I think one thing to take into account is the new forums, like/., available for folks to voice their opinions. There are always those who "flame bait" to boost their ego or see their name in print.
There are bound to be many opinions and viewpoints, and that is the whole point. I think one has to be careful when summarizing any conclusions or general opinions in such an open forum. The louder people are not always voicing the most popular viewpoints.
Now, it took me a while to find that "reply" button. All these changes to keep up with....
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
It is not U.S. law that libraries must have filters because of children. My wife is a librarian, and I would have to verify it with her, but to my knowledge, libraries cannot have restrictions to information: Freedom of Speech.
The lawsuits have nothing to do with law. Parents are just trying to have libraries do the parenting for them.
Now, it is true that libraries can (and DO) take the responsibility to not put books like sexual health next to children's books. It is also true that if someone is obviously displaying graphic pictures on a computer in a children's area, that person can be asked to do the research some where else in the library.
But this in no way limits one's access to information.
Perhaps there are state laws that ban information in libraries? Please elaborate if someone can!
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
If you read my previous posts, I'm all against censorship or an institution restricting anyone's access to information.
However, this parenting argument is getting out of hand. I am now understanding where burnsbert is coming from. I'm not a parent myself, but I do recognize the fact that a parent might restrict access to certain information until the child is mature enough to understand it and relate to it.
I don't see any reason to take a nine year old to see a graphic rated R movie. It doesn't make sense. There is no reason a child should see such a thing. Now, I believe in a parents right to do that if they wish. That is where the parenting comes in. I don't believe R movies should be banned because of children, I just believe it is the parents choice to let them see it. I don't see that as censorship in that sense.
Parenting is about teaching the necessary skills to function in society. Simply exposing children to information or situations is not teaching. Otherwise, why don't kids learn calculus in first grade? Oh, maybe most kids are not ready for that.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
One cannot censor a group of people. You might be able to create some practicle limits in an elementary school for example; however, if you create censorship just because a child might have access to a computer in a public library, you are defeating the purpose of the library.
Glad you didn't take my post personally. Considering the OS demograhpics at/., I would think you get more complaints from the word "TurboNT" in your URL.;)
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Naturally, when your 16 year old daughter is visiting lot's of sites about birth control you're going to want to have a sit-down with her. The thing is, you should have that talk with her anyways.
My feeling is that most people who prefer to have Internet filters are mostly afraid of some information that their child, friends, family, (pet?) might find. The Internet certainly makes searches easier to find particular information as well increases the amount of information found.
However, your point that "you should have that talk with her anyways" brings to attention what the real use of filtering is for. I think many people think filtering is an easy solution for any institution to "babysit" their child.
My contention is that it is far more damaging to restrict or censor information to the general public for the main purpose of restricting information for a particular group of people (children being the most used example).
I think it's important for people to take responsibility for their own actions regarding informatoin and not have institutions or government do that.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Information from a public library is not a commercial product. Thus the ACLU does have a vested interest, their interest being that libraries restrict public patrons access to information.
As for a perfect filter, I think it necessary to error on the side of caution and not restrict anyone to access information, negating the use of Internet filters.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Smartfilter was intentionally purchased to filter "objectionable" sites. It enforces a policy. If a user unsuccessfully attempts to access a "non-objectionable" site then the user should notify the IT person in charge. That site can then be exempted.
In libraries, we don't need a policy of what can and cannot be viewed. This is censorship, pure and simple. If you want to prevent your child from viewing anything you find objectionable, I suggest you hold your child's hand and restrict, TV, books, movies, school, as well as anything else found outside your home. I realize that might be much work, but in this manner others can find what they are looking for, regardless how objectionable I or you might find it.
By instituting a filter, you are instituting censorship. It is absolutely impossible to filter objectionable material without filtering non-objectinable material at the same time.
Don't forget, there are many non-objectionable site that use XXX. There will eventually be 10 web sites for the Super Bowls with XXX in it.
Also, how is one supposed to know if a filtered site is really not objectionable to whatever institution so that it can be brought to the IT manager's attention? That would preclude some unfiltered method of looking at web pages which would make filtering web pages useless.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Slashdot: Please censor all posts by burnsbert. I find them offensive. It has the words porn and nazi which I do not agree with. Therefore the rest of the post is useless discussion that no one should ever read, especially non-adults. Further more, based on the word "burns" in burnsbert's URL, the web site must promote arson. A past survey on Slashdot proved there are minors observing this site.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Beer comes with warning label.
on
Quickie Fu
·
· Score: 1
Obvisouly, it seams the new brew comes with a warning label: FUBAR.
I'm not sure I would want to try it.;)
Incidently, looking at their web page, it seems the only people involved are: Imaging, Public Relations, Launch night, Merchandising, Print Media, and Support. No where do I see brew-master or brewer. I guess that is Molson's partial support.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Relevance, of course...
on
Quickie Fu
·
· Score: 1
...although only to Windows. Isn't Windows 2k going to be renamed Windows fubar when M$ releases it in 2001?
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
I finally got X to work, and I don't know how. I installed Linux on SuSE6.0 right off the CD. Real slick.
But my difficulty was getting X setup. SuSE X setup tool, sax, wouldn't let me select the neomagic driver (I have the latest XFree86). It kept saying I needed to install it (the file that was requested wasn't on the CD). Some research on the 'net and I found out the driver is part of XF86_SVGA driver. So I tried to do it manually in XF86Config, but X would crash saying no 'neomagic' driver exists. Ugh. So I reran sax again and by some magic, I could select the neomagic driver. I had to guess at the screen frequencies and card memory to get the 1024x768 resolution.
But now, I'm stuck getting the sound card to work. The SuSE tutorial didn't help at all. I've never done this before, so I'll be excited when I get it to work.
And I can complain about the "crummy internal modem chip which IBM NEEDS TO WRITE A LINUX DRIVER FOR!!!"
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Does it include Windows?
on
The $299 PC
·
· Score: 1
I wonder what percentage of the $299 price is Windows if it is even included.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Gore also proposed sending a satellite into orbit for the sole purpose of putting a camera up there that can be accessed real time on the Internet 24/7. I thought this just fell through the budget cuts until I heard last week that my company is proposing some science instruments to go along with this camera and maybe make it more useful.
I would hate to hear the things he would take credit for if he were ever to be president. Then again, maybe the U.S. would have less scandals....
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
I think the theory is that Mars used to have a magnetic field (if in fact it doesn't now). To have a magnetic field the core needs to be molten or in liquid form and I believe Mars' core is currently not very molten. However, in the past, becuase of the volcanoes, it's obvious that the core was much more molten. Is molten the right word?
I'm not a geo-scientist, so it's fair to ignore my opinion.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Let me first say I'm not familiar with CDDB. But if they provided the internet access, hardware, and software to store the database, this could constitute a significant investment. I think the sticky issue in this case is the public contributing data. That fact IMHO complicates things. But I would lean towards CDDB having some sort of copyright on the database though. I wonder what their stated policy was when people signed up at CDDB?
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
The Internet is not a forum for whistle blowing. If you are involved in or witness illegal activities, report it to law enforcement agencies and/or through a "whistle-blowing" phone number that is often advertised for various companies/government agencies.
I agree that if you have something productive to say, you might as well take credit for it. If you don't have anything productive to say go ahead and say it un-anonymously so I know who to ignore later. AC is just a means for spreading stupidity, ignorance, FUD and whatever else (the majority of the time).
Simply slamming people/companies just isn't necessary.
In a perfect world, everyone would ignore AC posts and therefore people/companies would not be damaged from erroneous AC posts and consequently AC posts wouldn't be a problem. Then no one would read them so no one would post them....
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
The theory is that someone took the time to organize and compile data for a phone book. Therefore, you cannot simply copy (physically or electronically) it and use it for other purposes or sell it. I think 'copyright' is the correct term in this case.
IANAL, but my wife is a librarian who must deal with these issues all the time. If you want, you can go through and compile your own list and organize/present the data in your own way and sell it. The information itself is not under copyright protection.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
How many times did people dispute the possibility of a nuclear attack throught the 1980s and early 1990s to stop funding SDI. I guess there's nothing left to do now but hope nothing happens. Otherwise, what's there to do? Kind of makes SDI proponents look like forward thinking folks.
It sucks when you can't defend yourself, doesn't it?
P.S. I find it hard to believe that the default action for a nuclear system after it crashes is to launch, as attracive it might possibly be for a nuclear power.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
I don't know how much the Toshiba issue was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing (it was a rather quick reversal for public opinion to change the official policy, I think). But I did let them know that I purchased an IBM laptop and not a Toshiba laptop as a result.
So, who's left?
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
The stereo's ability to support the Global Positioning Satellite system allows it to give directions, and even be programmed to play songs appropriate to the car's location -- like the Beach Boys at the beach or "Route 66" when cruising the famous highway.
So what do you play when driving through Redmond, WA?
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
If Y2K is such a problem why don't we have other problems?
Don't folks born before 1900 get social security checks? Don't records somehow account for these people born before 1900? There are still people born before 1900 living. So I don't think everyone will spontaneously combust after midnight 2000.
What about thirty year mortgage loans? Now here's a big problem. By some miracle my mortgage payments were calculated correctly and my payment schedules are accurate. How can this be possible?
My only conclusion is that Y2K has already been dealt with for many important issues. I think the biggest issue is the users/operators. I have software at work that only usees two-digits. But I can deal with that, by checking my results.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier" "We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Slashdot Mirror
I think one thing to take into account is the new forums, like /., available for folks to voice their opinions. There are always those who "flame bait" to boost their ego or see their name in print.
There are bound to be many opinions and viewpoints, and that is the whole point. I think one has to be careful when summarizing any conclusions or general opinions in such an open forum. The louder people are not always voicing the most popular viewpoints.
Now, it took me a while to find that "reply" button. All these changes to keep up with....
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
style "*" focus_follows_right_eye
style "*" focus_follows_left_eye
style "*" focus_follows_nose
style "*" SloppyFocus
I prefer the latter myself. Nothing like reading in a window that you don't want to have focused.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
It is not U.S. law that libraries must have filters because of children. My wife is a librarian, and I would have to verify it with her, but to my knowledge, libraries cannot have restrictions to information: Freedom of Speech.
The lawsuits have nothing to do with law. Parents are just trying to have libraries do the parenting for them.
Now, it is true that libraries can (and DO) take the responsibility to not put books like sexual health next to children's books. It is also true that if someone is obviously displaying graphic pictures on a computer in a children's area, that person can be asked to do the research some where else in the library.
But this in no way limits one's access to information.
Perhaps there are state laws that ban information in libraries? Please elaborate if someone can!
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
If you read my previous posts, I'm all against censorship or an institution restricting anyone's access to information.
However, this parenting argument is getting out of hand. I am now understanding where burnsbert is coming from. I'm not a parent myself, but I do recognize the fact that a parent might restrict access to certain information until the child is mature enough to understand it and relate to it.
I don't see any reason to take a nine year old to see a graphic rated R movie. It doesn't make sense. There is no reason a child should see such a thing. Now, I believe in a parents right to do that if they wish. That is where the parenting comes in. I don't believe R movies should be banned because of children, I just believe it is the parents choice to let them see it. I don't see that as censorship in that sense.
Parenting is about teaching the necessary skills to function in society. Simply exposing children to information or situations is not teaching. Otherwise, why don't kids learn calculus in first grade? Oh, maybe most kids are not ready for that.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
I appreciate your posts, I really do. :)
/., I would think you get more complaints from the word "TurboNT" in your URL. ;)
One cannot censor a group of people. You might be able to create some practicle limits in an elementary school for example; however, if you create censorship just because a child might have access to a computer in a public library, you are defeating the purpose of the library.
Glad you didn't take my post personally. Considering the OS demograhpics at
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Naturally, when your 16 year old daughter is visiting lot's of sites about birth control you're going to want to have a sit-down with her. The thing is, you should have that talk with her anyways.
My feeling is that most people who prefer to have Internet filters are mostly afraid of some information that their child, friends, family, (pet?) might find. The Internet certainly makes searches easier to find particular information as well increases the amount of information found.
However, your point that "you should have that talk with her anyways" brings to attention what the real use of filtering is for. I think many people think filtering is an easy solution for any institution to "babysit" their child.
My contention is that it is far more damaging to restrict or censor information to the general public for the main purpose of restricting information for a particular group of people (children being the most used example).
I think it's important for people to take responsibility for their own actions regarding informatoin and not have institutions or government do that.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Information from a public library is not a commercial product. Thus the ACLU does have a vested interest, their interest being that libraries restrict public patrons access to information.
As for a perfect filter, I think it necessary to error on the side of caution and not restrict anyone to access information, negating the use of Internet filters.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Smartfilter was intentionally purchased to filter "objectionable" sites. It enforces a policy. If a user unsuccessfully attempts to access a "non-objectionable" site then the user should notify the IT person in charge. That site can then be exempted.
In libraries, we don't need a policy of what can and cannot be viewed. This is censorship, pure and simple. If you want to prevent your child from viewing anything you find objectionable, I suggest you hold your child's hand and restrict, TV, books, movies, school, as well as anything else found outside your home. I realize that might be much work, but in this manner others can find what they are looking for, regardless how objectionable I or you might find it.
By instituting a filter, you are instituting censorship. It is absolutely impossible to filter objectionable material without filtering non-objectinable material at the same time.
Don't forget, there are many non-objectionable site that use XXX. There will eventually be 10 web sites for the Super Bowls with XXX in it.
Also, how is one supposed to know if a filtered site is really not objectionable to whatever institution so that it can be brought to the IT manager's attention? That would preclude some unfiltered method of looking at web pages which would make filtering web pages useless.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
I agree.
Slashdot: Please censor all posts by burnsbert. I find them offensive. It has the words porn and nazi which I do not agree with. Therefore the rest of the post is useless discussion that no one should ever read, especially non-adults. Further more, based on the word "burns" in burnsbert's URL, the web site must promote arson. A past survey on Slashdot proved there are minors observing this site.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Obvisouly, it seams the new brew comes with a warning label: FUBAR.
;)
I'm not sure I would want to try it.
Incidently, looking at their web page, it seems the only people involved are: Imaging, Public Relations, Launch night, Merchandising, Print Media, and Support. No where do I see brew-master or brewer. I guess that is Molson's partial support.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
...although only to Windows. Isn't Windows 2k going to be renamed Windows fubar when M$ releases it in 2001?
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
But my difficulty was getting X setup. SuSE X setup tool, sax, wouldn't let me select the neomagic driver (I have the latest XFree86). It kept saying I needed to install it (the file that was requested wasn't on the CD). Some research on the 'net and I found out the driver is part of XF86_SVGA driver. So I tried to do it manually in XF86Config, but X would crash saying no 'neomagic' driver exists. Ugh. So I reran sax again and by some magic, I could select the neomagic driver. I had to guess at the screen frequencies and card memory to get the 1024x768 resolution.
But now, I'm stuck getting the sound card to work. The SuSE tutorial didn't help at all. I've never done this before, so I'll be excited when I get it to work.
And I can complain about the "crummy internal modem chip which IBM NEEDS TO WRITE A LINUX DRIVER FOR!!!"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
I wonder what percentage of the $299 price is Windows if it is even included.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
You wouldn't want to bring the whitehouse server down. :)
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Gore also proposed sending a satellite into orbit for the sole purpose of putting a camera up there that can be accessed real time on the Internet 24/7. I thought this just fell through the budget cuts until I heard last week that my company is proposing some science instruments to go along with this camera and maybe make it more useful.
I would hate to hear the things he would take credit for if he were ever to be president. Then again, maybe the U.S. would have less scandals....
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
I think the theory is that Mars used to have a magnetic field (if in fact it doesn't now). To have a magnetic field the core needs to be molten or in liquid form and I believe Mars' core is currently not very molten. However, in the past, becuase of the volcanoes, it's obvious that the core was much more molten. Is molten the right word?
I'm not a geo-scientist, so it's fair to ignore my opinion.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Let me first say I'm not familiar with CDDB. But if they provided the internet access, hardware, and software to store the database, this could constitute a significant investment. I think the sticky issue in this case is the public contributing data. That fact IMHO complicates things. But I would lean towards CDDB having some sort of copyright on the database though. I wonder what their stated policy was when people signed up at CDDB?
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
The Internet is not a forum for whistle blowing. If you are involved in or witness illegal activities, report it to law enforcement agencies and/or through a "whistle-blowing" phone number that is often advertised for various companies/government agencies.
I agree that if you have something productive to say, you might as well take credit for it. If you don't have anything productive to say go ahead and say it un-anonymously so I know who to ignore later. AC is just a means for spreading stupidity, ignorance, FUD and whatever else (the majority of the time).
Simply slamming people/companies just isn't necessary.
In a perfect world, everyone would ignore AC posts and therefore people/companies would not be damaged from erroneous AC posts and consequently AC posts wouldn't be a problem. Then no one would read them so no one would post them....
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
The theory is that someone took the time to organize and compile data for a phone book. Therefore, you cannot simply copy (physically or electronically) it and use it for other purposes or sell it. I think 'copyright' is the correct term in this case.
IANAL, but my wife is a librarian who must deal with these issues all the time. If you want, you can go through and compile your own list and organize/present the data in your own way and sell it. The information itself is not under copyright protection.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
How many times did people dispute the possibility of a nuclear attack throught the 1980s and early 1990s to stop funding SDI. I guess there's nothing left to do now but hope nothing happens. Otherwise, what's there to do? Kind of makes SDI proponents look like forward thinking folks.
It sucks when you can't defend yourself, doesn't it?
P.S. I find it hard to believe that the default action for a nuclear system after it crashes is to launch, as attracive it might possibly be for a nuclear power.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
I don't know how much the Toshiba issue was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing (it was a rather quick reversal for public opinion to change the official policy, I think). But I did let them know that I purchased an IBM laptop and not a Toshiba laptop as a result.
So, who's left?
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Your gvim suggestion is excellent. The latest version is 5.3. Get more info.
I only use Word for official reports. Everything else is done in VIM.
Feel the power of VIM.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
So what do you play when driving through Redmond, WA?
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Don't records somehow account for these people born before 1900? There are still people born before 1900 living. So I don't think everyone will spontaneously combust after midnight 2000.
Now here's a big problem. By some miracle my mortgage payments were calculated correctly and my payment schedules are accurate. How can this be possible?
My only conclusion is that Y2K has already been dealt with for many important issues. I think the biggest issue is the users/operators. I have software at work that only usees two-digits. But I can deal with that, by checking my results.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
I most certainly did respond to both IBM and Toshiba. I hope for better support from IBM and a little reflection on Toshiba's part.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"