Slashdot Mirror

A half a page? How likely will this be picked up by papers if it's half a freaking page? I'd love to see it, but that may be asking too much from papers.

If my paper wants to keep my subscription, they will.

Chip H.

> What people are talking about here is 10yo or
> something being raped in front of a camera;
> quite a different matter.

Sorry, but you're wrong. You're just plain wrong. And the reason you've made the mistake you did is because you are French.

As a Frenchman, you can not grasp the idea that a simple, chaste photo of a nude or semi-nude seventeen-year-old woman could possibly be thought of as an instance of child pornography, nor that any sane government would ever consider imprisoning the possesor of such as photograph as a worse criminal than a violent, sadistic rapist.

Well, do yourself a big favor and stay out the the U.S.A., this sex-sick madhouse. In the U.S.A. any photograph of a seventeen-year-old woman with her breasts visible may be legally held to be not merely pornographic but an instance of child pornography.

You might imagine, as a Frenchman, that if that photograph had been taken by a world-renowned art photographer the law enforcement agencies might be willing to grant an exemption. But that's your sane French logic talking; in the U.S.A. the exemption works entirely in the other direction. Today U.S. citizens spend more on porno than on all other movies and theatre performances put together. But who did the the law come after? Did they try to shut down any of the thousands of vendors of pure obscenity without any redeeming artistic value at all? No, they tried to prosecute bookstores for selling the works of the internationally acclaimed art photographers David Hamilton and Jock Sturges.

Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

The local NandO published this article about my experiences.

I was surprised the journalist actually talked to the MPAA!

• Greg

Although Nando's website looks different than the News and Observer's website, the content is basically the same, except for local news (Raleigh). The N&O has been a HIGHLY conservative newspaper for a long time and I never read it.

The Carolinas themselves aren't all that interesting to the world at large, and my choice of Duke basketball as a highly relevant topic was intentionally frivolous. My point, boiled down, is that "new media" do an awful job of covering news of regional and non-technological interest.

It may not be Slashdot's or CNN's place to cover regional news, but I'd like to see some Raleigh/Durham-centric news portal (the Slash engine might not be a bad choice to run such a site) before I'd even consider giving up paper news sources. The News and Observer does have a web presence, which Slashdot links to with surprising frequency (it's fun to see a story on Slashdot that I read a couple hours earlier in the paper edition). They even have a a regional news site. However, the Raleigh area is an exception -- my guess is that relatively few small towns are this well represented by online news sources.

I still haven't switched over to the N&O's Web site in favor of the print edition (even though I'd save 20 or 30 cents a day), because paper is more convenient and has an aesthetic appeal still lacking in even the best flat-panel displays. I prefer paperbacks over e-books, too, and I usually print out any research paper I read over 5 pages long. For now.

For the new media to really rule the world, they have to stop neglecting small and medium towns' news, and they have to find something better than a web browser, a 15" monitor, and a 28.8 modem to get content to users.

What's next, a quota system for NC State Department of Taxation auditors?

I think the Charlotte News & Observer got it partly right in the article when they said:

The consumer use tax is not new. Most states have one. In fact, it's been on the books in North Carolina for more than 60 years.

It's never been aggressively enforced on individual consumers, Collins said, because it's difficult to chase down who bought what. The Internet has changed that, though, making most purchases as easy to track as scanning a credit card bill. And by adding a mention on the tax form, the state can penalize consumers who refuse to 'fess up.

One really obvious bogus statement in this article is that the Internet has eased the process of determining Use Tax violations in the event of an audit. Anyone who lives in the Northeast where states are geographically small, or shops by mail order or while on vacation has had their lack of compliance documented for years. Why say something so obviously wrong and ruin an otherwise useful article?

A small criticism of the "Slashdot Powers that Be". I realize it's a holiday week and we're all partying, but.... next time, insight should be applied to the analysis of the article before it hits the Slashdot home page. It would have been much more useful to have characterized this step taken by North Carolina as an attempt to increase awareness of their existing Use Tax among consumers who do some shopping on-line or through traditional mail order. That's not nearly as exciting to most people as the headline lead you to believe, but it would have been more accurate.

The big question about these sorts of efforts, in my opinion, is where will the states come up with the money to enforce this law? This is where the analogy to the speed limit really works. You could pull over a lot more speeders if you wanted to put a lot more police in cars with radar and laser speed detection devices. But, then a whole new set of questions will arise.

I expect the states to do little to increase enforcement of Use Tax reporting. Some over-zealous states will probably pick a couple of cases to really screw-over some taxpayers in a public way. This will get press in the newspaper and on TV in a way that will be designed to scare people. This actually serves both the media's and the government's interests.

--

Dave Aiello

This may be classified as an urban legend. see here for details.
-Hal

A Little Background on Mathew Szulik.

So, is he going to play nice? He used to be Red Hat's President.
Joseph Elwell.

Please note that in my home state of North Carolina, the death toll from the flooding resulting from Hurricane Floyd has topped 50. People (and, unfortunately, bodies) are still being rescued and recovered from cities that are underwater. Oh, and it's raining again.

Slashdot covered this story as "RedHat will be shutting down their servers and colocating them for the duration of the storm." I have NO PROBLEM with this coverage, and I have NO PROBLEM with their coverage of the Taipei earthquake.

Slashdot is a site for TECHNOLOGY NEWS. There are plenty of other media outlets where you can get general news. This does not mean that Rob etc. (or the general Slashdot community) are unconcerned with the human toll, but as a tech news site, there is a responsibility to at least mention the technological impact.

As for me, I don't pray, but I am donating my time, money, and goods to help those in need in NC, and will be donating to the Red Cross for disaster relief in Taipei.

For more information regarding the situation in North Carolina, please visit the News and Observer.

The 17 Jan 99 Raleigh News & Observer article "The Mad Hatters" ( read it here) gives the impression that Raster was not getting along well with the rest of the RHAD team. The author makes a note of Raster's fastidious attire and contrasts it to the more casual dress style of other team members. RHAD team member Jonathan Blandford refers to him as a "rock star." Jonathan and Federico criticize his code. RHAD team leader Michael Fulbright says that he and Raster "[are] kind of at opposite ends in some ways, which is okay..." Raster says of Fulbright "We tend to butt heads a lot. Thank God he's very smart, because he'll at least listen to me.", suggesting that Raster thinks that other team members are not smart and don't listen to him.

Granted, the reporter probably exaggerated, but even still this screams "personality conflict" to me.

In case my submission gets overlooked/goes unused, I blatantly re-post it here.
Saw this in today's Raleigh News and Observer.
"What began as a radio stunt...has turned into a real quest for...a language arts teacher..." "I was doing it to win $1,000, but now it's much bigger because I don't want to disappoint my students..." " ... intends to walk into the courthouse ...dressed as a Jedi knight and carrying a light saber, willing to do whatever the law requires to complete her mission..."

See the Raleigh News and Observer online.

Here's the story in their archives.

(Sorry about that last link; it was from a search and seems to have been a one-shot link.)

Here's the story in their archives.