Slashdot Mirror

Are there conferences on billboard ads? Do people lose sleep over magazine ads? Is there an anti-TV commercial movement?
1. The fight over bill boards has a long history. Ladybird Johnson officially started the fight with her work on highway beautification. Many large cities now have a moratorium on billboards. The content of billboard, like all advertising, is heavily restricted.

2. Magazine advertising is also restricted and people lose sleep over how to circumvent those restriction. However, because magazine ad campaigns cost real money, and the advertiser and magazine are liable for those campaigns, people generally behave.

3. Again, the fight over TV commercials are at a very mature state, but they are still skirmishes. A few years ago it was over underwear in commercials. Now the liquor companies want to end the voluntary ban of hard liquor advertising on TV. Of course we cannot directly promote tobacco on tv.

Which is to say it is extremely naive and ill informed to claim that advertising is not illegal in America. It would be very easy to put together a campaign that is illegal, and even professional mess up every once in a while. What makes non-internet advertising manageable is that the rules are known and it is assumed that the advertiser will always be held accountable. Contrast this to email where the advertiser assumes that the laws of the land do not apply because they can cowardly hide behind fraudulent headers.

The books, written in Spanish and including all academic subjects, teach that America "stole" the southwest from Mexico and that Mexico is entitled to take it back

Well, the first part is true, although "stole" is a term that is only used by the losers. Mexico occupied Texas & California, and some regions in between. There were wars between the US & Mexico, and the US won the territories from the war.

If Mexico won the wars, and took California and Texas back, you can bet that all US Textbooks would say "Mexico stole those territories".

As for the second part is speaking of Aztlan, which is the Legendary Birthplace of the Aztech & Mexican peoples. It's an ancient belief, and it's very similar to the American belief of manifest destiny, but it's not anything like Terrorism, and it doesn't make Mexico as one of the "nations that hate us" (It's exactly the opposite).

Well, Nixon wouldn't have had the opportunity if Socialist-boy Johnson hadn't of expanded the war, while implementing a ton of social services and welfare programs back home. Not that the latter are/were all bad, but you can't finance a war and a psuedo-socialist state at the same time.

In other words, LBJ and Nixon both "had control" of the conflict for 5 years. Approx halfway throught that time period, Nixon began to pull back.

Don't make it seem like Nixon was just some war monger that took a dying conflict and made it worse. He was handed a hornets nest. Not that Nixon was a perfect guy, but he was arguably better than LBJ.

Details on the timing of things (and where I double check my facts) are here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/time/timeline 2.html

Setting a detector off, especially setting a detector off that is known to go off for perfectly innocent people, is no reason to have one's rights tossed in the dumpster. If it is, well I hear that terrorists exhale carbon dioxide. I think we should detect for that too. ;)... They are worse than useless if the cops are too busy strip searching the innocent to catch the terrorist

I think you are vastly overstating the number of false positives these detectors are producing. I was just at Penn Station and the security guys did not appear to be swamped by cancer patients setting off alarms. Unlike exhaling CO2 only a very, very, very few people are actively radioactive. Of course there is a much smaller number of people that are radioactive for not-so-innocent reasons. Still I think we have a much better chance of catching that one potential bad guy with the unhealthy glow that comes from smuggling a leaky suitcase nuke from Kazakstan or stealing nuclear waste from an insecure container somewhere if we are searching the few dozens glowing subway passengers rather than having to search all 7 million NY residents because you think it is wrong to even be *suspicious* of anyone until their guilt can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. How we could ever investigate anyone to get that proof without at least starting at the stage where we are merely suspicious & willing to act on those suspicious is an interesting problem.

Dirty bombers would prefer large open habitats of great civic value with high human populations (like ye old baseball stadium).

Ah, but how do they get them there? They just might take the subway. They might even just be taking the subway just to go out for diner after a night of packing radioactive material into a bomb casing. Or to get from the port where they left their suitcase nuke to the apartment of their local contact.

New York has to assume that if some terrorist does have a radiological, or far worse, a nuclear weapon they are likely to be the target. And neither is that far fetched. A crude radiological weapon is not that hard to build, probably well within the capabilities of a well financed and organized terrorist organization. A suitcase nuke isn't even that hard if you manage to have money and the luck to find someone willing to sell one of those that are believed to be missing from the former USSR's arsenal. (It's not terribly comforting that the main reasons Matthew Bunn thinks General Lebed is wrong and there are NOT ~100 missing suitcase nukes is that Soviet paperwork is so screwed up he could *think* they are missing when they really still there) Sure they are only 1-kiloton but that would still make a pretty big crater in the center of Manhattan.

1. The Parliamentary Assembly is concerned that increasing numbers of children in certain Council of Europe member states are being diagnosed as suffering from "attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder" (ADHD), "hyperkinetic disorder" or related behavioural conditions and treated by means of central nervous system stimulants such as amphetamines or methylphenidate, which are controlled drugs listed in Schedule II of the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances because they have been judged by the World Health Organisation to be liable to abuse, to constitute a substantial risk to public health, and to have little to moderate therapeutic usefulness.

3. Although their precise causes are unknown, the validity of ADHD and hyperkinetic disorders, defined in terms of persistent and severe behavioural symptoms centred on inattention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness and resulting in functional impairment, is widely recognised by professional medical, psychological and scientific organisations, including the World Health Organisation. However, the Assembly is concerned that two different sets of criteria are applied in diagnosing these disorders: one adopted by the American Psychiatric Association and used worldwide, the other, more stringent, by the World Health Organisation. The Assembly considers that the basis for these different standards should be examined with a view to clarifying and harmonising the criteria governing diagnosis and treatment.

1. You're not a trained medical practitioner, so you're not qualified to make a diagnosis
2. No one can diagnose themselves

1. The Parliamentary Assembly is concerned that increasing numbers of children in certain Council of Europe member states are being diagnosed as suffering from "attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder" (ADHD), "hyperkinetic disorder" or related behavioural conditions and treated by means of central nervous system stimulants such as amphetamines or methylphenidate, which are controlled drugs listed in Schedule II of the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances because they have been judged by the World Health Organisation to be liable to abuse, to constitute a substantial risk to public health, and to have little to moderate therapeutic usefulness.

3. Although their precise causes are unknown, the validity of ADHD and hyperkinetic disorders, defined in terms of persistent and severe behavioural symptoms centred on inattention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness and resulting in functional impairment, is widely recognised by professional medical, psychological and scientific organisations, including the World Health Organisation. However, the Assembly is concerned that two different sets of criteria are applied in diagnosing these disorders: one adopted by the American Psychiatric Association and used worldwide, the other, more stringent, by the World Health Organisation. The Assembly considers that the basis for these different standards should be examined with a view to clarifying and harmonising the criteria governing diagnosis and treatment.

Isn't there something counterintuitive to say we don't like our government, so we're going to entrust them with more authority in our future elections? ;-)

I don't know much about Swiss politics but would hesitate to assume much could be transplanted easily. The general sentiment in American law is the cure for bad speech is more speech. The "quiet period" before elections in the new law is one of the more suspect provisions -- even the ACLU opposes it, and they do a lot of work towards fair elections along with the high profile stuff for free speech. A bunch of stuff got trimmed out of the much weaker Watergate-era laws on constitutional grounds, and they're breaking new ground here.

I don't know that justice was done on WWII for a long time, but won't pretend to be an expert (I intend to read more though). My source isn't CNN, BTW! Things like this Frontline report are closer to the truth -- and note the dates of recent $1+ billion settlements are very recent. I don't believe the investigations are merely political.

Asking the questions wasn't exactly what I had in mind; taking the blame and paying the reparations are. Wars are not particularly moral, period, but pointing to the guilt of someone else is context, but not a defense. Certainly the Americans have done quite a few things of their own, but it doesn't take a saint to smell something rotten. I don't care whether the Swiss are better or worse than others, but do that they come clean.

A lot got swept under the rug in the name of the Cold War, so there should be more interesting things surfacing over time. And I still don't want a cuckoo clock. ;-)

Imagine constructing a bridge out of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of custom-fabricated tiny parts that have to fit together exactly right or the whole thing collapses.

Sounds like the Golden Gate to me. Or the Tacoma Narrows, which is as good an analogy to Microsoft server software as I can possibly imagine.

Imagine constructing a bridge out of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of custom-fabricated tiny parts that have to fit together exactly right or the whole thing collapses.

Sounds like the Golden Gate to me. Or the Tacoma Narrows, which is as good an analogy to Microsoft server software as I can possibly imagine.

The Boeing Everett Factory (where they build the 747, 767, and 777) is absolutely awe-inspiring.

The Hoover Dam is deceptively MASSIVE.

The Eiffel Tower is a whole lot of iron!

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was actually quite terrifying before they put up the railings!! (Think about walking, 10 meters up, on wet, smooth-as-glass marble at like a 15 degree angle)

The Pyramids are one hell of an engineering feat!

And, although not human engineering, my favorite has to be Uluru. Yeah, it looks like just a big hunk 'o rock, but when you walk all the way around it, it's quite amazing how the hues change with literally every footstep.

This article was a good one, but its eerily similar to an article that appeared on November 14 written by Robert X. Cringely.

Isn't it ironic that everyone was disputing Cringely's point this week that his column is ripped off just a day or two ago then this shows up?

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20021114. html

I, Cringely: Get a Life (Which One?) A Real Battle is Brewing in the World of Everquest

Cringley killed his kid!

He admitted it died right in his arms. He is also an obsessive-compulsive egomaniac who lives under a false identity. Not to mention, his failed-techie-cum-author stylings remind me a lot of Philip Greenspun!

The full recount wasn't done until long after the fact. Gore didn't know what the results would have been, so he attempted to pick and choose the method of recounting which he thought would give him the best chance of winning regardless of the actual will of the populace. Does this make him a scumbag as well? Damn straight. Does it change the fact that he won the election? Absolutely not.

Here a link.....to a Liberal slanted news source that states that Gore would have still lost a full recount: Gore Lost

Given this "spoon feed me" attitude far too common among Americans, I'm not surprised that you couldn't be bothered.

I'm not asking to be spoon fed, I'm asking for a little proof of your accusations. you make them, YOU back them up. Here are so more links for ya: Linkx 1 Link 2 Link 3

You are aware, are you not, that for even writing this I can be taken away in the night and shot in the head without a trial, without recourse to the law and without my family being allowed to even find out what happened? This is also a fact. If you would read these laws, you would be aware of this. Do I think this is at all likely right now? No. But it absolutely is possible. The fact that he pushed for this is clear proof that Bush hates everything this country claims to stand for with a passion since it was designed to remove all of these things.

Anything is possible.

John O'Neill former Deputy director of the FBI resigned in protest stating that US oil interests were the primary problem with their terrorist investigations. Further, he stated that he was specifically ordered by Bush to lay off of the Bin Laden family. Even if he was lying, which nobody has ever tried to show, don't you think this fact would deserve mention two weeks later when the attacks happened?

The US is mired in conflicting interests with Oil? Get out of here! I suppose you'll agree with me when I say that we should stop importing oil and oepn up ANWR?

Incidentally, since you are (apparently) a Republican, how do you reconcile the Small Government plank with the Department of Homeland Security which is the worst type of Big Government possible?

Yeah I'm a Republican, but *gasp* I actually voted for some Democrats this last election, and when Ed Rendell won the governor's seat, I accepted it and didn't start crying 'voter fraud'. I have not read all of the Homeland Security Act, but I am under the impression that it consolidates existing departments into one. That seems like a reduction of government not an increase.

I heard a few days ago that even if the fears of people like you come true and every citizen is spied on, it'd still be a failure. Ever try to get your driver's license renewed? It's called bureauacracy. The CIA/FBI/Whatever is still made up of government employees.

One is a transparent government. If you are not allowed to know what your government is doing, then how can you possibly decide. Bush has done everything he can to remove all possibility of doing this.

Yeah well Clinton evoked Presidential immunity a few times as well. He also tried to redefine what the word "is" means. Oh wait, forget it, that whole thing was a witch hunt to expose the sex life of a private citizen, nothing more.

The other thing is an informed populace. A truly free press is part of this, but that is something we certainly do not have. Sure, Congress shall pass no law etc.

Aren't you disproving your point by postng here? try going to Nigeria, where hinting that Mohammed would have dated a Miss World winner, gets your business burnt down. Point me to something like that happening to the US press?

Sorry for the sticks and stones, but when your lack of knowledge helps make my freedoms a crime, I think some anger is understandable though neither polite nor helpful.

Again you call it ignorance, I call it: Back up your accusations.

...by almighty Cringely.

If you exchange your Visa for a MasterCard, you won't really be boycotting Visa:

Visa and Mastercard are really two names for the same economic enterprise, i.e. a group of 6000 banks. Of these, the same 50 or so big banks own, govern and make all of the competitive decisions for the brands called Visa and Mastercard.
From PBS

Visa and MasterCard are being sued by American Express and the DOJ for antitrust and by a a group of retailers for antitrust related to debit cards.

cause here is how to roll your own dsl. The article is by Robert X. Cringely.

Here's an interesting Nova link to one show. (Not the one I was thinking of)

Robert Cringley's column last week talked about the possible demise of Everquest due to the OpenSource program ShowEQ. He seemed to imply that Sony may be letting EQ die or become unpopular so that more people would migrate to Galaxies, which Sony also owns.

Interesting theory.

There is no replacement for old fashion hard work. Reporting is hard work, and the reason you don't see more of it these days is that hard work is expensive. All the networks are opting for "soft news", stuff that doesn't have to be researched, because

1. it sells
2. it's cheap

I mean, if (approximately) 50% of the voters voted for Bush in 2000, how are they going to wade through a hard news story about anything??

Frontline is the only (IMO) hard news program left on the boob tube. It is thoughtful, balanced and fair. You can't ask more from a news program, and those words don't apply to hardly anything on TV that calls itself news.

The difference between theoretical and experimental science, in a nutshell.

A theoretical physicsist knows that the simplest way to get the answer is to just ask Marilyn Vos Savant, wait a few moments while she derives the equations for the 14MT blast at the desired altitude from first principles, and then punches it into Blast Mapper to demonstrate that indeed, her answer of "well, it'll suck more than the 1MT blast, and less than the 25MT blast" is within the paramaeters of the open literature.

An experimental physicist, on the other hand, will find out - and will do so much more quickly than the theoretician - simply by asking Anna Nicole Smith by means of a telephone call placed from at least 20 miles away, and observe the results as Anna's head explodes during her brain's attempted parsing of the question. (Predicted criticality point: somewhere between the words "outcome" and "of").

bad example, sign language. You need something like a wild child to test the hypothesis that human intelligence develops in response to human "input." The ethical implications are horrendous--as noted in the Nova link.

Check out this Fortean Times article for a healthy mix of folklore and science.

I think all reasonable human beings should be expected to draw the line somewhere. Here's why you shouldn't shop at Walmart, ever:

• They abuse their employees (see also NYT article)
• They destroy the social fabric of neighborhoods
• They engage in capricious censorship (see more here)
• They purchase from overseas suppliers with ZERO regard for the sweatshop conditions under which the materials were manufactured. Even Nike agreed this was reprehensible.

and Clinton was first to get it

• Google cache conversion of PDF Yay/Nay
• PBS piece on line item veto.

Yes, but they've already been told to fear nuclear power. Go ask people about what happened at 3 Mile Island and you'll hear stories of catastrophe when in reality not a single person could prove that they were harmed.

There is a stigma attached to nuclear power in this country. And, it's one that, unfortunately, cannot be simply legislated away. Even if adoption of these technologies were to take place immediately, I think it is safe to say there would be immediate public backlash from not only the deliberate lie-spitting treehuggers, but also the tragically mis/ill-informed Jim/Joan.

Reporting from the better-late-than-never dept., there's an article on the "I, Cringley" site that was gushing on HomePlug.

Yes, I get the picture, but Jim and Joan Sixpack most likely would not. Think about the campaign ad, "Congressman X voted to allow anyone who wants to carry nuclear material onto an airplane."

Nuclear power is feared in this country, for many stupid reasons. Evidenced here...the potential for solving world energy demand was canned by Clinton because of the American aversion to nuclear power.

5 miles from the nearest excahnge

you shouldn't need 2' parabolic dishes for this - it ought to be possible with a well-aimed pair of yagi style antenna. (cringely article)

was, "The investors who bought the company.... bolstered the top management team." In light of some of the recent commentaries by Robert X. Cringely (like this one , the decision to usie"professional managers" in a software company may be the kiss of death. Too many of these suits have a "vision" of short-term gain versus long-term profitability. PKware is not a public company, of course, and doesn't necessarily follow Cringely's model (which is to increase stock prices, sell out, and haul ass for the next vict... er, company). But, if there is an IPO in the near future, watch out!

It was also interesting to learn that a drunk techie CEO who let his programmers follow their own interests still managed to have a profitable company. Remind me to hang out with strippers more often.

So just as a test I plopped the URL http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20021107. html from the /. story Could Eolas End Microsoft's Browser Dominance? into the search field on the Waypath Project page and well all it ended up giving me was a bunch of Microsoft related hits, nothing to really do with the specifics of the article itself. Maybe the word "Microsoft" is too prevalent and therefor overweighted?

Cringely may be starting to contradict himself. During a recent search through his archives, I discovered this puzzling article: "Patents, a Useful Means in Ensuring Global Competitiveness". Needless to say I was surprised and disappointed that Cringely has not always been consistent in his views.

Cringley writes an excellent article here... "this judgment makes no effort to deprive the company of the fruits of that abuse. This is interesting because the point of Federal anti-trust law is two-fold, to prevent or correct abuses and to deprive from the abusers the benefit -- called the fruit -- of their crimes." Why did the judge not punish M$? A fine was certainly in order. It is baffling. Imagine how the DOJ attorneys who worked this case feel about the empty plate served them by the judge. Meanwhile, the guilty Bill Gates keeps all $40 billion of his illegally acquired loot. Money that will aid him in beating down future competition.

Robert has also written a similar article here.

Bob talks about this very thing in this week's I, Cringely

You left out BBC America...where else are you going to get your Monty Python fix?

Here?

... if you were a target of the unabomber..

Between this rant and some of the more cranky bits from
Cliff Stoll, I just think folks are exhausted and ready to give up the fight to M$..

Then again, universities have always been a haven for unfreedom and love of demagogy, providing some of the most resolute support of Stalin in his day..

Try THIS just after JUMPING THE FUCK OFF your snow vehicle.

a state who was run by the eventual winner's brother

And the winner's brother recused himself from all of the election proceedings due to the conflict of interest.

the person in charge of certifying the election was a state campaign leader for that candidate

And every move she made followed the law exactly and withstood intense international scrutiny.

The candidate's father also was the president who was supplanted by the ticket that had the eventual winner's opponent on it.

So?

Prior to being president that father was the head of the nation's secret police.

So?

You forgot to mention that there was never an allegation of misconduct or fraud (see this settlement, for example, where the NAACP plainly states "Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory
manner toward any group.") and that Bush still won the unofficial AP recounts.

The Tribune was the one with the early deadline, Republican ownership, and cavalier attitude. And I don't think they've ever quite lived it down.

But I'm grateful to them for an all-time best political photo.

Robert X. Cringely is the pseudonym of a tech writer, now associated with PBS (in the USA)

The name Robert X. Cringely has apparantly been several people over the years, but it's recently been that of a person who has done such things as make a wireless hop from a neighbor with DSL (miles away and he paid for the DSL himself - so he wasn't really stealing it).

He's also done such things as designing, building and flying his own plane in 30 days.

TEch guy with a pulpit from which to speak.

IF you really want to know more, feel free to google for 'who is the real cringely' or some such. You'll find out more about the name thing.

HTH

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/technology/nyundergro und/secret.html

By Robert X. Cringely

It's a bit tangential, but here's a bit on how the Northern Alliance and Taliban had difficulty conceiving of US military capabilities (unless certain GIs were pulling the leg of _Frontline_'s interviewer). Some may find it amusing or disturbing...

(from Frontline):

U.S. Special Forces ODA 595
ODA 595 fought with warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum in northern
Afghanistan.
read the interview [blank.gif]
[blank.gif]

You said earlier that Dostum thought you had a death ray. What can you
tell me about that?

Mark (Capt.):

Due to the altitude that the aircraft was flying with the laser-guided
munitions, when it dropped its ordnance the bomb was falling for a
minute and half to two minutes. If you timed it just right, as the
laser target designator is engaging and [targeting the] enemy
position, you let your Northern Alliance commander take a look through
the laser target designator. He sees it going, but he doesn't see the
bombs fly into the target. He hears that chirping noise from the laser
target designator and then the enemy position explodes. They believe
that we have the death ray, and this was a myth that we were willing
to perpetuate. Every one of us on our rifles carried a smaller laser.
We let the Northern Alliance guys look through our night vision
goggles. ... I think Will has summed it up best. This whole situation
is like the Flintstones meet the Jetsons. And those guys could not
fathom that we have some sort of aiming device that would allow us to
hit a target at night on the first round.

Will (Sgt.):

I think something that's key in all this is that both Northern
Alliance and enemy communications were, for the most part, CB radios.
They would be arguing with each other in the heat of battle. The
Taliban would be saying, "nanny, nanny, boo, boo" and the Northern
Alliance would be saying, "hey, we're coming to get you." They would
also tell the Taliban about this death ray. At Kunduz, we were
negotiating back and forth to try to get these guys to surrender. They
were saying, "We'll surrender, we'll march into your camp, but we want
to keep our guns." Dostum finally said, "Put your guns down, take your
jackets off, march in here or we're turning the Americans onto you
with the death ray." Instantly you could see the guys bend over. They
put their guns down, they took their cloaks off and they started
marching in, in single file right up into the middle of our perimeter,
because they knew that it was over if that death ray was coming out.

Mark Capt.:

This was also perpetuated by the presence of the AC 130 Spectra
gunship. They had a female fire support officer that was on the radio.
Dostum heard her voice and he brought Mohammed Fazal, who's the former
Taliban chief of staff. He's trying to delay this surrender in Kunduz
while his forces are attempting to recapture Mazar-e-Sharif. Dostum
brings Fazal near the radio so that he can hear this female voice.
Fazal hears her voice as it's being explained to him, through the
translators, that we have the angel of death overhead, from the AC 130
gunship. Dostum explains to him that we have the angel of death
overhead and that we possess the death ray. If they don't surrender
now all of their troops will burn in hell. Fazal jumped on the radio
and his men were surrendering within minutes. ...

I wonder how well-informed the foot soldiers of the likely US enemies are, and whether an invisible missile/building-destroying laser would have a serious morale impact...

doesn't gas its own citizens

Article II of the Genocide Convention also expressly prohibits
involuntary sterilization as means of "preventing births among" a
targeted population. Yet, in 1976, it was conceded by the
U.S. government that its ÒIndian Health ServiceÓ (IHS), then a
subpart of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), was even then
conducting a secret program of involuntary sterilization which had
affected approximately forty percent of all Indian women of
childbearing age. The program was allegedly discontinued, and the IHS
was transferred to the Public Health Service, but no one was
punished. Hence, business as usual has continued in the ÒhealthÓ
sphere: 1990, for example, it came out that the IHS was inoculating
Inuit children in Alaska with Hepatitis-B vaccine. The vaccine had
already been banned by the World Health Organization as having a
demonstrated correlation with the HIV-virus which is itself correlated
to AIDS. As this is being written, a Òfield testÓ of Hepatitis-A
vaccine, also HIV-correlated, is being conducted on Indian
reservations in the northern Plains region.

CONCLUSION: Gore _DID_ _NOT_ get us the money for ARPANET!!!

In 1990, Gore introduced a bill that would allow the federal government to enter the business of crafting software for teachers to use. Another Gore plan would create a new federal research center for educational computing to support an "information systems highway." (Wired Mar. 11, 1999)

CONCLUSION: Gore _DID_ _NOT_ get us the money to turn ARPANET into the Internet. However, he may have voted for/against various bills that DID further develop the ARPANET (that we know predates Gore's political career)

OVERALL CONCLUSION: Gore is/was a "serial exaggerater"

some other musical glasses links: 1 2 3

If your company (or group of companies) had a product (or a lot of products), and these products were being stolen in mass quantities, wouldn't your CEO ask them to stop? If I were him, I wouldn't just let them keep doing it!

As unpopular as the DMCA is, it is the law of the land, and under it, IP logs can be subpoenaed (remember Cringley's column on BayTSP?). So, they are allowed, with just cause, to check to see if someone really is distributing copyrighted works. This should be an acceptable part of the DMCA (one of the few)- if I had reason to believe somebody was stealing from me, I should be allowed (or the authorities should be allowed at my urging) to take appropriate measures to stop it (like putting up survailence cameras).

We should really stop all this talk attempting to morally justify using P2P to distribute copyrighted works. The RIAA is not going to cry a river for those who can't afford CDs, and give them a bunch of free MP3s. I can't afford a Porshe (or even a used Taurus, for that matter ;P); that doesn't mean I am justified in stealing it.

Now if the RIAA and their companies were price-gouging basic necessities like food, water, or oxygen, then stealing might be necessary. But having a huge music collection is not a necessity!

Until more people start computing more responsibly, whether it be at work, at school, or at home, then the RIAA has every right to demand that folks stop stealing from them.

" you don't like it, start your own ISP and try to give everyone 2Mbit unrestricted connections, reliably, for $40/month. You won't be able to do it. Get all the venture capital funding you ask for and you still won't be able to do it. Look what happened to Excite@Home"

Excite @Home did not fail because giving bandwidth "away". It failed because they "chose to deploy tremendous Excite resources on building a broadband-specific version of the portal when the revenue justification was tenuous (there just weren't enough broadband users)" -- a quote from the Cringely Aug, 2001 pulpit

> Cringely overestimates managerial influence on the companies that he mentions, but disregards other factors such as economic conditions and competition.

I think you got it wrong. He's not talking about managers as in MBAs. He's talking managers as in people who specialise in managing but don't know the business, and don't value the knowledge.

He does not restrict the causes of declining to MBAs as you seem to have interpreted him. Rather, he ascribes it to a wide-ranging cultural sickness he has been describing in his last three columns, and of which modern management culture and techniques are part and parcel.