Canadian Prisons Restrict Technology To the 1990s (www.cbc.ca) 225
belmolis writes: Canadian prisons allow prisoners to buy devices such as personal computers and gaming consoles but severely restrict the technology, nominally on security grounds. Modern gaming consoles are forbidden on the grounds that they can connect to the internet, so the typical purchase is a Playstation 1. No version of Microsoft Windows more recent than Windows 98 is allowed. No device that can play MP3 files is allowed. The regulations forbid operating systems other than Microsoft DOS or Windows and any software capable of creating a program, such as a compiler as are "database programs capable of altering or manipulating SQL databases". Although learning job skills is encouraged, programming is evidently not considered appropriate. The relationship of most of these restrictions to security is obscure.
And? (Score:2, Insightful)
Prison isn't supposed to be an all-expenses-paid vacation. It's meant to be a punishment. Or at the very least a holding pen where people's pathologies don't get imposed on the rest of society.
Why should it be? (Score:3, Funny)
Think of it this way, if somebody did something wrong there's two options:
1. They're not right in the head, in which case they shouldn't be in prison.
2. They're of sound mind. But if so, why are they doing illegal things? Why aren't you, yourself, doing illegal things?
If someone of sound mind is committing crimes society, as in you and me, screwed up. For petty crimes we're underpaying those folk and not taking care of them as human beings. For the big ticket white
Re: Why should it be? (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh huh.
You've lived a sheltered existence, haven't you?
I find it interesting that in the same post you can deny the existence of evil, in that you just can't believe someone "right in the head" would choose to get ahead at the expense of everyone else playing by the rules, but at the same time ascribe that to evil on the part of society that steals and cheats and victimizes to its heart's content.
Your worldview is incoherent and unmoored to reality. Moreso than that of the average person.
Opposite actually (Score:3, Insightful)
My world view is moored in reality. Multiple studies show that the way to stop crime is to end poverty. We've had the money to do that since the 70s. Poverty is a choice we make.
As for the rest, I'm not in favor of torturing anyone. Human life has intrinsic worth and value, not matter what. That's what makes it intrinsic.
But folks grow up on Dirty Harry and we're all a bunch of old farts, so I know dam
We do not have a Better Solution Yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Multiple studies show that the way to stop crime is to end poverty. We've had the money to do that since the 70s. Poverty is a choice we make.
Yes...and no. First, we are a hierarchical society and there will always be someone on the bottom who feels badly done to and who wants more. Even if we spent huge amounts of money to eliminate poverty this would not change and thus there will always be a strong motivation for petty crime. However, it would likely reduce the motivation of these people to commit crimes so the rate would drop.
However, you then have to look at what motivates people to work and, while I'm sure we all wish that was the love of their job and to make the world better the reality is that most people work to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomach plus the odd nice thing like a trip to the pub and an annual holiday. How do you think these people who are working like crazy are going to react if they see people just being given a place to live and food? The motivation for working hard will suddenly disappear and they will join the queue for handouts too - this is why communism failed.
That's the problem we have to deal with. How do we end poverty without ending the motivation to better ourselves and society? The best solution we have so far is our current capitalist society. It has a hierarchy that motivates people to work and, over time, that work has raised us all through the development of technology that has improved everyone's lives, even the most impoverished. It's not great and has incredible inequities, but history has shown that it works better than anything else anyone has yet come up with for helping everyone.
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Eventually robots will do everything, and then there's no reason to work unless you enjoy doing it.
The issue is the transition. Before robots can do everything, some people need to work, while others can't. Capitalism doesn't have a solution to the people who cost more to feed than robots costs to run and maintain.
That's where socialism comes in. Once the government pays for their survival, it's possible for those people to be price-competitive against robots (you'd have to get rid of the minimum wage, but
Not necessarily (Score:2)
Try to imagine the power that comes with that. You're a fat, old, ugly man and you want to have sex with young, beautiful women. Real women, not robots. Because it's as much about the power and showing that you have it as it is about the sex. How can you do that in a world where those women aren't made to trade affection for survival and comfort? D
We don't *have* to be hierarchical (Score:3, Insightful)
What motivates people first is a stable life. We have millions who we denied that. We also have a constant threat of starvation and/or death from the elements for 99% of people, and that's in 1st world countries.
People do not make rational decisions when under pressure. We like to think the
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And I'm tired of nobody pushing back against it.
You might as well be proposing the abolishment of religion, because that's what capitalism truly is - a system based in a belief. Everybody believes they'll get their chance to change their stars and move up in the hierarchy. Then you're the one who gets to be better than someone else. That was capitalism's greatest innovation over other *isms, the lie that if you work hard enough, you too can join the 1%!
Of course, statistically, 99% of those who try will fail, but don't let those odds stop you from wor
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How do you think these people who are working like crazy are going to react if they see people just being given a place to live and food? The motivation for working hard will suddenly disappear and they will join the queue for handouts too - this is why communism failed.
If that was really true, people like Bezos and Musk would've retired after they'd earned enough money to live comfortably on.
The ultimate irony is that in your hypothetical society of lazy people and handouts, if you were willing to work your labor would be worth substantially more because of supply and demand. The problem you'd actually end up with is that people who didn't want to work (or for whatever reason, lack marketable skills) would be priced out of buying any goods or services which still require
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When I was young, even a minimum wage full time job allowed a person to meet their needs, a crappy one bedroom apartment, healthy food, a bit of entertainment.
Now a crappy apartment is over $3000, if you can find one. Groceries seem to be going up on a week to week basis and you need a pretty good job just to meet the basics. It seems a lot more people are living in poverty then 40-50 years back, or maybe the poverty is just worst.
Be nice to get back to where if you are willing to work and have a few skills
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We have ended poverty, well sort of where I live New Zealand, any one who needs food, shelter will have it provided by the government if they ask. Are there poor sure, but that is relative poverty and that will never end, and I don't think it should people should be rewarded for their efforts, making everyone equal is dumb. But even the poorest are better of than most people in the 1900. Has crime gone away? No.
Look, I agree reducing poverty will reduce crime, but it will not eliminate crime or come close t
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We see that mentality in modern Tv. with shows NCIS, Law & Order, even CSI. The cops are saving people, are enforcing the law: Is the law bad for society, is a question these law-enforcement staff refuse to ask? Of course, saving people, means they have more rights than the accused, a non sequitur that cop dramas depend upon.
Dirty Harry, I think, saw a bullet as the quickest way to stop the criminal, to restore law and order. He too, didn't ask if the law was doing good although he tended to conce
Re: Why should it be? (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony being he touts Paleface Warren as his example of someone who has written good books about the subject of white collar crime when she fraudulently represented her ancestry in order to get ahead of other in life.
Re: Why should it be? (Score:4, Informative)
Take a look at the jails in the nordic countries and compare crime rates. The US imprisons more people per capita than China.
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That's a worthless straw-man, there's 27 million people combined in all the Nordic countries while the US has states with more people than that and far more densely compacted living conditions.
There is over 350 million people in the USA comparing it to tiny insignificant countries is idiotic in every way.
Re: Why should it be? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's replicate the economic programs of those nations first and then revisit this topic, maybe you're right but right now you have nothing to hang that theory on but spurious correlation.
A big reason the USA is the global hegemon is that we are the kings of integrating people from all over into our culture. Take just about any immigrant and within 1 generation they are full damn Americans. We should be proud of that and continue to exploit it.
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A big reason the USA is the global hegemon is that
...we have an overinflated opinion of our role on the global stage.
When you actually consider statistics outside the realm of how much wealth the 1% create for themselves, the USA begins to look more like a developing country. We have less home ownership than China, worse healthcare access than almost every other developed country on the planet, and I haven't checked lately but I'm pretty sure we're also still leading in the number of school shootings.
Diversity is a strength when everyone mutually agrees t
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If you have to lie about my argument to make yours then you have a bad argument. Try again.
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I wasn't aware China moved to the Nordic region. Big if true.
Re: Why should it be? (Score:4, Insightful)
Correlation does not equal causation. Thanks for taking off your hood by the way.
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Strange, it's almost as if racially and culturally homogeneous societies have increased levels of trust and cooperation or something ...
The problem with that idea is that Canada is probably at least as racially and culturally diverse as the U.S. and has a per capita prison population of 107 to the U.S. 531.
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Countries that have increased levels of trust and cooperation also have far less of a wealth gap.
Re: Why should it be? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought I didn't have to explain that if there was homogeneity in the American continent, it didn't need to be a single entity, because it was too obvious.
Anyway, my point is that if the Americas were formed by racially homogenous peoples, they would not be white and that the Europeans were the ones that brought racial diversity in the Americas, mostly against the wishes and interests of other peoples.
Re: Why should it be? (Score:3)
Your theory doesn't match the history of North America.
War, slavery and punishment all existed in North America (and South America) before Europeans came.
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Because if we don't have punishment for people doing things that society deems bad, more people will just do them because there are no consequences.
For the big ticket white collar crimes we ought to have regulations in place that make it basically impossible to do them, we know what those regulations as (Senator Liz Warren has a few good books on the subject written for laymen).
How do you put in regulations that make things impossible to do when there is no consequences (punishment) for breaking those regulations. If I decide to park my car in the middle of the street, and you can't fine me, arrest me then if I choose break your regulations how are you going to stop me?
People who choose to do what they want will be rewarded, people who
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The punishment of prison is supposed to be the fact that you are separated from greater society. If society is good enough then that alone is punishment enough and we don't have to be so punitive about it. We should focus a bit more on making society better rather than prisons worse.
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Why would we punish people for accidents? (Score:4, Informative)
Hell, we require almost everyone to get in a hyper dangerous 2000+lb machine and pray to their preferred deity every single day as a condition for employment and basic social interaction. I don't particularly see it as fair that we want to throw people into a torture box when they fuck that up.
How about walkable cities and proper public transit so we can take part in society without taking our lives and everyone else's in our hands?
And this is just the most obvious example. How about Wall Street? We know how to keep them from crashing the economy. We know how to stop the crooks from even being able to commit the crimes. Since I'm blowing Karma here, Liz Holmes was *obviously* a scam but everyone let her keep going just to see who'd get caught holding the bag. How about we make it so people like her can't run the scam in the 1st place. We know how to do it, we just don't want to.
Plenty more examples of crimes that shouldn't even be possible where that came from too, btw.
That's what I'm talking about. We have problems and we solve them not by actually, you know, solving them we let them fester and we lock anyone caught up in them in the torture box to try and scare people off. And the only limit on the torture is when folks like you get squeemish.
So how about it? How about every single prisoner gets 8 hours of the pain ray [newscientist.com] every day for the duration of their sentence? If we're gonna use torture as a deterrent, why are we stopping at prison rape and barely edible food? You ready for that? Or did your squeamishness set it? What's your limit? Pain Ray OK so how about medical torture? How about a trained surgeon cutting them apart without anesthetic?
These are things nobody wants to think about, so I expect to be modded down. But like I told the other guy, I'm a nerd, so I'd rather be right than popular.
Re:And? (Score:4, Informative)
Prisions are places where people are held to protect the population around them from potential harm, with the expectation that said harmful people will learn the consequences of their actions and mend their ways when they are freed.
If prisions were conceived as punishment, public lashing would be favored, as it is quicker and cheaper.
No, prisions are meant for protection. And to help the convicts to learn to better behave in society. They don't always succeed in this point (and it's the greatest room for improvement, but it is the ultimate goal.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are several recognized functions of prison/jail in the US system.
(1) Protection of the public. In most cases this would require a life sentence which are fairly rare so that doesn't seem to be the primary use of it - although see (2)
(2) Rehabilitation. This makes no sense for fixed term sentences as if that's the goal, there must be some way to measure "rehabilitated" and the person shouldn't be released until that happens - be it one day or 100 years.
(3) Deterrent. This is probably the primary use in the US. Many people would steal whatever they could if they were not afraid of being imprisoned just as many people routinely drove over the speed limit when the US had a national speed limit of 55MPH (88.5 KPH) and were only tempered by the threat of a ticket (don't ask why I know the latter effect).
(4) A feeling of justice/retribution for victims. This is a bit fuzzy but most people believe that if someone kills an innocent child intentionally they should suffer negative consequences even if there is a zero chance of them ever again performing another similar act.
Items (3) and (4) could be termed "punishment" as well in some people's minds but the purposes are different.
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(1) Protection of the public. In most cases this would require a life sentence
Not really. The "prime crime" age is 15 to 25. People tend to settle down after that.
(3) Deterrent. This is probably the primary use in the US. Many people would steal whatever they could if they were not afraid of being imprisoned
Fear of getting caught is a much stronger deterrent than harsh sentences. We'd be better off spending on better security and policing than more prisons.
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My heart quickens in excitement at the idea of public lashings coming back. I'd gladly be the one holding the whip to all the petty criminals in our neighbourhood.
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Several Asian countries use caning, but it is not public.
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And to help the convicts to learn to better behave in society
This may be the original goal, but in reality they act as a criminal social club allowing people to form new criminal contacts and learn of new criminal activities to do once they get out.
Once you've been convicted you're tainted with a record for life, and a lot of employers won't give you any consideration after that. Your job prospects become severely limited, and criminal ways of making money look even more attractive than they did before, plus you now have lots more contacts you could work with and who
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you're going to kill every prisoner or keep every prisoner in jail for life, at some point they're going to get out.
what's going to happen with these humans once they get out? what will the human be able to do once out? will said human be desperate because their skills withered while incarcerated? will the human be desperate and have to choose crime to eat?
This is not systemic thinking.
Re:And? (Score:4, Informative)
When people are treated with cruelty, it often makes them even more cruel - even if they weren't to begin with.
Forcing someone to use DOS or Windows is cruel, and honestly, is likely to cost the taxpayers more in the long run.
This whole thing is silly. What do they hope to accomplish with these draconian restrictions? An increase in black market electronics within the prison? Because that's what'll happen.
Want to bet there'll be someone who smuggles in eg. rpi boards with long-distance radio transceivers or some such on them - hidden inside a CD-ROM drive chassis?
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One of the best predictors of recidivism is a prisoner's bond with family and community.
Prisoners who are most isolated, receiving few visitors and making few phone calls, are the most likely to end up back in prison.
We should encourage inmates to call, text, and email rather than restrict them.
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Yeah, can you imagine? They would be forced to use notepad and limited to HTML 1.1 without CSS.... wait... actually that sounds kind of nice...
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Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing a function of prisons: Reforming the prisoner such that they're safe and preferably not a continuing drag on society when they get out. Countries that try this generally find that it works fantastic, at least compared to the USA, who often releases prisoners who are worse menaces than when they went in.
Personally, I think that reforming prisoners is the best option. It's actually CHEAPER than trying to do all this stuff.
Punishing, well, just telling a kid that they're confined to their room is a punishment. Being confined to the prison and told what you have to do in order to get out is probably good enough on that front. After that, you need to address the reasons they ended up in prison in the first place. For that, you have a multitude of reasons, usually mixed up.
1. Lack of impulse control: They're somewhat stupid, maybe have brain damage(lead poisoning* in my generation), etc... They do stupid shit because they don't think about it. Oddly enough, people also tend to age out of this, so sometimes just holding somebody until they're 25 or so is enough.
2. Lack of education/alternatives: Basically, they lacked any skill to make a minimal living, and turned to crime as an alternate. Maybe even just to "make up the difference" - the solution here is to get them the education necessary to get a 'decent' paying job. In many cases, this could amount to a high school diploma or GED and a trade.
3. Lack of standard social programming. Perhaps the more murky one, this is where you get things like them never having been taught that stealing or assaulting people was wrong, at least not in a way that sticks. Remember, most outright psychopaths don't kill people, because if nothing else they recognize that prison would be worse than their current situation, and it's too much effort, too risky, to kill somebody and try to get away with it.
*I think our current stupidity in politics has something to do with this. The most lead damaged of us(from leaded gasoline) have aged out of prime criminal ages and into political ages.
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Personally, I think that reforming prisoners is the best option. It's actually CHEAPER than trying to do all this stuff.
There is just one problem with this. Normally I agree. Reform is the best option. Some people in prison just got dealt a raw deal. Some education and a chance an they will never reoffend.
The problem is, there are some prison that can't be reformed. They are just 'evil' for lack of a better word. What do you do with those?
Re: And? (Score:2)
Because if not, what else can you do? Sentence them the same as you would anybody else, and do your best to rehabilitate them in preparation for their eventual release. And if they fuck up again, put them back in prison. Maybe with a longer sentence this time, since we know they're more likely to reoffend. Which is a thing we already do.
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Do you have a way to identify these people ahead of time?
Actually yeah, we can identify them ahead of time in some cases. I'm not talking about some poor SOB that just got down on his luck or in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm talking 'evil.' People like Dalmer, Manson, and those fuckers. There should be no doubt that these fuckers where 'evil' if is such a thing. So, I guess the best option is to lock them up forget rehab.
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Also, "super-predators" like the Central Park Five [wikipedia.org]. They confessed to beating a woman unconscious, gang-raping her, and then leaving her to die. There was no doubt at all of their guilt.
Donald Trump took out a full-page ad calling for their execution. Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton used them to justify harsher sentencing in the 1994 crime bill.
Clearly, these scum are perfect examples of criminals beyond rehabilitation.
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You really should have read the link in the GP's post. The Central Park 5 were exonerated.
Just plain evil (Score:2)
Well, first up, I think there are a lot fewer "just plain evil" types out there than most think. In a lot of such cases, you get people making opinions where they are not familiar with reactions in court cases or crime. They tend to form real "hard man" opinions. They take a 5 second clip of the person laughing, 5 weeks after whatever, to clearly mean that they're a psychopath who has no remote over the incident. Because they haven't continously cried or whatever. Or because they aren't offering apolog
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Personally, I think that reforming prisoners is the best option. It's actually CHEAPER than trying to do all this stuff.
You miss the point of a for-profit prison system.
The cost is borne by the taxpayers, but the profit goes to the owners of the prisons. Reforming prisoners and reducing the prison population just results in less profit for the prison owners. It's in their interest to keep the prisons full, and for inmates to have their sentences extended or be returned to prison quickly.
Drug possession is a better example. (Score:2)
DUI is a form of gross negligence. Still, such a person is exceedingly unlikely to go to jail/prison if it is their first offense. Because with a good job they can get a good lawyer.
Drug possession would be a better more common example. Of course, I oppose the 'war on drugs'.
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Well, you run into the problem that they still shouldn't have been driving drunk. That's gross negligence, like I said. Our "justice" system does tend to be very classist though, so rich people DO get away with more.
The law in this case, well, a jail/prison sentence is more likely, but still fairly unlikely, assuming first offense.
If you can't afford the DUI, get a cab or uber. Hell, take a cab/uber THERE so the temptation to drink and drive isn't there.
The intent behind making DUI a primary offense (and
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Prison isn't supposed to be an all-expenses-paid vacation. It's meant to be a punishment.
We put people in prison as punishment not for punishment.
Torture is wrong. Full stop.
Re: And? (Score:2)
There is not much point in punishing people who didn't correctly evalute the consequences of their actions. The actual purpose of imprisonment is to remove people from society when they have demonstratef that they cannot handle the freedom that society once gave them. Rehabilitation before they return to society ought to be the goal. Failure to do so is irresposible and sets up the next innocent victim before the convicts eventual return to prison. Punishment has a lot of cultural weight to it, but in pract
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Prison isn't supposed to be an all-expenses-paid vacation. It's meant to be a punishment. Or at the very least a holding pen where people's pathologies don't get imposed on the rest of society.
If punishment is the only goal, then we should expect to find nothing but punishers coming out of that system since that's the only thing being manufactured in there. Spend years in that environment and society better expect the obvious result when that person becomes a free member of society again.
Reap what you sow. It's a double-edge sword not allowing rehabilitation for the incarcerated.
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you don't turn criminals into citizens by treating them this way.
stop acting like a revenge-obsessed toddler. The blurb points out that these items are LITERALLY PURCHASED. none of it is "all expenses paid" or a vacation.
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Bobby Tables strikes again (Score:2)
One bad apple, Bobby Tables, ruined things for everybody. [xkcd.com]
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One bad apple, Bobby Tables, ruined things for everybody. [xkcd.com]
Robert "TooF@ce" Tables, I hear is serving life upstate.
19 years old. College. Some kid in database class just kept picking on him. Bobby lost it. Went full John Wick with an Apple pencil...a fucking Apple pen-ceeel. Who does that?
Objectives of incarceration (Score:3)
1) Protect the innocent
2) Discourage copycats
3) Rehabilitate
There's nothing wrong with giving the incarcerated something peaceful to do with their time so long as they can't use it to commit crimes from prison.
Other than opening up the boxes and making weapons out of the metal bits, I don't see a huge issue with even the latest computers so long as they don't get an Internet connection. That's too much to monitor thoroughly, so no WiFi or even Bluetooth. A segregated LAN would make me a bit nervous, but might be worth it.
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2) Discourage copycats
Prisons are an ineffective deterrent. [ojp.gov]
A segregated LAN would make me a bit nervous,
Why?
It's trivial to keep a network off of the internet, and a 'PAN' makes a lot of sense. If you're worried about them using something like that to organize crimes among themselves, I think that misses an important part what real prison reform can achieve. The goal ought to be to make prisoners fit to safely and productively reenter society. When prisoners have constructive things to do with their time and they're actively working to improve themselves, there's signi
novices... (Score:2)
"The regulations forbid operating systems other than Microsoft DOS or Windows and any software capable of creating a program, such as a compiler..."
Who needs a compiler when you can simply write in machine code.
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Plenty of time to brush up on their DEBUG and EDLIN skills.
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MS-DOS included GW-BASIC and BASICA (which of them depends on factors I don't really remember; BASICA was much better!)
It's a shitty language, but is absolutely Turing-complete, and you can write quite decent albeit simple games (or databases, although not SQL-driven) with it
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You can write assembler programs and create .com files using just ms dos debug. No macros or labels, though - just straight x86 assembler.
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You could do a quite a bit with just batch files as well. While far from easy, I remember seeing a few games and even making a few games myself just for the absurd challenge of it all.
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Additionally, writing assembly language programs is constitutionally protected; it's right there in the free exercise clause:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Emphasis mine.
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you can use it to program a compiler.... that's where things become interesting
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Quite a few people learned to program with less. In fact I think programming education has too many distractions now and gets conflated with "being good with excel" and other commercial BS.
A well crafted computer science curriculum could make great use of win98
Sort of makes sense (Score:3)
If a PS1 is what you have, you'll enjoy playing games on it. And internet access opens up a whole world of nefarious activity, including arranging for smuggling into prisons, as well as coordinating external criminal activities, threatening witnesses, etc.. hacking aside, restricting it makes sense.
Scratches head ... (Score:2)
Modern gaming consoles are forbidden on the grounds that they can connect to the internet, ...
And prisoners have some sort of potential access to the Internet from their cells and/or common rooms? If so, the problem isn't the gaming consoles.
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And prisoners have some sort of potential access to the Internet from their cells and/or common rooms? If so, the problem isn't the gaming consoles.
Well, the latest gaming consoles are pretty much useless without interent, so they're out, but a couple steps older should be fine.
The main problem, I think, is that you CAN extend the range of wireless substantially if you modify stuff. The old pringles can antenna, for example. And prisoners have a lot of time and motivation to change stuff.
So all it'd take would be an unsecured wifi point that can be outside of normal range, but within the modified range. Get an interested exterior party - like a frie
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Modern gaming consoles are forbidden on the grounds that they can connect to the internet, ...
And prisoners have some sort of potential access to the Internet from their cells and/or common rooms? If so, the problem isn't the gaming consoles.
You're right. The problem is more citizen voters who elect corrupt officials that allow crime to run rampant to demand more taxes from hardworking citizens to fund programs that result in...gaming consoles as a form of punishment.
But yeah, let's bitch about spoiled prisoners again. Helps avoid anyone admitting the root cause...
Constitutionally allowed? (Score:5, Funny)
The regulations forbid operating systems other than Microsoft DOS or Windows
I thought cruel and unusual punishment was not allowed.
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The regulations forbid operating systems other than Microsoft DOS or Windows
I thought cruel and unusual punishment was not allowed.
Speaking of cruel and unusual, I suppose we going to simply overlook all the victims of Windows 11...
I'd see it as a challenge... (Score:2)
lessee how we can use stuff included in windows 98-whatever to write a compiler...
this is just ridiculous
Curators (Score:2)
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Are you kidding me, a Playstation? (Score:3)
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Keeps the inmates occupied and less likely to get into trouble. Can't riot if they are immobile land whales.
You Canadian Prison BS when... (Score:2)
You get a Canadian Prison BS when you figure out how to bypass all that to create a compiler. You've got batch files in Windows 98 as a helping hand, so you already have a programming language just not a compiled one. AFAIK Windows 98 doesn't come with a hex editor or other tools to help you bootstrap systems programming. I think anybody with the skills to get it going would already have experience such that they're most likely in prison for hacking and not allowed to have *any* computers. I could be wr
Chromebook with limited apps (Score:2)
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Weird. I'd say a Chromebook with many apps removed and the inability to install new apps.
You know you're raising a generation of touchscreen junkies behind bars when they prefer to play spades and solitaire like that.
Re: Security, Whut? (Score:2)
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if they have an network card and network cables.
also 98 is to old for newer wifi to work.
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Windows 98 still has a full TCP-IP stack that can easily get internet access, and if they know what they're doing...
Given that it's a prison, I would hope that those building cells, know what they're doing too.
Would be a hell of a magic trick to teach the rat to drag that old Cat3 wire ALL the way back to the network switch that shouldn't exist and terminate a T568B connection. There were times I couldn't find a human to do that job properly.
Re: Security, Whut? (Score:2)
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they're criminals. they're also humans. and, unless you're going to keep the humans in prison forever until they die, or actively kill the humans, or unless you're going to ship the humans somewhere to die, they're going to get out.
what will they do once out? this "hey we expect you to rejoin productive society, but we've given you zero tools to rejoin productive society just had you around other criminals" what are they expected to do?
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Imagine being locked up with windows 98, I'm not sure you'd have any faith left in society after that.
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Move to a country without taxes if you dislike them so much. They all seem very stable and livable. A new president every month is refreshing.
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> Move to a country without taxes if you dislike them so much. They all seem very stable and livable.
Why does ArchieBunker look down on the United Arab Emirates? Are the people that call him a bigot right?
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Taxes are unpleasant, but they're the only think that gives fiat money any purchasing power at all. If the government stops demanding money for tax payments some, businesses won't need money, which means that their customers have to buy their goods with something else. Which means those customers need less money. It's a network effect, where the value of the money is related to how much the government demands you pay them.
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Are you one of those 'taxes are theft" nuts? If so, I've got good news for you! There is paradise on Earth. A land where a man can live his best life without the shackles of government keeping him from reaching his full potential! A real-life Fredonia!
To all libertarians, should they lack the means due to government oppression, I've offered a one-way ticket to this land of true opportunity [wikipedia.org].
Personally, I'm one of those sheep who think the role of government is to serve the people by providing services.
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Personally, I'm one of those sheep...
'Nuff said.
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