One book that has been on my to-read list for a while now is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_WarThe Forever War. I recently finished Starship Troopers again, and I thought that I'd go with a military novel on the opposite end of the spectrum. Regarding the class, I thought that it might make a good counterpoint to Starship Troopers (although like I said, I haven't read it yet) and could prompt some good class discussion and cross referencing.
Another Heinlein book which deserves attention is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Not sure if its the right length for your class, but it's a gripping read and I think Heinlein's best work.
Also, I'll shout out perhaps my favorite book - Snow Crash. If I were looking for a reason to justify puting it in a class, I would say its an archetype of the distopian libertarian future, but the truth is its just a really fun read.
The broader problem with this model of thought is that it is very easy to go down a slipery slope to just blocking content because it's embarassing. A great example of this would be looking at the Wikipedia page for Jimmy Wales himself - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_wales#Controversies. The only controversy listed is regarding whether he was the co-founder or sole founder of wikipedia. This conveniently ignores the 2008 revalation that he had expensed tremendous amounts from the wikimedia project for things like bottles of wine and that he had improperly used his influence to improve his ex girlfriends wikipedia entry - http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/wikipedia-head-accused-of-expenses-rort/2008/03/05/1204402516874.html.
That being said, I don't think the first case regarding blocking information about a kidnapping is an example of abuse of power, rather an example of responsible journalists acticng to delay, not block, the release of information in order to protect a life. If anything, the only disturbing part of this is that newspapers etc. decided to go through Wales rather then one of the sysops, beaurocrats or anyone else in the chain of command, suggesting that perhaps Wales is overly entrenched in the project. That being said, the Wikimedia foundation is set up as a fairly democratic group, so the checks seem in place for the group to actually succeed at making decisions as a semi-representative democracy. If you have serious problems with this decision, you have several options: Run for a wikimedia board position, protest by not using wikipedia (or more to the point, not donating to the wikimedia foundation), set up your own site and put this news out into the public domain if you really think it needs to be there etc. Personally, I chose the second option - not because of this issue but because I think that Wales has too much influence and my charitable contributions could be better used elsewhere. Once Wales leaves (in 2010, I think) I might consider giving again.
So I agree with the OP, sometimes there are very good reasons to lie; even or especially by ommision, and this was probably one of those times. What must be checked is who or what group has the power to make those decisions, and in this case, I think the power rests too heavily with Jimmy Wales.
IANAL, but actually I think that you would be correct. Most of you I'm sure recall from not too long back that it is illegal to violate a website's Terms of Service - http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11519. I haven't checked, but it is a good bet that the Terms of Service for Myspace, Facebook, etc., forbid you from giving out your password to anybody. Additionally, were the city to recieve the username and password and then use those to log into your account, they would (within the spirit of the law even) be violating the same law.
This line of thought also raises the interesting possibility of using arbitrary terms of services to shield ones self from compulsory searches, such as drug screenings at work. You're asked to pee in a cup and reply "I'm sorry, but I just signed up for website X, and it forbids me from taking a drug screening when no probable use of illicit substances is shown. Violating the terms of service would be illegal."
"Sorry you're fired."
"oh really? You're firing me for refusing to break the law? I'm pretty sure that is grounds for a lawsuit, so the question is, do you want to pay my salary in exchange for me doing work for you, or after an expensive lawsuit?"
(Note, you wouldn't be able to agree to the terms of service if an existing employee agreement already requires you to submit to random drug tests, so don't be stupid. Also, again, IANAL, so don't blame me if you get fired/don't get a job.)
It's not an issue of 'growing a backbone'. It's an issue of having copious amounts of both time and money to deal with the problem. As far as I am aware, there is one person who actually took the time to make a serious legal complaint against a store that was forcing him to show his receipt/bag. You can read about his story here:
Despite the headline on that blog post reading 'Success' all Mr. Righi managed to do was get charges against himself dropped. Not only that, he did not get a penny from either circuit city or the police department that falsely arrested him. He did not get an apology from Circuit City, the police department, or the City - not even a verbal apology. On top of all that, he notes that this has cost him at least $7500 in legal fees.
It's not an issue of having a backbone, it's an issue of living some place where all the citizenry - from yourself, to the Circuit City employees to the police officers - have a deep understanding and respect for civil rights. If that's where you are, please let me know so I can join this Utopia.
If AMD really wants to show that they're serious about letting the overclocking community have there way, why don't they just unlock the clock multiplier on the CPU? I remember that way back with the original Athlon, you could accomplish this with just a mechanical pencil and be well on your way to melting your CPU (with the plus side of not having to change your frontside bus, thus keeping other system components like chipset and memory fairly happy as well). The problem was, of course, that there higher-end chip sales really were being undercut by this, so they worked on making the process a lot harder.
If AMD were serious about overclocking, they would let you change the multiplier, but really they're serious about making a slick-looking system so that kids can feel like they're really rad while they play with the system settings.
You're probably right, but if it's any sign of hope, John Edwards recently said at the Candidates Forum on health care that he would move to change the patent system to reduce the monopoly power of drug manufacturers. Of course right off the bat, two things should stand out:
1. Patent reform isn't copyright reform
2. John Edwards isn't the front runner.
Nevertheless, ifit is any glimmer of hope for people here, at least there is one example of a mainstream candidate who is willing to reform intellectual property rights.
In a unanimous ruling in Quality King Distributors Inc., v. L'anza Research International Inc. (1998, WL 9625) The Supreme Court found that the doctrine does apply to importation into the US of goods which were made in the US, then exported. This is significant for grey market imports of software, clothing and other goods, where the price outside the US may be lower than the price inside.
Also in Softman v. Adobe, the court ruled that the first sale doctrine applied to software as well, since licensing is substantially similar to sales.
What Valve did seems pretty illegal. I hope to see this challenged. (and given the number of importers that have lost a lot of money on this, there's a good chance it will be/ *knocks on wood*)
Knowing where drugs are being used, while it certainly can tell police something, can also tell public health officials something - like where to focus public service announcements about treatment centers, where to put treatment centers, and what kind of those places need to specialize in. Also, combining this fairly unbiased information with other demographics about the region - age, income, family size etc. (basically anything you can get from the census data), may also help with targeted marketing of treatment. Thus money spent becomes highly more effective.
Can someone please cite the law that says basic digital cable must be sent in the clear? I've been told this before, but at least one of my local cable providers doesn't do this (yes, us folks in Tacoma, WA have two cable companies in town which compete - woohoo!)
The time to be up in arms is when the systems are abused.
Quite right - what I'm hoping that the ACLU will establish with this suit is strict procedures of when this information can be used. Searching should be entirely automated against the license plates of fellons and against license plates of stollen cars. Searching would also be valuable at the request of citizens, as it may help them prove an aliby - or just remember one:
Trailer Park Joe: Shucks officer, I don't remember where I was three weeks ago, why don't you just run my license plate through that database of your.
Officer: Your car was seen at Billy Bob's Bar at 10:26PM
Joe: Oh yeah, now that I think about it, I'm there every night - I was just too drunk to remember.
What the system should not be used for, is so the new police Lt. can check up on where his girlfriend's car was seen last night. If he does, he should be straight out of a job.
Finally, citizens should be able to request that their data be removed. As beneficial as the data can be to its citizens, the government has no right to keep tabs on them at all time. A provision to allow for the removal of that information insures that this program is in line with similar privacy laws, which allow citizens to have their criminal record as a minor destroyed, or allows them to have the records of a DNA test destroyed imediately after the test has been completed.
With the above provisions, the program is more mundane than OnStar. Yes, it can get you in some shit if you are doing something wrong, but more likely it will help you out when you're already in a tight situation.
Actually, after reading TFA, I'll give Dell a bunch of credit:
Todd did in fact forward the information up the food chain (he has my respect). I received a phone call from an executive in the resolution team by the name of Diane (she has my respect). She was very professional. She said she was unaware of the policy change. She discussed the issue with her peers and they do not understand the logic of this policy. She agrees that the OS does not have any bearing on hardware issues covered in the complete care (tm) offering. She is going to move further up the food chain to investigate this (along with the reduced normal warranty) and call me back later today.
Hopefully, before the end of the day we'll have another posting saying "Dell patches up the laws of physics".
...Go out and buy the DVDs. It wasn't sending massive amounts of food to Fox that resulted in Serenity being made, it was the phenomenal DVD sales that made the network realize that they were missing out on a ton of money. If Jericho DVD sales doubled overnight, you can bet that CBS would at least order a direct to DVD movie to tie up loose ends, but 9 tons of peanuts simply isn't worth that much to them.
I am not a fan of Vista, and personally, I believe that MS' main reasoning behind this is that they want to hasten the locking-in of content to an MS operating system.
That being said, the one good thing that comes out of this, from the perspective of a consumer, is that there will be a time-line Microsoft must meet to work the major bugs out of Vista. For all their problems, the marketing department at Microsoft isn't full of idiots. They know that Dell is beginning to offer Linux (maybe/hopefully) and if they aren't offering a well developed, stable OS (a role currently only being filled by XP), they will start to lose market share at an increased rate. Seeing this, MS will likely focus more and more on stabilizing Vista by the end of the year, which will benefit people who *must* buy Vista (for whatever reason) and those people who have already bought Vista, as they will have access to updates.
Google and other mainstream mail-service providers can put a stop to these messages pretty easily. Sending these messages violate several points in gmail's Terms of Use and Program Policies. Specifically:
-Section 2. Personal Use: "The Service is made available to you for your personal use only."
I see two violations here. First of all, they are giving the use of the service to someone other than themselves, violating the word "your". Secondly, they violate the word "personal" - this is clearly a business application -Section 3. Proper Use: "... Your use of the Service is subject to your acceptance of and compliance with the Agreement, including the Gmail Program Policies..."
Violations of the program policies include:
- "Generate or facilitate unsolicited commercial email ("spam"). Such activity includes, but is not limited to... selling, exchanging or distributing to a third party the email addresses of any person without such person's knowing and continued consent to such disclosure... Interfere with other Gmail users' enjoyment of the Service" [spam certainly interferes with my enjoyment of gmail]. -Additionally in Section 3: You shall not "(i) use the Service to upload, transmit or otherwise distribute any content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, abusive, fraudulent, obscene, contains viruses, or is otherwise objectionable as reasonably determined by Google;" Again, I find spam harassing.
Given these violation, Google would be well within their rights to terminate the accounts (actually, according to the Terms of Use, they can do that whenever they feel like it, but lets assume they don't want to look too evil). Alternatively, They could send out notices that they will terminate any accounts that have been violated if they don't change their password in the next 10 days. Since so many people would lose, or face impending loss of their email accounts, services such as Flixster would suddenly have to find a new business model.
While I didn't check, I would bet hotmail, yahoo mail etc. have similar terms of use.
Even if Flixster decided to keep being an ass and collect passwords anyways, that would just mean that people stupid enough to give out their passwords would no longer have email accounts. Either way, I see no loss. Get to it Google et al.
Slashdot Mirror
One book that has been on my to-read list for a while now is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_WarThe Forever War. I recently finished Starship Troopers again, and I thought that I'd go with a military novel on the opposite end of the spectrum. Regarding the class, I thought that it might make a good counterpoint to Starship Troopers (although like I said, I haven't read it yet) and could prompt some good class discussion and cross referencing. Another Heinlein book which deserves attention is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Not sure if its the right length for your class, but it's a gripping read and I think Heinlein's best work. Also, I'll shout out perhaps my favorite book - Snow Crash. If I were looking for a reason to justify puting it in a class, I would say its an archetype of the distopian libertarian future, but the truth is its just a really fun read.
The broader problem with this model of thought is that it is very easy to go down a slipery slope to just blocking content because it's embarassing. A great example of this would be looking at the Wikipedia page for Jimmy Wales himself - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_wales#Controversies. The only controversy listed is regarding whether he was the co-founder or sole founder of wikipedia. This conveniently ignores the 2008 revalation that he had expensed tremendous amounts from the wikimedia project for things like bottles of wine and that he had improperly used his influence to improve his ex girlfriends wikipedia entry - http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/wikipedia-head-accused-of-expenses-rort/2008/03/05/1204402516874.html.
That being said, I don't think the first case regarding blocking information about a kidnapping is an example of abuse of power, rather an example of responsible journalists acticng to delay, not block, the release of information in order to protect a life. If anything, the only disturbing part of this is that newspapers etc. decided to go through Wales rather then one of the sysops, beaurocrats or anyone else in the chain of command, suggesting that perhaps Wales is overly entrenched in the project. That being said, the Wikimedia foundation is set up as a fairly democratic group, so the checks seem in place for the group to actually succeed at making decisions as a semi-representative democracy. If you have serious problems with this decision, you have several options: Run for a wikimedia board position, protest by not using wikipedia (or more to the point, not donating to the wikimedia foundation), set up your own site and put this news out into the public domain if you really think it needs to be there etc. Personally, I chose the second option - not because of this issue but because I think that Wales has too much influence and my charitable contributions could be better used elsewhere. Once Wales leaves (in 2010, I think) I might consider giving again. So I agree with the OP, sometimes there are very good reasons to lie; even or especially by ommision, and this was probably one of those times. What must be checked is who or what group has the power to make those decisions, and in this case, I think the power rests too heavily with Jimmy Wales.
IANAL, but actually I think that you would be correct. Most of you I'm sure recall from not too long back that it is illegal to violate a website's Terms of Service - http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11519. I haven't checked, but it is a good bet that the Terms of Service for Myspace, Facebook, etc., forbid you from giving out your password to anybody. Additionally, were the city to recieve the username and password and then use those to log into your account, they would (within the spirit of the law even) be violating the same law.
This line of thought also raises the interesting possibility of using arbitrary terms of services to shield ones self from compulsory searches, such as drug screenings at work. You're asked to pee in a cup and reply "I'm sorry, but I just signed up for website X, and it forbids me from taking a drug screening when no probable use of illicit substances is shown. Violating the terms of service would be illegal."
"Sorry you're fired."
"oh really? You're firing me for refusing to break the law? I'm pretty sure that is grounds for a lawsuit, so the question is, do you want to pay my salary in exchange for me doing work for you, or after an expensive lawsuit?"
(Note, you wouldn't be able to agree to the terms of service if an existing employee agreement already requires you to submit to random drug tests, so don't be stupid. Also, again, IANAL, so don't blame me if you get fired/don't get a job.)
If only we would cut wars because of budget overruns of 2 Billion...
It's not an issue of 'growing a backbone'. It's an issue of having copious amounts of both time and money to deal with the problem. As far as I am aware, there is one person who actually took the time to make a serious legal complaint against a store that was forcing him to show his receipt/bag. You can read about his story here:
http://www.michaelrighi.com/2007/09/
Despite the headline on that blog post reading 'Success' all Mr. Righi managed to do was get charges against himself dropped. Not only that, he did not get a penny from either circuit city or the police department that falsely arrested him. He did not get an apology from Circuit City, the police department, or the City - not even a verbal apology. On top of all that, he notes that this has cost him at least $7500 in legal fees. It's not an issue of having a backbone, it's an issue of living some place where all the citizenry - from yourself, to the Circuit City employees to the police officers - have a deep understanding and respect for civil rights. If that's where you are, please let me know so I can join this Utopia.
It's a space station!
If AMD really wants to show that they're serious about letting the overclocking community have there way, why don't they just unlock the clock multiplier on the CPU? I remember that way back with the original Athlon, you could accomplish this with just a mechanical pencil and be well on your way to melting your CPU (with the plus side of not having to change your frontside bus, thus keeping other system components like chipset and memory fairly happy as well). The problem was, of course, that there higher-end chip sales really were being undercut by this, so they worked on making the process a lot harder. If AMD were serious about overclocking, they would let you change the multiplier, but really they're serious about making a slick-looking system so that kids can feel like they're really rad while they play with the system settings.
You're probably right, but if it's any sign of hope, John Edwards recently said at the Candidates Forum on health care that he would move to change the patent system to reduce the monopoly power of drug manufacturers. Of course right off the bat, two things should stand out: 1. Patent reform isn't copyright reform 2. John Edwards isn't the front runner. Nevertheless, ifit is any glimmer of hope for people here, at least there is one example of a mainstream candidate who is willing to reform intellectual property rights.
Just like Voyager 1&2. A lot of what NASA has accomplished in the field of unmanned vehicles is quite epic.
Knowing where drugs are being used, while it certainly can tell police something, can also tell public health officials something - like where to focus public service announcements about treatment centers, where to put treatment centers, and what kind of those places need to specialize in. Also, combining this fairly unbiased information with other demographics about the region - age, income, family size etc. (basically anything you can get from the census data), may also help with targeted marketing of treatment. Thus money spent becomes highly more effective.
Can someone please cite the law that says basic digital cable must be sent in the clear? I've been told this before, but at least one of my local cable providers doesn't do this (yes, us folks in Tacoma, WA have two cable companies in town which compete - woohoo!)
Quite right - what I'm hoping that the ACLU will establish with this suit is strict procedures of when this information can be used. Searching should be entirely automated against the license plates of fellons and against license plates of stollen cars. Searching would also be valuable at the request of citizens, as it may help them prove an aliby - or just remember one:
Trailer Park Joe: Shucks officer, I don't remember where I was three weeks ago, why don't you just run my license plate through that database of your.
Officer: Your car was seen at Billy Bob's Bar at 10:26PM
Joe: Oh yeah, now that I think about it, I'm there every night - I was just too drunk to remember.
What the system should not be used for, is so the new police Lt. can check up on where his girlfriend's car was seen last night. If he does, he should be straight out of a job.
Finally, citizens should be able to request that their data be removed. As beneficial as the data can be to its citizens, the government has no right to keep tabs on them at all time. A provision to allow for the removal of that information insures that this program is in line with similar privacy laws, which allow citizens to have their criminal record as a minor destroyed, or allows them to have the records of a DNA test destroyed imediately after the test has been completed.
With the above provisions, the program is more mundane than OnStar. Yes, it can get you in some shit if you are doing something wrong, but more likely it will help you out when you're already in a tight situation.
...Go out and buy the DVDs. It wasn't sending massive amounts of food to Fox that resulted in Serenity being made, it was the phenomenal DVD sales that made the network realize that they were missing out on a ton of money. If Jericho DVD sales doubled overnight, you can bet that CBS would at least order a direct to DVD movie to tie up loose ends, but 9 tons of peanuts simply isn't worth that much to them.
I am not a fan of Vista, and personally, I believe that MS' main reasoning behind this is that they want to hasten the locking-in of content to an MS operating system. That being said, the one good thing that comes out of this, from the perspective of a consumer, is that there will be a time-line Microsoft must meet to work the major bugs out of Vista. For all their problems, the marketing department at Microsoft isn't full of idiots. They know that Dell is beginning to offer Linux (maybe/hopefully) and if they aren't offering a well developed, stable OS (a role currently only being filled by XP), they will start to lose market share at an increased rate. Seeing this, MS will likely focus more and more on stabilizing Vista by the end of the year, which will benefit people who *must* buy Vista (for whatever reason) and those people who have already bought Vista, as they will have access to updates.
Google and other mainstream mail-service providers can put a stop to these messages pretty easily. Sending these messages violate several points in gmail's Terms of Use and Program Policies. Specifically:
..." ... selling, exchanging or distributing to a third party the email addresses of any person without such person's knowing and continued consent to such disclosure ... Interfere with other Gmail users' enjoyment of the Service" [spam certainly interferes with my enjoyment of gmail].
-Section 2. Personal Use: "The Service is made available to you for your personal use only."
I see two violations here. First of all, they are giving the use of the service to someone other than themselves, violating the word "your". Secondly, they violate the word "personal" - this is clearly a business application
-Section 3. Proper Use: "... Your use of the Service is subject to your acceptance of and compliance with the Agreement, including the Gmail Program Policies
Violations of the program policies include:
- "Generate or facilitate unsolicited commercial email ("spam"). Such activity includes, but is not limited to
-Additionally in Section 3: You shall not "(i) use the Service to upload, transmit or otherwise distribute any content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, abusive, fraudulent, obscene, contains viruses, or is otherwise objectionable as reasonably determined by Google;" Again, I find spam harassing.
Given these violation, Google would be well within their rights to terminate the accounts (actually, according to the Terms of Use, they can do that whenever they feel like it, but lets assume they don't want to look too evil). Alternatively, They could send out notices that they will terminate any accounts that have been violated if they don't change their password in the next 10 days. Since so many people would lose, or face impending loss of their email accounts, services such as Flixster would suddenly have to find a new business model.
While I didn't check, I would bet hotmail, yahoo mail etc. have similar terms of use.
Even if Flixster decided to keep being an ass and collect passwords anyways, that would just mean that people stupid enough to give out their passwords would no longer have email accounts. Either way, I see no loss. Get to it Google et al.