I guess a lot of people are rapists then, at least considering the fact that one of my ex-girlfriends started having sex with me while I was asleep, and several of my friends have had similar experiences. Or perhaps I just have a habit of making friends with rapists.
If "rape" does not mean "violence," then we should not throw rapists in prison. Are you arguing that rapists should be free to walk around, because they are not violent criminals?
Are you arguing that once a woman gives consent, she's no longer allowed to change her mind?
Are you trying to say that one women can be raped? What if a man changes his mind about having sex?
My original point can be summarized as this: Assange did things that a lot of people do, and that few people would call "rape" or would even consider to be criminal. If you are going to say that what Assange did is "rape," then there are a lot of rapists out there, far more than anyone should be comfortable with. Like I said, a line has to be drawn somewhere, and in my opinion, we are being far too liberal with the use of the word "rape" when it comes to Assange's actions.
Please don't let your admiration for Assange's work with Wikileaks prevent you from taking seriously an accusation of rape. Rape is a serious crime, and accusations of rape need to be taken seriously, even ifperhaps especially ifthey are made against people we otherwise consider to be heroic.
Look, I know that in this day and age we are not supposed to say it, but a line does have to be drawn somewhere when it comes to defining rape. If the women claimed that they had been drugged, or that they never consented to have sex with Assange, I would be a bit more willing to hear their claims of rape. However, both women did consent, but are claiming that Assange went "too far" and failed to stop on command -- continuing to have sex with a broken condom, having sex while one of them was asleep, etc. If we start to call these things rape, then a lot of people out there are going to be implicated, including an ex-girlfriend of mine (to be clear, I would not even consider accusing her of raping me).
Either "rape" means violence, or it does not. I agree with the Huffington Post piece quoted in that blog post you linked to: we should not conflate what Assange did the sort of violent crime that most people think of when they think "rape." The last thing we need is for "rape" to refer to things that are so commonplace that people forget that there are truly dangerous rapists out there.
I am going to guess that either her password was easy to guess, or that he used a keystroke logging program to learn it. Either way, we are not talking about something that requires "wonderful skills," we are talking about something anyone could do. From the way the prosecutor is talking about him, you would think that this guy was involved in the Chinese government's Google hack.
I am saying that I would not rely on legislation or mass lawsuits to solve the spam problem. Do you think botnet operators care about lawsuits? Do you think overseas spammers care about US laws?
I think "fairness" is a big motivator for them, but they're not concerned about packet fairness, I think they're more concerned about content fairness.
The fact that everyone is so focused on "content" shows that the suits still do not really understand the Internet, or perhaps they do understand it but they do not like what it means. This is not about "content;" the Internet is not just another broadcasting system. Websites are not just "channels" that you use a web browser to "tune in" to.
Unfortunately, as you pointed out, the FCC does not see things this way...
Actually, regulating the Internet could take many forms. For example, you might only be allowed to use certified equipment (or perhaps only certified software) to connect, as is the case with CB radio. Or, more optimistically, ISPs may be required to act as common carriers and not be allowed to turn the Internet into a clone of the cable TV system.
It is not really a question of whether or not the Internet should be regulated, it is a more of a question of which regulations would be best for the American people. The large corporations that currently control our access to the Internet want to turn it into another cable TV system, with "websites" acting as "channels" and "peer to peer" being a forgotten memory; without some sort of regulation, they will go ahead and do that, and we'll need to establish a second Internet to escape.
I'm not going to argue that on a Linux desktop anyway, the special effects are mostly just that, special effects, but you might get yourself into a situation like in a car; ripping the sound dampening material out makes it more efficient, but is not worth it 99.9% of the time.
Except that I never claimed that disabling the effects made me more efficiently, but rather that it did not make me any less efficient. The only effect that is remotely useful is the smooth transition between workspaces, mainly because it helps me subconsciously keep track of "where" I am without using a paging window; even then, only a couple frames of animation is really necessary. Beyond that? Translucent windows? Rotating cubes? Wobbly windows?
Maybe you are right -- maybe the cool looking effects really are helping people get their work done on other OSes. Can you cite some research? Any sort of a study?
We could probably say color is not necessary in UI design too
It is not a question of what is "necessary," but rather, what is "useful" or "helpful." Color displays, when used properly, are useful, as you stated. My point was mainly that I never found most of the special effects to be useful or helpful, so I disabled them -- it means longer battery life (less time spent on graphics) without sacrificing my own ability to work. Again, if you can point me to a study that shows how these special effects have helped people get their work done, as opposed to just looking cool, I would love to read it.
What worries me is the rise of these "walled garden" social networking websites. Last I checked, you couldn't send a "Facebook message" to an email account, or visa versa -- Facebook's internal messaging system is just that, internal, not meant to interoperate with anything else.
I think things will play out like this: some college admissions staff will say, "Hey, all the kids are on Facebook [or whatever the popular social networking website is at the time], let's use that in our admissions process! We shouldn't demand an email address, the kids don't use email anymore. Let's just do everything by Facebook!" There will be so few people not on Facebook that nobody will care about leaving them out, especially since they could just get a Facebook account at no cost. Other colleges will probably follow suit -- after all, everyone wants to be "hip" and whatnot -- and eventually, the idea of asking for an email address will seem laughable.
And in fact the article mentions just one specific problem where algorithmic improvements made it about 43.000 times faster on one specific input.
I think a more general issue is citing a constant as the speedup for an algorithm. Improvements in algorithms often refer to improvements in the asymptotic efficiency, rather than constant factors. If I asked you how much of an improvement a switch from selection sort to merge sort would be, you would not tell me "it is 1000 times faster" because that would be wrong (except for a particular input size).
Well, the real question is, are users better off as a result? Personally, I found that most of the computationally intensive graphics were not actually helping me get my work done any faster, switched to a more minimal window manager and did all that I could to reduce the amount of CPU time spent on rendering the GUI (disabling special effects wherever I saw them), and discovered that, in fact, I was correct: none of those effects were actually helping me get my work done.
On the flip side, people tend to be turned off when they see what my screen looks like. It has gotten to the point where I do not mention that this is "Linux," because I do not want new users to get scared. In the end, looking pretty winds up being more important than how efficiently you use computational resources.
Such arguments were compelling enough to convince two dozen or so U.S. states to deregulate their electric industries. Most began in the mid-1990s, and problems emerged soon after, most famously in the rolling blackouts that Californians suffered through in the summer of 2000 and the months that followed. At the root of these troubles is the fact that free markets can be messy and volatile, something few took into account when deregulation began. But the consequences have since proved so chaotic that a quarter of these states have now suspended plans to revamp the way they manage their electric utilities, and few (if any) additional states are rushing to jump on the deregulation bandwagon.
Yeah, so, how about not continuing this experiment with our critical infrastructure?
What is wrong with shareholders in large corporations making money?
At what point did I say large corporations should not be making money? Did I say they should not be profitable? I said the reason we are seeing these enormous, anti-competitive mergers is that large corporations want to become more profitable than they already are, and that the government will allow it without regard for whether or not it best serves the people.
The government we were given is supposed to provide for a basic "Rule of Law" environment and prevent one Citizen (or group) from causing direct harm to other Citizens (or groups) of same.
That is only part of what the government is supposed to do. Take another look at your constitution, you seem to have missed a few things about what the government can do.
They aren't supposed to be DOing much of anything FOR us.
Oh, funny, I thought you were a big fan of corporations, a creation of the government that gives the owners of certain businesses limited liability, which they would not otherwise have. Or, is that not the government "doing" something? I guess granting a corporate charter is not really "doing" anything in the libertarian world view.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights was all about circumscribing the power of the Federal Government with all sorts of "Thou Shalt Not..."
Except for all those parts that allow the government to do things; maybe you have heard of the "enumerated powers." Like the part that allows congress to regulate commerce, or the part that allows congress to pass laws that are necessary to carry out other enumerated powers. Yeah, I guess someone (Ron Paul, perhaps?) must have snipped out those parts of your copy of the constitution.
Revive the most "Federalist" Founding Father and their response upon seeing what had become of their creation would be to journey to Washington DC and register their opinion with a musket to the junk of the first Congresscritter they met.
Of course, in the early days of America, corporate charters expired after a limited time, so I guess you would not be too happy with the aftermath of all that bloodshed. Back then, corporations were chartered to do things that were necessary or benefited the public; the fact that their investors would profit from it was simply incentive, rather than the primary purpose of corporations.
Yes, times have changed; the constitution was amended and interpreted, we elected leaders who believed that "America's business is business," and our politicians were bought off by out-of-control corporations. I agree, we need to fix things. Somehow, though, I do not think you and I agree on what needs to be fixed.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess a lot of people are rapists then, at least considering the fact that one of my ex-girlfriends started having sex with me while I was asleep, and several of my friends have had similar experiences. Or perhaps I just have a habit of making friends with rapists.
Not to get into a Bill Clinton-style discussion of what constitutes sex, but you can certainly have oral sex with someone who is asleep...
Rape doesn't mean violence
If "rape" does not mean "violence," then we should not throw rapists in prison. Are you arguing that rapists should be free to walk around, because they are not violent criminals?
Are you arguing that once a woman gives consent, she's no longer allowed to change her mind?
Are you trying to say that one women can be raped? What if a man changes his mind about having sex?
My original point can be summarized as this: Assange did things that a lot of people do, and that few people would call "rape" or would even consider to be criminal. If you are going to say that what Assange did is "rape," then there are a lot of rapists out there, far more than anyone should be comfortable with. Like I said, a line has to be drawn somewhere, and in my opinion, we are being far too liberal with the use of the word "rape" when it comes to Assange's actions.
Please don't let your admiration for Assange's work with Wikileaks prevent you from taking seriously an accusation of rape. Rape is a serious crime, and accusations of rape need to be taken seriously, even ifperhaps especially ifthey are made against people we otherwise consider to be heroic.
Look, I know that in this day and age we are not supposed to say it, but a line does have to be drawn somewhere when it comes to defining rape. If the women claimed that they had been drugged, or that they never consented to have sex with Assange, I would be a bit more willing to hear their claims of rape. However, both women did consent, but are claiming that Assange went "too far" and failed to stop on command -- continuing to have sex with a broken condom, having sex while one of them was asleep, etc. If we start to call these things rape, then a lot of people out there are going to be implicated, including an ex-girlfriend of mine (to be clear, I would not even consider accusing her of raping me).
Either "rape" means violence, or it does not. I agree with the Huffington Post piece quoted in that blog post you linked to: we should not conflate what Assange did the sort of violent crime that most people think of when they think "rape." The last thing we need is for "rape" to refer to things that are so commonplace that people forget that there are truly dangerous rapists out there.
It's too early to RTFA!
In all seriousness, though, that still proves the point: this was not some kind of epic hack.
I am going to guess that either her password was easy to guess, or that he used a keystroke logging program to learn it. Either way, we are not talking about something that requires "wonderful skills," we are talking about something anyone could do. From the way the prosecutor is talking about him, you would think that this guy was involved in the Chinese government's Google hack.
I am saying that I would not rely on legislation or mass lawsuits to solve the spam problem. Do you think botnet operators care about lawsuits? Do you think overseas spammers care about US laws?
I rarely see a spam message make it through the filters these days. I think this guy is a bit late to the game...
I assume this is either to reduce their liability if their machines were used that way, or due to a legal statute in one of their markets?
The way I heard it, they had been threatened with regulations and statutes if they didn't voluntarily do these things.
I think "fairness" is a big motivator for them, but they're not concerned about packet fairness, I think they're more concerned about content fairness.
The fact that everyone is so focused on "content" shows that the suits still do not really understand the Internet, or perhaps they do understand it but they do not like what it means. This is not about "content;" the Internet is not just another broadcasting system. Websites are not just "channels" that you use a web browser to "tune in" to.
Unfortunately, as you pointed out, the FCC does not see things this way...
Actually, regulating the Internet could take many forms. For example, you might only be allowed to use certified equipment (or perhaps only certified software) to connect, as is the case with CB radio. Or, more optimistically, ISPs may be required to act as common carriers and not be allowed to turn the Internet into a clone of the cable TV system.
It is not really a question of whether or not the Internet should be regulated, it is a more of a question of which regulations would be best for the American people. The large corporations that currently control our access to the Internet want to turn it into another cable TV system, with "websites" acting as "channels" and "peer to peer" being a forgotten memory; without some sort of regulation, they will go ahead and do that, and we'll need to establish a second Internet to escape.
...funny, because glue is legal too...
It would be really hilarious if bottles of whisky were labeled, "NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION."
In fact, an enormous number of working adults (perhaps even the majority) are psychoactive drug users, and they seem to be OK...
In my opinion we need new tools
We already have the tools to do everything you described. The real problems are:
It's a case of the market finding the lowest cost solution that still protects the banks from CC fraud.
ftfy
I'm not going to argue that on a Linux desktop anyway, the special effects are mostly just that, special effects, but you might get yourself into a situation like in a car; ripping the sound dampening material out makes it more efficient, but is not worth it 99.9% of the time.
Except that I never claimed that disabling the effects made me more efficiently, but rather that it did not make me any less efficient. The only effect that is remotely useful is the smooth transition between workspaces, mainly because it helps me subconsciously keep track of "where" I am without using a paging window; even then, only a couple frames of animation is really necessary. Beyond that? Translucent windows? Rotating cubes? Wobbly windows?
Maybe you are right -- maybe the cool looking effects really are helping people get their work done on other OSes. Can you cite some research? Any sort of a study?
We could probably say color is not necessary in UI design too
It is not a question of what is "necessary," but rather, what is "useful" or "helpful." Color displays, when used properly, are useful, as you stated. My point was mainly that I never found most of the special effects to be useful or helpful, so I disabled them -- it means longer battery life (less time spent on graphics) without sacrificing my own ability to work. Again, if you can point me to a study that shows how these special effects have helped people get their work done, as opposed to just looking cool, I would love to read it.
What worries me is the rise of these "walled garden" social networking websites. Last I checked, you couldn't send a "Facebook message" to an email account, or visa versa -- Facebook's internal messaging system is just that, internal, not meant to interoperate with anything else.
I think things will play out like this: some college admissions staff will say, "Hey, all the kids are on Facebook [or whatever the popular social networking website is at the time], let's use that in our admissions process! We shouldn't demand an email address, the kids don't use email anymore. Let's just do everything by Facebook!" There will be so few people not on Facebook that nobody will care about leaving them out, especially since they could just get a Facebook account at no cost. Other colleges will probably follow suit -- after all, everyone wants to be "hip" and whatnot -- and eventually, the idea of asking for an email address will seem laughable.
The fact that that may not be a joke for much longer scares me a little...
As it turns out, some very important problems are inherently hard to parallelize:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_complete
Talk about scaring away new users...
/me ducks
Actually, the algorithm came from The Art of Computer Programming, and so it was written in assembly language to begin with.
And in fact the article mentions just one specific problem where algorithmic improvements made it about 43.000 times faster on one specific input.
I think a more general issue is citing a constant as the speedup for an algorithm. Improvements in algorithms often refer to improvements in the asymptotic efficiency, rather than constant factors. If I asked you how much of an improvement a switch from selection sort to merge sort would be, you would not tell me "it is 1000 times faster" because that would be wrong (except for a particular input size).
Well, the real question is, are users better off as a result? Personally, I found that most of the computationally intensive graphics were not actually helping me get my work done any faster, switched to a more minimal window manager and did all that I could to reduce the amount of CPU time spent on rendering the GUI (disabling special effects wherever I saw them), and discovered that, in fact, I was correct: none of those effects were actually helping me get my work done.
On the flip side, people tend to be turned off when they see what my screen looks like. It has gotten to the point where I do not mention that this is "Linux," because I do not want new users to get scared. In the end, looking pretty winds up being more important than how efficiently you use computational resources.
Such arguments were compelling enough to convince two dozen or so U.S. states to deregulate their electric industries. Most began in the mid-1990s, and problems emerged soon after, most famously in the rolling blackouts that Californians suffered through in the summer of 2000 and the months that followed. At the root of these troubles is the fact that free markets can be messy and volatile, something few took into account when deregulation began. But the consequences have since proved so chaotic that a quarter of these states have now suspended plans to revamp the way they manage their electric utilities, and few (if any) additional states are rushing to jump on the deregulation bandwagon.
Yeah, so, how about not continuing this experiment with our critical infrastructure?
What is wrong with shareholders in large corporations making money?
At what point did I say large corporations should not be making money? Did I say they should not be profitable? I said the reason we are seeing these enormous, anti-competitive mergers is that large corporations want to become more profitable than they already are, and that the government will allow it without regard for whether or not it best serves the people.
The government we were given is supposed to provide for a basic "Rule of Law" environment and prevent one Citizen (or group) from causing direct harm to other Citizens (or groups) of same.
That is only part of what the government is supposed to do. Take another look at your constitution, you seem to have missed a few things about what the government can do.
They aren't supposed to be DOing much of anything FOR us.
Oh, funny, I thought you were a big fan of corporations, a creation of the government that gives the owners of certain businesses limited liability, which they would not otherwise have. Or, is that not the government "doing" something? I guess granting a corporate charter is not really "doing" anything in the libertarian world view.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights was all about circumscribing the power of the Federal Government with all sorts of "Thou Shalt Not..."
Except for all those parts that allow the government to do things; maybe you have heard of the "enumerated powers." Like the part that allows congress to regulate commerce, or the part that allows congress to pass laws that are necessary to carry out other enumerated powers. Yeah, I guess someone (Ron Paul, perhaps?) must have snipped out those parts of your copy of the constitution.
Revive the most "Federalist" Founding Father and their response upon seeing what had become of their creation would be to journey to Washington DC and register their opinion with a musket to the junk of the first Congresscritter they met.
Of course, in the early days of America, corporate charters expired after a limited time, so I guess you would not be too happy with the aftermath of all that bloodshed. Back then, corporations were chartered to do things that were necessary or benefited the public; the fact that their investors would profit from it was simply incentive, rather than the primary purpose of corporations.
Yes, times have changed; the constitution was amended and interpreted, we elected leaders who believed that "America's business is business," and our politicians were bought off by out-of-control corporations. I agree, we need to fix things. Somehow, though, I do not think you and I agree on what needs to be fixed.