Terry Karney @956,
IANAP, but i believe you're mistaken here. Per this guy, as well as Dan Margulis' book (Margulis being one of THE names in digital color correction), digital camera makers mostly err on the side of blowing the highlights out completely to preserve shadow detail.
Serge,
FileZilla is the best Free (in both Open Source and monetary senses) FTP client i've used for Windows.
My favorite Windows client is a non-free program called FlashFXP. If FileZilla is irritating you for whatever reason, you might check it out.
Adrienne
Serge,
#1 "Better" is a relative term. Probably "as good", at least, and runs with SIGNIFICANTLY less resources (memory and processing power). In addition, unlike Norton, it will let you *uninstall* it if you don't like it without popping up all kinds of dire fucking warnings and leaving random bits of crap on your machine.
I personally recommend PrevX (www.prevx.com) instead. In ordinary virus-scanners and malware scanners, the manufacturer has to put together an "update list" anytime there's a new threat, and that means that if you're one of the first people to get the malware, there won't BE a fix yet, and it won't even know to tell you that there's a threat. PrevX has both a community-updated database (it downloads a list every day or two to your machine, just in case you're not connected to the internet -- but when you ARE connected, it will check the *real-time* list), AND it won't let **anything** install without popping up a note to tell you what it is and that either (a) it seems to be completely safe, (b) they don't know much about it but it doesn't seem to be a threat, or (c) it's malware. That extra verification step is amazingly handy -- because nothing can automatically run out of your email box, or a script attached to a word document, or by being called from somewhere else, WITHOUT you getting to check it first.
(Note: I'm not affiliated in any way with them. I just like their software a lot. Arovax Shield is free rather than just cheap, and it works on a fairly similar theory, but i don't think that either its interface or its database are nearly as good. YMMV.
Oh, and one last note about Norton and McAfee, the "big name" providers of anti-malware stuff: back a year or two ago, when some Sony music CDs were installing a rootkit on your machine and thus leaving it open to all kinds of exploits -- Norton and McAfee passed that software through. Not because they didn't know that it existed -- they DID -- but because Sony had *asked them not to*. The story of the rootkit finally broke when some independents discovered it. Norton and McAfee didn't even TELL anyone about it!
Do you really want your anti-malware software company granting requests like that, without you even KNOWING about it?
-----------------------------------------
#2 FileZilla is just an FTP client, so it depends on what you mean by "implement changes". It's a perfectly acceptable FTP client, which means that once you've edited the files it will allow you to upload them to your site with a minimum of fuss.
If, however, by "implement changes" you mean *actually edit the files*, FileZilla won't help you at all. You need a different tool, and *which* tool depends on how clueless you are about HTML/CSS/etc.
If the answer is "pretty clueless", i'd recommend Dreamweaver (formerly Macromedia, now Adobe, find it at their site) -- it's rather expensive, but it produces the best code of any of the WYSIWYG editors.
(NVu is a fairly decent free alternative produced by the Mozilla people, but its code isn't nearly as good. I'm a BIG FAN of open-source software, mind you, but i'm also kind of a Nazi about good HTML. And again, YMMV.)
If you know HTML and just need a good text editor, i recommend the free Notepad++ -- i love it to death. You can find it here.
Sorry to talk your ear off; hope this helps.
--Adrienne
I just left a long comment about prison injustices (not specifically rape) over at Ezra Klein's blog. My current roommate, who's also an old and dear friend of mine, just finished a five-year prison sentence. (That is, in fact, WHY he's living with me; there are hairy legal issues involved with him living anywhere much else at the moment.)
The stories he tells about conditions in prisons (and he was in several over the course of his incarceration) deserve a MUCH wider audience. He didn't, personally, witness any incidences of rape -- but the things he did see were, in many cases, MUCH worse. And the frightening thing, the thing that really drives home the horror of it all for me, is that he doesn't TELL the stories he tells in that teaching voice that says, "this was really awful." He tells them in the sort of casual voice in which you or i might relate an anecdote about our work day. This shit is *just that common*.
Here's the last three-quarters of my comment from over there, copied and pasted:
-----------------
A few examples: People dependent on medication are *routinely* denied it; one guy killed himself after being denied his mental health meds. One guy my friend knew died of a ruptured appendix while SCREAMING for medical help and being ignored (it wasn't the one-hour-per-day when medical calls are actually answered and inmates can go to the infirmary).
My friend worked as a prison cook in one of the places he was -- and the grain that was brought in for things like oatmeal routinely came in in bags marked "NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION." One of the other cook-assistants tried to smuggle one of those empty bags out of the kitchen; he was brutally beaten by the guards to the point where he couldn't walk. There's a particularly charming phenomenon called "stomping", where a guard stomps on the chain between an inmate's ankles -- my friend has ridges of nasty scar tissue from having this done.
The particularly awful thing is that federal (and many state) correctional institutions are more or less above the law. In most states, inmates can't sue for *anything* that happened to them while they were incarcerated. They mostly can't get access to their medical records (or any other documentation about them), which might support claims of what happened to them. (Or in the case of deceased inmates' families, provide fodder for a wrongful death suit.) Wardens and guards *know* that they're basically immune from any possible repercussions for their actions, and many of them act accordingly.
Frankly, i'm sort of at a loss as to why we think the people *incarcerated* in the prisons are the "real monsters" in this equation. Assuredly, some prisoners are montrous; equally assuredly, some of the people running the prisons are as bad or worse. (Several previous posters have mentioned women's prisons, where some male guards are given to behaving as if the female inmates are there strictly as entertainment. Several commenters and Ezra himself mentioned that wardens and guards ROUTINELY deny requests for protection when there *is* abuse going on.)
To me the lesson is that people who don't believe in the rule of law, who don't believe that rules apply to them, are the problem. No matter WHICH side of the bars they're on. The difference, though, is that prisoners are solely responsible for what THEY do; we're ALL responsible for what our appointed representatives, the wardens and guards, do.
-------------
--Adrienne
Claude,
My mistake. I hadn't realized we hadn't actually *ratified* the 1977 Protocols. *sigh*
Thanks for the clarifications, too, everyone. I'm just a bit hair-triggered on this issue, since it's fairly clear that the administration is doing a fairly good job of controlling the discourse on "who is a protected person", even among people who *know better*.
But i didn't mean to imply that anyone here is stupid or misguided; just that it's HARD to have any kind of correct info on the subject. Especially given that *i* didn't even have completely correct info, and thought i did!
--A
Dave Bell,
Thanks for the cite; i had seen a different article on the subject but it hadn't really registered yet. :)
And Kipling is *always* appreciated.
I think my point is more that there seems to be a lot of confusion, engendered and encouraged by the Bushies, as to "who is a protected person under the Geneva Conventions" and "what is a war crime". And the answer seems pretty clear to me -- just about ANYBODY belonging to a nation involved in a conflict, when held by or in the territory of another party to the conflict, is protected under at least ONE of the Conventions (including mercenaries, most likely), and doing just about ANYTHING you wouldn't do to one of your own citizens accused of a crime is a war crime.
--Adrienne
#36 : AAAARGH. I am *so tired* of people bringing up this "but they weren't wearing uniforms!" crap!
Their uniforms only matter under the THIRD Geneva Convention -- and even then, only barely, because if there is "any doubt" about whether a person is entitled to the protections of the Third Geneva Convention, you have to ACT AS IF THEY ARE SO ENTITLED until you KNOW THEY AREN'T. Which means, since they were acting in most other respects as declared combatants, you really have to give them the benefit of the doubt.
REGARDLESS of which, even if they AREN'T "regular combatants", and despite the mockery GWB and his crowd want to make of international Law, they're pretty unequivocally protected by the FOURTH Geneva Convention. I quote below articles 4, 5, and 13 of the Fourth Geneva Convention:
Article 4
Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.
Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. Nationals of a neutral State who find themselves in the territory of a belligerent State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, shall not be regarded as protected persons while the State of which they are nationals has normal diplomatic representation in the State in whose hands they are.
The provisions of Part II are, however, wider in application, as defined in Article 13.
Persons protected by the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of 12 August 1949, or by the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea of 12 August 1949, or by the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 12 August 1949, shall not be considered as protected persons within the meaning of the present Convention.
Article 5
Where in the territory of a Party to the conflict, the latter is satisfied that an individual protected person is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State.
Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur, or as a person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention.
In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be.
...
Article 13
The provisions of Part II cover the whole of the populations of the countries in conflict, without any adverse distinction based, in particular, on race, nationality, religion or political opinion, and are intended to alleviate the sufferings caused by war.
Which is to say, it DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER WHAT THEIR "COMBATANT STATUS" WAS, it's still a WAR CRIME to shoot them in the head without a trial. The only privilege of the Conventions you can legitimately deprive them of is the privilege of "communication", if they're a "spy or saboteur". There's that handwaving about "prejudicial to the security of the State" stuff in there, that's what the Bushies are using to make up this whole "unlawful combatants" thing, but i think it's pretty GODDAMN clear what it means in context--you don't have to let them jerk you around, but you DO have to observe their rights as well as you can.
Not to lend any actual weight to his argument, but it's my understanding that there are a number of serious studies regarding the estrogens in soy and their effects (both positive and negative). And hile homosexuality's not implicated in any of them to the best of my knowledge, i DO remember seeing one that linked soy consumption by pregnant women with decreased penis size in their male offspring. Not, mind you, decreased libido -- just penis size.
The point being, he's using a very EFFECTIVE kind of craziness -- he's got JUST enough science behind him to be merely ridiculous and not Making Shit Up.
--Adrienne
#30, you apparently missed Teresa in #12 where she says, and i quote, "that wasn't an invitation to be rude to religious Leftists, either." Atheism isn't the be-all and end-all of ethical thought, whatever many atheists think. (And i'd like to point out that i AM, to at least some degree, atheist. Albeit a religious atheist.)
#48, great points on all accounts. Just as an aside, to the best of my knowledge the minimal point of correlation for Christians is that they all DO believe that JC is/was God. What they then put on top of that makes a big difference, but that's sorta the root issue.
I didn't know him, at all, other than to know he wrote great books and better poetry.
Edna St. Vincent Millay's already said everything i've ever felt i had to say about the subject. Perhaps she'll comfort someone else as she often has me:
Dirge Without Music
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.
The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Another point to think about as far as "legal" versus "moral" rights -- a lot of us have a lot of difficulty respecting that "authors have a LEGAL right to own their creations; OMG you're STEALING THEIR LIVELIHOOD!!!!" when most of them DON'T hold their own copyright. Copyright inheres in the publisher for several years on a lot of authors' contracts, and in the record company forEVER (so far as i understand) on a lot of musicians' contracts. The creators get royalties, but they don't OWN THEIR WORK as far as that goes.
I have a lot of respect for free and anarchic movements (fairtunes.com was the big one, but it got shut down) that try to get illegal downloaders to send money directly TO THE ARTISTS. Their position is that the record labels, not having done any of the "creative" work, don't have any MORAL right to be paid regardless of the legality of their position, whereas the creators DO have a moral right to be paid for their creations.
I understand this is almost certainly a really irritating position to those of you in the publishing industry -- and i'm not saying i AGREE, entirely, with it.
But the sheer magnitude of the legal difference between "who holds the copyright" and "who MADE THE THING" may go some way toward explaining why a number of fanfic authors, illegal downloaders, and other "pirate" consumers of culture don't care much about arguments based on legality.
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