Hi, I'm posting anonymously. I remember talking to "Unspecified unverifiable person" the other day who told me to read the SCUM Manifesto(highly controversial book) Which is often sold at World Bank Protests (easily vilified target for opposing political belief) in order to better understand the progressive culture. The funny thing is this guy thought the SCUM Manifesto was a NORMAL and enlightening thing to read, just like Mao's little red book.
For the rest of us, we think that (exaggerated emotion to ridcule) of radicalism and a feeling of (exaggerated belief) to push our agenda is as fucked up as....
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So, did I get the format just about right? You, posting anonymously, claim to have spoken to 'some guy' that represents ALL of America and based on your obviously limited viewpoint on the subject, you have taken what are the absolute most extreme beliefs that could be associated with a group of people (who really don't fit into a single group in the first place, might as well just start making assumptions based on hair color), and used that to vilify all of us.
That's one mighty broad brush you have there. It would make a Texan proud.
Funny, but there's an even more likely possibility - people that don't like guns hang out with others that feel the same way. It's like how deeply religious people might say "I just don't know ANY Atheists, I guess there aren't many of them!"...
Funny, but I hang out with plenty of religous people. Perhaps the person you responded to WAS correct and we just don't talk about things that we know will make other people uncomfortable.
gimme a country in anarchy where the populace don't have easy access to guns than the most politically stable country in the world (which the US is *not*) where they do.
And this was modded as insightful? If Slashdot had a terminally naive moderation this post would certainly deserve it.
If you want to rant about the United States, rant about the United states, no one is going to stop you from doing so (Not even the US). But framing this as a discussion about firearms is disingenuous. Don't pretend that you care about firearms when what you really want to do is bash on the United States.
Lets say you own a farm, and I accidentally burn your farm down killing all your crops and livestock. Should you not be paid for the lost money you could have made from the grain and livestock? I mean, who knows how much the crops would have actually made you since there is no accurate way to determine the total yield since the weather affects it as does market fluctiations. Furthermore, your livestock could have gotten sick and died or could maybe not have grown very big. I understand its a bit different with fish since its a "caught" item from a "shared" resource but its not too far of a stretch.
Let's see: 400 head of cattle, and 1000 acres of arable planted land. Quantifiable, measurable quantities. You can put together a fairly reliable estimate based on commodity futures and you don't harvest grain 10 years from now. Actually, it is fairly easy to estimate considering I did the exact same thing when an energy company screwed up a well on land I own.
Now, we did argue about the value within several percentage points, but I could easily backup my estimates based on current prices, past prices, and a bodycount. (Though in my case, the bodycount was a log count for trees that they knocked down without permission)
To your first part regarding reasonableness. I deal with legal language like that EVERY day. It's my job. Unfortunately that HAS to have some sort of arbitration (typically via a judge). Almost anyone could see that offering $1,000,000 to some guy who was living in a trailer on welfare would be more than reasonable, but some people WOULD demand more. And likely, the company WOULD offer less.
It is in instances like this were I, even as a very staunch libertarian, see the need for the government to act as an intermediary. Potentially, a true neutral third party arbitrator could be better suited to the task as we also have the problem that the government is also a potential claimant for damages (to the fishery), and politics could result in the damaged parties being hurt even more (Not wanting to let individual lawsuits bankrupt BP prior to the government getting its cut for the environmental damage, etc)
And that last point addresses your last point. The government is also a claimant against BP for damages to resources which the government owns.
It isn't a simple situation to resolve. But my main point is trying to compensate for 40 years of loss is just absurd since it's impossible to predict such a thing so far into the future.
So how much do you think creating a new fishing ground is going to cost? That would be like building a new store.
Actually, buying the fisherman a new boat and equipment would be like building a new store. But let's say that the fishing ground is destroyed and fishing is no longer possible there. You pay the fisherman the cost to establish the equivalent business in a similar location. How equivalent, how similar? That's for a judge to determine.
As the fishing ground is a shared resource, compensation for damage to it would best be paid to the Federal and State Governments, the owners of the rights to those resources. That would be a claim to be negotiated between those entities and BP. The comparison is muddled since it isn't a store (owned by a private entity) but a public resource, but the end result is that those responsible for claiming damages to those resources are the governmental entities which own that resource. The fisherman can, via the government, put pressure to get compensation for loss of that resource.
But doing both (40 years of lost wages) AND getting compensation for the loss of the resource (directly) WOULD be claiming damages twice for the same problem (loss of the resource).
If my company has a tanker full of gas, and that tanker explodes outside your store due to my company's negligence, cratering the street and making your store unreachable for months. By your logic, my company shouldn't be liable for monetary damage to your store. How would you feel about this? You can say "adapt! change!" all you want, but the bottom line is, there should be no legal justification for this kind of negligence.
They can reimburse you for your losses, but people shouldn't be on the hook for hypothetical future losses 40 years into the future unless actual deaths were involved (You can estimate earnings, and nothing can reverse death, so the losses are tangible)
For example, let's say a massive Cat 4 hurricane came in 2 weeks later and literally washed your store away. Would the company that cratered the street and made your store unreachable be liable for your now non-existant store? Is that hypothetical? It sure is, but so are your 'lost' future profits. There was no guarantee of them.
Remimburse the damage, pay compensation for the inconvenience to establish a new store, and then any associated fines for failing to follow regulations.
The biggest supply risk right now is from the US Government, but it seem unlikely they're going to undertake the draconian options at this point.
If we wanted to see real market panic, an over-response from the US government could have easily sparked it. I'm rather glad that the response was a careful "We are stopping it temporarily for obvious reasons, but once we can establish that this isn't a systematic problem we are going to open it up again." Basically a lot of reassuring of investors to prevent speculation.
Stability and predictability are major factors in keeping speculation down.
My point is that this is a measurable loss of oil, compared to "potential" loss. Why does "potential" loss impact things more than measurable loss?
Or is this one of those make-no-sense parts of economics I just don't get?
Potential conflict can spiral into large market fluctuations. While a not insignificant portion of it IS speculation, speculation can backfire. But the numbers we see here, while large don't even really get close to the numbers which can be influenced by regional conflict.
Think about it this way, this was one well out of how many along Louisiana's coast? Imagine there was some nut who decided to blow up a rig. Compare that to a conflict which could result in a blockade of the Mississippi river! Or a conflict in which a group seizes control of an area where a major pipeline runs.
While it may be a large amount of oil, in terms of potential for disruption, it's minor.
It might carry more significance, but really makes no difference. You can baptize a baby and then brainwash it for 16 years, or you can brainwash it for 16 years and then baptize it. The latter might be slightly more moral, but the difference is so minor as to be insignificant.
I guess that's why I joined the church when I came of age. Oh wait, I didn't.
In order to become enlightened, ironically, you have to "fall". If humanity never "fell", the bible, Jesus, everything would become meaningless. Wisdom cannot exist without failure, indeed, it totally depends on it.
This also highlights the philosophical problem of trying to ban temptation.
While the other attributes he lists are inherent in intelligent life, an alien intelligence may not necessarily anything resembling love.
Now, not getting too far into this topic as we are discussing his comments in the third person and therefore can't really ask him to expand upon them. I don't think he is referring to the basic emotions assigned to monogamous couples.
The biblical 'love' has the same definition problems as the biblical 'know'. The words are similar but the meanings are much different. And even then, the term 'love' from a biblical sense has much more philosophical implications than are easily understood in a quote from an interview.
I agree, and I'm glad that the Slashdot summary doesn't try to pick out sensationalist statements like a lot of other blogs have.
For example, the comment about the baptism. A lot of places phrased their summary in an attempt to suggest that he would be running around trying to baptise aliens at the earliest chance. I like that Slashdot included his actual statement which was a response to a question.
"Only if they asked." seems a perfectly fair and rational response to the question.
The guy hates his own name and his proud heritage.
I have a Jewish name, and I'd consider changing it if I went into showbiz for the simple fact that it doesn't just sound Jewish, it's Old Aramaic (Or older, I'm no linguist)
It doesn't exactly transfer well to English due to the whole lacking of English vowels deal.
So would changing my name to fit easily into everyday English conversation be considered hating my heritage?
You could say the exact same thing for a sysadmin that you pay yourself, however, which was the whole point of the parent of the post I replied to.
Which is why I continued my comment beyond that point and discussed direct and indirect control.
The sysadmin reports to me. Part of my job is making sure he is doing the job I'm paying him to do. Keeping the comparison simple, if I'm the company president, my level of control over behavior is 100% You can only say the sysadmin has the same interest if I fail to effectively manage the person I hired.
Google's sysadmins report to them. I am but one of thousands of equivalent contracts to them. Therefore the level of control I have over their internal process and behavior is immediately reduced by a factor of several thousand. Everything I would want to do or change is subject to lag, both in time, and in effect.
It isn't that they are all one and the same and in equal measure, it is that they all are aspects of designing a secure system. For a given system, confidentiality (a more comprehensive term than privacy) is an aspect that you evaluate and your requirements are derived from your need.
Privacy, as you state it, IS a factor in designing a secure system. How do you make the data available to the right people while restricting access to the wrong people. How do you evaluate if the data you require to be confidential has remained confidential? All of these questions are so bound into the concept of information security that to call it a distinct and separate element is false.
Or in simple terms: You need to know what you want from a confidentiality aspect if you hope to design a secure system.
Google, in turn, has a vested interest in ensuring that their paying customers' data stays private.
Google has a vested interest in ensuring that their paying customers' data breaches stay private. That's number one. If they can't ensure number one, then your statement takes priority.
The issue with Google's model is that you rely on Google's policy/process and you cannot directly negotiate/control that. (Not saying that their policy/process isn't acceptable for some people, but that you don't get to directly influence it)
Agreed. I fail to see how sensitive information being sent over the Internet could be more secure than keeping sensitive information stored on a computer that doesn't even have a network card installed.
Security and Availability go hand in hand. Security isn't just, NO ONE EVER GETS TO LOOK AT MY DATA. Security is also making sure that your data remains undamaged (integrity) and available to the people that you want to see it.
How is democracy related to stealing revenue from other people?
If this was successful... whats next, the auto theft movement for "Rightfully freeing car from their owner for anyone to use."?
I'm going to need to to repeal some environmental laws on my property then. Ever since they passed a law prohibiting me from mining there, I've been unable to extract revenue from that resource.
In case you missed my snark, how can you steal revenue from an object that you yourself own? Once a work is released, it becomes public property. The only thing these people 'own' is the granted right to control the reproduction of that public property. That right is granted by the government. I fail to see how the government ceasing to grant that right would be theft.
Also, is encrypting your data in and of itself reasonable grounds for more thorough searches? Of course, this question is moot at the border, but generally speaking?
A search for an item is either justified, or it is not. It is fairly boolean when you get down to it. I'll explain. The car analogy works well in this case, as there are multiple levels of 'encryption' that can be placed on a car. Obviously we will assume that a search was not authorized.
Let's say you are in a traffic stop and the police officer wants to search you. He will require some justification for that search, and will have to state just what he thought he was going to find, and why he thought he was going to find it. At this point, let's say he had some reasonable justification for a search. He searches your vehicle, and then asks you to open your trunk as it is locked. (This requires a greater level of justification to search)
Now, all that aside:
Your trunk is EXPECTED to be locked. It's how they work. The same thing can be said of encryption on a computer. A locked container is NOT suspicious and therefore can not be used as justification for a search. It can however, cause them to try and find evidence that whatever they are looking for is IN your trunk.
ie: It isn't suspicious in itself, but they will try to find out what is in it if they can't find it elsewhere.
3 was... well, 3 was terrible, but the early script drafts were interesting.
I love how people always caveat 3 with the 'Oh the potential of those tossed scripts'. I had high hopes for the dump I took this morning too, doesn't change the end result.
Slashdot Mirror
Hi, I'm posting anonymously. I remember talking to "Unspecified unverifiable person" the other day who told me to read the SCUM Manifesto(highly controversial book) Which is often sold at World Bank Protests (easily vilified target for opposing political belief) in order to better understand the progressive culture. The funny thing is this guy thought the SCUM Manifesto was a NORMAL and enlightening thing to read, just like Mao's little red book.
For the rest of us, we think that (exaggerated emotion to ridcule) of radicalism and a feeling of (exaggerated belief) to push our agenda is as fucked up as....
-----
So, did I get the format just about right? You, posting anonymously, claim to have spoken to 'some guy' that represents ALL of America and based on your obviously limited viewpoint on the subject, you have taken what are the absolute most extreme beliefs that could be associated with a group of people (who really don't fit into a single group in the first place, might as well just start making assumptions based on hair color), and used that to vilify all of us.
That's one mighty broad brush you have there. It would make a Texan proud.
Funny, but there's an even more likely possibility - people that don't like guns hang out with others that feel the same way. It's like how deeply religious people might say "I just don't know ANY Atheists, I guess there aren't many of them!"...
Funny, but I hang out with plenty of religous people. Perhaps the person you responded to WAS correct and we just don't talk about things that we know will make other people uncomfortable.
gimme a country in anarchy where the populace don't have easy access to guns than the most politically stable country in the world (which the US is *not*) where they do.
And this was modded as insightful? If Slashdot had a terminally naive moderation this post would certainly deserve it.
If you want to rant about the United States, rant about the United states, no one is going to stop you from doing so (Not even the US). But framing this as a discussion about firearms is disingenuous. Don't pretend that you care about firearms when what you really want to do is bash on the United States.
Lets say you own a farm, and I accidentally burn your farm down killing all your crops and livestock. Should you not be paid for the lost money you could have made from the grain and livestock? I mean, who knows how much the crops would have actually made you since there is no accurate way to determine the total yield since the weather affects it as does market fluctiations. Furthermore, your livestock could have gotten sick and died or could maybe not have grown very big. I understand its a bit different with fish since its a "caught" item from a "shared" resource but its not too far of a stretch.
Let's see: 400 head of cattle, and 1000 acres of arable planted land. Quantifiable, measurable quantities. You can put together a fairly reliable estimate based on commodity futures and you don't harvest grain 10 years from now. Actually, it is fairly easy to estimate considering I did the exact same thing when an energy company screwed up a well on land I own.
Now, we did argue about the value within several percentage points, but I could easily backup my estimates based on current prices, past prices, and a bodycount. (Though in my case, the bodycount was a log count for trees that they knocked down without permission)
To your first part regarding reasonableness. I deal with legal language like that EVERY day. It's my job. Unfortunately that HAS to have some sort of arbitration (typically via a judge). Almost anyone could see that offering $1,000,000 to some guy who was living in a trailer on welfare would be more than reasonable, but some people WOULD demand more. And likely, the company WOULD offer less.
It is in instances like this were I, even as a very staunch libertarian, see the need for the government to act as an intermediary. Potentially, a true neutral third party arbitrator could be better suited to the task as we also have the problem that the government is also a potential claimant for damages (to the fishery), and politics could result in the damaged parties being hurt even more (Not wanting to let individual lawsuits bankrupt BP prior to the government getting its cut for the environmental damage, etc)
And that last point addresses your last point. The government is also a claimant against BP for damages to resources which the government owns.
It isn't a simple situation to resolve. But my main point is trying to compensate for 40 years of loss is just absurd since it's impossible to predict such a thing so far into the future.
So how much do you think creating a new fishing ground is going to cost? That would be like building a new store.
Actually, buying the fisherman a new boat and equipment would be like building a new store. But let's say that the fishing ground is destroyed and fishing is no longer possible there. You pay the fisherman the cost to establish the equivalent business in a similar location. How equivalent, how similar? That's for a judge to determine.
As the fishing ground is a shared resource, compensation for damage to it would best be paid to the Federal and State Governments, the owners of the rights to those resources. That would be a claim to be negotiated between those entities and BP. The comparison is muddled since it isn't a store (owned by a private entity) but a public resource, but the end result is that those responsible for claiming damages to those resources are the governmental entities which own that resource. The fisherman can, via the government, put pressure to get compensation for loss of that resource.
But doing both (40 years of lost wages) AND getting compensation for the loss of the resource (directly) WOULD be claiming damages twice for the same problem (loss of the resource).
If my company has a tanker full of gas, and that tanker explodes outside your store due to my company's negligence, cratering the street and making your store unreachable for months. By your logic, my company shouldn't be liable for monetary damage to your store. How would you feel about this? You can say "adapt! change!" all you want, but the bottom line is, there should be no legal justification for this kind of negligence.
They can reimburse you for your losses, but people shouldn't be on the hook for hypothetical future losses 40 years into the future unless actual deaths were involved (You can estimate earnings, and nothing can reverse death, so the losses are tangible)
For example, let's say a massive Cat 4 hurricane came in 2 weeks later and literally washed your store away. Would the company that cratered the street and made your store unreachable be liable for your now non-existant store? Is that hypothetical? It sure is, but so are your 'lost' future profits. There was no guarantee of them.
Remimburse the damage, pay compensation for the inconvenience to establish a new store, and then any associated fines for failing to follow regulations.
The biggest supply risk right now is from the US Government, but it seem unlikely they're going to undertake the draconian options at this point.
If we wanted to see real market panic, an over-response from the US government could have easily sparked it. I'm rather glad that the response was a careful "We are stopping it temporarily for obvious reasons, but once we can establish that this isn't a systematic problem we are going to open it up again." Basically a lot of reassuring of investors to prevent speculation.
Stability and predictability are major factors in keeping speculation down.
My point is that this is a measurable loss of oil, compared to "potential" loss. Why does "potential" loss impact things more than measurable loss?
Or is this one of those make-no-sense parts of economics I just don't get?
Potential conflict can spiral into large market fluctuations. While a not insignificant portion of it IS speculation, speculation can backfire. But the numbers we see here, while large don't even really get close to the numbers which can be influenced by regional conflict.
Think about it this way, this was one well out of how many along Louisiana's coast? Imagine there was some nut who decided to blow up a rig. Compare that to a conflict which could result in a blockade of the Mississippi river! Or a conflict in which a group seizes control of an area where a major pipeline runs.
While it may be a large amount of oil, in terms of potential for disruption, it's minor.
It might carry more significance, but really makes no difference. You can baptize a baby and then brainwash it for 16 years, or you can brainwash it for 16 years and then baptize it. The latter might be slightly more moral, but the difference is so minor as to be insignificant.
I guess that's why I joined the church when I came of age. Oh wait, I didn't.
In order to become enlightened, ironically, you have to "fall". If humanity never "fell", the bible, Jesus, everything would become meaningless. Wisdom cannot exist without failure, indeed, it totally depends on it.
This also highlights the philosophical problem of trying to ban temptation.
That's why many Christians disagree with infant baptism.
Correct. Some sects, like the Amish, don't perform baptisms until the person is an 'adult'. Typically between 16 and 25 years old.
Personally, I think it carries more significance.
I, for one, don't want to see any nukes on the interwebs.
Yes, but how does one stop 4chan?
You've got your terminology messed up.
I'd say they are much more like a disease.
While the other attributes he lists are inherent in intelligent life, an alien intelligence may not necessarily anything resembling love.
Now, not getting too far into this topic as we are discussing his comments in the third person and therefore can't really ask him to expand upon them. I don't think he is referring to the basic emotions assigned to monogamous couples.
The biblical 'love' has the same definition problems as the biblical 'know'. The words are similar but the meanings are much different. And even then, the term 'love' from a biblical sense has much more philosophical implications than are easily understood in a quote from an interview.
Oh wait, I should have read the title instead of the summary.
"Idle: Pope's Astronomer Would Love To Baptize an Alien."
Slightly sensationalist
I agree, and I'm glad that the Slashdot summary doesn't try to pick out sensationalist statements like a lot of other blogs have.
For example, the comment about the baptism. A lot of places phrased their summary in an attempt to suggest that he would be running around trying to baptise aliens at the earliest chance. I like that Slashdot included his actual statement which was a response to a question.
"Only if they asked." seems a perfectly fair and rational response to the question.
Don't you mean Jonathan Leibowitz?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Stewart [wikipedia.org]
The guy hates his own name and his proud heritage.
I have a Jewish name, and I'd consider changing it if I went into showbiz for the simple fact that it doesn't just sound Jewish, it's Old Aramaic (Or older, I'm no linguist)
It doesn't exactly transfer well to English due to the whole lacking of English vowels deal.
So would changing my name to fit easily into everyday English conversation be considered hating my heritage?
You could say the exact same thing for a sysadmin that you pay yourself, however, which was the whole point of the parent of the post I replied to.
Which is why I continued my comment beyond that point and discussed direct and indirect control.
The sysadmin reports to me. Part of my job is making sure he is doing the job I'm paying him to do. Keeping the comparison simple, if I'm the company president, my level of control over behavior is 100% You can only say the sysadmin has the same interest if I fail to effectively manage the person I hired.
Google's sysadmins report to them. I am but one of thousands of equivalent contracts to them. Therefore the level of control I have over their internal process and behavior is immediately reduced by a factor of several thousand. Everything I would want to do or change is subject to lag, both in time, and in effect.
Uhhh, me thinks you are confusing privacy with security.
Data privacy is the one about
While data security is about
For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_security
Integrity
Availability
Confidentiality
It isn't that they are all one and the same and in equal measure, it is that they all are aspects of designing a secure system. For a given system, confidentiality (a more comprehensive term than privacy) is an aspect that you evaluate and your requirements are derived from your need.
Privacy, as you state it, IS a factor in designing a secure system. How do you make the data available to the right people while restricting access to the wrong people. How do you evaluate if the data you require to be confidential has remained confidential? All of these questions are so bound into the concept of information security that to call it a distinct and separate element is false.
Or in simple terms: You need to know what you want from a confidentiality aspect if you hope to design a secure system.
Google, in turn, has a vested interest in ensuring that their paying customers' data stays private.
Google has a vested interest in ensuring that their paying customers' data breaches stay private. That's number one. If they can't ensure number one, then your statement takes priority.
The issue with Google's model is that you rely on Google's policy/process and you cannot directly negotiate/control that. (Not saying that their policy/process isn't acceptable for some people, but that you don't get to directly influence it)
Agreed. I fail to see how sensitive information being sent over the Internet could be more secure than keeping sensitive information stored on a computer that doesn't even have a network card installed.
Security and Availability go hand in hand. Security isn't just, NO ONE EVER GETS TO LOOK AT MY DATA. Security is also making sure that your data remains undamaged (integrity) and available to the people that you want to see it.
How is democracy related to stealing revenue from other people?
If this was successful... whats next, the auto theft movement for "Rightfully freeing car from their owner for anyone to use."?
I'm going to need to to repeal some environmental laws on my property then. Ever since they passed a law prohibiting me from mining there, I've been unable to extract revenue from that resource.
In case you missed my snark, how can you steal revenue from an object that you yourself own? Once a work is released, it becomes public property. The only thing these people 'own' is the granted right to control the reproduction of that public property. That right is granted by the government. I fail to see how the government ceasing to grant that right would be theft.
Also, is encrypting your data in and of itself reasonable grounds for more thorough searches? Of course, this question is moot at the border, but generally speaking?
A search for an item is either justified, or it is not. It is fairly boolean when you get down to it. I'll explain. The car analogy works well in this case, as there are multiple levels of 'encryption' that can be placed on a car. Obviously we will assume that a search was not authorized.
Let's say you are in a traffic stop and the police officer wants to search you. He will require some justification for that search, and will have to state just what he thought he was going to find, and why he thought he was going to find it. At this point, let's say he had some reasonable justification for a search. He searches your vehicle, and then asks you to open your trunk as it is locked. (This requires a greater level of justification to search)
Now, all that aside:
Your trunk is EXPECTED to be locked. It's how they work. The same thing can be said of encryption on a computer. A locked container is NOT suspicious and therefore can not be used as justification for a search. It can however, cause them to try and find evidence that whatever they are looking for is IN your trunk.
ie: It isn't suspicious in itself, but they will try to find out what is in it if they can't find it elsewhere.
They still are pretty much a pretty evil company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiquita_Brands_International#Payments_to_paramilitary_groups
3 was... well, 3 was terrible, but the early script drafts were interesting.
I love how people always caveat 3 with the 'Oh the potential of those tossed scripts'. I had high hopes for the dump I took this morning too, doesn't change the end result.