Wow, are you serious? There's a lot of irrational anger in your post. The stats were taken from a report drafted for Statistics Canada by Women Against Violence Against Women.
If you think about your own question, you could probably figure out the answer. Reported means reported to the police. There are other ways to collect information. Lots of women turn up at shelters, or request services through organizations like WAVAW, or access other rape crisis services. Some report through surveys.
So before you make such vitriolic replies to people, maybe you should think about it first, you know, to avoid looking like an idiot.
About your comments regarding not publishing the names of rape defendants ("in case it turns out not to be true"): of all sexual assaults, only about 1 in 10 are even reported. Of those reported, only about 1 of 10 are prosecuted. That means that only 1 in 100 cases end up in court (these are rough statistics and taken from around 1999 when last I checked).
The reason so few are prosecuted is because the prosecution needs to have enough evidence to be confident of a conviction (you know, so as not to waste taxpayer money on losing prosecutions, regardless of the other merits of the case). So the ones that get prosecuted are the ones that there is generally a lot of evidence to support the victim's case. So when you see a report in the news about a trial regarding sexual assault, you can bet there's a lot of evidence to show the defendant is indeed guilty. Now, not all the time, mind you, but... you see what I mean.
So I don't worry too much when I see a defendant's name published in rape cases. Coz he's very likely to be guilty.
How on earth was this post modded as "insightful"?
As usual, people blame lawyers for the ridiculous law suits people bring against each other. Lawyers don't bring lawsuits, guys, plaintiffs do. Lawyers merely represent those plaintiffs in the judicial system regardless of whether they think their client's case is morally right or wrong.
It's extremely rare for a lawyer to bring a patently frivolous case into the courts, and those that do incur penalties. Just because you think a case is ridiculous doesn't mean it's frivolous. Cases must have some legal merit - a legitimate cause of action- in order to make it into the courts. The case from the article may sound ridiculous, but it isn't frivolous.
So a bunch of penny pinchers putting together their own cars, eh? Maybe a few mistakes made here and there during assembly... maybe a few substituted cheaper parts...
Sounds like a smorgasbord for lawyers all over the world. Bring on the personal injury and negligence claims! w00t!!
You raise some good ideas. It is SO NICE and refreshing to see a professor that actually has ideas for solutions to the problem instead of just harping on the laptop users.
On the other hand, though, a serious underlying issue is the fact that we students at university are adults. We are paying clients of the university. We don't need nor want a parent like relationship with our professors. Yes, we want mentors and guidance, but, this is not high school. We don't want to have to put up our hand to go to the bathroom or ask for permission to skip a class. Students pay for services. If I want to bring my laptop into the class and goof off, that is absolutely 100% okay. The only problems arise when students in a class through any means-- not just computers-- negatively impact the ability of other students to gain value from the service, the class. If student X's facebooking is really distracting to student Y, then student X should indeed be asked to either refrain or move to the back. Forcing your students to pop-email you their notes is (non intentionally!)tyrannical and unfair. You shouldn't be allowed to do that as a professor, in my opinion. It creats an impression of you as an authoritarian which will probably turn more students off you than it will increase engagement in the class.
The key to this issue, I think, is recognizing the adulthood of students and asking them ultimately to be responsible for their behaviour with respect to distracting others. We can't just slap down some arbitrary code or rule that makes students park their reasonable autonomy at the door. To do so is to demean their humanity and to teach them that others, not themselves, are responsible for their behaviour.
...while they're at it. This is a problem at my law school as well - one in British Columbia, Canada. Except, at our school, some (only some!) professors have decided unilaterally to not allow laptops in the classroom. Others "allow" laptop users to sit at the back of the class. They have decided laptop users are distracting to other students in the class or laptop users are "not engaged in the class."
Well, no shit! Maybe if your lectures weren't horrendously boring and right out of the textbook half the time we would feel it more worth our while to listen to what you are saying. Instead, Facebook and Slashbook are a better use of our time. Maybe if you asked us actual questions that engage us or had more class discussions we'd feel like our input was welcome. Some professors manage just fine and their classes are useful and informative. Usually they're the ones with no anti-computer policy.
On the other hand, students with distracting habits such as whispering loudly or eating their lunch loudly in class, or those who wear clothing that is borderline obscene, those people, so long as they use paper and pen, are free from implied criticism. Instead of being sent to the back of the room because of their ownership of a piece of metal they get to sit at the front and whisper loudly so that everyone between them and the professor has to suffer for their rudeness.
Paper and pen students can stare off into space, out the window, at the professor with a glazed stare- whatever- and their conduct is not impugned. Those of us who merely stare at the screen instead of off into space-- never mind whether we are truly surfing the net or not-- are the subject of prejudice or assumptions. No banning of staring off into space, because that would be arbitrary and unfair. However, when the professor just can't see what you're staring at, all of a sudden banning that type of staring is OK. Pah. Luddites.
Fair enough to protest this planned speech, but it seems a little tacky for Cini to go ahead and attack the Pope for complying with his original request, which was basically to cancel his speech.
No offense, but your Latin tagline is improperly constructed. If you're going to use a Si clause in that manner, you need to use the subjunctive construction for paro, parare. You have used the imperative.
Also more properly you should construct it with "qui pacem desiderat bellum praeparet"
Ahem... I do believe the word virus is a fourth-declension latin derivative, where therefore its plural is viruses and not virii. Also the root would be vir- not viri- and so even if it were a second declension (-us noun) its plural would be viri, and not virii. Unfortunately, I believe viri is already the plural of the word vir, which means "man" (viri - men).
What about UI? We've all seen how the mouse revolutionized computing, and how people interact with computers. Not only did it change the technology itself, but it changed how people looked at accomplishing tasks with computers, and what could be done with them, and how easy and simple it could be to use one. This spurred adoption, especially amongst less literate and more marginal populations. Point-and-click opened up the tech to so many more people.
I think interface design is one of the new frontiers of computing. Once someone (finally) cracks the natural voice interface problem with computers, I think we'll see a massive revolution in the technology, and how it is used.
Imagine the depth of penetration of computing technologies into the population if individuals could interact with the computer in a way which is natural to them? What kinds of searches could you perform, for example, on a huge database of information (say, the Internet), if you could ask the computer a specific question and have it understand you?
With so many literacy issues in our world today (especially in a globalized market), using your voice to command a computer versus having to type words in a manner grammatically logical enough to communicate your intent to a computer, well, I think it will change everything. Shit, 98% of the world can't even use an apostrophe correctly; can you imagine the same people trying to formulate an advanced search query via typing?
This whole debacle is ridiculous. Some Enron conspirators get practically a slap on the wrist compared to what this woman is slated to get if convicted, and yet, THEY defrauded a bagazillion dollars from people deliberately. This woman, EVEN if she HAD looked at porn on a school computer deliberately, and then got infected with pop up adware, (or just infected with the adware) surely doesn't deserve 40 years in prison.
God, is a child exposed to (gasp!) pr0n so goddamn terrible? NO!! Jesus, when I was seven I used to try and raid my big brother's porn collection for fuck's sake. Am I scarred? Not by that, no!! I was scarred by my 5th grade teacher yelling at me so loud for being in the boy's washroom that I peed myself, yeah! Thanks for protecting me from penises, guys! W00t!!! Now I'm a lesbian. Coincidence???? Heheheh.
It's a sad indicator of the state of affairs when "injuring a minor" means accidently being exposed to porn, and carries a 40 year jail term, when rape, murder, and mass defraudment seem to be relatively unimportant-- blase even.
Nanny state... bah! Move to Canada. We want you here.
Linux users shouldn't have to feel like they need to pretend to be Windows users in order to get hardware support for their legally purchased machines. Just because they're deviants, doesn't mean they don't deserve to live a normal life.
Mr G., you'd think with some of the brouhahas surrounding social software sites like MySpace of late (children being preyed on by pedophiles, etc.), directors of sites like yours would be more careful to ensure that their customers think first and foremost of security. Security is a holistic concept, and encouraging (yes! encouraging!) people to divulge information that should remain private is a bad first step to creating an image of your company as one which promotes the security of its customers.
It's a terrible precedent, and a potential PR disaster on many fronts. Heck, I'd challenge you and your developers to take the leadership on this issue and find a way to achieve the same effect - sending invites to all addresses in contact lists - without requiring any usernames or passwords. Then you can be the recipient of good, not bad, press, while simultaneously solving an existing problem.
Someone has to be responsible for teaching people good security practices. Let that someone be you.
Second rate? That's too kind... FAR too kind.
Herbert Sr. was a first class writer. Herbert Jr. couldn't even afford economy-- he'a accidently locked himself in the bathroom with his foot stuck in the bowl.
Hey man, I bet you're the same type of person that blames the Internet when your kids grow up to have absolutely no degree of self-control, and run off and drug themselves into a stupor, kill kittens then blame violent video games.
People have to learn that nobody but themselves is responsible for good and bad behaviour. You're setting an early precedent to your kids, giving them the message that control of their behaviour will come from outside authority sources. What happens later in life when they're expected to make their own decisions about what's best for them?
Not only that, but the reason we're in that conundrum in the first place is because of greed and shortsightedness. I don't necessarily think there's anything nefarious about this situation, but that push for profit has creating a false economy that is full of too much waste, which has begun to threaten the entire system. Here's a hypothesis:
In the last couple of decades, the corporations have worked together to create more spending amongst the populace. Not necessarily because they're evil bastards, they just wanna make money, and that is, in theory, okay. But people already have everything they really need, and even most of the stuff they really want. So, to keep 'em spending, corporations are now creating legions of false needs to drive essentially useless spending. They do this by sending out guilt-inducing propaganda designed to make you think you are a piece of shit, to get you to buy shit you don't need from them.
For example-- tooth whitener. Why the fuck do I need that? Teeth are naturally kinda yellow. In fact, abrading your enamel is detrimental to tooth health. Or how about Viagra? You can't get it up?? OMFG you ass clown turd-- you're a horrible human being and nobody will ever love you. Forget about relaxing more often and stopping smoking, which would probably solve the problem, fuck that! Here, buy this pill. It works right away (disclaimersomestudieshaveshownthatyourheartsponta neouslycombustsuponingestingthisproduct) Cha Ching!
Useless spending drives the economy, creates jobs (e.g. toothpaste factory workers) and encourages more transactions in the economy, each of which is subject to taxation. You buy more shit? Great, more tax. That benefits the state.
Why isn't the effort spent on developing new products that actually meet real and/or evolving needs? Why aren't we inventing better cars that run on clean fuel and not gas? Pretty simple... why would I invent something, and just as I've made enough to sell, and people are starting to buy it, then go ahead and invent something else that negates the need for the first product anyway? That would be dumb.
Also, why should I legislate to encourage cars that run on clean fuel when I actually own four oil companies? That would be stupid, eh.
The goal is to maximize market saturation, where a particular object gets bought by the max number of people before the next gadget is introduced. I'm sure we can invent a better TV.. but why do that? Some people haven't spent money on an HDTV yet, so let's hold off a coupla years so we can maximize profit.
And honestly, to some degree this is necessary, because yeah: I don't want to buy an HDTV and then it's already outdated a week later.
This is actually a pretty good idea, because it *does* maximize profit. But, unfortunately, it's so shortsighted and has a fatal flaw, which has to do with globalisation.
We've spent so much time focussing our economy on flogging this useless shit, and with deliberate delays in advancing technology, that we've lost a lot of our world technological head start. Some countries out there have overtaken our head start and have begun fucking up our nice profitable paradigm by introducing newer, better gadgets before our people have finished maximizing their spending on the existing gadgets. North America has fallen behind in consumer technology to Europe and Asia. Well, that's not too bad, right? Who cares if we're ahead. NO!! Don't buy from Koreans! They're terrorists! Don't buy from China, they're communists! If you buy from another country, you're unpatriotic! You're the cause of the destruction of the nation!!
Well, if that's not working, then the least we can do is slow down our technical infrastructure here so that even if you buy the latest high tech gadget from the Koreans, you can't even use it here, because our infrastructure is too outdated. When *we* think the market's saturated with the current generation of technology, th
They wouldn't have to ask the ISP or Google for the information if she had autocomplete turned on in her browser.
The number of times I've been using someone else's computer, started typing something in the search box, been prompted with a list of previous searches via autocomplete, and been completely shocked by the stuff listed there, well...
On one hand, I really like it when news like this makes people realize that they can't just trust a source or a person to deliver correct information, and therefore that critical thought and investigation are key skills in our world. That's a *really* important lesson.
On the other hand, this issue can devolve into a chicken and egg situation. Even if you are a critical thinking, intelligent individual, able to discern trash info from truth, you still need a basis for comparison. To verify the accuracy of information, you either need a knowledgable individual / expert, or a verified factual repository.
If a factual repository is built up by the contributions from knowledgable individuals, but then the credentials of those individuals are found to be fraudulent, the repository becomes useless. Not only have you lost the repository, but you've lost the knowledgable individuals to consult. Logically, you must turn elsewhere altogether for your information.
That's why it's important to protect the credibility, independently, of either (preferably both!) the factual repository, or the knowledgable individuals. If we start developing systems like wikipedia that rely on the latter to construct the former, then we're introducing a chicken-and-egg scenario where a taint on the credibility of either foundation of the system brings the entire thing down en masse. This is especially problematic when lately many have touted wikipedia as some sort of wave of the future in terms of knowledge building, and many similar entities have sprung up, perhaps slowly supplanting other types of factual repositories.
You can't advocate these types of community fact repositories without removing proven fraudulent information and people. Even wikipedia itself acknowledges the need to remove false information-- why are fraudulent individual credentials, then, less important to the authenticity of the whole? If you let people like Essjay continue to contribute and moderate and approve content under false pretenses, then wikipedia becomes a null entity.
In my head, wikipedia and similar entities then become analagous to the trivial solution to an equation.
I think Apple's strategy in this DRM issue is pretty much right on: continue to apply strong DRM to their music, but complain and push for no DRM. They still make money through the support of the music industry, because they have to, if they want to make any money and not get sued to shit, but they retain customer loyalty through championing causes dear to the people.
If they didn't strongly implement DRM in their music, they'd just go down like the other file sharing sites, obviously. They don't really have a choice, so the music industry blaming Apple is, I think, completely ridiculous.
[DRM rant mode on]
The problem is having to pay too much money per song and still not actually owning your music. That's B.S.
If songs were 25 cents and free of DRM, I'd spend a crapload of cash buying all the songs I want from iTunes. Unfortunately, songs are a dollar, which is too expensive when compared to how easy it would be for me to steal them elsewhere. Make it more convenient for people to buy cheaply from iTunes than to download/copy for free.
Isn't this a classic pricing vs. supply/demand economic problem? Why bother with DRM at all if you can make cash hand over fist by taking money from people a little less at a time, but more often?
I'm not economist, but I do know that the music industry is missing out on my cash because they're making it easier for me to steal with pretty much no consequence whatsoever than to give them my money.
That said, I should say that I don't actually steal music. I feel too bad about it. I actually *want* to support the musicians... just not the money grubbing execs.
ad logicam indeed. This is a fallacious argument on several counts.
Firstly, even as we know it, evolution (as a theory and "observed" phenomenon) applies only to our current earth environment; we simply have no evolutionary data available for other non-earth-like environments. It seems from current data that most environments in the universe are not earth-like. Therefore, any conclusions about the frequency of evolution in the universe as a whole are invalid, not only because we don't even know everything about evolution yet, but also because we know comparatively little about the universe, too.
Secondly, the "surprise" aspect is irrelevant to the liklihood of the existence of god. If there is a non-zero probability of an event occurring (in this case evolution of an intelligent civlisation other than human beings), the chance of encountering this event approaches 100% as the size of the environment tends towards infinity. So, if the universe is really damn big, we should be the opposite of surprised if and when we finally encounter another intelligent civilisation. The bigger the universe, the more inevitable such a discovery becomes.
On a side note, I'd also shrink at calling evolution (or humans) a chance occurrence. Gene mutation, debatably perhaps, but not evolution. Evolution in a colloquial sense is when a gene mutates - maybe by chance, maybe not- and results in an improved ability to survive in a particular environment. Therefore there is a certain deterministic aspect of evolution: if the mutation doesn't help the organism survive, significantly, it doesn't propagate significantly. If it does help, then it gets propagated, and the genetic evolution of populations occurs.
Even before genes existed in organisms, again, we know so little about what "sparked life", if it even ever sparked as such, that attributing to chance something that may in fact be entirely deterministic, even inevitable, would be illogical. Similarly, even if the process is deterministic, that doesn't mean there's a god. It might mean there's a fundamental law of the universe about which we're just not aware (yet).
Naturally, all of the above is a very simplistic description of very complex processes, but hey, I'm not evolutionary biologist.
They only need to look as far as the crew on a submarine to see what makeup can last a year. AFIK they are all male crew.
Err, can we say selection bias? I'd challenge you to find, in today's world, a submarine of all-female crew, observe them for a few years, and then maybe conclusions about which gender is better at coping with long periods of isolation might be a little more relevant.
Sexism is irrelevant here-- plain and simple, there's no data to make that conclusion. Period.
Come to think of it, speaking of periods... ew. Periods in space. That's enough to drive any woman crazy-- god knows having one here on earth is bad enough.
I really don't want to sidetrack this thread into a religious debate (I was more harping on the pseudo-social-darwinism of the OP than on Christians, but with a humorously over-the-top jab at the other extreme thrown in for good measure), but what the hell, I've been riding high on the Slashdot karma scales for my entire history here.
Fundamentalist Christianity is a "mass ineptitude movement designed to corrupt logical thought processes and turn people into non-thinking idiots". That's not meant to harp on Christians in general and say they're all fundamentalists, nor to say that ONLY Christians are fundamentalists; they're just the predominant religion in this culture and so a handy example. But fundamentalism of ANY sort is meant to stifle critical thought processes...
Heh, I know, I totally agree. That's why I enjoy reversing those types of arguments, so that people who make them can see how similar they appear in structure regardless of which position you take on the issue at hand. Then, thankfully, some rare individuals on the very brink of intellectual worthiness can be catalysed into an epiphany where they realise that... wow, truth is relative, after all. Naturally this either leads to a chain effect of realising that everything is relative, including everything they ever believed, and/or a mental meltdown. Mental darwinism, maybe?:)
Heheheh. I guess my own personal brand of sarcasm didn't make it through my first post. Tee hee.
Slashdot Mirror
Whatever-- go back under your bridge, troll.
Wow, are you serious? There's a lot of irrational anger in your post. The stats were taken from a report drafted for Statistics Canada by Women Against Violence Against Women.
If you think about your own question, you could probably figure out the answer. Reported means reported to the police. There are other ways to collect information. Lots of women turn up at shelters, or request services through organizations like WAVAW, or access other rape crisis services. Some report through surveys.
So before you make such vitriolic replies to people, maybe you should think about it first, you know, to avoid looking like an idiot.
About your comments regarding not publishing the names of rape defendants ("in case it turns out not to be true"): of all sexual assaults, only about 1 in 10 are even reported. Of those reported, only about 1 of 10 are prosecuted. That means that only 1 in 100 cases end up in court (these are rough statistics and taken from around 1999 when last I checked).
The reason so few are prosecuted is because the prosecution needs to have enough evidence to be confident of a conviction (you know, so as not to waste taxpayer money on losing prosecutions, regardless of the other merits of the case). So the ones that get prosecuted are the ones that there is generally a lot of evidence to support the victim's case. So when you see a report in the news about a trial regarding sexual assault, you can bet there's a lot of evidence to show the defendant is indeed guilty. Now, not all the time, mind you, but... you see what I mean.
So I don't worry too much when I see a defendant's name published in rape cases. Coz he's very likely to be guilty.
How on earth was this post modded as "insightful"?
As usual, people blame lawyers for the ridiculous law suits people bring against each other. Lawyers don't bring lawsuits, guys, plaintiffs do. Lawyers merely represent those plaintiffs in the judicial system regardless of whether they think their client's case is morally right or wrong.
It's extremely rare for a lawyer to bring a patently frivolous case into the courts, and those that do incur penalties. Just because you think a case is ridiculous doesn't mean it's frivolous. Cases must have some legal merit - a legitimate cause of action- in order to make it into the courts. The case from the article may sound ridiculous, but it isn't frivolous.
Sounds like a smorgasbord for lawyers all over the world. Bring on the personal injury and negligence claims! w00t!!
On the other hand, though, a serious underlying issue is the fact that we students at university are adults. We are paying clients of the university. We don't need nor want a parent like relationship with our professors. Yes, we want mentors and guidance, but, this is not high school. We don't want to have to put up our hand to go to the bathroom or ask for permission to skip a class. Students pay for services. If I want to bring my laptop into the class and goof off, that is absolutely 100% okay. The only problems arise when students in a class through any means-- not just computers-- negatively impact the ability of other students to gain value from the service, the class. If student X's facebooking is really distracting to student Y, then student X should indeed be asked to either refrain or move to the back. Forcing your students to pop-email you their notes is (non intentionally!)tyrannical and unfair. You shouldn't be allowed to do that as a professor, in my opinion. It creats an impression of you as an authoritarian which will probably turn more students off you than it will increase engagement in the class.
The key to this issue, I think, is recognizing the adulthood of students and asking them ultimately to be responsible for their behaviour with respect to distracting others. We can't just slap down some arbitrary code or rule that makes students park their reasonable autonomy at the door. To do so is to demean their humanity and to teach them that others, not themselves, are responsible for their behaviour.
Well, no shit! Maybe if your lectures weren't horrendously boring and right out of the textbook half the time we would feel it more worth our while to listen to what you are saying. Instead, Facebook and Slashbook are a better use of our time. Maybe if you asked us actual questions that engage us or had more class discussions we'd feel like our input was welcome. Some professors manage just fine and their classes are useful and informative. Usually they're the ones with no anti-computer policy.
On the other hand, students with distracting habits such as whispering loudly or eating their lunch loudly in class, or those who wear clothing that is borderline obscene, those people, so long as they use paper and pen, are free from implied criticism. Instead of being sent to the back of the room because of their ownership of a piece of metal they get to sit at the front and whisper loudly so that everyone between them and the professor has to suffer for their rudeness.
Paper and pen students can stare off into space, out the window, at the professor with a glazed stare- whatever- and their conduct is not impugned. Those of us who merely stare at the screen instead of off into space-- never mind whether we are truly surfing the net or not-- are the subject of prejudice or assumptions. No banning of staring off into space, because that would be arbitrary and unfair. However, when the professor just can't see what you're staring at, all of a sudden banning that type of staring is OK. Pah. Luddites.
Fair enough to protest this planned speech, but it seems a little tacky for Cini to go ahead and attack the Pope for complying with his original request, which was basically to cancel his speech.
No offense, but your Latin tagline is improperly constructed. If you're going to use a Si clause in that manner, you need to use the subjunctive construction for paro, parare. You have used the imperative. Also more properly you should construct it with "qui pacem desiderat bellum praeparet"
Ahem... I do believe the word virus is a fourth-declension latin derivative, where therefore its plural is viruses and not virii. Also the root would be vir- not viri- and so even if it were a second declension (-us noun) its plural would be viri, and not virii. Unfortunately, I believe viri is already the plural of the word vir, which means "man" (viri - men).
Now Office can crash at the same time as iExplore, instead of separately.
Geordie LaForge.
I think interface design is one of the new frontiers of computing. Once someone (finally) cracks the natural voice interface problem with computers, I think we'll see a massive revolution in the technology, and how it is used.
Imagine the depth of penetration of computing technologies into the population if individuals could interact with the computer in a way which is natural to them? What kinds of searches could you perform, for example, on a huge database of information (say, the Internet), if you could ask the computer a specific question and have it understand you?
With so many literacy issues in our world today (especially in a globalized market), using your voice to command a computer versus having to type words in a manner grammatically logical enough to communicate your intent to a computer, well, I think it will change everything. Shit, 98% of the world can't even use an apostrophe correctly; can you imagine the same people trying to formulate an advanced search query via typing?
God, is a child exposed to (gasp!) pr0n so goddamn terrible? NO!! Jesus, when I was seven I used to try and raid my big brother's porn collection for fuck's sake. Am I scarred? Not by that, no!! I was scarred by my 5th grade teacher yelling at me so loud for being in the boy's washroom that I peed myself, yeah! Thanks for protecting me from penises, guys! W00t!!! Now I'm a lesbian. Coincidence???? Heheheh.
It's a sad indicator of the state of affairs when "injuring a minor" means accidently being exposed to porn, and carries a 40 year jail term, when rape, murder, and mass defraudment seem to be relatively unimportant-- blase even.
Nanny state... bah! Move to Canada. We want you here.
Linux users shouldn't have to feel like they need to pretend to be Windows users in order to get hardware support for their legally purchased machines. Just because they're deviants, doesn't mean they don't deserve to live a normal life.
It's a terrible precedent, and a potential PR disaster on many fronts. Heck, I'd challenge you and your developers to take the leadership on this issue and find a way to achieve the same effect - sending invites to all addresses in contact lists - without requiring any usernames or passwords. Then you can be the recipient of good, not bad, press, while simultaneously solving an existing problem.
Someone has to be responsible for teaching people good security practices. Let that someone be you.
Second rate? That's too kind... FAR too kind. Herbert Sr. was a first class writer. Herbert Jr. couldn't even afford economy-- he'a accidently locked himself in the bathroom with his foot stuck in the bowl.
Hey man, I bet you're the same type of person that blames the Internet when your kids grow up to have absolutely no degree of self-control, and run off and drug themselves into a stupor, kill kittens then blame violent video games.
People have to learn that nobody but themselves is responsible for good and bad behaviour. You're setting an early precedent to your kids, giving them the message that control of their behaviour will come from outside authority sources. What happens later in life when they're expected to make their own decisions about what's best for them?
Not only that, but the reason we're in that conundrum in the first place is because of greed and shortsightedness. I don't necessarily think there's anything nefarious about this situation, but that push for profit has creating a false economy that is full of too much waste, which has begun to threaten the entire system. Here's a hypothesis:
In the last couple of decades, the corporations have worked together to create more spending amongst the populace. Not necessarily because they're evil bastards, they just wanna make money, and that is, in theory, okay. But people already have everything they really need, and even most of the stuff they really want. So, to keep 'em spending, corporations are now creating legions of false needs to drive essentially useless spending. They do this by sending out guilt-inducing propaganda designed to make you think you are a piece of shit, to get you to buy shit you don't need from them.
For example-- tooth whitener. Why the fuck do I need that? Teeth are naturally kinda yellow. In fact, abrading your enamel is detrimental to tooth health. Or how about Viagra? You can't get it up?? OMFG you ass clown turd-- you're a horrible human being and nobody will ever love you. Forget about relaxing more often and stopping smoking, which would probably solve the problem, fuck that! Here, buy this pill. It works right away (disclaimersomestudieshaveshownthatyourheartsponta neouslycombustsuponingestingthisproduct) Cha Ching!
Useless spending drives the economy, creates jobs (e.g. toothpaste factory workers) and encourages more transactions in the economy, each of which is subject to taxation. You buy more shit? Great, more tax. That benefits the state.
Why isn't the effort spent on developing new products that actually meet real and/or evolving needs? Why aren't we inventing better cars that run on clean fuel and not gas? Pretty simple... why would I invent something, and just as I've made enough to sell, and people are starting to buy it, then go ahead and invent something else that negates the need for the first product anyway? That would be dumb.
Also, why should I legislate to encourage cars that run on clean fuel when I actually own four oil companies? That would be stupid, eh.
The goal is to maximize market saturation, where a particular object gets bought by the max number of people before the next gadget is introduced. I'm sure we can invent a better TV.. but why do that? Some people haven't spent money on an HDTV yet, so let's hold off a coupla years so we can maximize profit.
And honestly, to some degree this is necessary, because yeah: I don't want to buy an HDTV and then it's already outdated a week later.
This is actually a pretty good idea, because it *does* maximize profit. But, unfortunately, it's so shortsighted and has a fatal flaw, which has to do with globalisation.
We've spent so much time focussing our economy on flogging this useless shit, and with deliberate delays in advancing technology, that we've lost a lot of our world technological head start. Some countries out there have overtaken our head start and have begun fucking up our nice profitable paradigm by introducing newer, better gadgets before our people have finished maximizing their spending on the existing gadgets. North America has fallen behind in consumer technology to Europe and Asia. Well, that's not too bad, right? Who cares if we're ahead. NO!! Don't buy from Koreans! They're terrorists! Don't buy from China, they're communists! If you buy from another country, you're unpatriotic! You're the cause of the destruction of the nation!!
Well, if that's not working, then the least we can do is slow down our technical infrastructure here so that even if you buy the latest high tech gadget from the Koreans, you can't even use it here, because our infrastructure is too outdated. When *we* think the market's saturated with the current generation of technology, th
They wouldn't have to ask the ISP or Google for the information if she had autocomplete turned on in her browser.
The number of times I've been using someone else's computer, started typing something in the search box, been prompted with a list of previous searches via autocomplete, and been completely shocked by the stuff listed there, well...
On the other hand, this issue can devolve into a chicken and egg situation. Even if you are a critical thinking, intelligent individual, able to discern trash info from truth, you still need a basis for comparison. To verify the accuracy of information, you either need a knowledgable individual / expert, or a verified factual repository.
If a factual repository is built up by the contributions from knowledgable individuals, but then the credentials of those individuals are found to be fraudulent, the repository becomes useless. Not only have you lost the repository, but you've lost the knowledgable individuals to consult. Logically, you must turn elsewhere altogether for your information.
That's why it's important to protect the credibility, independently, of either (preferably both!) the factual repository, or the knowledgable individuals. If we start developing systems like wikipedia that rely on the latter to construct the former, then we're introducing a chicken-and-egg scenario where a taint on the credibility of either foundation of the system brings the entire thing down en masse. This is especially problematic when lately many have touted wikipedia as some sort of wave of the future in terms of knowledge building, and many similar entities have sprung up, perhaps slowly supplanting other types of factual repositories.
You can't advocate these types of community fact repositories without removing proven fraudulent information and people. Even wikipedia itself acknowledges the need to remove false information-- why are fraudulent individual credentials, then, less important to the authenticity of the whole? If you let people like Essjay continue to contribute and moderate and approve content under false pretenses, then wikipedia becomes a null entity.
In my head, wikipedia and similar entities then become analagous to the trivial solution to an equation.
If they didn't strongly implement DRM in their music, they'd just go down like the other file sharing sites, obviously. They don't really have a choice, so the music industry blaming Apple is, I think, completely ridiculous.
[DRM rant mode on]
The problem is having to pay too much money per song and still not actually owning your music. That's B.S.
If songs were 25 cents and free of DRM, I'd spend a crapload of cash buying all the songs I want from iTunes. Unfortunately, songs are a dollar, which is too expensive when compared to how easy it would be for me to steal them elsewhere. Make it more convenient for people to buy cheaply from iTunes than to download/copy for free.
Isn't this a classic pricing vs. supply/demand economic problem? Why bother with DRM at all if you can make cash hand over fist by taking money from people a little less at a time, but more often?
I'm not economist, but I do know that the music industry is missing out on my cash because they're making it easier for me to steal with pretty much no consequence whatsoever than to give them my money.
That said, I should say that I don't actually steal music. I feel too bad about it. I actually *want* to support the musicians... just not the money grubbing execs.
[DRM rant mode off]
Firstly, even as we know it, evolution (as a theory and "observed" phenomenon) applies only to our current earth environment; we simply have no evolutionary data available for other non-earth-like environments. It seems from current data that most environments in the universe are not earth-like. Therefore, any conclusions about the frequency of evolution in the universe as a whole are invalid, not only because we don't even know everything about evolution yet, but also because we know comparatively little about the universe, too.
Secondly, the "surprise" aspect is irrelevant to the liklihood of the existence of god. If there is a non-zero probability of an event occurring (in this case evolution of an intelligent civlisation other than human beings), the chance of encountering this event approaches 100% as the size of the environment tends towards infinity. So, if the universe is really damn big, we should be the opposite of surprised if and when we finally encounter another intelligent civilisation. The bigger the universe, the more inevitable such a discovery becomes.
On a side note, I'd also shrink at calling evolution (or humans) a chance occurrence. Gene mutation, debatably perhaps, but not evolution. Evolution in a colloquial sense is when a gene mutates - maybe by chance, maybe not- and results in an improved ability to survive in a particular environment. Therefore there is a certain deterministic aspect of evolution: if the mutation doesn't help the organism survive, significantly, it doesn't propagate significantly. If it does help, then it gets propagated, and the genetic evolution of populations occurs.
Even before genes existed in organisms, again, we know so little about what "sparked life", if it even ever sparked as such, that attributing to chance something that may in fact be entirely deterministic, even inevitable, would be illogical. Similarly, even if the process is deterministic, that doesn't mean there's a god. It might mean there's a fundamental law of the universe about which we're just not aware (yet).
Naturally, all of the above is a very simplistic description of very complex processes, but hey, I'm not evolutionary biologist.
Err, can we say selection bias? I'd challenge you to find, in today's world, a submarine of all-female crew, observe them for a few years, and then maybe conclusions about which gender is better at coping with long periods of isolation might be a little more relevant.
Sexism is irrelevant here-- plain and simple, there's no data to make that conclusion. Period.
Come to think of it, speaking of periods... ew. Periods in space. That's enough to drive any woman crazy-- god knows having one here on earth is bad enough.
Fundamentalist Christianity is a "mass ineptitude movement designed to corrupt logical thought processes and turn people into non-thinking idiots". That's not meant to harp on Christians in general and say they're all fundamentalists, nor to say that ONLY Christians are fundamentalists; they're just the predominant religion in this culture and so a handy example. But fundamentalism of ANY sort is meant to stifle critical thought processes...
Heh, I know, I totally agree. That's why I enjoy reversing those types of arguments, so that people who make them can see how similar they appear in structure regardless of which position you take on the issue at hand. Then, thankfully, some rare individuals on the very brink of intellectual worthiness can be catalysed into an epiphany where they realise that... wow, truth is relative, after all. Naturally this either leads to a chain effect of realising that everything is relative, including everything they ever believed, and/or a mental meltdown. Mental darwinism, maybe? :)
Heheheh. I guess my own personal brand of sarcasm didn't make it through my first post. Tee hee.