Posts by Mike Moyle 1715 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Feb 2007
So, if search results are protected free speech and the companies providing the search functions can't be sued for the results, where does this put torrent-listing sites? They are, after all, (if I understand correctly) nothing but search engines cataloging the torrents. Does that mean that they are (at least in theory) protected?
This is called "blaming the victim", and most civilized people consider it really bad form. It says that trolling/stalking is -- if not actually acceptable (although it does strongly IMPLY that it is) -- at least sufficiently commonplace as to be unexceptional.
The assumption seems to be the classic "If they don't know that it bothers you, they'll stop doing it," claptrap. The reality is that, in many cases, if trolls, bullies, and similar wastes of oxygen don't get the reaction that they want, their response is often to push harder. There is a limit to how much the target of an attack should HAVE to "toughen up" when the interconnected nature of our world today means that, where once a lone hater was just that -- alone and relatively harmless -- now the first shot, if repeated in the appropriate venue, can be like throwing chum into the water, drawing others to the attack. I think that we can ALL think of a few venues whose denizens practically LIVE for a good bit of fresh meat to attack for no other reason than for trolling's own sweet sake.
Further, beyond a certain point, the common assumption that "where there's smoke, there's fire" kicks in in the public mind when there are repeated attacks with no response from the victim (and giving no response is, after all, the tactic that "toughen up" requires). Add this to the apparently common practice today of potential employers, romantic partners, etc., doing an online search of a new prospect and finding page on page of unanswered falsehoods with no countervailing arguments and, I think, you can see that simply "toughening up" and "not letting them know that it bothers you" can be worse than useless.
Be as pissed as you want, but make sure you have your facts right and put on your big-boy face or no one will take your whining seriously.
The point that Judge Koh was making, I believe, was that, while Gmail users had agreed to Google's Ts & Cs, NON-GMail-users who received messages from Gmail customers never had a chance to accept OR decline those Ts & Cs. Therefore, these are TWO different groups and can't be combined into one class.
"Even if that's the only choice on the menu, I do not give it to them."
Despite what you might want to believe, the Ts & Cs that you click that little box on that says "I agree to the Terms and Conditions of <NAME>." ARE a valid contract/agreement between Google and its users and that click-through means that you *DO* give them whatever those Ts & Cs say.
Also, despite what you may believe, if you don't like a company's Ts & Cs, your choices are either:
1 -- not to use the service, or;
2 -- to hold your nose and use it anyway -- and accept that there are things that you don't like, but that they are outweighed (in your estimation) by the parts of the service that you DO like enough to use it. Really, legally, there is no third option.
Actually, there IS a third option: You can argue that there has been a violation of LAW. That's what the courts rule on, not degree of butthurt. I don't believe that Judge Koh has said that the various suits may not go to trial, or even that the plaintiffs can't form discrete groups for purposes of taking Google to court -- Gmail users, non-users sending to/receiving from Gmail users, etc.; just that the categories of people claiming harm do not fall into one monolithic group ("class"), because not all had the same options available to them.
I'm not sure what "theft of services" you think Judge Koh is (allegedly) guilty of. From the article, it appears that she followed both the LETTER and the SPIRIT of the law, as a judge should. Now, the law may not be what you would LIKE it to be, but there you go.
Also, unless Larry Page and Sergei Brin came to every email user's house and physically assaulted them, then NO ONE was (per your original post) "literally raped" by Google. Whether they were FIGURATIVELY raped is left as an exercise for the student. (Personally, I prefer to reserve the use of the term "rape" to describe actual cases of... you know... RAPE, but clearly you have a different standard.)
Further, as others have noted, email should be considered to be a postcard, rather than a letter in an envelope. Bots are sent in clear and the postal workers along the way may or may not look at it. If you want your mail to be (more) private put it in an envelope (encrypt it) before you send it off.
...And "bitch"...? Please... this isn't Reddit. Grow up.
Finally, "its" is possessive, while "it's" is the contraction of "it is". Learn the difference.
Shouldn't there be at least SOMETHING resembling a bell-curve measuring from noon to noon with highest numbers of electron neutrinos at midnight? As more of the earth intervenes between detector and sun, the number of neutrinos decaying to the electron flavored-ones should increase, if only slightly, right?
Re: a business case for ZIP files:
I work for a government agency. Our MIS people block access to cloud/FTP sites (SendSpace, DropBox, etc.). Inserting multiple attachments (InDesign document and PDF from one folder, fonts from another, images from a third -- repeat if you're sending multiple documents) into an email to send off to the printer's is a PITA when compared with dropping in one ZIP archive.
So, yeah; While it's not an ideal solution, ZIP still serves a useful function in business.
"Ringwoodite, the highest pressure peridot, has previously been found in meteorites, but has never been discovered on Earth before because scientists can't reach the planet's core."
Wouldn't this imply that the old, (I thought....) discredited "planet between Mars and Jupiter" explanation for the asteroid belt may have some validity after all? I ca't see how a crystal that apparently needs deep-crustal pressures to form would show up in meteorites, otherwise.
What am I missing?
For those into interracial lesbians there's the "Mabel and Brown Sugar" series.
For those who prefer gay males there's "Man-to-Manitoba".
For those into sex during a woman's period there's "Maple Leaf Rag".
For those of a conservative bent (*ahem*) there's the "Northwest Tarry-Tories"
...And, of courses, they classic "Poutine Poontang" series.
Across El Reg, commentards' heads are exploding at having to celebrate an Apple court-win.
"Yay! A patent troll lost!"
"But... That means Apple won..."
"But... Patent troll lost..."
"But... Apple won..."
"But... Paten..."
"But... Ap..."
*BOOM*
"Well, what did you expect...? American companies ALWAYS win in American cour... It was where...?"
*BOOM*
I think you're glossing over a couple of points:
1 -- Most prosecutors won't go to trial unless they believe that they actually have enough evidence to get a conviction -- they don't want to waste their office's budget and (more importantly, to them) their time on bringing a case to trial that won't enhance their conviction rate and reputation. They may propose a plea deal because they can get the same result for less effort. The vast majority of plea deals come in cases where the accused actually DID do the deed and it works to everyone's advantage to agree to the deal.
2 -- You seem to assume that all of the the delays in going to trial fall on the shoulders of the state. While I don't have numbers, based on what I've seen mentioned in the newspapers in my area (and no, I don't read the local Murdoch-owned tabloid), requests to postpone the start of trials appear to skew more towards the defense than the prosecution. If that is the case then the issue of how long it takes a case to come to trial can be something of a red herring.
"Epstein said: 'Thirty to 35 per cent are those guys aged 26 to 40...' "
Jeeze -- my BEARD is older than 90 percent of these guys!
What most of these guys don't realize is that -- unless you have a lot of quite dark hair -- a beard generally looks like crap for the first month or two. If you're a blonde going for the permanent 5-o'clock shadow look, then it sucks to be you, but if you want an actual beard, then patience solves a lot of problems.
I was in my early twenties and a very pale blonde when I decided to try growing a beard one summer between semesters at college. It took, quite literally, almost the entire three months before it curled back on itself enough to become noticeable. Two months and three weeks -- nathin' shakin'. That last week however, it just figuratively went "FOOMPH!" and became the magnificent bit of follicleage that it remains to this day. (And, yes; I have a couple of places where the hair isn't as thick as others, but if the hair's all long enough, it covers the problem nicely)
"...I find the notion that anyone can do useful work on a tablet laughable."
I REALLY wish that people would at least have the intellectual honesty to preface comments like these with "For the kind of work that *I* do...". Of course, that would kind of dilute the supposed universality of their pronouncements.
For some of us, something like THIS is real, paying, professional work that keeps a roof overhead and food and drink on the table:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEdRLlqdgA4
At least part of the issue is that broadcasters charge advertisers based on the number of eyeballs (supposedly) viewing their advertisements. This is why auditors like Nielsen, etc., have historically been so important to the industry -- they provide the numbers that everybody uses to drive the ad rates up or down.
Unless the broadcasters have a way of surveying (or should that be surveilling...?) the Aereo customers, to see how many thousands of sets of eyeballs they can add onto the numbers that they already get from Vielsen, et. al., for any given point in time, they can't get that hoped-for extra money from the advertisers.
OTOH, I'll wager that the advertisers like Aereo for that exact reason -- extra eyeballs for no extra outlay.
A WeMo WEP, A WeMo WEP!
A WeMo WEP, A WeMo WEP!
A WeMo WEP, A WeMo WEP!
A WeMo WEP, A WeMo WEP!
In the gadgets, the household gadgets,
The firewall sleeps tonight.
In the gadgets, the Web of Gadgets,
The firewall sleeps tonight.
O-oh --
A WeMo WEP, A WeMo WEP!
A WeMo WEP, A WeMo WEP!
A WeMo WEP, A WeMo WEP!
A WeMo WEP, A WeMo WEP!
(Sorry... Still a quart low on my morning coffee intake...)
"No amount of organizational resilience or hierarchical cohesion can ever fully defeat an unstructured, decentralized and wholly unstable force that keeps gluing sandpaper to the toilet seats and leaving Lego blocks on the floor of your bathroom."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel)
@ DropBear
You've actually touched on one of my biggest complaints with science-fiction movies where lasers/rayguns are used -- You DON'T need sights for a projected-energy weapon. Sights on a firearm evolved because the things tend to be heavy and cumbersome and have a tendency to wobble, and (on rifles, particularly) to help the shooter adjust for wind deflection or projectile-drop at distance, neither of which should be much of a problem with an energy beam.
The easiest way to point a laser-pointer with good precision is to tape it to an outstretched index finger. With a larger/heavier one you may need to tape it to finger, hand and arm. Either way, pointing with arm extended at the object you want to hit should do for most purposes. If I wanted to hit and hold on a moving object, that's how I'D do it, at least.
If you MUST have a "gun-shaped" hand-weapon in your movie for dramatic and/or recognition purposes, you design it such that the index finger lies in a groove parallel to the beam-emitter, with the other three fingers wrapped around the grip and, possibly, a thumb-stub as the firing button.
Point-and-shoot -- We've all been doing it since childhood; no sights required.
"Or for the really condensed version.
America Uber Alles."
So noice to hear from you again, Mr. Godwin how have you been lately?
"Let me suggest another view.
No one Uber Alles."
Good plan.
Now make it happen.
Oh, you can't...?
Well then, as a GOAL, I strongly approve of it, but as an immediate strategy -- until you manage to convince a lot of autocratic international actors who believe that EVERYONE should live by their political/ideological/religious system to live and let live -- it sucks donkey balls. As the man said; the lion may lie down with the lamb, but the smart money says that only the lion is likely to get up again.
Come back when everyone starts acting like lambs and we'll discuss your proposal again.
Speaking personally, and for no one BUT myself, I have to admit to a certain amount of ambivalence re: the NSA.
Do I think that what they are doing is always right? No.
Do I think that what they are doing is always wrong? No.
Would I rather that I be able to do what I want, when and where I want, without having someone looking over my shoulder to make sure that it is "approved"? Hell, yes.
Do I believe that other international actors are working on the same projects and towards the same capabilities that the NSA is? Yes, certainly.
Do I think that SOMEONE is going to accomplish those goals eventually? Yes, certainly.
Do I believe that, e.g., the Russian and Chinese security agencies' visible actions against openness online are all that they are ACTUALLY doing? No, certainly not.
Do the Snowden leaks indicate that the U.S. is the only international actor trying to suborn the 'net for its own purposes? Almost certainly not. They may only indicate an inherent weakness in using contract workers, or that the U.S. is less efficient at keeping its electronic warfare "troops" under its thumb. It may simply mean that government employees in THIS country believe that they can get away with revealing secrets embarrassing to their employer without getting an intimate introduction to an umbrella-load of Polonium.
Would I rather that, if SOMEONE is going to attain the same goals that the NSA is seeking, it be someone who is (at least nominally) looking out for my interests and (nominally) under the control of people that I (nominally) have some voice in choosing, rather than someone who is somewhere that I have zero chance of getting to and who has ABSOLUTELY no accountability to me? In all honesty, I have to say yes.
Do I believe that whomever gets the technology first will hold a permanent monopoly on it? Not really -- Whatever international player gets it first will have a very temporary advantage, but for that short window, I would rather that the advantage lay with a more-or-less democratic state than with a more-or-less autocratic one since I firmly believe that, in the long run, the inherent stresses in a more-or-less democratic state keep it from doing as much damage as quickly as a more-or-less autocratic one.
I don't know if that clears anything up for you, but there it is.
"The last time I read about Wellls Fargo was in The Dandy. Colour me unimpressed."
Be unimpressed, as you will... But as one of the four largest banks in the U.S. -- and THE largest, depending on which metric you use -- Wells Fargo has some cachet among those whose reading includes the financial pages instead of children's magazines.
...Just sayin'.
@ Spoddyhalfwit
"Look through the history of currencies and you will find that this is the very essence of many of them. If something has inherent value, ie is useful for something else it doesn't make a very good currency... It would be bad for the economy to tie up useful things or commodities rather than use them."
Curious… Because I would have sworn that gold, silver, and copper/bronze all are "useful commodities" and have been used as money for some time, now. Hell, SALT -- a useful commodity, if ever there WAS one -- was once used as currency (vis: the Roman soldier's "salary"). In point of fact, most currencies have come from people agreeing on how much of useful commodity "x" they are willing to accept in swap for their labor/product.
Honestly, I would have to say that your argument "...ain't worth a wooden nickel."
@ Craigness
"... and each lets you can type the name of a program instead of going through a menu system designed back in 1995."
Do you mean like typing "emacs" or "vi" to launch your text editor…? Because I'm pretty sure that I was doing that WELL before '95. If you're going to give examples of how your OS/UI of choice is so much more modern and enlightened than others, you might want to suggest something it does that WASN'T in use before 1982.
"What's annoying is that HP stopped supporting it years ago, so my poor wife is stuck with Windows 2000 and the responsibility of acting as a print server. Researching this piece I discovered drivers for Windows XP, but buying an upgrade to an already-dying OS seems insane and there's no sign of support for anything more recent.
"Third up is my Motion Computing LE1600 Tablet PC, running the pen-tweaked version of Windows XP that Microsoft thought would change the world.
...
But the LE1600 is no iPad, it's a kilo and a half even without the extended battery, and the much-abused smaller battery will hardly give it time to boot these days, so it's been relegated to being an extended monitor…".
So keep the tablet plugged in and use it as a touch-based print server and buy your wife a new computer -- there's a difference between being economical and being a cheapskate! <gr>
"Who needs to make excuses, they still haven't beat the PC only 1 manufacturer, if \ when
they beat Windows PC sales as a whole that will be a real milestone."
So, if I'm understanding your argument correctly, it would be unimportant that, e.g., Toyota is the top-selling carmaker in the world because they aren't outselling all other car makers combined...?
...Does that make sense, even to you...?
@ Don Jefe
"I'm genuinely curious as to what Google thinks they're on to."
Chairs with automated headrests that always orient your eyes towards the ads.
On the plus side, if it's not a X project then it means that they probably won't turn it off once a bunch of people depend on it just because they got bored with it (vis: Latitude).
I've been using these things for a couple of years now -- I'm lazy, I don't do the "roll (refill) your own" but have the fake-cigarette looking kind with the disposable/replaceable juice/atomizer unit.
The best thing about these, for me, is that using them VERY occasionally has kept me from "falling off the wagon".
I have been off cigarettes, at various times, for as much as 2-1/2 years and in those periods, I don't think that a day went by that I didn't want one. Eventually, I would reach that point where I was either going to give a beating upside the head to someone who apparently greatly desired one or I was going to have a cigarette (This would be AFTER I had exhausted the cathartic/distracting effects of slamming my head against a wall, etc...). And I knew that, if I bought a pack of cigarettes, I WAS going to smoke the entire pack. And probably, then, another. And another after that...
Nowadays, I can go away, have a hit or two off of my e-cig, and get back to ignoring the people lining up begging to be punched up the conk.
Frankly, if my experience is anything to go by then I think that the number of lives that have been saved by e-cigs is VASTLY underestimated.
As a side note to Richard Chirgwin: I'm apparently not a user the same way that you are -- I'm more a "have a puff or two and put it away" person than a "keep it in my mouth all the time" user. That said, the way that I've found that works best with the puff-activated e-cigs is to take a couple of short "mouth-sucks" -- rather like the ones one takes when lighting a pipe -- before actually inhaling. It seems to heat the vaporizer to optimal temperature for that first inhalation. After that, assuming that you're not waiting a minute between puffs, you should be good to go.
...let me just say that it's not just the engineers noted in the article; the simple fact is that EVERYONE hates manuals:
The engineers (as noted) hate documentation because they KNOW that their products are brilliantly intuitive and so NEED no documentation;
Marketing and sales hate documentation because, the more complete the documentation, the more complicated -- and, hence, harder to sell -- it makes the product look;
The bean-counters hate documentation because it's a cost and not a revenue-stream;
Management hates documentation because (being a non-revenue-enhancer) it negatively affects the bottom line and, despite that fact, you STILL have to dedicate facilities planning to its production, and;
As long as he can get the help-desk to read the manual to him over a toll-free number, the customer is never going to look at it anyway!
Once you realize all of this, it becomes very hard to maintain any enthusiasm for the job.
(* -- I got my start in tech pubs in the day of EMACS and NROFF, pulling pages off the spin writer, pasting up typeset chapter heads and graphics by hand, etc. Since the company was transitioning to WYSIWYG as I left, I ended up being the default "winner" of the prestigious "Worst Project To Ever Get Stuck On" award for spending a solid week doing manual assembly -- filling in lower-case "o"s by hand for bullet lists and hand-applying brackets and braces, among other atrocities -- for the company's 751 page PL/1 reference guide. I PAID my dues, guv!)
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