I repeat, we do not build airplanes with flapping wings.

We do, however, build airplanes that rely on the same fundamental aerodynamics as birds. We understand aerodynamics well enough to know that lift and drag do not require wings that flap. We do not have an equivalent understanding of the brain's functionality.

It's a c/p of something Stallman said a few years ago.

Things like sprinting a mile or going through a rigorous workout are also stressful, usually in a not-unpleasant manner.

Good point. I took it to mean psychologically stressful instead of physically strenuous or exertive, but they probably meant something closer to the latter.

Stress isn't always just an uncomfortable, twitchy, sweaty-palms experience, constantly being nervous about everything. Although I do suppose that could describe some sexual experiences fairly accurately.

Heheh. Do rats have proms?

To see if pleasant albeit stressful experiences could have the opposite effect, researchers studied the effects of sex in rats.

Are these rats into extreme bondage or something? "Pleasant albeit stressful" is how I might describe a satisfying occupation, not a satisfying sex life.

Agreed, but that's a function of the interface that connects to the database, not the query language itself.

How about we try an analogy that's a little closer to the original topic? Let's say the exploit injected system commands instead of SQL commands. The fault wouldn't lie with the operating system, even though that's what was ultimately compromised. It would lie with the script that failed to sanitize input properly.

Same thing with SQL. The problem isn't the query language itself. The problem is how the script executes queries.

I don't think he presented it as cut and dried as you infer. According to his own account, he refused the second set of notes, not the first, and there was clearly some discussion about it.

If the client's new demands threaten to damage the project irreparably, I can understand any craftsman's desire to distance himself from it. Sometimes "Yes, but..." isn't enough. Sometimes you need to say, "This is so unfeasible that I'd rather not take any responsibility for it." Hence my ridiculous example of a papier mache watch. Even though you're giving the client exactly what he wants, the end result makes you look incompetent. You're the clockmaker, not him. You should have known better.

Granted, there's more objectivity involved in writing an entertaining screenplay than making a functioning clock, but either way, the client is totally free to do what the producers of Battlefield Earth did: ignore the craftsman's advice and let their own vision lead them to colossal failure.

Isn't that precisely the process that Shapiro described? He agreed to make certain changes, refused to make changes that he considered detrimental to the story, and eventually got fired. "Artistic Purity" aside, an important part of what you buy from a craftsman is an experienced opinion. An honest clockmaker should tell a paying client that it's a bad idea to make a watch out of papier mache.

Yes, I imagine they have a problem with it. As far as I know, they've never tried to defend anyone's right to blow up a skyscraper full of people.

How did this get modded insightful? It completely misses the point.

Obviously, the ACLU is not arguing that untargeted killing is preferable. They want to know, among other things, what rules exist for selecting targets and whether the program complies with international law.

Attributor wouldn't even need to crawl their sites. As I noted above, both Google and Bing provide search APIs.

after purchasing a licence to use the search engine's data, naturally :)

Depending on the search engine and its terms of service, they might not even need to purchase a license. Google, Bing, and Yahoo all provide search APIs for third-party software.

Then they can be found in the major search engines' indexes, and Attributor doesn't even need to crawl their site.

I can see ways that their service could be effective while respecting robots.txt settings. They'd simply need to crawl the indexes of other search engines. After all, if a violator is not accessible through Google or Bing, it's probably a low priority.