don't care about the internet too much" or whatever it was they said and it sounds like they're being half arsed on that too.
I dunno, maybe it'll rock, but thus far signals from even Nintendo themselves don't seem terribly encouraging.
"Thus implying that I thought you couldn't train an older dog"
That's your take on it, but it's not what was intended, nor how it was meant to be read. If you're going to take every comment as an insult rather than recognise it for what it is (i.e. in this case, a mere discussion of common attitudes to dog training in general), perhaps the internet isn't for you.
"I disagree with the first part on the grounds that most breeders care about dogs as much as anyone and are thoroughly decent types."
Yes, but they care about profit more, and that's a problem. If they didn't care about profit more, they would simply offer shelter for rescued dogs instead.
"I think you're not in full command of the facts and your view of the KC in particular is as one-sided as "Pedigree Dogs Exposed". "
Or perhaps it's the counter- clearly you've shown an awful lack of knowledge about rescue centres. At least my assertion about the KC is backed up with documentary evidence.
"However, nobody should be forced to rescue a dog or not have a dog at all. There must be a choice"
No there mustn't, because rescue dogs are just the same as bred dogs, and in fact, many are bred dogs gone stray, mistreated, or abandoned. You're still working on this false premise that rescue dogs are somehow different to dogs from breeders- on the contrary, rescue dogs contain breeder dogs, and then some on top- that is, it encompasses all the species available from breeders, in a larger choice of age groups, with a larger range of personalities. There's just no point to breeders other than for them to make personal profit and to contribute to the problem of too many dogs, not enough homes.
"and you are wrong to assume that someone decides to get a puppy rather than a rescue dog out of ignorance, selfishness or idiocy."
This is probably your most stupid comment yet though, you contrast puppy against rescue dog- you seem to have some stunningly incorrect belief that rescue centres don't ever have puppies. I suggest you go visit one if you still sincerely believe this is the case so that you can find how utterly wrong you are. You can get a dog that is just the same from a rescue centre, as you can get from a breeder. The difference is it'll be cheaper, you'll have more support, and you wont be contributing to the problem of too many dogs, not enough homes.
It seems pretty clear you still don't have a grasp of even the most basic facts about rescue centres, you still seem to have this mistaken belief that breeders offer something different to rescue centres. Until you can understand that you are wrong about this, then it's no wonder you're struggling to understand why I, and others, have pointed out that your argument is stupid, and wrong. Breeders are unnecessary and exist only to create profit for themselves, that is bound to have knock on effects and it does. It really is that simple.
"and secondly to illustrate the difficulty of training certain things with an older dog, which I had thought was common knowledge amongst dog owners."
Common knowledge as a myth, certainly. Even a quick Google search for something like "training older dogs" will debunk it for you though with numerous links to advice from professional trainers.
"And I will point out that working dog breeders are not rare at all. The most popular breeds are gundogs and sheep dogs;"
Again, this is a false conclusion on your part, you're assuming that just because the breeds are popular, that all animals of that breed are being bred as working dogs. This couldn't be further from the truth, of those dogs of these breeds that are bred and sold, only an absolute minority of them are ever bred as working dogs.
"Could it be that the bad breeders are actually in a minority?"
Well there are different degrees of bad of course, the really bad ones probably are in a minority, but so are the genuinely good ones. The middle range would tend to be those who wouldn't intentional let their bred animals suffer with say poor conditions but also don't particularly care about ensuring their welfare or temperant are good either. Regardless of how good and bad breeders are though, it still doesn't change the fact that such breeds are still in abundance in dogs homes for rehoming, a point you've still completely tried to avoid- the fact is breeding in itself is irresponsible when we already have more strays of identical breeds which we can't home, it merely exacerbates the problem needlessly, because their dogs are no better than rescued dogs (yet tend to cost far more too!).
"First you claimed I said "you can't teach an old dog new tricks""
No I did not, I merely cited it as a common phrase, which is misleading and incorrect.
"and now you claim that I "can't see the difference between breeding for looks... and breeding dogs to be healthy""
Well that's not exactly what I said is it?, but if you stand by your previous claim, then yes, I stand by my point, so either you said something you didn't really mean or at least didn't think through in terms of correctness of said statement, or you do genuinely hold the view that modern breeders should somehow be respected, because were it not for human breeding of dogs originally, dogs as they are today wouldn't exist.
Look, I'm not saying you should be chastised for buying from a breeder or anything like that- you did what you believed was right and that's fine, many people do because they don't know better, again I'm sure you have some lovely dogs too, all I'm saying is that you're not helping the rescue situation, and that by supporting breeders are indirectly contributing to the problem unnecessarily so. All I'm saying is that you firstly shouldn't assume that rescue dogs are more problematic- that couldn't be further from the truth, and that if you ever get another dog- please consider adopting from a rescue centre, apart from the fact that you're then helping the rescue situation, and giving a potentially previously abused or neglected dog a great new life, you've also got a massive selection of breeds and personalities to choose from that you simply wont get from a breeder. Sure you might even be right that there are some struggling rescue centres out there, but if you go to the RSPCA or The Dogs Trust then they really will guide you through the different breeds and so forth- they might point you at something you never even considered but which turns out to be an amazing match, they certainly did with me.
"And I must be clear that I am not talking about tricks. I am talking about key elements of socialisation. Aggressive and/or timid dogs were not properly socialised as pups and it is incredibly hard to reverse this later;"
Incredibly hard is overstating it somewhat, some things are still very easy to teach even in adult hood, such as toilet training.
You cite your greyhound example, but it's pointless to use a single example because some dogs are problematic in much the same way that no matter how hard society tries to teach that violence is bad, some humans are violent regardless- this is why I didn't bother responding to it previously because I could equally point to a number of dogs from breeders that even from puppyhood no matter how hard their owners tried to train them they were problematic.
But this is precisely again why I cite the advantages of rehoming- because you can get a dog whose personality and abilities are known in depth, and don't have to worry about the uncertainty.
"These are tests to detect various hereditary problems which are being eliminated from the gene pool by that horrible old "selective breeding" that everyone hates so much, though no dog would exist without it."
Oh come now, what an utterly rediculous statement. If you can't see the difference between breeding for looks without care for the health problems this can lead to and by going as far as encouraging inbreeding to try and exagerate such looks and breeding dogs to be healthy and effective in some role then there's little point debating this with you. Dogs historically were bred to be useful and to be useful they inherently had to be healthy- that situation is a far cry from modern breeders where health and usefulness go entirely out the window in favour of looks amongst most breeders. Working dog breeders are the rare exception of course.
Yes, I'd say really that situations like this are even the exception in the industry rather than the norm now too.
From what I understand, much of Rockstar has historically always been like this, I have a close friend who worked in Rockstar Vienna before it collapsed, he got out about a month beforehand and was telling me long before it collapsed how messed up it was with very similar issues as those mentioned here.
The game industry has had to improve somewhat because developers have begun to realise that there's far more money in business software, and far less stress, because employers are more frequently treated like humans.
I've also never had a problem doing software development, my hours are 8:30 - 4:30pm Mon - Thurs, and 8:30 - 4pm Friday and I've never had to work a minute of overtime. My last job was only slightly worse in that I finished at 5pm each day, and the pay wasn't as good, but that's really just because of career progression.
No, I'm not suggesting we regulate hampster breeding or anything quite that extreme (and no CCTV in the UK isn't that bad, unless you live in London centre where all the paranoid politicians do whatever it is politicians supposedly do). I was more referring to animals like dogs, and certainly here in the UK, animals like horses, where there are also a lot of irresponsible breeders.
For what it's worth I'm quite a fan of plants too- greenhouse with 3000 different cacti spanning hundreds of different species in it, and a conservatory with an awful lot of orchids! It's a nice excuse to take a break from sitting on the computer, well, other than walking and playing with the dogs of course!
This is how it works in the UK, there are 5 breeds listed as dangerous which it is illegal to breed and own as pets.
Regardless the GP is right about visits, if you ignore the sensibility of the legality of pitbulls it's worth pointing out that some pitbulls don't necessarily carry the killer trait, although most do. Just say for a moment that a pitbull has been dropped at a rehoming centre not because it's been abused but because it's owner died or lost all their money and it has no history of aggression towards people, but knowing it's an aggressive breed then this is precisely what the visits are intended to deal with- to check it'll have a secure place to be kept "just in case", to check it wont be around small children and that sort of thing.
I do generally agree though, animals with a killer mindset probably aren't a good option to allow as pets whether we're talking pitbulls, tigers, or alligators.
"Some breeders are bad people, but many are not. They are just as concerned with the health and wellbeing of their dogs as you are. But you seem to think that absolutely all of them are bad people"
Not at all, I just think their method of income is unnecessary, and pointless, when they'd be better off offering a rehoming service when there are so many great rescued pets available.
"My view is that the KC is an important de-facto regulator for dog breeding, with extensive power to prevent inbreeding and genetic problems while also setting a high minimum standard for breeders."
Not that high a minimum standard, and not very effective, seeing as it fails to achieve these goals to this day on an even close to consistent basis.
"As you surely know, when a dog has got past puppyhood, he is much more difficult to train"
This simply isn't true, the phrase "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is a complete myth. Providing your dog doesn't have more serious underlying issues (which in themselves can often still be fixed) there's no reason it'd be harder to teach an adult dog than a young dog- I was teaching my old dog new tricks up until it was 15.
"I believe that rescue dogs require owners who are either experienced or lucky. As you surely know, when a dog has got past puppyhood, he is much more difficult to train, and bad behaviour is not easy to correct. A beginner may be lucky and get a dog who has already been properly socialised and trained. Then again, he may get a dog that requires expert assistance, which would be unfortunate for the dog as well as the owner. "
Right, but as I said, the rehoming centres know precisely which dogs these are, and can match them up based on experience so again you're trying to create an issue where there isn't one. The well trained dogs will be matches with inexperienced owners, it's quite simple, it's very effective, it's also in the rehoming centre's interest because the last thing they want is for the dogs to go back to them. In contrast, once a breeder has your money, they wont give a fuck what problems you have.
"and to be quite honest it is somewhat upsetting that you should tell me that I'm doing it wrong"
I'm not saying it's wrong per-se, it's your decision, I'm just saying it's better for everyone not to support breeders when you can do just as well from a rehoming centre. I'm sure you have a lovely pair of dogs, but I can guarantee you there are many other lovely dogs who have had a shit upbringing and would love a nice home- the point is why not give a previously neglected dog a good life rather than support the breeding of dogs for profit when there are already more that need homes and are perfectly good pets out there? Even if you want a puppy, rehoming centres have these too, one of my old dogs (the doberman/jack russell cross) was a litter of 9 dumped in a box at the dogs home at only 2 months old.
"In the UK you cannot buy a dog in any shop. You must go directly to a breeder. This requires research and investigation."
This isn't true, there are shops in the UK that legally allow you to simply purchase dogs. It's a disgusting practice, and it exists.
The Kennel Club in particular is a fine example of who not to use, because not only have their breeders been some of the worst responsible for genetic disorders through inbreeding, they even tried to whitewash an investigation into it with the party line "We do our best to ensure blah blah blah":
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7569064.stm
But again the real question is why go to a breeder at all? They'll have the same breeds in rescue centres, and your view that rescued dogs are only for experienced owners is completely false. Unlike with most breeders rescue centres have canine behaviour specialists, they often have the dog's background (i.e. if the dog was handed in because the owner died, or went into debt) and many other details about it- you can find a dog much more fitting for your experience and lifestyle than you ever could guarantee buying a puppy from a breeder. The Dogs Trust for example makes you fill in a form before you're even allowed to look at the dogs available for rehoming, and they will help match a dog to you.
You cannot ever guarantee a new puppy will have not develop behavioural problems but you can be pretty certain say, a year or two old rescue dog with a history that has no behavioural problems will stay that way, so your assertion that rescue dogs are more problematic couldn't be more in contrast with reality. Unless you specifically adopt a problem rescue dog on the understanding that you can look after it, rescue dogs are much easier for new and inexperienced owners.
Again, there is absolutely no beneficial reason to go to a breeder for an animal like a dog or a cat.
Well if point 1 is true, then I agree this particular law is a bad one. In reponse to point 2 yes, certainly there are some animals pet shops could reasonably stock, in fact, it's much better that pet shops breed things like marine fish rather than pillage them from corals but for animals which there is often an abundance of strays/rescues like dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, goats and chickens (in the UK!) that's the sort of thing that needn't be sold in shops. Point 3 is really irrelevant, I'm not really interested in a discussion about PETA!
I think the point of this law has been entirely missed by the kneejerk croud here on Slashdot.
It's a law that wouldn't effect me because I live in the UK but I could quite appreciate perhaps not such a drastic measure but something along those lines here in the UK.
Pet breeders all too often treat animals as little more than stock that makes money, they keep them in shitty conditions that whilst may not make the animal look scruffy will cause it distress and can lead to behaviour problems. They don't care about that because once they've sold the animal they deem it not their problem any more. Further, there's no real checks on breeders here, they can sell to whoever they want, and that can mean selling to people who will let their 3 year old kid throw their hamster or whatever around like a toy, or accidently stand on it, somewhat brutally crushing it to death- these sorts of things happen all the time.
Meanwhile we have rehoming centres absolutely full to the brim of animals that have been abandoned, or previously mistreated, whose behaviour issues have been noted, or corrected. They're full of animals of all shapes and sizes just begging for a home, and these rehoming centres do home visits to check suitability of a household for a pet before they allow someone to adopt. Further, they even have clauses that allow them to reclaim pets that are found to be mistreated so that they can seize them from incompetent or outright malicious owners. They will also neuter pets such that they do not go on to add to the problem of growing numbers of strays.
Really, in the UK at minimum there needs to be stricter licensing on breeding. Such measures might not put an end to the problems entirely, and black markets might exist- just as they do for banned dangerous dog breeds, but it would at least stop parents going out and buying a hampster for little timmy just because timmy cried about wanting one and they didn't have the balls to tell him he's not responsible enough to look after him, a pet that might then die in any number of horrid ways in which kids manage to kill their pets through not knowing better.
It's about stopping the market of pets as "accessories" and improving welfare for many animals as a result. It's about maximising adoption of rescued animals by more responsible and trustworthy pet owners, rather than going to their local shop out of convenience and leaving the stray problem a problem because so many strays go unadopted.
Personally I've always had rescued dogs through my entire life, and wouldn't dream of getting one from a shop, ignoring the countless genetic defects, and behaviour issues that arise from inbreeding and mistreatment amongst such breeders, rescued dogs just come in shapes and sizes you'd never expect (I had a jack russel / doberman cross once- no I don't know which was the mother and which was the father), and for me, have always been full of character and extremely loyal.
The point is there's not even a need for a pet industry when it's proven itself often untrustworthy and sometimes contributory to the stray problem (which your tax dollars have to deal with) when excess / imperfect animals are chucked out on the streets. When there's already a problem of too many pets needing homes out there in the first place such that a lack of pet shops would decrease the stray problem (hence saving your tax dollars) then it's ludicrous to go on allowing such an irresponsible industry to at least carry on without regulation.
I suspect this will be an unpopular view with Slashdot's liberal idealists where any mention of government is seen as a bad thing but oh well, it's just my personal opinion, this is at least one area where some kind of regulation can actually improve things for tax payers, animal charities, and animals alike, at the cost only of the detriment to an industry that more often causes detriment to those 3 sections of society.
"Exploitation of natural resources without thought of sustainability has been standard human practice since at least the Old Stone Age."
To nowhere near the extent of that under the baby boomers though. The relative levels of strip mining, deforestation, overfishing, and so on all peaked under the boomers.
"Oh, and it was Boomers who first started the "green" movement.""
No, it was a mere few concerned boomers who recognised how badly the rest of their generation was fucking up the world. Not the generation as a whole- it was the very fact the boomers were so destructive that the green movement came about as a knee-jerk response in the first place, there wouldn't have even needed to be a green movement if they'd worked to be more responsible and sustainable from the outset.
They raped this planet hard, and to this day are still the biggest barrier to fixing it.
Well, it's quite obvious, most people learn after only a few years in school that when you burn fossil fuels and forests to clear room for crops that it takes a long while for such large areas of forests to grow back and for such vast amounts of fossil fuels to be replaced.
Even where the resource itself hasn't been changed into something less useful then recycling still in itself uses further resources.
Even int he case of things like over-fishing it takes years for populations of fish to recover.
I understand you're trying to make the point that the atoms comprising those resources are still on this earth and you're quite right, the problem is they're no longer useful because they were used without care for efficiency or future reusability or recyclability.
Well it is natures way too, but herein lies the problem, it's also natures way of dealing with us as a destructive force on the planet. That is, if we continue to cause other species to go extinct, and continue to cause ecosystem collapse, then there will begin to be food shortages for us, and eventually it may well be our own extinction that comes along.
The question isn't whether we should try and preserve everything, or try and maintain Earth at a static point in time, but how we can live in a manner where our contribution to extinction events is minimised, so as to decrease the chance of our very own extinction, or at best, avoid large scale decline of the human race.
Some things we can do quite easily- when we allow fishermen to drag nets right across the ocean floor destroying reefs on the bottom, and catching far more fish than quotas allow them to keep such that they just throw a load back in and kill en-masse in an ecosystem destroying manner to bring back only maybe a small percentage of what they destroy for actual consumption it seems clear we could quite trivially at least be doing a lot there to improve efficiency in terms of sustaining both our food supplies, and ensuring a healthy ecosystem that can support continued food supplies. In contrast weening ourselves off fossil fuels is much more of a challenge.
It's about recognising that whilst nature will indeed do what nature does, that if we don't play ball, then we might not like what nature does, and may not have much say in it either. It may be unfortunate that we all get whiped out tommorrow by an asteroid, but it also may not, if it's not and we have at least thousands of years in us yet, then it pays off to reduce our effect on the planet. Well, that is of course, if we care about future generations, and not just ourselves- which was really the problem with the baby boom generation, and why we have the problems we do now in the first place- they stripped the earth of more of many types of raw resources in their life times than in the whole of human history combined- because they only gave a shit about themselves, and their lifetime, and not what happened afterwards. That's also why they're sat on things like big fat final salary pension schemes that the rest of us will pay for, but can't have ourselves.
"Nonetheless, I think almost everybody understands on a gut level that this sort of thing is ethically wrong."
It really depends, 10 years ago I'd have fully agreed with this viewpoint, but when the music and movie industry have tried, through corporate lobbying, excessive DRM, illegal price fixing and so forth to have my freedoms and rights reduced over the years I'm not convinced it is anymore- these are people I'm not convinced there is anything wrong in taking what you want from and giving nothing back.
Even 5 years ago, probably 3 years ago I'd have agreed with you, but the constant barrage of attacks on consumer rights and personal freedoms from them has chipped away at me more and more, made me more and more apathetic to the idea that they're even deserving of any kind of recompense.
Of course it depends on the product, and the company- there are still far more ethical companies out there whom I don't hold this view and whom I'd agree with you deserve recompense for their product, but I certainly don't hold that view universally anymore- honestly, the more people that pirate from the music and movie industry the better, I'll enjoy their product with no detriment to me whilst it's here, but I wont miss it when it's gone.
It's one of those issues where there's far too many variables, and what your own personal experiences with a company are- someone whose had good service from Best Buy may well be less inclined to use this kind of app in their store than say, someone who has been fucked over by them because they sold them a warranty on a false premise and refused to honour it when their $2k TV or whatever bust well before it should have. The latter person may well in fact believe they're perfectly in the right if they have a firm belief that morally, Best Buy owes them, even if they don't legally because of anti-consumer practices or the like.
Fundamentally though whatever the app does, I'm not sure it's a decision Google should be making for people. In fact, this sort of app is precisely the sort of thing that could open up new business models- say you're in a pub that is playing music and you think "Hey, I like this song, but I don't know what it is", there's no reason we couldn't have vending machines where you enter your card, are charged say £1, and it displays the barcode of the current playing track so you can download it. In fact, there's no reason with NFC you couldn't skip the card phase and just do it all on your phone. It's precisely this sort of tech that should be allowed to go mainstream so that it kicks the lazy ass music industry into producing it's own solution. Simply censoring against such applications just stifles innovation and reinforces the false view that the likes of the music industry can win by just bunkering down and try to protect it's dying business model with litigation.
It's a question of rate of change. Whilst long term change is inevitable, if change is happening quickly because of man's actions then those habitats may not have time to adapt. If you consider that coral reefs might be able to adapt to say a 3c increase over 10,000 years, it doesn't mean they will over 100 years- you need a number of generations of a species to adapt to the change, the pressures are just too great over a shorter period.
This is what many people don't get with the climate change issue- you have sites that cater to dumb people like The Register parroting on about how parts of the world were much hotter hundreds of years ago than they are now and the world and life didn't end as a result of that change, completely ignoring that such changes happened gradually over hundreds of thousands of years, not over a hundred years.
It is there that the problem lies. Change is indeed good, and in fact inevitable, it just has to happen at nature's pace, not our pace, else it leads to extinction.
Right, because when you're facing the world's finest law enforcement you can be certain that your anonymity will remain intact.
You can't possibly be certain of that.
Ergo, your argument clearly falls on it's face.
So to you they're a bunch of "weenies".
Tell me, what have you ever done in terms of standing up for what you believe in that could risk a long jail term?
No? Nothing? No, sorry, whinging on Slashdot about your government doesn't count.
Let's be realistic, agree with them or not, they've put their ass on the line to a far greater extent than people like you ever will, yet you feel you're well positioned to somehow suggest they're weak?
Yes, we finally got the cunts to do this just the year before last.
I say finally because many attempts for such a thing had been rejected so many times before, even since the millenium which shows how utterly fucking pathetic governments are at accepting that sometimes they didn't do the right thing.
It's shameful that it took so long, it's shameful that even in recent years it was still rejected, but at least they finally did it.
As for commemorating him, that's really gone ahead without the government, there are numerous ways in which he's commemorated around the country, generally funded by private or academic institutions.
No think about my example of spammers, they cause real financial damage in the world and are a major burden to businesses, yet how many go uncaught? Even in the case where we're talking about criminals using pre-built tools without really understanding them the authorities have yet to show much strength in being able to deal with the problem.
I'm suggesting that when you've been thinking about such things long enough there's very little room to make mistakes, and that if you have, you'll tend to know about it. The hacker mindset is one of meticulous attention to detail and obsessive thought about a subject on their mind, you can guarantee that particularly when paranoid about being caught which is going to be more the case with such announcements as this that the scope for mistakes will be so small, and the scope for mistakes that can't be cleaned up after the fact and before discovery is even smaller.
I'm not saying they couldn't be outsmarted by the feds, simply that they wont be outsmarted by someone foolish enough to post on the internet "We know the leader's identity", before he's actually been brought to justice. I also suspect that to actually catch them they're likely to somewhat cheat, and throw due process out the window- they may have a rough idea who is involved but not have the evidence to legitimately question them or seize their kit, so they'll make up some false charge to seize it and build up evidence upon that anyway. They may not even have a case then but the authorities including the judiciary seem quite competent at ruling against people even when the evidence is unacceptably weak in the first place.
They probably will get them some way or another, but it may not be through a legitimate thoroughly proper and clean legal process. Sure many such hackers have been caught in the end, but how many haven't over the years? How many spammers go untouched, how many criminal hackers do the authorities not even know the rought whereabouts of? how many DDOS attacks against major corporations even before anonymous started doing them went unpunished? you only have to look at the rather famous case of Al Capone, where physical evidence should theoretically have been much easier to come by and see that they had to do him on tax evasion in the end to see that sometimes, achieving proper justice against criminals can be quite the impossible task. The result then is either failure to deal with them at all, or a bending of the law.
I think more realistically you're underestimating the ability of smart criminals, particularly in the digital world to evade justice. For all the feel good stories about "criminal X has been caught" hammered into us on the news, and newspapers, there's plenty more who are not. It's perfectly possible they will fall into this category, and it seems blurting out to the world that you know the identities of these people even if you don't announce said identity is only going to make life that much harder for the authorities who may truly find any potential evidence has already been burnt and shredded already whether in the physical or digital sense. A smart investigation would simply not announce knowledge of the identity of the target until they were already in custody, anything else is just foolish penis waving.
"They refused to disclose the identities of LulzSec chief, saying it would cause the members to burn the evidence of attacks and scatter.""
Yes, because announcing you know his identity on the internet wont do that anyway will it?
Obviously not the sharpest tool in the box, such a comment doesn't instill much confidence that they have in fact got the right people.
Let's be honest, the LulzSec people will know if they've let their identity loose to anyone or not, if they have they'll already be watching their backs, if they haven't, then they'll know they have nothing to worry about. Doing what they're doing, attacking the targets they are means you're bound to recognise that keeping evidence around in the first place would be foolish.
Yes, but in contrast I don't personally know anyone that's quit. Personal anecdotes are even more meaningless than a study that doesn't explain it's methods.
Well I don't think TFA is even true, this story has popped up elsewhere over the last few days, Slashdot is a bit late getting to it. Facebook themselves and another 3rd party have both said these numbers are bunk, and I think they're probably right.
The same study suggests 1.5million Canadians also quit in a single month, that's 5% of Canada's entire population quitting Facebook in May. Now, to me that seems pretty odd, why so many, why May? For this to be realistic there'd almost certainly have to have been some good reason why so many chose that specific month to all leave together but I'm not aware of any event that would've caused such a mass exodus.
I think Facebook might well be in slight decline in early adopting countries, but to the degree, with the numbers listed in TFA? Seems pretty unlikely, the numbers are just far too large for so many people to coincidentally all just pick one month to leave.
The original articles on it suggested it was about privacy, but perhaps more realistically people haven't actually quit because of privacy, but have in fact boosted their privacy settings causing problems for whatever arbitrary method was used to measure these user counts.
I couldn't really care what happens to Facebook personally, but I'm sick of seeing this story because frankly, it seems to almost certainly be completely and utterly full of shit- a classic attention whoring attempt using sensationalist tosh.