I was going to say pretty much the same thing, only you said it better.
If I release a creative work of my own -- be it software, music, or any other creation in any other medium -- into any kind of public license, then who are these self-imposed tyrants to say what others can do with my work? Aren't they themselves now limiting my rights to my own creation by telling what kind of licensing I have to use?
There are those who still insist the moon landing was a fake, too. Sometimes, logic fails to convince people. In such cases, there is no point in continuing to argue.
I think it's important that there be a metered and purposeful response to this problem.
I agree, and I think you are spot-on about civil damages. May I suggest, as a "metered and purposeful response" that everyone involved in the program be sent into the gymnasium of the school, that the students and parents of the students be given baseball bats and released into the gymnasium, and that no one EVER asks what happened afterwards?
IIRC from the previous/. story, some people did see the green light and were told it was a hardware glitch. Yes, perhaps they were sheep, but being naive is not a crime. Being a frigging peeping tom, however, IS, and rightly so.
There are all sorts of ways that the school could have got the photo through reasonably legitimate means.
I see two: the school remotely turned on the web cam or the student provided it to them. If 2), then I seriously doubt any lawyer worth the name would stick his neck out in this way (I would think the lawyer would risk being disbarred for alleging all of the things that have been listed in the lawsuit without reason to believe there was any grounds for the suit), and I strongly suspect the school district would have indicated so as soon as this story hit the news. The fact that a lawyer is filing such a suit and that the school district hasn't suggested any other way they received the photo (anonymous tipster, even?), I find it highly unlikely that anything other than the theft recovery software was used to take the photo. However, I welcome any other suggestions that I might be missing...
That establishes the context -- the photo was taken in the student's home. As for how it came to be in the school's hands, I see two options: either the student provided the photo himself or the school snapped the photo. If the student provided the photo himself, then what lawyer would even consider filing a class-action lawsuit? Furthermore, this article states, "On Friday, Christopher McGinley, the superintendent of Lower Merion, sent another letter to district parents, acknowledging that the district had turned on laptop cameras 42 times thus far in the 2009-2010 school year." However, even if the school district never turned on the camera in a single student's laptop, they still deserve to be run through the wringer:
And the privacy of non-students has been violated, the Robbins said. "By virtue of the fact that the Webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the School District, the Webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it," the lawsuit charged.
Sorry, your "fixed that for you" is dead wrong. The evidence at this point strongly supports that the school district f****d up and is now (rightly) being called on the carpet for it.
Just to add an extra consideration: not all failures are catastrophic failures. My thought would be, "If it is going to fail, let it fail in a way that is not catastrophic and that lets us analyze the failure so that we can correct it in subsequent launches." This way, you validate the overall design, learn from your "failure" and still don't scare off potential investors or clients.
That kind of thing isn't necessary in most programming. Niche knowledge ftw.
I disagree. Maybe you don't need to understand FFT's in your line of work (I don't), but analyzing algorithms for efficiency is absolutely a real-world skill.
If you don't at least understand these concepts (, then you don't understand why one algorithm is crap in the real world and another algorithm is preferred. If you don't understand why one algorithm is crap and another algorithm is good -- even though both provide the correct results -- then you have no business writing code professionally. This is not just an academic exercise. I have seen programmers (and I'm using the term very, very loosely here) who could not get the concept that nesting for loops -- while conceptually simple -- was an exceptionally poor way to do what they were trying to do. Then they couldn't understand why all our user were complaining that "the network" or "the server" was slow, when in fact, the network and the server were fine; it was the developer's piss-poor code that made a snappy network and bleeding edge hardware appear to be so sluggish.
With a minimum, they'd have to price at least at cost.
I've worked at two ISP's, and in my experience, Internet has never been priced at cost. Internet has always been a "loss-leader" to get people to buy bundled services.
"Sure, you can get DSL at your house...but you have to buy our local phone service to get it, since it uses our copper telephone lines for transport. If you buy our local telephone lines, then may I suggest you also purchase our cellular and LD services, as well? You are already paying $xx per month for our competitor's service. Our DSL line will cost you another $yy per month on top of that. However, if you just switch to our bundled package, then you can have all the same services you are getting from our competitor, plus DSL for $zz per month less than what you would be paying for our competitor's service and our DSL line."
And THAT is why the large telcos have killed their competitors. The big telcos can afford to lose money on Internet because they make it up on telephone, cable, and/or cellular service. A pure ISP would have to price Internet at no less than cost. However, since the telcos are already priced below cost, you can't sell Internet at cost anymore.
That's my point -- I don't see any way this law could actually be enforced without needlessly harassing a multitude of law-abiding bikers. What are you going to do? Pull over *every* group of people on motorcycles who ride past? Only pull over people who look tougher than average? Just pull over people if you don't like the way they look? It's an unenforceable law, and such laws should never be on the books in the first place.
This begs the question, and I'm sincerely curious about the answer. In practical terms and under Australian law, what is the difference between a group of friends riding motorcycles together and a biker gang? He couldn't seriously have outlawed group rides, could he? Or is it only a gang if everyone (majority, perhaps?) are wearing black leather and riding Harleys?
Let me think about it for a second...let's see...who's scarier? On the one hand, we have a 16 y.o. bone-skinny nerd with masking tape on his glasses who has never even met his ten best friends IRL. Granted, he did slip a threatening note under my door, but still...my eight year old daughter could break him in half. On the other hand, we have a six foot plus, 300 pound, leather-clad, tattooed, knife-wielding man, who's ten best friends have stood beside him in bar brawls for the last 20 years. He may never have said a threatening word to me, but then again, he doesn't have to.
Yeah, sorry. I gotta go with the biker dude as the scarier of the two.
Disclaimer: I also am (just) over six feet tall, (sometimes) wear leather and ride a motorcycle. However, I am considerably less than 300 pounds, I have never had a tattoo, nor have I ever been in a bar brawl.
Absolutely. However, gad_zuki! made it sound like everyone he knows thinks about whether or not a certain web site will function properly on the device(s) he uses when they send him links. Maybe his friends do, but I don't think that's typical for most people.
Why would anyone send you a link to Vimeo knowing it wont work on your iphone?
You must have a much more tech-savvy circle of friends than I do. Most people I know and communicate with on a regular basis (outside of work, that is) neither know nor care about the underlying technology of various web sites and how they interact with the operating systems of the computers and gadgets that I use. Such conversations invariably look like, "What's active-x? That won't work on your computer? Oh that's too...hey, look! A squirrel!".
What they do know: "Hey, this web site is cool. I think I will send a link to everyone in my e-mail list!"
Slashdot Mirror
I was going to say pretty much the same thing, only you said it better.
If I release a creative work of my own -- be it software, music, or any other creation in any other medium -- into any kind of public license, then who are these self-imposed tyrants to say what others can do with my work? Aren't they themselves now limiting my rights to my own creation by telling what kind of licensing I have to use?
Pot...kettle...black?
Like in modern-day Iraq?
Oh, wait...
Geeks -- real geeks, anyway -- would find a way to fire the Tazers remotely, pwn the watchlists and make the Federal charges....vanish into thin air.
No, thanks. I've been living like a king in Patagonia for the last 20 years.
There are those who still insist the moon landing was a fake, too. Sometimes, logic fails to convince people. In such cases, there is no point in continuing to argue.
Tape? Tape can fall off. I'd drill the frigging thing out...
I think it's important that there be a metered and purposeful response to this problem.
I agree, and I think you are spot-on about civil damages. May I suggest, as a "metered and purposeful response" that everyone involved in the program be sent into the gymnasium of the school, that the students and parents of the students be given baseball bats and released into the gymnasium, and that no one EVER asks what happened afterwards?
IIRC from the previous /. story, some people did see the green light and were told it was a hardware glitch. Yes, perhaps they were sheep, but being naive is not a crime. Being a frigging peeping tom, however, IS, and rightly so.
There are all sorts of ways that the school could have got the photo through reasonably legitimate means.
I see two: the school remotely turned on the web cam or the student provided it to them. If 2), then I seriously doubt any lawyer worth the name would stick his neck out in this way (I would think the lawyer would risk being disbarred for alleging all of the things that have been listed in the lawsuit without reason to believe there was any grounds for the suit), and I strongly suspect the school district would have indicated so as soon as this story hit the news. The fact that a lawyer is filing such a suit and that the school district hasn't suggested any other way they received the photo (anonymous tipster, even?), I find it highly unlikely that anything other than the theft recovery software was used to take the photo. However, I welcome any other suggestions that I might be missing...
I know this is
According to the original complaint, Blake Robbins was accused by a Harriton High School assistant principal of "improper behavior in his home" and shown a photograph taken by his laptop as evidence.
and
Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley, Pa., said they first found out about the alleged spying last November after their son Blake was accused by a Harriton High School official of "improper behavior in his home" and shown a photograph taken by his laptop.
That establishes the context -- the photo was taken in the student's home. As for how it came to be in the school's hands, I see two options: either the student provided the photo himself or the school snapped the photo. If the student provided the photo himself, then what lawyer would even consider filing a class-action lawsuit? Furthermore, this article states, "On Friday, Christopher McGinley, the superintendent of Lower Merion, sent another letter to district parents, acknowledging that the district had turned on laptop cameras 42 times thus far in the 2009-2010 school year." However, even if the school district never turned on the camera in a single student's laptop, they still deserve to be run through the wringer:
The Robbins...added that there was no mention of the functionality [the ability for the school district to turn on the web cam remotely] in any of the documentation they received or on the district's Web site.
And the privacy of non-students has been violated, the Robbins said. "By virtue of the fact that the Webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the School District, the Webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it," the lawsuit charged.
Sorry, your "fixed that for you" is dead wrong. The evidence at this point strongly supports that the school district f****d up and is now (rightly) being called on the carpet for it.
If I'm in the 'hood, I'd rather be in a Kia. A Ferrari would be roughly equivalent to a bullseye.
Just to add an extra consideration: not all failures are catastrophic failures. My thought would be, "If it is going to fail, let it fail in a way that is not catastrophic and that lets us analyze the failure so that we can correct it in subsequent launches." This way, you validate the overall design, learn from your "failure" and still don't scare off potential investors or clients.
That kind of thing isn't necessary in most programming. Niche knowledge ftw.
I disagree. Maybe you don't need to understand FFT's in your line of work (I don't), but analyzing algorithms for efficiency is absolutely a real-world skill.
If you don't at least understand these concepts (, then you don't understand why one algorithm is crap in the real world and another algorithm is preferred. If you don't understand why one algorithm is crap and another algorithm is good -- even though both provide the correct results -- then you have no business writing code professionally. This is not just an academic exercise. I have seen programmers (and I'm using the term very, very loosely here) who could not get the concept that nesting for loops -- while conceptually simple -- was an exceptionally poor way to do what they were trying to do. Then they couldn't understand why all our user were complaining that "the network" or "the server" was slow, when in fact, the network and the server were fine; it was the developer's piss-poor code that made a snappy network and bleeding edge hardware appear to be so sluggish.
With a minimum, they'd have to price at least at cost.
I've worked at two ISP's, and in my experience, Internet has never been priced at cost. Internet has always been a "loss-leader" to get people to buy bundled services.
"Sure, you can get DSL at your house...but you have to buy our local phone service to get it, since it uses our copper telephone lines for transport. If you buy our local telephone lines, then may I suggest you also purchase our cellular and LD services, as well? You are already paying $xx per month for our competitor's service. Our DSL line will cost you another $yy per month on top of that. However, if you just switch to our bundled package, then you can have all the same services you are getting from our competitor, plus DSL for $zz per month less than what you would be paying for our competitor's service and our DSL line."
And THAT is why the large telcos have killed their competitors. The big telcos can afford to lose money on Internet because they make it up on telephone, cable, and/or cellular service. A pure ISP would have to price Internet at no less than cost. However, since the telcos are already priced below cost, you can't sell Internet at cost anymore.
Except when you spend ten years in a prison cell*, you don't have to bring your own oxygen, water, food, etc.
* At least not in the U.S**. If you go to prison in other countries, YMMV.
** Offer void in Guantanamo Bay.
The problem isn't with the child asking questions, it's with the article not arming the parent with the answers.
That's what Google is for <grin> Then, not only can you provide a physics lesson, but you can teach your child how to research, as well.
What about freaks like me who built/flew model rockets *and* played guitar?
In light of your sig, the rest of your post is actually quite funny ;)
That's my point -- I don't see any way this law could actually be enforced without needlessly harassing a multitude of law-abiding bikers. What are you going to do? Pull over *every* group of people on motorcycles who ride past? Only pull over people who look tougher than average? Just pull over people if you don't like the way they look? It's an unenforceable law, and such laws should never be on the books in the first place.
This begs the question, and I'm sincerely curious about the answer. In practical terms and under Australian law, what is the difference between a group of friends riding motorcycles together and a biker gang? He couldn't seriously have outlawed group rides, could he? Or is it only a gang if everyone (majority, perhaps?) are wearing black leather and riding Harleys?
Let me think about it for a second...let's see...who's scarier? On the one hand, we have a 16 y.o. bone-skinny nerd with masking tape on his glasses who has never even met his ten best friends IRL. Granted, he did slip a threatening note under my door, but still...my eight year old daughter could break him in half. On the other hand, we have a six foot plus, 300 pound, leather-clad, tattooed, knife-wielding man, who's ten best friends have stood beside him in bar brawls for the last 20 years. He may never have said a threatening word to me, but then again, he doesn't have to.
Yeah, sorry. I gotta go with the biker dude as the scarier of the two.
Disclaimer: I also am (just) over six feet tall, (sometimes) wear leather and ride a motorcycle. However, I am considerably less than 300 pounds, I have never had a tattoo, nor have I ever been in a bar brawl.
Absolutely. However, gad_zuki! made it sound like everyone he knows thinks about whether or not a certain web site will function properly on the device(s) he uses when they send him links. Maybe his friends do, but I don't think that's typical for most people.
"I hear...radio waves...in my head."
Back when I graduated from high school, cassette tapes and VHS were the dominant audio/video format, and they haven't been displaced, either!
Erm...I mean...oh, nevermind.
Why would anyone send you a link to Vimeo knowing it wont work on your iphone?
You must have a much more tech-savvy circle of friends than I do. Most people I know and communicate with on a regular basis (outside of work, that is) neither know nor care about the underlying technology of various web sites and how they interact with the operating systems of the computers and gadgets that I use. Such conversations invariably look like, "What's active-x? That won't work on your computer? Oh that's too...hey, look! A squirrel!".
What they do know: "Hey, this web site is cool. I think I will send a link to everyone in my e-mail list!"