Perhaps you should watch and listen to the 31 minute tape. They avoided firing when they could identify civilians. This goes directly back to my original point - Wikileaks crossed the line from being a source of information to being a source of propaganda when they decided to edit out parts of the video that don't agree with their preordained narrative. They took out the parts they don't want you to see. And it worked.
The 17 minute bit of propaganda tried to show how a camera was misidentified as an RPG. In reality, an RPG is clearly visible earlier in the tape, although you may have to watch the 31 minute version to see it.
They didn't lie. The rest of your post presumes that they knew the people on the ground were civilians, which the crew clearly did not.
You seem to have a very odd view of how journalism works.
Actually, I have a pretty good idea about how journalism works. In reality, we have a wide range of quality in news sources these days. Read Roughing It by Mark Twain. It includes hilarious bits on the newspaper trade.
The point isn't whether these students could have ended up infringing Linux, but rather that copyright protection is a double-edged sword. Without it, idiots and their lawyers wouldn't be able to pester students whose goal is to learn and play, and Linus wouldn't be able to stop Microsoft from stealing his code.
IANAL, or an expert on the GPL, but let's just imagine the students had instead created a Linux distro in binary-only form, and didn't offer the source code as well. Or maybe they ripped off part of the kernel, mashed it into a binary and called it their own proprietary kernel, and relicensed it under new terms. Theoretically, I'm sure there's some way of constructing a contrived scenario that would illustrate the point.
So automatically the kid gets some slack, just because most us immediately think "haha, that reminds me of the time I tried to make _____ in BASIC, god my version sucked. Taught me to program though...."
I'd like to think that would have been okay. But, once you start posting this stuff on the web, rather than just enjoy it yourself, or among friends, you're inviting a C&D.
So while I have some trouble imagining a scenario where a budding programmer accidentally violates the GPL or something,
Yeah, I wasn't trying to think of an actual, specific situation, just a hypothetical reversal of the situation.
Actually, I'm trying to make a serious point. IP laws don't just protect big, greedy, lazy corporations. They also protect everything under the various GPLs, the FreeBSD license, etc. That's the reason that Microsoft can't take Linux kernel 2.6.xx and call it theirs, or use it in a way that its license does not permit. You can't destroy one entity's copyright rights without damaging them for everyone.
that video shows soldiers killing kids and reporters for the hell of it.
Actually, that's what the editors wanted you to see. Here's what I saw and heard:
The helo flew towards an area where ground troops reported taking fire from.
The crew saw people approaching the US position carrying AKs and at least one RPG.
According to protocol, they received clearance to fire, and did so.
A van approached and started loading bodies, a common insurgent tactic.
They are obviously unaware (based on later audio) that there are children in the van.
Again, according to protocol, they received clearance to fire, and did so.
When the civilian casualties are known, troops on the ground do what they can to save the victims.
There is nothing in the tape to indicate intent to kill photographers, or knowledge that kids were in the van. There is certainly nothing that indicates they did it for the hell of it. Please point out where you find this.
The less edited video allows the viewer a better chance of figuring out what really went on. If you bought the whole 17-minute piece of propaganda hook, line, and sinker, congratulations. You were fooled. Someone with an axe to grind convinced you that an unfortunate accident was murder. Murder implies knowledge of the actual nature of their target, and intent to kill them anyway. None of that was in the film.
No one claimed it was an easy thing to watch. It's war, pal. War against people who dress like civilians, live among civilians, and hide behind civilians. Collateral damage (or whatever euphemism you want to put on civilian casualties) is going to happen. The thought of my kids in that van makes my stomach roll. But it doesn't change the situation in the cockpit, or create intent where there was none.
Feel free to come to a different conclusion than they have. I did not.
I did. From the video and audio, it is plain to me that the crew is attacking a group it believes to be insurgents, some of whom plainly hold weapons (AK-47s and an RPG), and are in the location a US ground crew reported taking fire from. However, regardless of the point of view either you or I arrive at, the point is that they pretend to be unbiased, when in fact they take an active role in promoting a particular point of view.
He never claimed to be a proper journalist.
"you can’t publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism. - Julian Assange"
He plainly acts as if he were spreading truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
From the Wikileaks website:
Since July 2007, we have worked across the globe to obtain, publish and defend such [sensitive] materials, and, also, to fight in the legal and political spheres for the broader principles on which our work is based: the integrity of our common historical record [emphasis mine] and the rights of all peoples to create new history.
The heavily edited 17-minute video doesn't offend me as an American. It offends me as an historian because it is propaganda.
If you applied this logic to all news and journalism you consume, am I to conclude that you find them all untrustworthy?
Actually, yes, to different degrees. The trick is to get a story from different points of view, and sort out the likely truth based on what you know about your sources. Fox news (contrary to popular opinion here) is neither worse nor better than MSNBC, ABC, and CNN. Each of them have their particular editorial "perspective", but by and large they deliver the news. However, each network also has a cadre of talking heads spouting "commentary" and "opinion". Think Olberman, or Beck. My take on Assange is that he is one of the latter. He presents the facts that he wants in order to prove his point, when in fact a) that's not all the facts, and b) he shouldn't have a point. According to Wikileaks' own statement, he should be a conduit for information while protecting his source. Nothing more, nothing less.
For what it's worth, I also read BBC, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, and various other sources when I can.
Thing is, here are the sources. Come to your own conclusions. You are welcome to. You do not/need/ to trust his judgment, position, or editorializing. You have the tools to effectively reach your own conclusions. That is what wikileaks enables you to do.
We have what they let us see. Who is to say that they are telling the whole story?
There were 2 versions released, neither of which was the entire video file. One was 31 minutes more or less, the other was 17 minutes or so. The shorter one had a lot of text added, and other edits. It was designed to appeal to anti-war feelings, and appears to accuse the pilot and gunner of deliberately targeting civilians. I have no problem with people expressing their views; I have a big problem with people passing off propaganda as "news".
And according to Assange, everything dangerous was redacted out of the Afghanistan documents
According to him. And of course, it is in-frickin'-conceiveable that he might inadvertently (or purposely) let slip something that he shouldn't. Are we really supposed to trust the methods and motives of the guy who took the Apache attack video and edited it into a piece of propaganda?
I'm in favor of freedom of the press, I'm glad Wikileaks exists, and I'm glad that Iceland took the step recently of declaring themselves a free-press safe haven. But this guys isn't a journalist in my eyes. He's obviously got an axe to grind, and has no compunctions about using/abusing his position to promote his agenda. That makes him untrustworthy.
This is politics for nerds. Has been for several years. I resisted it for a long time, but now I just play along and bitch about people who vote differently than I do - just like everyone else. Sometimes there is something interesting that comes up technology-wise. Sigh.
if bush i in iraq i had decided to push on to baghdad and topple saddam in the early 1990s after racing across the desert unimpeded, then the world would have seen that as justified
Bush 41 had build a true multinational coalition including many Muslim middle eastern nations, and in negotiating the coalition, had agreed not to change the regime in Iraq, only to liberate Kuwait. Pushing to Baghdad would have been a stab in the back to our allies at the time. And it was believed that after the war, Saddam might fall from power on his own, or at least would have been far less powerful / more cooperative than he ended up being.
Uh, except that this is another step in the pullout schedule agreed to between GWB and the Iraqi government back in 2008. Obama and the press are just re-branding this as "his" accomplishment.
Slashdot has historically been a source for stuff that matters in the technology realm. That being said, it has been blatantly politicized over the past 8 to 10 years.
You've never planted a tree? Seriously, you put a seedling in the ground when it is small, and years later you come back, and it is actually bigger. Plant a soldier and come back in a few years, and all you have is the same small stone with the name of someone's kid on it.
Of course not. That's a false choice. We would still be free individually to give to candidates. and we would be free individually to say whatever we want. We would be free to assemble all we want. However, there is a distinct difference between the actions of an individual, and the actions of a non-person.
Example: If I were a union member (teacher for example), the union could take dues from me and spend it on a candidate who I dislike. At that point, it is apparent that I am not the one doing the speaking - the teachers' union is.
That shouldn't be. The union should refrain from political speech on my behalf. If anything, that money spent on political speech should be returned to me to spend as I see fit.
I just don't think that ExxonMobil should be free to buy politicians. Neither should the AFL-CIO. Neither should a foreign country, or an illegal immigrant. Participation in the political process should be limited to those who are allowed to vote. No more, no less.
(Man gets home, opens mail) Ahhh, shit.
(Wife) What's wrong, honey?
(Man, tossing mail on kitchen counter) I got picked for Congress duty next month.
(Wife) Well, you know what they say. Congress duty is only for people too stupid to get out of it.
Good lord, no. I saw lots of websites in the 90s that were the opposite of good disabled-accessible design. Flashing red text on a green background? Try reading that if you are colorblind. Consistent and flagrant misuse of tables to format text? Ugh. Way to mess up a html reader.
Unfortunately, taking a page that was poorly designed and redoing it to be more accessible often means (in my humble experience, anyway) rewriting much of it.
fuck loads of profit, and have a metric shit ton of assets
You are mixing your measurements. I'm pretty sure that "fuck load" is an Imperial measurement, and "metric shit ton" is by definition metric. Do you work for NASA, by any chance?
Kidding aside, their marketshare, revenue, and profits are still huge, but they are less dominant than they once were. Furthermore, their "viable business model" boils down to:
1) Make an inferior copy of existing technology.
2) Flood the market with product and marketing (read: bullshit / FUD tactics).
3) Pour money into it until it either sinks or floats.
4) ???
5) Profit!
All that proves is that a company with sufficient market cap and cash reserves can run the table without producing anything truly innovative, and something tells me that they can't do that forever.
As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.
Are we expecting the Somalis to cause a downward effect on global temperatures any time soon? Does the same hold true for file-sharing pirates? Should we be prepared for global glaciation if Bittorrent usage continues unabated?
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps you should watch and listen to the 31 minute tape. They avoided firing when they could identify civilians. This goes directly back to my original point - Wikileaks crossed the line from being a source of information to being a source of propaganda when they decided to edit out parts of the video that don't agree with their preordained narrative. They took out the parts they don't want you to see. And it worked.
The 17 minute bit of propaganda tried to show how a camera was misidentified as an RPG. In reality, an RPG is clearly visible earlier in the tape, although you may have to watch the 31 minute version to see it.
They didn't lie. The rest of your post presumes that they knew the people on the ground were civilians, which the crew clearly did not.
You seem to have a very odd view of how journalism works.
Actually, I have a pretty good idea about how journalism works. In reality, we have a wide range of quality in news sources these days. Read Roughing It by Mark Twain. It includes hilarious bits on the newspaper trade.
The point isn't whether these students could have ended up infringing Linux, but rather that copyright protection is a double-edged sword. Without it, idiots and their lawyers wouldn't be able to pester students whose goal is to learn and play, and Linus wouldn't be able to stop Microsoft from stealing his code.
IANAL, or an expert on the GPL, but let's just imagine the students had instead created a Linux distro in binary-only form, and didn't offer the source code as well. Or maybe they ripped off part of the kernel, mashed it into a binary and called it their own proprietary kernel, and relicensed it under new terms. Theoretically, I'm sure there's some way of constructing a contrived scenario that would illustrate the point.
So automatically the kid gets some slack, just because most us immediately think "haha, that reminds me of the time I tried to make _____ in BASIC, god my version sucked. Taught me to program though...."
I'd like to think that would have been okay. But, once you start posting this stuff on the web, rather than just enjoy it yourself, or among friends, you're inviting a C&D.
So while I have some trouble imagining a scenario where a budding programmer accidentally violates the GPL or something,
Yeah, I wasn't trying to think of an actual, specific situation, just a hypothetical reversal of the situation.
Actually, I'm trying to make a serious point. IP laws don't just protect big, greedy, lazy corporations. They also protect everything under the various GPLs, the FreeBSD license, etc. That's the reason that Microsoft can't take Linux kernel 2.6.xx and call it theirs, or use it in a way that its license does not permit. You can't destroy one entity's copyright rights without damaging them for everyone.
that video shows soldiers killing kids and reporters for the hell of it.
Actually, that's what the editors wanted you to see. Here's what I saw and heard:
There is nothing in the tape to indicate intent to kill photographers, or knowledge that kids were in the van. There is certainly nothing that indicates they did it for the hell of it. Please point out where you find this.
The less edited video allows the viewer a better chance of figuring out what really went on. If you bought the whole 17-minute piece of propaganda hook, line, and sinker, congratulations. You were fooled. Someone with an axe to grind convinced you that an unfortunate accident was murder. Murder implies knowledge of the actual nature of their target, and intent to kill them anyway. None of that was in the film.
No one claimed it was an easy thing to watch. It's war, pal. War against people who dress like civilians, live among civilians, and hide behind civilians. Collateral damage (or whatever euphemism you want to put on civilian casualties) is going to happen. The thought of my kids in that van makes my stomach roll. But it doesn't change the situation in the cockpit, or create intent where there was none.
Feel free to come to a different conclusion than they have. I did not.
I did. From the video and audio, it is plain to me that the crew is attacking a group it believes to be insurgents, some of whom plainly hold weapons (AK-47s and an RPG), and are in the location a US ground crew reported taking fire from. However, regardless of the point of view either you or I arrive at, the point is that they pretend to be unbiased, when in fact they take an active role in promoting a particular point of view.
He never claimed to be a proper journalist.
"you can’t publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism. - Julian Assange"
He plainly acts as if he were spreading truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. From the Wikileaks website:
Since July 2007, we have worked across the globe to obtain, publish and defend such [sensitive] materials, and, also, to fight in the legal and political spheres for the broader principles on which our work is based: the integrity of our common historical record [emphasis mine] and the rights of all peoples to create new history.
The heavily edited 17-minute video doesn't offend me as an American. It offends me as an historian because it is propaganda.
If you applied this logic to all news and journalism you consume, am I to conclude that you find them all untrustworthy?
Actually, yes, to different degrees. The trick is to get a story from different points of view, and sort out the likely truth based on what you know about your sources. Fox news (contrary to popular opinion here) is neither worse nor better than MSNBC, ABC, and CNN. Each of them have their particular editorial "perspective", but by and large they deliver the news. However, each network also has a cadre of talking heads spouting "commentary" and "opinion". Think Olberman, or Beck. My take on Assange is that he is one of the latter. He presents the facts that he wants in order to prove his point, when in fact a) that's not all the facts, and b) he shouldn't have a point. According to Wikileaks' own statement, he should be a conduit for information while protecting his source. Nothing more, nothing less.
For what it's worth, I also read BBC, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, and various other sources when I can.
Thing is, here are the sources. Come to your own conclusions. You are welcome to. You do not /need/ to trust his judgment, position, or editorializing. You have the tools to effectively reach your own conclusions. That is what wikileaks enables you to do.
We have what they let us see. Who is to say that they are telling the whole story?
There were 2 versions released, neither of which was the entire video file. One was 31 minutes more or less, the other was 17 minutes or so. The shorter one had a lot of text added, and other edits. It was designed to appeal to anti-war feelings, and appears to accuse the pilot and gunner of deliberately targeting civilians. I have no problem with people expressing their views; I have a big problem with people passing off propaganda as "news".
If the programmers in question had infringed on Linux copyrights and licensing, would /. be as quick to take their side?
And according to Assange, everything dangerous was redacted out of the Afghanistan documents
According to him. And of course, it is in-frickin'-conceiveable that he might inadvertently (or purposely) let slip something that he shouldn't. Are we really supposed to trust the methods and motives of the guy who took the Apache attack video and edited it into a piece of propaganda?
I'm in favor of freedom of the press, I'm glad Wikileaks exists, and I'm glad that Iceland took the step recently of declaring themselves a free-press safe haven. But this guys isn't a journalist in my eyes. He's obviously got an axe to grind, and has no compunctions about using/abusing his position to promote his agenda. That makes him untrustworthy.
This is politics for nerds. Has been for several years. I resisted it for a long time, but now I just play along and bitch about people who vote differently than I do - just like everyone else. Sometimes there is something interesting that comes up technology-wise. Sigh.
if bush i in iraq i had decided to push on to baghdad and topple saddam in the early 1990s after racing across the desert unimpeded, then the world would have seen that as justified
Bush 41 had build a true multinational coalition including many Muslim middle eastern nations, and in negotiating the coalition, had agreed not to change the regime in Iraq, only to liberate Kuwait. Pushing to Baghdad would have been a stab in the back to our allies at the time. And it was believed that after the war, Saddam might fall from power on his own, or at least would have been far less powerful / more cooperative than he ended up being.
Uh, except that this is another step in the pullout schedule agreed to between GWB and the Iraqi government back in 2008. Obama and the press are just re-branding this as "his" accomplishment.
Slashdot has historically been a source for stuff that matters in the technology realm. That being said, it has been blatantly politicized over the past 8 to 10 years.
Soldiers grow back, forests don't.
You've never planted a tree? Seriously, you put a seedling in the ground when it is small, and years later you come back, and it is actually bigger. Plant a soldier and come back in a few years, and all you have is the same small stone with the name of someone's kid on it.
Of course not. That's a false choice. We would still be free individually to give to candidates. and we would be free individually to say whatever we want. We would be free to assemble all we want. However, there is a distinct difference between the actions of an individual, and the actions of a non-person.
Example: If I were a union member (teacher for example), the union could take dues from me and spend it on a candidate who I dislike. At that point, it is apparent that I am not the one doing the speaking - the teachers' union is. That shouldn't be. The union should refrain from political speech on my behalf. If anything, that money spent on political speech should be returned to me to spend as I see fit.
I just don't think that ExxonMobil should be free to buy politicians. Neither should the AFL-CIO. Neither should a foreign country, or an illegal immigrant. Participation in the political process should be limited to those who are allowed to vote. No more, no less.
+5, Smart
(Man gets home, opens mail) Ahhh, shit.
(Wife) What's wrong, honey?
(Man, tossing mail on kitchen counter) I got picked for Congress duty next month.
(Wife) Well, you know what they say. Congress duty is only for people too stupid to get out of it.
Freedom of speech in an election should be limited to those able to vote - natural people, not corporations, PACs, trusts, or unions.
Good lord, no. I saw lots of websites in the 90s that were the opposite of good disabled-accessible design. Flashing red text on a green background? Try reading that if you are colorblind. Consistent and flagrant misuse of tables to format text? Ugh. Way to mess up a html reader.
Unfortunately, taking a page that was poorly designed and redoing it to be more accessible often means (in my humble experience, anyway) rewriting much of it.
fuck loads of profit, and have a metric shit ton of assets
You are mixing your measurements. I'm pretty sure that "fuck load" is an Imperial measurement, and "metric shit ton" is by definition metric. Do you work for NASA, by any chance?
Kidding aside, their marketshare, revenue, and profits are still huge, but they are less dominant than they once were. Furthermore, their "viable business model" boils down to:
1) Make an inferior copy of existing technology.
2) Flood the market with product and marketing (read: bullshit / FUD tactics).
3) Pour money into it until it either sinks or floats.
4) ???
5) Profit!
All that proves is that a company with sufficient market cap and cash reserves can run the table without producing anything truly innovative, and something tells me that they can't do that forever.
Room temperature superconducting would be a huge step towards making fusion a net power gain technology. Not that that's the only barrier ...
As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.
Are we expecting the Somalis to cause a downward effect on global temperatures any time soon? Does the same hold true for file-sharing pirates? Should we be prepared for global glaciation if Bittorrent usage continues unabated?
Well, your theory of Infernal Design would certainly explain a lot that other theories don't. Like the inner workings of the IRS. Or the DMV.