Are you interested in a music teacher trying to change careers? Are you willing to consider telecommute-based employees? If you'd be so kind as to mention the company name or website (or provide some method for contact), I'm sure you could get many qualified applicants based on your above post alone, including the applicant I described.
He is a friend of many years who I would expect to get 4-5 of those correct, but since he has almost no technical experience (a portfolio with a handful of webpages he has written for himself and others and a program or two written for himself), and little formal technical education (some community college classes taken in the evenings after work), he won't even be considered by most potential employers. He has a BA in Music Education and almost 6 years of professional experience as an elementary school music teacher with references, so he has a proven strong work ethic and very strong organizational and interpersonal skills. He's used to a teacher's salary, and so would be a relatively cheap hire with lots of potential for professional growth, for whatever employer can recognize that.
Now you've decided to share that two-way communication with a hidden third party,
I did no such thing. I placed a link in my page to the third party. Your web browser, running on your computer, executed the link to the 3rd party and provided the data.
By that logic, your website can link to a drive-by virus install (it can even host the virus itself), and it is not your responsibility in any way if the user becomes infected as a result -- after all, it was the user's web browser which downloaded the virus code, and the user's web browser/OS that allowed the virus to execute. I, and I think most people, would say that logic is pure garbage. Here's my take:
I would say you *are* responsible for the content/expected behavior of your website, including to a large extent that of 3rd parties when linked directly into your website, since your website enables and facilitates the actions of those 3rd parties. You can avoid all responsibility in my mind only if you make a significant good-faith effort to inform the users about any questionable actions your webpage (including embedded links to 3rd parties) may take, and if the user is able to opt out of such actions before they take place. Allowing the user to opt out can mean saying something like "if you don't like what my website is going to do, don't load my website up in your browser", but only if you find a way to inform the user and give them that choice before those actions have already occurred.
If you don't do those things (not exactly trivial, I know), then I think it is unreasonable for you to say you have no responsibility for anything your website (intentionally) causes my computer to do, including things caused by embedded links to 3rd parties (when those behaviors were known and expected by you). In the case that a 3rd party does something that you did not intend and did not know about beforehand, you are only partially responsible -- you are responsible for the mistake of having trusted an untrustworthy 3rd party.
Now, the question of whether you have done something wrong is very different. Personally, I don't think these web bugs are really that big a deal. Some people do, however, and you'd find me defending you instead of attacking you if you wouldn't try to shift responsibility to the user for actions initiated by the code in your website.
I don't even need to argue this, according to his graphs we should all be using Regina, Mlton or Stalin (a scheme implementation).
Not saying I disagree with your post as a whole, but if you had RTFA instead of just glancing at the graphs, you would have noticed the author mentions
The bottom left three languages, Cmucl, Regina and Stalin are outliers. These languages do not have enough benchmark implementations in the database to generate fully fleshed stars.
While I'm sure it happens (and I am sorry that it happened to you), I don't think that is typical of cancer in general -- and since you said 'relatively quickly' you seem to be acknowledging that your mother's situation wasn't typical. That's what is so scary about cancer to me, and I think most who don't really know that much about it -- the idea that it is a slow, wasting illness with a long, difficult treatment process that can make you feel much worse even if (and it's a significant 'if') they will eventually allow you to feel better.
I hope this doesn't come across as callous -- please take it as constructive criticism: Four wasted hours isn't a great thing under any circumstances, but if your time would be that much more precious to you (or those you love) after being diagnosed with a terminal condition, then perhaps you (or they) aren't making the best use of your time before the diagnosis. You or those you love could (for example) be hit by a car and lose any chance to 'wrap things up' in your life -- if there are things you'd want to do or say before you die, please think about doing them sooner rather than later.
The reason the idea is dumb is that as time passes, diseases tend to evolve to become more infectious, but less pathogenic. It's an obvious bit of natural selection: you will avoid people you know to be sick, and hence you are more likely to be infected by a less ill person.
Interesting -- I had the same fact in my head (diseases tend to become less debilitating/fatal as time goes on) but with a different bit of (equally "obvious"?) natural selection as the explanation: a disease which keeps its host alive and even healthy will be more successful at spreading than one which incapacitates and/or kills its host during the period when the host is infectious. While it is true that dead bodies can be a vector for the spread of disease, a living host can potentially spread the disease for much longer.
In fact, to anthropomorphize the disease a little, the goal it should strive for is not to cause any negative reactions in the host (which implicitly means it can't be triggering the immune system to attack it), and so to benignly infect every human on the planet from now until doomsday. For real overachieving diseases, they should strive to form a symbiotic relationship with the host so that there is selective pressure against being "immune" to the disease, as well as against lifestyle choices that are detrimental to the disease's population in the host. (Of course, when it no longer causes any negative effects in the host, we usually don't call it a disease anymore.)
He didn't specify more than one person, so the sensible assumption is one person.
I would argue that although one person is a sensible assumption, it is not the only sensible assumption, which is what you seem to be saying. In fact, in the absence of any indication of number, I would think the most sensible thing is not to assume anything. (For example, you could have started your response with "If you're comparing to the cost of going to the movies yourself, [...]".)
If you look a little closer at the original post, though, it does include the statement "For the price of two people going to see the movie, you can buy the DVD." That would make two people the most sensible assumption if you insist on making one, however I still don't see any reason he couldn't be talking about a couple, or even a family with children.
There's something I wonder about which sounds like it would be enlightening to GP as well:
If we were using our current detection technology to examine a solar system that has a planet exactly like earth, orbiting a star exactly like our sun, with the same orbital period, etc... how close would the solar system need to be for us to recognize those features? Could we recognize an earth-sized planet orbiting a star in the habitable zone if it were 20 light-years away? What about 30 light-years? How close would we need to be in order to recognize that it is covered in liquid H2O oceans? Would the presence of other larger and/or more-closely-orbiting planets (such as Jupiter, Saturday, Mercury, Venus, etc) make that even more difficult?
I'll take a stab and answering your question -- both the one you literally asked and what I think is the spirit behind your post and question. (Sorry that this is at times redundant with other posts, it took me quite a while to write this, and those posts didn't exist when I started.)
You asked, "Why is making it easy for people to steal ethical?" The question itself makes it sound like you think it is not ethical to do so under any circumstances. But this leads us to absurdities. Is making it easy for child pornographers to send pictures to each other unethical? Yes? Ok, so adding "file transfer" capabilities to instant messaging clients must be unethical. Is making it easy for people to counterfeit goods unethical? Yes? Ok, so running eBay must be unethical. That's the same logic as saying "TPB makes it easy for people to steal, therefore running TPB must be unethical." At this point, I'm going to assume we agree that facilitating an unethical activity is not necessarily unethical.
On the other hand, I do agree that facilitating an unethical activity can be enough to make something unethical. You might argue that TPB was created with the intent to facilitate these activities, whereas the other examples I gave clearly were not, and that makes all the difference. To a large extent (but not 100%), I would agree with you on that point, and I will agree that it does make TPB's situation more grey. However, I don't think the case is closed on TPB at this point in the discussion -- if TPB's place on the ethical/unethical spectrum is based on the activities it facilitates, then we must ask how unethical those activities are.
I would argue that downloading software (or other types of bits) via torrent is never by itself unethical. Here is an example to illustrate why (this example happens to be true). Just a few months ago, I reinstalled Windows. There was a shareware application for which I had bought a full license, and I wanted to reinstall it. However, I couldn't find the install file. I still had my serial number in an email, but the version of the software available for download on the website was already at the next major version number, and so my serial number wouldn't work. Perhaps I could have contacted the company and asked for them to make an older version of the application available, but there was no guarantee that would have gotten me anything but wasted time. Instead, I found a torrent for the version I had bought (which included a keygen that I didn't need) and downloaded it that way. I think you will agree that there was nothing unethical about that, because I had already paid the author for the software.
Furthermore, even using software without paying for it may not be unethical. Here is another true example, actually involving the same piece of software. When I was in college, I used that application illegally -- that is, I think I found a serial number online which I hadn't purchased, and used that to eliminate the nag screen that would periodically interrupt use of the application (maybe I downloaded a crack, I don't recall). If that serial number or crack had not been available to me, I still would not have bought the full version -- it just wasn't worth it to me, relative to the amount of money I had. So, when we compare the two possible situations (one where there was a serial/crack available to me, and the hypothetical one where there was not), the author made the same amount of money from me either way ($0), but without the serial/crack I would have merely been less productive (I probably wouldn't have continued using the app). I benefited, and no one lost anything. Therefore, I do not consider what I did unethical. As a side note, it is entirely possible the author actually benefited... when I graduated and scored a fulltime telecommute job, I found myself using that application throughout the day while earning a healthy income, so I decided to go ahead and buy the software. Had I not been using it for years, I likel
actually, greed is good. it's the great motivator. really, it's the only motivator.
Seriously? You think greed is the only motivator? As far as I understand the word, even loose definitions of greed only apply to the desire to acquire external rewards. So, you could be greedy for money, greedy for food, greedy for power, even greedy for praise -- though I think that last would be stretching it as far as most people are concerned. In the end though, those are all forms of extrinsic motivation. There is also intrinsic motivation, and I can't fathom applying the word "greed" to that.
Maybe you were saying that you don't think intrinsic motivation is effective. The interesting thing is that extrinsic motivation has been found to be weaker than intrinsic motivation in terms of producing results, while at the same time stifling a person's ability to be motivated intrinsically. This means that someone who grows up in a society filled with extrinsic motivators will have much, much weaker intrinsic motivation. In those circumstances, it would be easy for someone to mistakenly assume that greed is an inherent characteristic of human nature, since the person feels it as well as sees it in everyone else -- but that doesn't mean intrinsic motivation can't be just as strong or stronger. There's a reprint of an article from the Boston Globe about that topic here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html
Interestingly, your anecdote doesn't undermine the point GP was making at all, and actually supports it. In your case, you say that the only media you don't buy is stuff you'd never have known exists if it weren't for youtube and similar free sources. This says that the RIAA and MPAA haven't lost any sales due to your watching youtube, since there is no media that you don't buy merely because you can get it for free elsewhere. Based on that anecdote, there is nothing to lose (at least to people like you) from giving away your art for free online. Based on GP's anecdote, there is something to gain from people like GP.
I understand you were really trying to make a sarcastic point about anecdotes, and how they don't count as data. However, you failed miserably.
Sorry, I can't say -- I only bought it last night, and that was so I could disassemble it and use the parts for something else. I've never had a mini-mag before, so I also can't compare brightness. All I can say is that it is pretty bright for such a small flashlight, and the way you can focus or spread the beam with a twist is pretty slick (though incandescent mini-mags may do that too).
Take a look at the new LED mini-Maglites. They have "candle mode", where the reflector (and housing) screws off and leaves the bare LED exposed -- giving fairly uniform white light. I have one, and looking at the single LED, I'm pretty sure they use a simple, ~1/4in hemispherical lens. (Maybe the manufacturing of such a lens requires a great deal of precision/cost, but in terms of its optical properties I see no reason to assume there's anything complex about it.) The light does seem more intense if I point the flashlight straight at the wall than if I have it angled ~75 degrees from the wall, but not a lot. On the other hand, there is a very significant drop in illumination at 90 degrees.
It may add cost (the LED version retails for just over twice the cost of the incandescent version), and it's not perfect, but it doesn't add any significant weight at all. Incidentally, since the LED was not used due to its directionality in this case, they also had to use an extra-deep reflector in order to get good intensity when used in normal "flashlight" mode.
At my alma mater, there was a class called "Introduction to Programming for Engineering Students". This course was required by the College of Engineering for all non-CS majors, and at least 95% of the students taking that course had never programmed before. It is not appropriate to assume any student taking a college-level intro programming course already has some background.
What if someone wants to be a CS minor? Should they be required to have existing programming knowledge? The course I mentioned above wouldn't have been entirely appropriate for them (in my opinion), as it was lighter on CS theory than the equivalent course for CS majors. What about intelligent students from poor, rural school systems? Should they be excluded from the possibility of being CS majors, merely because the "computer science" course at their high school focused Microsoft Word?
Perhaps a better solution than assuming either "all students need to be taught the basics" or "all students who don't already know the basics can figure it out themselves while we move ahead" would be to have a small, 1-2 credit hour course called "Introduction to Programming" that goes over the basics. It could do so with both an imperative language (such as BASIC) and a functional language (such as Logo). This course would be optional, so that students who lack a programming background could catch up, while professors for the other courses could safely assume their students already know the basics.
Google served up the link; they should have a responsibility to do a periodic check that the links they serve aren't going to a bad place, and inform the victim if they've been referrer-redirect hijacked.
That's easier said than done. Here are some reasons:
The page was almost certainly clean when the ad was set up.
What if they use a database of known ip addresses (such as those available for free for PeerGuardian) to attempt to avoid attacking a Google ip address, rather than looking at the referrer?
Many of the redirects are much more sophisticated today -- they don't do a server-side redirect request, they send some javascript to make the browser do a client-side redirect. That makes things difficult because now your spider must include a javascript interpreter.
What if there's a 10-second delay before the redirect? If your spider leaves the site too soon, it'll never know. In contrast, many users would likely still be on the page after 10 seconds.
What if the attack is only initiated as a result of some particular sort of user interaction, like a click on the page (similar to much of today's popup code)? How do you reliably test for all possible variations on that?
How often do you test the links? Once a day? That'll take a lot of resources for someone as big as google. Once a week? On average that means a site will have 3-4 days in the wild before they even get checked, and that frequency still might take a lot of resources.
What if, even after all that, the page only attempts to attack one out of every ten opportunities? Even if you check the link periodically, and are able to duplicate the circumstances necessary to trigger the attack, you may not catch the attempt until you've tested the page several times. At once a week checking each link, that would mean on average a month or more in the wild.
I didn't read everything you bothered to type, but you could always find another job.
Yes, I said that myself at the beginning of the second sentence of my comment. (Perhaps you should actually read what I typed before assuming you know what point I'm trying to make.) Do you really think it should be worthwhile for me to quit my job just because there are no broadband ISPs that offer secure DNS where I live?
So if your internet at home went down, would you wither up and die?? Or just a little inside?
No, but considering the fact that I live over 1,500 miles from the office where I work, it is not merely a luxury that I telecommute. If I can't have broadband Internet, I'll need to quit my job and find another, convince my wife to quit her job and sell our house during the housing market slump so we can move (either somewhere I *can* have broadband Internet, or somewhere within driving distance of my company's office), or leave my wife behind so I can move. I can't simply boycott the only broadband ISP in my area on a whim, as you suggest -- it is a much, much bigger issue for me.
You're creating the false dichotomy that everything which is not necessary to survive is a luxury. I agree that I do not strictly need broadband Internet to survive, but disagree that the Internet is a luxury, for me at least. Perhaps you would have no problem boycotting utility companies if you felt they were doing something irresponsible, since after all electricity, water, natural gas, etc are not necessary for survival (and in fact many people in the world do not have these things), but most people in the US would argue that they are more than luxuries. Maybe you are lucky enough to have well or cistern water, and live in a climate where winter heating isn't necessary for survival, or perhaps you have a wood-burning stove/fireplace that could heat your house if you don't have electricity or natural gas -- but that doesn't mean that they are luxuries for everyone, irrespective of the circumstances of that person's life.
Those are more extreme examples, but the fact is that my life is currently based around having broadband at home, and although I could do without it (just as I could do without electricity, natural gas, and city water), I would need to make very large changes to my life to do so.
Actually, GP said "The illegality of each of those things is negative." which is not "illegal = -1", it's "not illegal = -1", or "legal = -1".
"The (not legality) of each of those things is (not positive).", the nots cancel out and you get "The legality of each of those things is positive".
Yes, both fucking and selling are legal.
The trick is in the multiplication where he uses illegality*illegality = illegality, or -1^2 = -1 to arrive at positive illegality rather than positive legality. I think he had you fooled though.
Except that GGGP only ever uses legal*legal = illegal, (and also legal*legal*legal = legal), which both work when legal = -1. I know that it seems like legal should be 1, but this is still not the case. If necessary, consider it a convention, just the way we treat electric current as if it flows in the direction of positive -> negative charge, even though that is not the case.
Of course, I'm seting myself up as a huge party pooper here but:
The illegality of each of those things is negative.
So illegal = -1, legal = 1 right?
Of course, it does lead to the little known fact that doing any two legal things together is illegal.
No, not really...
Actually, GP said "The illegality of each of those things is negative." which is not "illegal = -1", it's "not illegal = -1", or "legal = -1". To see for sure that that's what's going on, take a look at the quote GP was referring to: "Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. So why isn't selling fucking legal?". So legal = not illegal = -1.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you interested in a music teacher trying to change careers? Are you willing to consider telecommute-based employees? If you'd be so kind as to mention the company name or website (or provide some method for contact), I'm sure you could get many qualified applicants based on your above post alone, including the applicant I described.
He is a friend of many years who I would expect to get 4-5 of those correct, but since he has almost no technical experience (a portfolio with a handful of webpages he has written for himself and others and a program or two written for himself), and little formal technical education (some community college classes taken in the evenings after work), he won't even be considered by most potential employers. He has a BA in Music Education and almost 6 years of professional experience as an elementary school music teacher with references, so he has a proven strong work ethic and very strong organizational and interpersonal skills. He's used to a teacher's salary, and so would be a relatively cheap hire with lots of potential for professional growth, for whatever employer can recognize that.
Now you've decided to share that two-way communication with a hidden third party,
I did no such thing. I placed a link in my page to the third party. Your web browser, running on your computer, executed the link to the 3rd party and provided the data.
By that logic, your website can link to a drive-by virus install (it can even host the virus itself), and it is not your responsibility in any way if the user becomes infected as a result -- after all, it was the user's web browser which downloaded the virus code, and the user's web browser/OS that allowed the virus to execute. I, and I think most people, would say that logic is pure garbage. Here's my take:
I would say you *are* responsible for the content/expected behavior of your website, including to a large extent that of 3rd parties when linked directly into your website, since your website enables and facilitates the actions of those 3rd parties. You can avoid all responsibility in my mind only if you make a significant good-faith effort to inform the users about any questionable actions your webpage (including embedded links to 3rd parties) may take, and if the user is able to opt out of such actions before they take place. Allowing the user to opt out can mean saying something like "if you don't like what my website is going to do, don't load my website up in your browser", but only if you find a way to inform the user and give them that choice before those actions have already occurred.
If you don't do those things (not exactly trivial, I know), then I think it is unreasonable for you to say you have no responsibility for anything your website (intentionally) causes my computer to do, including things caused by embedded links to 3rd parties (when those behaviors were known and expected by you). In the case that a 3rd party does something that you did not intend and did not know about beforehand, you are only partially responsible -- you are responsible for the mistake of having trusted an untrustworthy 3rd party.
Now, the question of whether you have done something wrong is very different. Personally, I don't think these web bugs are really that big a deal. Some people do, however, and you'd find me defending you instead of attacking you if you wouldn't try to shift responsibility to the user for actions initiated by the code in your website.
I don't even need to argue this, according to his graphs we should all be using Regina, Mlton or Stalin (a scheme implementation).
Not saying I disagree with your post as a whole, but if you had RTFA instead of just glancing at the graphs, you would have noticed the author mentions
The bottom left three languages, Cmucl, Regina and Stalin are outliers. These languages do not have enough benchmark implementations in the database to generate fully fleshed stars.
While I'm sure it happens (and I am sorry that it happened to you), I don't think that is typical of cancer in general -- and since you said 'relatively quickly' you seem to be acknowledging that your mother's situation wasn't typical. That's what is so scary about cancer to me, and I think most who don't really know that much about it -- the idea that it is a slow, wasting illness with a long, difficult treatment process that can make you feel much worse even if (and it's a significant 'if') they will eventually allow you to feel better.
I hope this doesn't come across as callous -- please take it as constructive criticism: Four wasted hours isn't a great thing under any circumstances, but if your time would be that much more precious to you (or those you love) after being diagnosed with a terminal condition, then perhaps you (or they) aren't making the best use of your time before the diagnosis. You or those you love could (for example) be hit by a car and lose any chance to 'wrap things up' in your life -- if there are things you'd want to do or say before you die, please think about doing them sooner rather than later.
for a cancer patient, four hours wasted is a huge deal.
Right, because cancer kills you so quickly...
I would think it should replace one of the utilities, though I'm not sure what the other would be.
The reason the idea is dumb is that as time passes, diseases tend to evolve to become more infectious, but less pathogenic. It's an obvious bit of natural selection: you will avoid people you know to be sick, and hence you are more likely to be infected by a less ill person.
Interesting -- I had the same fact in my head (diseases tend to become less debilitating/fatal as time goes on) but with a different bit of (equally "obvious"?) natural selection as the explanation: a disease which keeps its host alive and even healthy will be more successful at spreading than one which incapacitates and/or kills its host during the period when the host is infectious. While it is true that dead bodies can be a vector for the spread of disease, a living host can potentially spread the disease for much longer.
In fact, to anthropomorphize the disease a little, the goal it should strive for is not to cause any negative reactions in the host (which implicitly means it can't be triggering the immune system to attack it), and so to benignly infect every human on the planet from now until doomsday. For real overachieving diseases, they should strive to form a symbiotic relationship with the host so that there is selective pressure against being "immune" to the disease, as well as against lifestyle choices that are detrimental to the disease's population in the host. (Of course, when it no longer causes any negative effects in the host, we usually don't call it a disease anymore.)
He didn't specify more than one person, so the sensible assumption is one person.
I would argue that although one person is a sensible assumption, it is not the only sensible assumption, which is what you seem to be saying. In fact, in the absence of any indication of number, I would think the most sensible thing is not to assume anything. (For example, you could have started your response with "If you're comparing to the cost of going to the movies yourself, [...]".)
If you look a little closer at the original post, though, it does include the statement "For the price of two people going to see the movie, you can buy the DVD." That would make two people the most sensible assumption if you insist on making one, however I still don't see any reason he couldn't be talking about a couple, or even a family with children.
There's something I wonder about which sounds like it would be enlightening to GP as well:
If we were using our current detection technology to examine a solar system that has a planet exactly like earth, orbiting a star exactly like our sun, with the same orbital period, etc... how close would the solar system need to be for us to recognize those features? Could we recognize an earth-sized planet orbiting a star in the habitable zone if it were 20 light-years away? What about 30 light-years? How close would we need to be in order to recognize that it is covered in liquid H2O oceans? Would the presence of other larger and/or more-closely-orbiting planets (such as Jupiter, Saturday, Mercury, Venus, etc) make that even more difficult?
Anyone have any insight into this?
Actually, the original post said "the christian deity"; if you can manage all 26 letters following that specification, I will be truly impressed.
I'll take a stab and answering your question -- both the one you literally asked and what I think is the spirit behind your post and question. (Sorry that this is at times redundant with other posts, it took me quite a while to write this, and those posts didn't exist when I started.)
You asked, "Why is making it easy for people to steal ethical?" The question itself makes it sound like you think it is not ethical to do so under any circumstances. But this leads us to absurdities. Is making it easy for child pornographers to send pictures to each other unethical? Yes? Ok, so adding "file transfer" capabilities to instant messaging clients must be unethical. Is making it easy for people to counterfeit goods unethical? Yes? Ok, so running eBay must be unethical. That's the same logic as saying "TPB makes it easy for people to steal, therefore running TPB must be unethical." At this point, I'm going to assume we agree that facilitating an unethical activity is not necessarily unethical.
On the other hand, I do agree that facilitating an unethical activity can be enough to make something unethical. You might argue that TPB was created with the intent to facilitate these activities, whereas the other examples I gave clearly were not, and that makes all the difference. To a large extent (but not 100%), I would agree with you on that point, and I will agree that it does make TPB's situation more grey. However, I don't think the case is closed on TPB at this point in the discussion -- if TPB's place on the ethical/unethical spectrum is based on the activities it facilitates, then we must ask how unethical those activities are.
I would argue that downloading software (or other types of bits) via torrent is never by itself unethical. Here is an example to illustrate why (this example happens to be true). Just a few months ago, I reinstalled Windows. There was a shareware application for which I had bought a full license, and I wanted to reinstall it. However, I couldn't find the install file. I still had my serial number in an email, but the version of the software available for download on the website was already at the next major version number, and so my serial number wouldn't work. Perhaps I could have contacted the company and asked for them to make an older version of the application available, but there was no guarantee that would have gotten me anything but wasted time. Instead, I found a torrent for the version I had bought (which included a keygen that I didn't need) and downloaded it that way. I think you will agree that there was nothing unethical about that, because I had already paid the author for the software.
Furthermore, even using software without paying for it may not be unethical. Here is another true example, actually involving the same piece of software. When I was in college, I used that application illegally -- that is, I think I found a serial number online which I hadn't purchased, and used that to eliminate the nag screen that would periodically interrupt use of the application (maybe I downloaded a crack, I don't recall). If that serial number or crack had not been available to me, I still would not have bought the full version -- it just wasn't worth it to me, relative to the amount of money I had. So, when we compare the two possible situations (one where there was a serial/crack available to me, and the hypothetical one where there was not), the author made the same amount of money from me either way ($0), but without the serial/crack I would have merely been less productive (I probably wouldn't have continued using the app). I benefited, and no one lost anything. Therefore, I do not consider what I did unethical. As a side note, it is entirely possible the author actually benefited... when I graduated and scored a fulltime telecommute job, I found myself using that application throughout the day while earning a healthy income, so I decided to go ahead and buy the software. Had I not been using it for years, I likel
actually, greed is good. it's the great motivator. really, it's the only motivator.
Seriously? You think greed is the only motivator? As far as I understand the word, even loose definitions of greed only apply to the desire to acquire external rewards. So, you could be greedy for money, greedy for food, greedy for power, even greedy for praise -- though I think that last would be stretching it as far as most people are concerned. In the end though, those are all forms of extrinsic motivation. There is also intrinsic motivation, and I can't fathom applying the word "greed" to that.
Maybe you were saying that you don't think intrinsic motivation is effective. The interesting thing is that extrinsic motivation has been found to be weaker than intrinsic motivation in terms of producing results, while at the same time stifling a person's ability to be motivated intrinsically. This means that someone who grows up in a society filled with extrinsic motivators will have much, much weaker intrinsic motivation. In those circumstances, it would be easy for someone to mistakenly assume that greed is an inherent characteristic of human nature, since the person feels it as well as sees it in everyone else -- but that doesn't mean intrinsic motivation can't be just as strong or stronger. There's a reprint of an article from the Boston Globe about that topic here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html
Interestingly, your anecdote doesn't undermine the point GP was making at all, and actually supports it. In your case, you say that the only media you don't buy is stuff you'd never have known exists if it weren't for youtube and similar free sources. This says that the RIAA and MPAA haven't lost any sales due to your watching youtube, since there is no media that you don't buy merely because you can get it for free elsewhere. Based on that anecdote, there is nothing to lose (at least to people like you) from giving away your art for free online. Based on GP's anecdote, there is something to gain from people like GP.
I understand you were really trying to make a sarcastic point about anecdotes, and how they don't count as data. However, you failed miserably.
Drat. I clicked the wrong moderation. Replying to revert it.
Sorry, I can't say -- I only bought it last night, and that was so I could disassemble it and use the parts for something else. I've never had a mini-mag before, so I also can't compare brightness. All I can say is that it is pretty bright for such a small flashlight, and the way you can focus or spread the beam with a twist is pretty slick (though incandescent mini-mags may do that too).
Take a look at the new LED mini-Maglites. They have "candle mode", where the reflector (and housing) screws off and leaves the bare LED exposed -- giving fairly uniform white light. I have one, and looking at the single LED, I'm pretty sure they use a simple, ~1/4in hemispherical lens. (Maybe the manufacturing of such a lens requires a great deal of precision/cost, but in terms of its optical properties I see no reason to assume there's anything complex about it.) The light does seem more intense if I point the flashlight straight at the wall than if I have it angled ~75 degrees from the wall, but not a lot. On the other hand, there is a very significant drop in illumination at 90 degrees.
It may add cost (the LED version retails for just over twice the cost of the incandescent version), and it's not perfect, but it doesn't add any significant weight at all. Incidentally, since the LED was not used due to its directionality in this case, they also had to use an extra-deep reflector in order to get good intensity when used in normal "flashlight" mode.
At my alma mater, there was a class called "Introduction to Programming for Engineering Students". This course was required by the College of Engineering for all non-CS majors, and at least 95% of the students taking that course had never programmed before. It is not appropriate to assume any student taking a college-level intro programming course already has some background.
What if someone wants to be a CS minor? Should they be required to have existing programming knowledge? The course I mentioned above wouldn't have been entirely appropriate for them (in my opinion), as it was lighter on CS theory than the equivalent course for CS majors. What about intelligent students from poor, rural school systems? Should they be excluded from the possibility of being CS majors, merely because the "computer science" course at their high school focused Microsoft Word?
Perhaps a better solution than assuming either "all students need to be taught the basics" or "all students who don't already know the basics can figure it out themselves while we move ahead" would be to have a small, 1-2 credit hour course called "Introduction to Programming" that goes over the basics. It could do so with both an imperative language (such as BASIC) and a functional language (such as Logo). This course would be optional, so that students who lack a programming background could catch up, while professors for the other courses could safely assume their students already know the basics.
Google served up the link; they should have a responsibility to do a periodic check that the links they serve aren't going to a bad place, and inform the victim if they've been referrer-redirect hijacked.
That's easier said than done. Here are some reasons:
I didn't read everything you bothered to type, but you could always find another job.
Yes, I said that myself at the beginning of the second sentence of my comment. (Perhaps you should actually read what I typed before assuming you know what point I'm trying to make.) Do you really think it should be worthwhile for me to quit my job just because there are no broadband ISPs that offer secure DNS where I live?
So if your internet at home went down, would you wither up and die?? Or just a little inside?
No, but considering the fact that I live over 1,500 miles from the office where I work, it is not merely a luxury that I telecommute. If I can't have broadband Internet, I'll need to quit my job and find another, convince my wife to quit her job and sell our house during the housing market slump so we can move (either somewhere I *can* have broadband Internet, or somewhere within driving distance of my company's office), or leave my wife behind so I can move. I can't simply boycott the only broadband ISP in my area on a whim, as you suggest -- it is a much, much bigger issue for me.
You're creating the false dichotomy that everything which is not necessary to survive is a luxury. I agree that I do not strictly need broadband Internet to survive, but disagree that the Internet is a luxury, for me at least. Perhaps you would have no problem boycotting utility companies if you felt they were doing something irresponsible, since after all electricity, water, natural gas, etc are not necessary for survival (and in fact many people in the world do not have these things), but most people in the US would argue that they are more than luxuries. Maybe you are lucky enough to have well or cistern water, and live in a climate where winter heating isn't necessary for survival, or perhaps you have a wood-burning stove/fireplace that could heat your house if you don't have electricity or natural gas -- but that doesn't mean that they are luxuries for everyone, irrespective of the circumstances of that person's life.
Those are more extreme examples, but the fact is that my life is currently based around having broadband at home, and although I could do without it (just as I could do without electricity, natural gas, and city water), I would need to make very large changes to my life to do so.
I telecommute, you insensitive clod!
Even worse, that extra hour of daylight is causing droughts.
Electronic voting has bigger problems than TFA mentions... (FYI, the preceding link contains flash/video.)
Actually, GP said "The illegality of each of those things is negative." which is not "illegal = -1", it's "not illegal = -1", or "legal = -1".
"The (not legality) of each of those things is (not positive).", the nots cancel out and you get "The legality of each of those things is positive".
Yes, both fucking and selling are legal.
The trick is in the multiplication where he uses illegality*illegality = illegality, or -1^2 = -1 to arrive at positive illegality rather than positive legality. I think he had you fooled though.
Except that GGGP only ever uses legal*legal = illegal, (and also legal*legal*legal = legal), which both work when legal = -1. I know that it seems like legal should be 1, but this is still not the case. If necessary, consider it a convention, just the way we treat electric current as if it flows in the direction of positive -> negative charge, even though that is not the case.
Of course, I'm seting myself up as a huge party pooper here but:
The illegality of each of those things is negative.
So illegal = -1, legal = 1 right?
Of course, it does lead to the little known fact that doing any two legal things together is illegal.
No, not really...
Actually, GP said "The illegality of each of those things is negative." which is not "illegal = -1", it's "not illegal = -1", or "legal = -1". To see for sure that that's what's going on, take a look at the quote GP was referring to: "Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. So why isn't selling fucking legal?". So legal = not illegal = -1.