"All US based porn sites must have a record of the identity of all their models, and will have an 18 U.S.C. 2257 Compliance Notice, with the address of one or more custodians of records, who hold the record proving the age and identity of all the models."
"That's all well and good for those that actually pay for porn.."
Just a few clarifications on 2257:
1) It's not just "porn sites". It's every amateur cam-girl out there who flashes some tit on cam. By doing that, she's considered a "primary producer". Any site on which that image is displayed is considered to be a "secondary producer".
2) Age and identity--including a photo ID showing home address--is required of *every* person who appears in pictures where there is "sexual material"--regardless of whether they're engaged in any of the "naughty stuff" or not.
3) 2257 considers the place where the image is taken and/or stored to be a "primary place of business", and the address must be published. In addition, federal agents can enter the "place of business" once every 4 months, without a warrant & without warning "during normal business hours", and "examine" all equipment and files of the "business". In addition, they are allowed to use any and all "evidence of illegal activity discovered in the course of their visit." For 99.44% of the camgirls out there, the "place of business" is their home. 2257 allows federal agents to enter the woman's house without a warrant, dig through her computer files, and look around for anything else they want. They can do this every 4 months.
I know it's not because of the users--at least not the users here. We have been asking (for 2 years now) for this part of the application to be fully integrated into the other part so that it only prompts for data at the right time, and only asks for the 2 pieces of information that are unique.
My guess is that it's because Programmer A was told to write Routine Q, and had no idea how it was actually going to be used--or that 98% of the data was already in another part of the system.
The situation I recounted above is just one example of the problems with this system. And, despite what some people may think, these things *do* impact the production side.
The University of Wisconsin (Madison) went through a lengthy bidding process and chose the same vendor as the one we're using. One year and $27 million later, they dumped the whole thing in the trash because the users found the application too difficult to use.
Think about that from the developers' side: their lack of understanding of the users' requirements cost their company a $27 million contract. The application is amazingly powerful, and after 2½ years, we *still* find new features, so the "functionality" side of things isn't the issue. The "ease of use" *is*. The lack of understanding regarding this difference on the part of the developers (and the company as a whole) has cost them a major client. And it's harmed their reputation. If staff at one of the top engineering colleges in the world can't learn to use the product, what does that say to non-technical businesses who are looking at buying it?
As a (reasonably) tech-savvy user who's had 2½ years to learn the ins and outs of this application, I can say--with a high degree of confidence--that the UI sucks wet donkey balls through a bendy-straw. I love the power and depth of the application. I hate that, when looking at a data pool of hundreds (if not thousands) of records, it will only show me 4 at a time, and it requires a new querry (via the web) to get the next 4.
Oh, what I wouldn't give to be able to sit down with the developers for a day! I'm talking about the simplest of changes: keeping the "function" buttons in the same order on every page so that I don't have to hunt around for them; giving me access to more than 4 records at a time; highlighting which of the 12 "comments" options actually have data in them; grouping relevant data together in the display; extending fields beyond 32 characters;... and the list goes on.
Absolutely none of this has to do with the "functionality" of the application. I'm not telling the developers and programmers how to do their jobs. I simply want to tell them how to *present* the data, and how to make the display and wording more intuitive (e.g., in one screen, "accept" means "leave it alone and do stuff to it later", while "adjust" means "accept what's displayed").
In fact, using a computer GUI comes up more than basic math for many people. It's a basic skill. Using a computer GUI isn't some specialist skill for computer people, it's a basic skill like reading. There's no excuse not to have it.
I'm sorry, but that's an amazingly narrow-minded and elitist view.
Let's step away from PCs for a minute and look at other technology. My parents (ages 75 and 83) are both intelligent, retired professionals. Both of them have wide ranges of skills which are on par with a master's degree (they learned "in the field" rather than "on campus", but the skills and knowledge are there, nonetheless). They can't get their DVD player to work. Why? Because there isn't a "Play" button on the remote. They need to go through a complicated set of procedures in order to get the TV to see the DVD player, and then when they put in the disc, they're presented with a set of menu options. The remote, itself, has upwards of 30 buttons. All for a device which *really* only needs 3: Play, Pause, Stop. Everything else is, honestly, fluff.
The primary reason for putting a DVD into a DVD player is to (amazing revelation here.....) watch the movie. Is it *really* that unreasonable to have a button on the remote that says "Play", and which starts the movie playing?
There *is* a reason for people not to have what you consider a "basic skill": They're aren't "computer users". Rather, they're people who occasionally have a reason to use a computerized device.
Thank you, Anonymous Coward. You've pointed out something that's been missing from the conversation so far (though, I admit, it may appear farther down the thread; I just haven't gotten that far yet): Slashdot readers are computer users. I'm going to guess that most contributors are either in the computer industry or serious hobbyists. Most people, however, have other things to worry about. An auto mechanic needs to spend his time keeping up with the advances in automotive technology. A doctor needs to spend his time keeping up with advances in medical procedures. A plumber needs to keep up with changes in equipment and building codes. They don't have the time to learn the intricacies of computer programs--nor should they be expected to.
How many of you do all your own car maintenance, diagnose your own medical conditions and prescribe treatments, and do all the plumbing repairs and upgrades in your house? How many of you go to a professional to take care of these things and "just expect things to work" when you do?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the latter group is larger than the former.:) You really don't care about the intricate workings of the lymphatic system acting in response to bacteriological or viral aggression upon the various organs of your gastro-intestinal system, nor their reaction to specific chemical and pharmaceutical interventions; you just want a pill to make the diarrhea go away. You don't want to have to mix the chemicals at home. You don't want to do the research into the side-effects and other reactions. You don't want to go through complex preparations. You just want to swallow a pill and make the yuckiness go away. You want to be given something "that just works".
Most users feel the same way about their computers.
It's really not unreasonable.
Anonymous Coward also brings up another valid point: Different users have different needs, and it's the responsibility of the programmers to identify those needs and program accordingly. While a journalist and a baker may both have need for a word-processor, they expect different things out of it. Both Time Warner and Bob's Bakery need accounting software, but a program that works for one would be completely wrong for the other. Neither set of requirements is "right" or "wrong"; they're just "appropriate" or "not appropriate" for a given situation.
Programmers who understand how their customers use the software--and modify it accordingly--are going to produce a "better" product--for their intended market. Programmers who write things according to their *own* needs and expect everyone else to "just deal with it", aren't going to make it very far.
This post couldn't have come at a more precipitous time. I work for an educational facility which uses a web-based "business portal" for all of our HR, Payroll, Purchasing, and Accounting functions.
At this very moment, I am (pretending to be) entering data into this system.
There are (on a guess) 100 fields that need to be filled. About 85 of them will always have the exact same data. Another 12 will be identical for every entry from the same order. Only 3 are unique--and one of those is the auto-increment primary key.
It requires 3 mintues and 5 different forms to enter all this information. And all but 2 fields could automatically be captured by the system and applied to the form (right now, we're just reading it from one form and typing it by hand into another form).
Now, this is a program that's supposed to improve the efficiency of the businesses that use it, however, it's laid out in ways that actively hamper the effective use of the software. This is a perfect example of a situation in which you absolutely want the users telling the programmers how to do things--not how to build the code, but how to design an interface that allows for smooth, efficient use of the tool.
I run into the same situation in so many programs, and it really frustrates me. I think one of the reasons that Apple has become so successful in the various niche markets is because they put so much emphasis on creating a smooth interface between the users and the code.
Most users don't care about the code. They care about how easy it is to accomplish what they want to accomplish. There's no reason that a program can't both be properly-coded and "just work". The two are not incompatible.
It's a basic literacy problem. Americans have really poor literacy.
This article provides some nice data to refute that claim. The book from which the information comes was published in 1998, but based on the trends shown in the data, it's fairly safe to assume that the overview--if not the exact numbers--remains valid.
I frequently hear people saying that "the US education system is going down the drain", that "kids these days can't read", or that "we're creating a generation of illiterate morons". But I really have yet to see any data to back that up. On the other hand, I can pull up a number of examples--both statistical and anecdotal--which support the opposite assertion.
It's easy to point to those who can't read, can't do math, or can't read a map and say "Look: all our students are stupid". But that can be done in any education system. There will always be those whose academic performance is lower than others. That doesn't negate the achievements of the remainder of the student population.
Several people here have pointed out that Finland supposedly has one of the top-ranked education systems in the world. Can anyone here name 10 significant contributions or advancements to science, medicine, technology, or literature that have come out of Finland in the last 10 years? (Without doing a Google search!) I'm fairly confident that most of you can answer that same question for the U.S. Do you think that IBM, HP, MicroSoft, Cisco, the NIH, the CDC, the NSA, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Pfizer, Merck, and Lucent only hire foreigners or graduates of private schools?
How many of the US citizens here--who will, I'm sure, classify themselves as highly literate and technologically savvy--graduated from public schools and received degrees from state universities?
Like any other education system, the US system has its range--from high-end to low-end. The US collegiate system (the focus of the original article) is also different from many European systems in that it is (nominally) open to anyone. We don't systematically separate our students into "college-bound" and "other", so we end up with a greater range of abilities and skill sets in our college students.
The inability to use the internet as a resource for research doesn't mean that students are undereducated or stupid. Google is not a metric by which to gauge intelligence. It's not that the students are illiterate or uneducated, it's that they've been told that websites aren't reliable sources of information. What they've been told is "if it's not printed on paper, it's not reliable". Changing this doesn't involve a major overhaul of the educational system. It only involves a minor shift in the perceptions--and prejudices--of the teachers.
Changes will come slowly. The original article says that it's dealing with "Generation M" students--those born around 1985. It expects all of them to be technologically savvy. However, the "The Web" didn't gain a significant foothold until the 90s--only a little over 10 years ago--and the people teaching these students have their training based in a very different time. Some of these teachers started when UNIVAC was still the high-end in computing, and PCs were something only dreamt of in SF novels.
And... let's be honest here; even those of us who are "internet savvy" still fall victim to websites that appear to be above-board but which are, in fact, just well-written crap. The average Slashdot contributor is going to be above-average when it comes to internet literacy. We can't expect the general public to meet our standards in this area. It is, in all honestly, a matter of perspective. After all, how many of us here can fine-tune the fuel injection on our cars? Or build an addition to our houses? Or install a new toilet? Or tune a piano? Or butcher a cow? It's a matter of "skill se
Slashdot Mirror
"All US based porn sites must have a record of the identity of all their models, and will have an 18 U.S.C. 2257 Compliance Notice, with the address of one or more custodians of records, who hold the record proving the age and identity of all the models."
"That's all well and good for those that actually pay for porn.."
Just a few clarifications on 2257:
1) It's not just "porn sites". It's every amateur cam-girl out there who flashes some tit on cam. By doing that, she's considered a "primary producer". Any site on which that image is displayed is considered to be a "secondary producer".
2) Age and identity--including a photo ID showing home address--is required of *every* person who appears in pictures where there is "sexual material"--regardless of whether they're engaged in any of the "naughty stuff" or not.
3) 2257 considers the place where the image is taken and/or stored to be a "primary place of business", and the address must be published. In addition, federal agents can enter the "place of business" once every 4 months, without a warrant & without warning "during normal business hours", and "examine" all equipment and files of the "business". In addition, they are allowed to use any and all "evidence of illegal activity discovered in the course of their visit." For 99.44% of the camgirls out there, the "place of business" is their home. 2257 allows federal agents to enter the woman's house without a warrant, dig through her computer files, and look around for anything else they want. They can do this every 4 months.
I know it's not because of the users--at least not the users here. We have been asking (for 2 years now) for this part of the application to be fully integrated into the other part so that it only prompts for data at the right time, and only asks for the 2 pieces of information that are unique.
My guess is that it's because Programmer A was told to write Routine Q, and had no idea how it was actually going to be used--or that 98% of the data was already in another part of the system.
Oh... if I only had access to the developers! :)
... and the list goes on.
The situation I recounted above is just one example of the problems with this system. And, despite what some people may think, these things *do* impact the production side.
The University of Wisconsin (Madison) went through a lengthy bidding process and chose the same vendor as the one we're using. One year and $27 million later, they dumped the whole thing in the trash because the users found the application too difficult to use.
Think about that from the developers' side: their lack of understanding of the users' requirements cost their company a $27 million contract. The application is amazingly powerful, and after 2½ years, we *still* find new features, so the "functionality" side of things isn't the issue. The "ease of use" *is*. The lack of understanding regarding this difference on the part of the developers (and the company as a whole) has cost them a major client. And it's harmed their reputation. If staff at one of the top engineering colleges in the world can't learn to use the product, what does that say to non-technical businesses who are looking at buying it?
As a (reasonably) tech-savvy user who's had 2½ years to learn the ins and outs of this application, I can say--with a high degree of confidence--that the UI sucks wet donkey balls through a bendy-straw. I love the power and depth of the application. I hate that, when looking at a data pool of hundreds (if not thousands) of records, it will only show me 4 at a time, and it requires a new querry (via the web) to get the next 4.
Oh, what I wouldn't give to be able to sit down with the developers for a day! I'm talking about the simplest of changes: keeping the "function" buttons in the same order on every page so that I don't have to hunt around for them; giving me access to more than 4 records at a time; highlighting which of the 12 "comments" options actually have data in them; grouping relevant data together in the display; extending fields beyond 32 characters;
Absolutely none of this has to do with the "functionality" of the application. I'm not telling the developers and programmers how to do their jobs. I simply want to tell them how to *present* the data, and how to make the display and wording more intuitive (e.g., in one screen, "accept" means "leave it alone and do stuff to it later", while "adjust" means "accept what's displayed").
I'm sorry, but that's an amazingly narrow-minded and elitist view.
Let's step away from PCs for a minute and look at other technology. My parents (ages 75 and 83) are both intelligent, retired professionals. Both of them have wide ranges of skills which are on par with a master's degree (they learned "in the field" rather than "on campus", but the skills and knowledge are there, nonetheless). They can't get their DVD player to work. Why? Because there isn't a "Play" button on the remote. They need to go through a complicated set of procedures in order to get the TV to see the DVD player, and then when they put in the disc, they're presented with a set of menu options. The remote, itself, has upwards of 30 buttons. All for a device which *really* only needs 3: Play, Pause, Stop. Everything else is, honestly, fluff.
The primary reason for putting a DVD into a DVD player is to (amazing revelation here.....) watch the movie. Is it *really* that unreasonable to have a button on the remote that says "Play", and which starts the movie playing?
There *is* a reason for people not to have what you consider a "basic skill": They're aren't "computer users". Rather, they're people who occasionally have a reason to use a computerized device.
{Waits for the Ubuntu developers to rewrite the code so that "apt get" = "gimme"}. :D
Thank you, Anonymous Coward. You've pointed out something that's been missing from the conversation so far (though, I admit, it may appear farther down the thread; I just haven't gotten that far yet): Slashdot readers are computer users. I'm going to guess that most contributors are either in the computer industry or serious hobbyists. Most people, however, have other things to worry about. An auto mechanic needs to spend his time keeping up with the advances in automotive technology. A doctor needs to spend his time keeping up with advances in medical procedures. A plumber needs to keep up with changes in equipment and building codes. They don't have the time to learn the intricacies of computer programs--nor should they be expected to. How many of you do all your own car maintenance, diagnose your own medical conditions and prescribe treatments, and do all the plumbing repairs and upgrades in your house? How many of you go to a professional to take care of these things and "just expect things to work" when you do? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the latter group is larger than the former. :) You really don't care about the intricate workings of the lymphatic system acting in response to bacteriological or viral aggression upon the various organs of your gastro-intestinal system, nor their reaction to specific chemical and pharmaceutical interventions; you just want a pill to make the diarrhea go away. You don't want to have to mix the chemicals at home. You don't want to do the research into the side-effects and other reactions. You don't want to go through complex preparations. You just want to swallow a pill and make the yuckiness go away. You want to be given something "that just works".
Most users feel the same way about their computers.
It's really not unreasonable.
Anonymous Coward also brings up another valid point: Different users have different needs, and it's the responsibility of the programmers to identify those needs and program accordingly. While a journalist and a baker may both have need for a word-processor, they expect different things out of it. Both Time Warner and Bob's Bakery need accounting software, but a program that works for one would be completely wrong for the other. Neither set of requirements is "right" or "wrong"; they're just "appropriate" or "not appropriate" for a given situation.
Programmers who understand how their customers use the software--and modify it accordingly--are going to produce a "better" product--for their intended market. Programmers who write things according to their *own* needs and expect everyone else to "just deal with it", aren't going to make it very far.
This post couldn't have come at a more precipitous time. I work for an educational facility which uses a web-based "business portal" for all of our HR, Payroll, Purchasing, and Accounting functions. At this very moment, I am (pretending to be) entering data into this system. There are (on a guess) 100 fields that need to be filled. About 85 of them will always have the exact same data. Another 12 will be identical for every entry from the same order. Only 3 are unique--and one of those is the auto-increment primary key. It requires 3 mintues and 5 different forms to enter all this information. And all but 2 fields could automatically be captured by the system and applied to the form (right now, we're just reading it from one form and typing it by hand into another form). Now, this is a program that's supposed to improve the efficiency of the businesses that use it, however, it's laid out in ways that actively hamper the effective use of the software. This is a perfect example of a situation in which you absolutely want the users telling the programmers how to do things--not how to build the code, but how to design an interface that allows for smooth, efficient use of the tool. I run into the same situation in so many programs, and it really frustrates me. I think one of the reasons that Apple has become so successful in the various niche markets is because they put so much emphasis on creating a smooth interface between the users and the code. Most users don't care about the code. They care about how easy it is to accomplish what they want to accomplish. There's no reason that a program can't both be properly-coded and "just work". The two are not incompatible.
This article provides some nice data to refute that claim. The book from which the information comes was published in 1998, but based on the trends shown in the data, it's fairly safe to assume that the overview--if not the exact numbers--remains valid.
I frequently hear people saying that "the US education system is going down the drain", that "kids these days can't read", or that "we're creating a generation of illiterate morons". But I really have yet to see any data to back that up. On the other hand, I can pull up a number of examples--both statistical and anecdotal--which support the opposite assertion.
It's easy to point to those who can't read, can't do math, or can't read a map and say "Look: all our students are stupid". But that can be done in any education system. There will always be those whose academic performance is lower than others. That doesn't negate the achievements of the remainder of the student population.
Several people here have pointed out that Finland supposedly has one of the top-ranked education systems in the world. Can anyone here name 10 significant contributions or advancements to science, medicine, technology, or literature that have come out of Finland in the last 10 years? (Without doing a Google search!) I'm fairly confident that most of you can answer that same question for the U.S. Do you think that IBM, HP, MicroSoft, Cisco, the NIH, the CDC, the NSA, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Pfizer, Merck, and Lucent only hire foreigners or graduates of private schools?
How many of the US citizens here--who will, I'm sure, classify themselves as highly literate and technologically savvy--graduated from public schools and received degrees from state universities?
Like any other education system, the US system has its range--from high-end to low-end. The US collegiate system (the focus of the original article) is also different from many European systems in that it is (nominally) open to anyone. We don't systematically separate our students into "college-bound" and "other", so we end up with a greater range of abilities and skill sets in our college students.
The inability to use the internet as a resource for research doesn't mean that students are undereducated or stupid. Google is not a metric by which to gauge intelligence. It's not that the students are illiterate or uneducated, it's that they've been told that websites aren't reliable sources of information. What they've been told is "if it's not printed on paper, it's not reliable". Changing this doesn't involve a major overhaul of the educational system. It only involves a minor shift in the perceptions--and prejudices--of the teachers.
Changes will come slowly. The original article says that it's dealing with "Generation M" students--those born around 1985. It expects all of them to be technologically savvy. However, the "The Web" didn't gain a significant foothold until the 90s--only a little over 10 years ago--and the people teaching these students have their training based in a very different time. Some of these teachers started when UNIVAC was still the high-end in computing, and PCs were something only dreamt of in SF novels.
And... let's be honest here; even those of us who are "internet savvy" still fall victim to websites that appear to be above-board but which are, in fact, just well-written crap. The average Slashdot contributor is going to be above-average when it comes to internet literacy. We can't expect the general public to meet our standards in this area. It is, in all honestly, a matter of perspective. After all, how many of us here can fine-tune the fuel injection on our cars? Or build an addition to our houses? Or install a new toilet? Or tune a piano? Or butcher a cow? It's a matter of "skill se