... are we finally going to see some serious investigations and accountability for this current administration?
I'm not holding my breath. On the one hand, the party in power generally prioritizes the things it wants to get done over the things it would like to see punished. On the other hand, if you dig too deeply into anything in Washington, you're going to find wrongdoing on both sides. And on the other other hand, presidents don't generally act to limit their own power.
There may actually be an opportunity here to break the back of the Repbulican party, but it's not clear that that would benefit the Democrats. The timesharing arrangement they've got going now seems to work out pretty well for them. How much do you think they want to face a wave of conservative activists energized to build a new party?
Call me naive, but I have faith in these companies that they made these changes for a reason, namely that they did tests and concluded it would improve the user experience
I find it surprising that neither your credit card processor nor bank "said one word about it." Ours told us flatly they would not do business with us anymore if we couldn't show compliance. In fact, it was our bank that made us pay attention -- we would have blown off the credit card companies. The way PCI is supposed to work is that if any credit card fraud occurs that can be pinned on a breach in your service ("you" being anyone who stores card data), you get a fine starting in the tens of millions of dollars. That should scare people into compliance, but a lot of companies are just incapable of being scared -- the officers have limited liability, and they look at business as rolling the dice anyway.
You obviously weren't sure if what you were saying was true, but instead of looking it up, you went ahead and said it anyway, because you'd like it to be true, to back up your post. Why didn't you just look it up and save us all the time? Have you looked it up yet? Are you interested in the truth at all?
All of that said, yes, it was a troll. I considered your post unworthy of any serious comment. You are just recycling FUD and stating completely baseless opinions. You clearly don't know anything about the history of communism, anarchism, or free software; and your grasp on psychology doesn't seem too strong, either. Your post was a colossal waste of time. So I replied flippantly.
Linus is not paid by the FSF to develop linux. Is there anything else I can clear up for you?
That sort of reasoning was exactly what lead to countless wars. Hitler and the Germans thought it was their birthright to take Europe. Why do people use the term "exactly" when they really mean "I'm going to make such a loose analogy a child could see through it?"
The most obvious problem with your comparison is that the rulers you cite took something away from other people and kept it for themselves and their cronies. The OP wants to liberate it for everyone's use.
Thus your next swing at the strawman fails as well:
Say you kill a landowner for his land. Now the land is yours. The next generation has no land. Well, no, the next generation shares all the land you liberated to share with them. At least, that is my reading of what the original poster is trying to say.
Sorry, I do not want a war every generation because people feel it's their birthright to have land. Don't worry -- you'll be too busy fighting the wars we have every generation because everyone who can lay any claim to anything feels they have an absolute right to hoard it.
The US Declaration of Independence declares rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Rights are tricky to define, but I think one facet of them is that they apply to everyone equally. When all the property is already sewn up before you appear on this earth, the right to pursue happiness is foreclosed. And please don't bother arguing that anyone can "pursue" happiness -- the phrase obviously means "effectively pursue," otherwise it would mean nothing.
All of that said, history shows us that "killing and taking" is a generally poor strategy for social progress. I prefer an immediate end to intellectual property -- Free Software shows us that it's not necessary for innovation -- and a very steep estate tax.
Most people who pass on the opportunity to use Microsoft's software usually have an irrational hate for Microsoft itself What's irrational is you thinking you know the mental state of most people who don't use Microsoft.
If his relationship to you were known, I imagine you'd be as likely to get busted as if you'd just handed him the information. They're not going to take your friend's word for it that he independently cracked the computer system where his buddy works, just in time to make a huge profit. And they'll probably cut him a deal to rat you out, because he's still going down for cracking the machine. But hey, give it a shot and let us know how it works out for you, when they allow you to use a computer again.
Iran and North Korea are buying them all up to make a cluster for weapons trajectory? I hope so... because if their experience with the iPhone is anything like mine, they'll probably decide it's not worth waiting for-freaking-ever for their map to load and give up on bombing anyone.
Your 120-character post suggests you were born on the 18th of March. No? Well, your random guess was dead wrong, too, but nice try. Languages do differ in readability, even if you adjust for fluency (otherwise, intercal couldn't exist). A language with a philosophy of encouraging lots of different solutions to even trivial problems and a "smart" interpreter that can figure out what you meant, even if you don't express it well, is a recipe for gobbledygook. Even the one great programmer I know who likes perl calls it a "write only" language.
I submit to you that some coders can make a mess of any language. True, but I submit to you that precious few programmers can make a not-a-mess out of perl.
You can tell us that your opinion of yourself is that you don't think that way. Well, I am talking about public debate and policy decisions here, not deep inner secrets. Sure, I've got some ugly stereotypes knocking around in my skull, but my voting record is 100% in line with my stated positions.
I sympathize on the testing. I've gone through it, and I wouldn't like to again.
Again I get the response "everybody does it." So from being the city on the hill for the world to look up to, the Grand Experiment in Democracy, America has fallen back to "we're no worse than a lot of people." Lovely.
And I'm sorry but I don't buy that this is bred into us. I am biologically no different from other humans, but I do not feel "in my heart" that the people over the river have a lower right to privacy than I do. So I can tell you for a fact that it is not a biological thing.
Americans are neither significantly better nor worse than almost everyone else in this respect. I can neither prove nor disprove that, but neither have you. As far as attitudes go, what I object to is not just the xenophobia, but the particular mix of xenophobia and self-righteousness. Practically speaking, I honestly doubt that any other country at this time is systematically violating the rights of non-citizens on the same scale as the USA. Perhaps China comes close.
Yes, American citizens deserve more from the American government than others. What's wrong with that? I don't expect the Chinese government to treat me with the same consideration as a Chinese citizen, beyond a certain basic level that all human beings deserve.
We are not talking about providing services, we are talking about respecting human rights. Are you saying that it is ethical for the Chinese government to eavesdrop on your phone calls, but not for your own government to? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Just like you probably treat your family preferentially. I don't believe that my family have any rights that other people don't. Do you?
Why you think my comment about disbanding the CIA has nothing to do with a discussion of Americans failing to respect others' privacy rights is somewhat hard for me to follow.
why only point your finger at the CIA and pretend they put America somehow in a league of their own? This was a topic about American policy. And of course a country that preemptively invades other countries because they're not democratic enough is going to have to expect some scrutiny.
so many non-Americans cop such a holier-than-thou attitude when America's dirty laundry gets aired What makes you think I am a non-American?
right and wrong don't stop at our borders, but it sure as hell gets redefined In other words, Americans deserve some things, and others deserve less. I search for some way to say this without being offensive, but this is the definition of bigotry.
There are people out there that will take advantage of the weak Yes, and there are such people in here, too. If it is not right to presume guilt of one, it is not right to presume guilt of the other. You seem to have no distinction between "right" and "expedient."
Part of that [making sure Americans are not "taken advantage of"] is making sure we know what everyone else is doing. So the American government has a right to omniscience, gained by any means necessary? Can you think of any other governments that claimed a right to know everything? Would you wish to be associated with them?
it is completely unreasonable to expect any state to not engage in espionage Yes, just as it was once completely unreasonable to expect citizens to govern themselves. What would happen if America stopped funding the ridiculously corrupt and inept CIA to commit crimes in other countries? What would America lose? What would it gain? I don't know the answers, and perhaps America would suffer, but it is not unreasonable to surmise that the country would survive.
There is a qualitative difference between monitoring phone numbers of international calls, and monitoring data of local calls and local internet traffic. I sincerely don't understand why so many Americans think that right and wrong stop at the US border.
Would you consider this to be true even when the speech isn't true? Yes. One price of free speech is misinformation. This is true regardless of anonymity. Look at the Swift Vets, for instance. And my instinct is that anything said anonymously is automatically not slanderous, because it either contains evidence or it has no weight. That, of course, is my moral opinion, not a legal one.
Freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom of anonymous speech. I keep hearing this argument from the kind of people who you know would love to curtail speech in general. In a country where a large majority vigorously defends free speech, perhaps anonymity would not be necessary. But in a country like the one I live in, where the citizens are told that they have free speech, but where you can be jailed for years for speaking certain truths to your lawyer, spouse, or doctor, and where thugs can come to your home or workplace and intimidate you if you publicly question your rulers, anonymous speech is necessary. When the government tries to ban certain types of speech, having a way to speak anonymously nullifies the ban. Sometimes it is necessary for a thing to be said anonymously at first, so that it can be discussed openly afterward.
Slashdot Mirror
You had me until you said "mouse." Those things aren't just tiring: they're crippling, and yet they're still insanely popular.
... are we finally going to see some serious investigations and accountability for this current administration?
I'm not holding my breath. On the one hand, the party in power generally prioritizes the things it wants to get done over the things it would like to see punished. On the other hand, if you dig too deeply into anything in Washington, you're going to find wrongdoing on both sides. And on the other other hand, presidents don't generally act to limit their own power.
There may actually be an opportunity here to break the back of the Repbulican party, but it's not clear that that would benefit the Democrats. The timesharing arrangement they've got going now seems to work out pretty well for them. How much do you think they want to face a wave of conservative activists energized to build a new party?
Call me naive, but I have faith in these companies that they made these changes for a reason, namely that they did tests and concluded it would improve the user experience
Two words: New Coke
I find it surprising that neither your credit card processor nor bank "said one word about it." Ours told us flatly they would not do business with us anymore if we couldn't show compliance. In fact, it was our bank that made us pay attention -- we would have blown off the credit card companies. The way PCI is supposed to work is that if any credit card fraud occurs that can be pinned on a breach in your service ("you" being anyone who stores card data), you get a fine starting in the tens of millions of dollars. That should scare people into compliance, but a lot of companies are just incapable of being scared -- the officers have limited liability, and they look at business as rolling the dice anyway.
... for someone other than the "Ajax development community" to be driving this.
But nines are worth more than ones and zeros!
You do know what "usually" means, right?
You obviously weren't sure if what you were saying was true, but instead of looking it up, you went ahead and said it anyway, because you'd like it to be true, to back up your post. Why didn't you just look it up and save us all the time? Have you looked it up yet? Are you interested in the truth at all?
All of that said, yes, it was a troll. I considered your post unworthy of any serious comment. You are just recycling FUD and stating completely baseless opinions. You clearly don't know anything about the history of communism, anarchism, or free software; and your grasp on psychology doesn't seem too strong, either. Your post was a colossal waste of time. So I replied flippantly.
Linus is not paid by the FSF to develop linux. Is there anything else I can clear up for you?
You're trolling, right? You almost got me.
You want a cite? http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=correct&book=Dictionary See sense 2b.
The most obvious problem with your comparison is that the rulers you cite took something away from other people and kept it for themselves and their cronies. The OP wants to liberate it for everyone's use.
Thus your next swing at the strawman fails as well:
Say you kill a landowner for his land. Now the land is yours. The next generation has no land. Well, no, the next generation shares all the land you liberated to share with them. At least, that is my reading of what the original poster is trying to say.
Sorry, I do not want a war every generation because people feel it's their birthright to have land. Don't worry -- you'll be too busy fighting the wars we have every generation because everyone who can lay any claim to anything feels they have an absolute right to hoard it.
The US Declaration of Independence declares rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Rights are tricky to define, but I think one facet of them is that they apply to everyone equally. When all the property is already sewn up before you appear on this earth, the right to pursue happiness is foreclosed. And please don't bother arguing that anyone can "pursue" happiness -- the phrase obviously means "effectively pursue," otherwise it would mean nothing.
All of that said, history shows us that "killing and taking" is a generally poor strategy for social progress. I prefer an immediate end to intellectual property -- Free Software shows us that it's not necessary for innovation -- and a very steep estate tax.
What about the dead? Now that we're untaxable, we've got lots of disposable income for gadgets.
If his relationship to you were known, I imagine you'd be as likely to get busted as if you'd just handed him the information. They're not going to take your friend's word for it that he independently cracked the computer system where his buddy works, just in time to make a huge profit. And they'll probably cut him a deal to rat you out, because he's still going down for cracking the machine. But hey, give it a shot and let us know how it works out for you, when they allow you to use a computer again.
Your 120-character post suggests you were born on the 18th of March. No? Well, your random guess was dead wrong, too, but nice try. Languages do differ in readability, even if you adjust for fluency (otherwise, intercal couldn't exist). A language with a philosophy of encouraging lots of different solutions to even trivial problems and a "smart" interpreter that can figure out what you meant, even if you don't express it well, is a recipe for gobbledygook. Even the one great programmer I know who likes perl calls it a "write only" language.
I sympathize on the testing. I've gone through it, and I wouldn't like to again.
And I'm sorry but I don't buy that this is bred into us. I am biologically no different from other humans, but I do not feel "in my heart" that the people over the river have a lower right to privacy than I do. So I can tell you for a fact that it is not a biological thing.
Americans are neither significantly better nor worse than almost everyone else in this respect. I can neither prove nor disprove that, but neither have you. As far as attitudes go, what I object to is not just the xenophobia, but the particular mix of xenophobia and self-righteousness. Practically speaking, I honestly doubt that any other country at this time is systematically violating the rights of non-citizens on the same scale as the USA. Perhaps China comes close.
Just like you probably treat your family preferentially. I don't believe that my family have any rights that other people don't. Do you?
Why you think my comment about disbanding the CIA has nothing to do with a discussion of Americans failing to respect others' privacy rights is somewhat hard for me to follow.
why only point your finger at the CIA and pretend they put America somehow in a league of their own? This was a topic about American policy. And of course a country that preemptively invades other countries because they're not democratic enough is going to have to expect some scrutiny.
right and wrong don't stop at our borders, but it sure as hell gets redefined In other words, Americans deserve some things, and others deserve less. I search for some way to say this without being offensive, but this is the definition of bigotry.
There are people out there that will take advantage of the weak Yes, and there are such people in here, too. If it is not right to presume guilt of one, it is not right to presume guilt of the other. You seem to have no distinction between "right" and "expedient."
Part of that [making sure Americans are not "taken advantage of"] is making sure we know what everyone else is doing. So the American government has a right to omniscience, gained by any means necessary? Can you think of any other governments that claimed a right to know everything? Would you wish to be associated with them?
it is completely unreasonable to expect any state to not engage in espionage Yes, just as it was once completely unreasonable to expect citizens to govern themselves. What would happen if America stopped funding the ridiculously corrupt and inept CIA to commit crimes in other countries? What would America lose? What would it gain? I don't know the answers, and perhaps America would suffer, but it is not unreasonable to surmise that the country would survive.