It's important to recognize that hydrogen is not an energy source as it currently stands, due to the amount of energy needed to separate it. As such, it's more of a portable storage mechanism for energy, requiring about three times the equivalent amount of energy as battery technology to power vehicles. That means if you want green cars, you can use solar-generated energy to charge three battery-powered vehicles for the energy required to power one hydrogen vehicle. Can you think of a good rationale for requiring three times the amount of green power generation and three times the expense in order to support a hydrogen car infrastructure? No? Neither can I. That's why hydrogen has been a lame duck lately.
What this discovery does, essentially, is make it theoretically possible for hydrogen to be about as efficient as TODAY'S battery technology, IF CREATED UNDER IDEAL CIRCUMSTANCES. That's important, as there could be an energy cost associated with getting urea in a form and to a location required for processing into hydrogen. It also does not address the energy and infrastructure costs stemming from the delivery of hydrogen to the consumer.
In other words, it's almost as efficient as batteries today, but probably has some hard scientific limitations on just how efficient this process can get which are more rigid than the technical limitations regarding tomorrow's battery technology, which has been improving considerably. So there are serious reasons to suspect that hydrogen would be rather inefficient compared to batteries in the future.
So, it's a temporary draw, but quite possibly a longterm loss. Batteries and flywheels are likely to be the longterm winners.
Maybe it's me, but this seems like about the first time that someone over at PC Mag has actually said something intelligent about filesharing, rather than tsk-tsking about piracy.
"...until then, I'm with the crypto-anarchists."
An anonymous, consumer/innovation-friendly internet?! That's treas... um... well, it's kinda like common sense, isn't it?!
Given that you can go to Google and do searches capable of finding thousands of illegal mp3s, how do you differentiate sites like Google from The Pirate Bay?
Is it their claim similar to that used against Napster, where the prior statements of the site -- and in particular, its name -- were an incitement to illegal behavior on the part of others? If so, couldn't someone else legally operate a Pirate Bay clone, so long as they make a point of never getting close to advocating illegal downloads, or perhaps even specifically warning people not to do so?
"In 1981 Joan Claybrook, . . . the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) . . . advanced a NHTSA notice that called for fuel efficiency standards to reach 48 mpg by 1995. Interestingly the notice pointed out that the auto industry itself said it could reach in excess of 30 mpg fuel economy by 1985 with GM saying it could do 33 mpg."
So... by 2020, we will finally get cars that are about as efficient as what GM said they could provide by 1985.
Of course, you don't *have* to wait 12 years in the hope of getting a fuel efficient vehicle. You don't have to spend tons for a hybrid, or deal with a diesel. You could just buy a Toyota... made by a company that actually seems to realize that efficient vehicles are a good thing.
(They'd be even better if they started bringing over the wonderful, 6-year-old diesel version of the Yaris, that gets 63MPG.)
"Saying the reg applies to contractors and family members is one of the best examples of journalistic disingenuousness I've seen in quite some time."
You had best talk to Major Ray Ceralde, author of the regulation, who said:
"The 2007 regulation . . . emphasizes that in addition to Soldiers, Department of the Army Civilians, contractors, and U.S. Army Families must be included in practicing operational security."
"Conduct routine checks of web sites on the World Wide Web for disclosure of critical and/or sensitive information . . . Web sites include, but are not limited to, Family Readiness Group (FRG) pages, unofficial Army web sites. . . and personal published or unpublished works related to the Army."
So, why are they reviewing civilian websites if the goal isn't to potentially put pressure on ordinary civilians? It should be noted that I maintain an "unofficial Army web site". I also maintain a personal site with works relating to the Army.
So, why does the Army need to conduct routine checks of my website, if not to at least potentially send me nastygrams or warning notices? Will most civilians really know their rights -- or fight to uphold their rights -- in these matters, or will they consent to being "leaned on"?
Is the miliary toothless in this matter as regards civilians? Perhaps. But then again, if they can threaten your friends and family in the military, and possibly even threaten you, well... perhaps not.
Shouldn't we at least be a bit concerned that what might be toothless legislation now may not always be that way?
The point isn't that OPSEC is necessary, as many are simplistically framing this argument. This issue -- which isn't really denied -- is largely tangental to the new regulation changes. Rather, it's the fact that soldiers, contractors, their families, friends, etc. are no longer trusted to apply what they already know about OPSEC. Rather, they are being compelled into draconian security measures which do little to increase OPSEC, and much to increase censorship.
Every soldier knows that OPSEC is necessary and has been trained thoroughly on how to comply with OPSEC regulations. Soldiers in a combat zone know very well what they can and cannot say to people back home, and are professionals about it. Whenever there's even a smidgen of a potential OPSEC issue on a military forum, I have seen other soldiers chime in "OPSEC!" quite loudly, usually resulting in a thoughtful explanation of why the issue in question wasn't an OPSEC violation, or, in rare cases, an editing of the original post. Oftentimes the reason is that the media has already disclosed the information in question, which is, therefore, a matter of public record.
I run an online weblogging community for soldiers, and have interacted with hundreds of soldiers over the past few years. During that time period, not a single soldier has said anything so glaringly in violation of OPSEC. They don't telegraph their actions in such a detailed, explicit manner. Frankly, they rarely talk about where they are going until after they've arrived.
The wording of this new policy makes little to no difference in the level of OPSEC for soldiers who are currently deployed overseas, as compared to the previous policies. Rather, it specifically expands the level of OPSEC for soldiers and civilians who are at home. Under these new regulations, returned soldiers, contractors, families, and friends (i.e. me) of soldiers are all required to have everything they say pre-screened.
Well, as a civilian with free speech rights and a friend of many soldiers, I have to say no. Not just no, but hell no.
I have been maintaining a blog for over seven years now, and because of my unique situation, I have been in touch with numerous soldiers. I have also had the priviledge of making blog posts which matter, such as this one, where a friend of mine in the military specifically told me about this issue of Field Artillery Magazine, where it specifically says that white phosphorus was used in Fallujah for lethal "shake and bake" missions.
Prior to my "discovery" of this article, the U.S. State Department loudly proclaimed from their website that claims of WP attacks on Fallujah were merely enemy propaganda, and that it had been used for illumination purposes only. Afterwards -- and after I commented / spread the news to every blog on Technorati I could find that was discussing Fallujah -- the media picked up the story and the State Department corrected their statement.
In other words, your government lied to you, and it took an honest soldier citing public -- yet not widely known -- information to correct that lie.
This, by the way, is usually the way most of us get access to the truth. It took soldiers coming forward to bring out the truth of Abu Ghraib. It took soldiers and their families coming forward to expose the fact that they were being sent into harm's way without proper body armor. It took a soldier coming forward in a speech by Donald Rumsfeld to put an end to improvised "hillbilly armor" on Humvees.
So, if you want to defend proactively requiring them -- and I, as a friend of such soldiers -- from posting anything without prior approval from the powers that be, fine. Just expect to be kept in the dark and lied to a *LOT* more than you already are, and expect the negative, scandalously dangerous, unsafe, and irresponsible effects of poor government policies to get swept unde
Your comment is an overstated generalization that isn't particularly relevant to the issue at hand.
The point isn't that OPSEC is necessary. Every soldier knows that OPSEC is necessary and has been trained thoroughly on how to comply with OPSEC regulations. Soldiers in a combat zone know very well what they can and cannot say to people back home, and are professionals about it. Whenever there's even a smidgen of a potential OPSEC issue on a military forum, I have seen other soldiers chime in "OPSEC!" quite loudly, usually resulting in a thoughtful explanation of why the issue in question wasn't an OPSEC violation, or, in rare cases, an editing of the original post. Oftentimes the reason is that the media has already disclosed the information in question, which is, therefore, a matter of public record.
I run an online weblogging community for soldiers, and have interacted with hundreds of soldiers over the past few years. During that time period, not a single soldier has said anything so glaringly in violation of OPSEC. They don't telegraph their actions in such a detailed, explicit manner. Frankly, they rarely talk about where they are going until after they've arrived.
The wording of this new policy makes little to no difference in the level of OPSEC for soldiers who are currently deployed overseas, as compared to the previous policies. Rather, it specifically expands the level of OPSEC for soldiers and civilians who are at home. Under these new regulations, returned soldiers, contractors, families, and friends (i.e. me) of soldiers are all required to have everything they say pre-screened.
Well, as a civilian with free speech rights and a friend of many soldiers, I have to say no. Not just no, but hell no.
I have been maintaining a blog for over seven years now, and because of my unique situation, I have been in touch with numerous soldiers. I have also had the priviledge of making blog posts which matter, such as this one, where a friend of mine in the military specifically told me about this issue of Field Artillery Magazine, where it specifically says that white phosphorus was used in Fallujah for lethal "shake and bake" missions.
Prior to my "discovery" of this article, the U.S. State Department loudly proclaimed from their website that claims of WP attacks on Fallujah were merely enemy propaganda, and that it had been used for illumination purposes only. Afterwards -- and after I commented / spread the news to every blog on Technorati I could find that was discussing Fallujah -- the media picked up the story and the State Department corrected their statement.
In other words, your government lied to you, and it took an honest soldier citing public -- yet not widely known -- information to correct that lie.
This, by the way, is usually the way most of us get access to the truth. It took soldiers coming forward to bring out the truth of Abu Ghraib. It took soldiers and their families coming forward to expose the fact that they were being sent into harm's way without proper body armor. It took a soldier coming forward in a speech by Donald Rumsfeld to put an end to improvised "hillbilly armor" on Humvees.
So, if you want to defend proactively requiring them -- and I, as a friend of such soldiers -- from posting anything without prior approval from the powers that be, fine. Just expect to be kept in the dark and lied to a *LOT* more than you already are, and expect the negative, scandalously dangerous, unsafe, and irresponsible effects of poor government policies to get swept under the rug.
So yes, go ahead and argue for censorship. You might as well be arguing for security through obscurity, however, and we all know how well that argument holds up around here.
Yes, there is a place for secrecy regarding security matters, but that place is limited. You don't announce the gaping hole in
1> The RIAA somehow used a file on Kazaa to track the fact that someone at the IP address supposedly used by someone at Ms. Lindor's house.
2> The RIAA has searched Ms. Lindor's drives, finding some evidence of Kazaa... and yet they want to search the hard drives of her son, who is presumably an adult at this point who does not live at the same address.
What probable cause reason do they have to suspect the son, as opposed to everyone else who has been through the home, or even those who may have accessed any possible wireless network they may have in the house?
It may be worth asking the RIAA whether they have knowledge of everyone else who has been in, staying at, or invited to the residence over the past few years, and whether they were also investigated. Likewise, why is the son's home computer necessarily more of a suspect than, say, the father's work computer, the mother's work computer, any laptops the family or their friends may have access to, etc.
Also, ask the RIAA whether they have established the fact that the family does not or did not have wireless networking in the home at the time of the alleged offense. If the family could've had wireless networking in the house, then any of their neighbors could just as reasonably have had access to their network / IP address, and could've used it to download music over the internet.
So, basically establish a wide, wide array of possible suspects... and then say, given all of these, why is the son being targeted? What suspects have the RIAA ruled out from the long list you've offered to them -- do they truely have any kind of reasonable suspicion of the son, or are they simply on a fishing expedition?
Also, what was the mechanism involved in the RIAA's tracking of downloads anyway? Wasn't it a bit comparable to enticement or entrapment, with the mp3s in question being a kind of bait?
Mention the existence of webpage "links" to Kazaa downloads. Indicate that these links look like a whole lot of other links on the internet. Ask the people there whether they've ever clicked on or downloaded a link, and whether each time they did so, they were 100% positive that what they downloaded or opened had a legal right to be there. Point out that there have been cases where the RIAA has questioned the right of the artists themselves to make their own songs available for download.... so how is the public to know when it is and isn't legally permissable for them to do so?
Point out how common it is for artists nowadays to make free links to download some of their works selectively available, often to promote their website and encourage people to drop by. Artists do this. Labels do this. Online music magazines do this. Online music sales companies do this.... and the public basically has no way of determining whether such downloads are legally permissible, or, whether once such tracks are legally downloaded, whether they can copy the tracks to another computer, move them to another players, share them with their friends, etc. How do we know that the person who downloaded the allegedly infringed tracks didn't suspect the tracks were legal to download?
Although I have long been skeptical of Citizens Against Government Waste, this does seem awfully suspicious, given the level of -- entirely justified -- criticism you've had against the COS in the past. There are plenty of educators who have personal sites that contain content that the current administration might not agree with, but presumably CAGW aren't for taking down all staff websites for all colleges. So, why single you out for "wasting" a few pennies a year of the taxpayer's money? If you ask me, what you're doing is a public service.
While I can completely understand that you would be very unlikely to have evidence showing CAGW took money from the COS, what information do you have that suggests that CAGW basically ran with an article / story of the COS? Did they parrot a criticism weighed against you by the COS elsewhere, for example?
I also noticed that your site, scientologywatch.org, isn't up anymore. Is that a result of the COS attempt to take your domain name down for infringing on their trademark, or is there some other problem?
LiveJournal already has sections of its code base that aren't open source, so using software and style add-ons to their advantage isn't just possible... it's already happening.
It is, for instance, a fully-functional RSS aggregator, which means that you can subscribe to and read most major weblogs in your customized "friends list".
LiveJournal also has interest-based communities on every subject under the sun, whether your interest is perl, porn, or just things happening in your neighborhood. Some very well known open source geeks can be found on LiveJournal, including some of the staff of/.
If you have an interest in languages or travel, LiveJournal has tens of thousands of members in other countries, who can share their unique perspectives with you. I have used LJ to communicate with soldiers in Iraq, and tsunami victims in Thailand. I also use it to read music reviews, download mp3s, amusing videos, torrents, etc.
Above all, it's really simple to avoid LJ drama. Don't be a drama queen, don't befriend drama queens, and if someone leaves an inappropriate comment, ban them from posting again. Most of the people I have on my friends list are very intelligent people. Only a small handful of them are teenagers... so as far as my journal goes, drama simply doesn't exist because I simply chose to not invite it.
Those who think that LJ is just drama and pithy comments just don't know LJ, period.
I would qualify that statement to the following...
"Hardly anyone wants to read comic *books* on a monitor."
This is an important distinction, because it's worth pointing out that millions of people read comics (strips or single panels) every day through visiting websites, email, web-based syndication, etc. Also, millions of people view Flash animations, which are in many cases just another form of comics, made appropriate for the media.
The fact of the matter is that standard sized "pages" do not translate well onto the web, and people resist reading documents presented in such a manner. You'd think that PDFs would fix this problem, but unfortunately not. We can talk all day about how PDFs allow people to put up photo-quality artwork on the web, but the basic fact is that half the time, PDFs crash my browser, and even when they don't, they don't feel like a "normal" reading experience. I understand why they're used sometime, but more often than not, I just think of PDFs as "the lazy man's way to put print content on the web". I get a bit resentful that they didn't create the content for the web, thereby making it far more useful (and usable) for me.
If you want to get readers on the web, you need to make sure your content fits the media. In other words, design for the web or scale the size of your creations so that they fix in a browser better... not much compromise is needed.
A good case in point here is MegaTokyo. They are getting plenty of regular readers, feeding people a page at a time, and producing what is effectively a comic book, without the book. Of course, they also benefit by having a storyline that works very well on the Internet, too.
Also, there are creations by Scott McCloud and friends which are designed specifically for the web and make use of scrolling, etc. These are also good, and also tend to get a fair amount of readers.
Now, assuming you have a comic that is well-suited for the web, you have to deal with the issue of how you distribute it. Frankly, when it comes to the internet, the widest audience is always the audience who wants something for free... and why shouldn't they? After all, if you won't give them something for free, someone else will.
Free is actually not a bad business model, however... there are lots of people who give something away for free (Sinfest, Red Meat, Megatokyo, etc.) who get a lot of readers, a dedicated fan base, and who use that as a platform for making and selling books, merchandise, collecting donations, etc.
Sure, you can try to lock up your creations and sell them, but you have to realize that if you do that, your work will be exposed to fewer people overall. So, if you are trying to make a name for yourself, locking up your creation isn't the best way to do it.
The ultimate truth, however, is that you have to give the people what they want (or didn't know that they wanted...), in the way they want it. Do that, and you should do fine. Just don't expect fame and riches overnight, because it can take years of hard work to build an audience for anything, and once you have an audience, you have to maintain a "relationship" with them and keep them coming back.
Some people, like the Bill Wattersons and the Charles Schultzes of this world, can create that simple, humanistic bond with their audience in four panels. You, however, might have to work harder...
Both Todd Allen and Scott McCloud have so far overlooked the potential for using web-based syndication (RSS, SOAP, etc.) and weblogs as an important, rapidly growing method for promoting comics.
Almost all major weblogs and newspapers feature an RSS feed nowadays, but they are also important for online comic strips too. Eight of the ten most popular RSS feeds read by LiveJournal users are for comic strips, with a "scraped" feed of Calvin in Hobbes coming in as the most popular feed. Currently, it only has around 3,000 readers, but if you start adding in everyone else out there reading Calvin & Hobbes' RSS feed with some other type of reader, you're talking about a serious, rapidly growing number of recurring readers -- the kind of people most likely to buy merchandise or donate to help support their favorite artists.
Web-based syndication can be a good thing for comic creators. Tom Tomorrow gains extra readers for his weblog and his cartoons with his RSS feed, and there are several comic strip artists out there using weblogs to post their latest strips, interact with their fans, promote new merchandise, and, yes, automatically create syndicated feeds.
Because tools like Syndirella or Cheesegrater are making it easier for people to scrape content off of websites, it's safe to say that we are in the early stages of a "Napsterization" of comics on the Internet.
This could be bad news for the big syndicates and even for the publishers, but it could be great news for the artists. Yes, they might have to give their work away for free, but they can also control how their work is syndicated, too. They can decide for themselves what their business model will be and promote it using their own weblogs, with their own syndicated feed.
Here is a post I made several days ago on Metafilter regarding the xenu.net blocking.
Truth of the matter is that xenu.net wasn't the only site blocked. The owner of Xenu.net posted all the details to alt.religion.scientology.
In short, archive.org blocked a whole list of sites that the CoS objected to - not just one - and they did so without notifying the site owners that their material was blocked. This is a very wrongheaded thing for any site to do, much less one that is supposed to respect the historical value of archiving the Internet.
In order to get the legal protection that the DMCA offers, a site has to take down content almost immediately upon notification, *BUT* they are also obligated to try and notify the owner of that content about the take down. The owner of the content can then object to the take down, in which case the content can be unblocked. Legal action could then potentially be taken against the party who objected to the takedown of the content, with no liability whatsoever to the host of the content. Xenu.net was never given this option however. The owner of xenu.net also informed me the other day that archive.org has yet to respond to his requests for information regarding this issue.
Frankly, the minimum that archive.org could have done is to at least let its users know that threats from the CoS have caused them to block several sites about Scientology. Instead, they took down several sites (we still don't know which ones) without telling anybody. To me, this an act of cowardice. Did they have to block the content for legal reasons? Yes, I suspect they did. However, they didn't have to become a silent partner to an act of censorship.
"All that is needed for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good men to remain silent"... or words to that effect.
In other words, it's time for the sites that we all depend upon to wake up and grow a set.
I went to this webpage and submitted a letter to Elvis Costello, indicating my strong disapproval of him allowing his music to be used as a wedge to take away people's control over their computers; I will not buy any more of his albums until his position changes on this issue.
Despite its original intentions, TiVo is going to make television that much more annoying for everyone as a whole. There have already been studies released by those in the advertising industry that basically talk about these devices with great fear and loathing. The only alternative?! Put the commercials in the programs.
Expect more shows sponsored by particular advertisers, much like they were in the '50s. Also, I recently heard that there are deals in the works, such as with the show "Law and Order", to digitally add product placement advertising to syndicated broadcasts. The same will probably happen with movies too.
If I see bottles of Coca~Cola all over Casablanca, I'm going to puke...
What are the real costs of running an ASP anyway? Not much. Why are all these ASPs going under? Because of all the salaries that are supported in "professional" corporations.
Let's be plain. An ASP doesn't need a team of marketers, much less a VP or a CEO that's making $7M a year.
The death of dotcoms will be the best thing that has ever happened to open source. Why? Because we can successfully offer services that dotcoms can't afford to run anymore. We might even be able to make a living off of it...
LiveJournal is an open source ASP and we're able to deliver a free, open source service to 175,000 users at a profit, with actual paid staff. There is absolutely no reason that someone couldn't do the same thing with other ASPs.
When was the last time that a dotcom really solved your problem anyways? They're all about profit and rarely about innovation anyways; the sooner that the bad ones go away, the better off we'll all be. Stop relying on these f*cked companies to solve all your problems for you.
I can only speak for us, but I know that LiveJournal, for one, would gladly host open source projects and offer them free online communities. I'm sure that others would do the same.
Why don't you ask your PBS station whether donations are unpredictable or not... they'll laugh at you. They get a predictable percentage of donations based on total viewers. They also know that how they represent themselves and the value of what they bring to their respective audiences can significantly effect their incomes too.
Donations on the larger scale are VERY predictable, but it all comes down to this -- your work is only worth as much as others value it.
Congrats to freenet on their first staff member. It is an accomplishment, but they, like many open source projects, have a lot to learn when it comes to raising funds.
I am the "All things business" manager at LiveJournal, an open source, member supported community. We've raised around $80,000 since we started doing memberships, and now have three paid staffmembers.
I think the ultimate goal of open source projects should be to empower both users and designers. Part of that empowerment is making it possible for people to support the project, not only as coders and developers, but as active donors to the site. It's time for open source projects to put out the virtual tip jar... but the question I hear a lot is how do you make it work so that people actually support what you create?
The answer is kinda simple. You communicate with them, empower them, encourage them, get them to trust you, and ideally give them what they want. Admittedly, we do community design at LJ, so it's easier to build that kind of communication, but the same principles apply, and there are a ton of open source tools out there to add community to your website. Use them. Don't just throw some content up on a site that only a machine could love... Be human. Design your software for humans, too. Make communication easier within your group, and take the time to build in community on your site before you start building your software.
It is painfully hard for a group of people to build anything without effective communication. Don't take it for granted.
Re:Interesting, but I wouldn't want it...
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Yeah, right. Signals down the power line. That's so far in the future that it's funny..."
Actually, it's not. There are major consumer oriented installations of this technology going on in Germany right now, and there are companies that claim to have solved the problem with transformers, surges, ripple control, etc.
Broadband down the power line will be feasible for many, many people sooner than you would think; certainly years before this sound card idea...
Interesting, but I wouldn't want it...
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... and I'm not sure I would call it broadband either.
As it says at their site, it is currently only able to reach speeds of 96 kbps. Why not use a modem instead?
Other things worth noting:
"Running on a 333 MHz AMD K6-2 processor, the software modem consumes about 38% of the CPU cycles." - Ouch. And that's on Linux. I wouldn't want to try something of the sort on Windoze with a few browser windows and an app or two open.
Could this technology become interesting? Perhaps... maybe in three years when they have the bugs worked out and the code optimized, you can use it to get 256 kbps, maybe... Personally, I'm not planning on waiting that long!
There are so many better solutions out there, and if you want my opinion, the real future of broadband is in the wire that is already running into your house. No, not the phone wire. This one. Now serving over 90% of the world's population...
Slashdot Mirror
It's important to recognize that hydrogen is not an energy source as it currently stands, due to the amount of energy needed to separate it. As such, it's more of a portable storage mechanism for energy, requiring about three times the equivalent amount of energy as battery technology to power vehicles. That means if you want green cars, you can use solar-generated energy to charge three battery-powered vehicles for the energy required to power one hydrogen vehicle. Can you think of a good rationale for requiring three times the amount of green power generation and three times the expense in order to support a hydrogen car infrastructure? No? Neither can I. That's why hydrogen has been a lame duck lately. What this discovery does, essentially, is make it theoretically possible for hydrogen to be about as efficient as TODAY'S battery technology, IF CREATED UNDER IDEAL CIRCUMSTANCES. That's important, as there could be an energy cost associated with getting urea in a form and to a location required for processing into hydrogen. It also does not address the energy and infrastructure costs stemming from the delivery of hydrogen to the consumer. In other words, it's almost as efficient as batteries today, but probably has some hard scientific limitations on just how efficient this process can get which are more rigid than the technical limitations regarding tomorrow's battery technology, which has been improving considerably. So there are serious reasons to suspect that hydrogen would be rather inefficient compared to batteries in the future. So, it's a temporary draw, but quite possibly a longterm loss. Batteries and flywheels are likely to be the longterm winners.
Take your raid arrays and storage racks and blast them into space. Problem solved. (Good for overheating issues, too!)
Maybe it's me, but this seems like about the first time that someone over at PC Mag has actually said something intelligent about filesharing, rather than tsk-tsking about piracy.
"...until then, I'm with the crypto-anarchists."
An anonymous, consumer/innovation-friendly internet?! That's treas... um... well, it's kinda like common sense, isn't it?!
Given that you can go to Google and do searches capable of finding thousands of illegal mp3s, how do you differentiate sites like Google from The Pirate Bay? Is it their claim similar to that used against Napster, where the prior statements of the site -- and in particular, its name -- were an incitement to illegal behavior on the part of others? If so, couldn't someone else legally operate a Pirate Bay clone, so long as they make a point of never getting close to advocating illegal downloads, or perhaps even specifically warning people not to do so?
From http://www.nader.org/interest/041104.html :
"In 1981 Joan Claybrook, . . . the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) . . . advanced a NHTSA notice that called for fuel efficiency standards to reach 48 mpg by 1995. Interestingly the notice pointed out that the auto industry itself said it could reach in excess of 30 mpg fuel economy by 1985 with GM saying it could do 33 mpg."
So... by 2020, we will finally get cars that are about as efficient as what GM said they could provide by 1985.
Of course, you don't *have* to wait 12 years in the hope of getting a fuel efficient vehicle. You don't have to spend tons for a hybrid, or deal with a diesel. You could just buy a Toyota... made by a company that actually seems to realize that efficient vehicles are a good thing.
(They'd be even better if they started bringing over the wonderful, 6-year-old diesel version of the Yaris, that gets 63MPG.)
"Saying the reg applies to contractors and family members is one of the best examples of journalistic disingenuousness I've seen in quite some time."
You had best talk to Major Ray Ceralde, author of the regulation, who said:
"The 2007 regulation . . . emphasizes that in addition to Soldiers, Department of the Army Civilians, contractors, and U.S. Army Families must be included in practicing operational security."
"Conduct routine checks of web sites on the World Wide Web for disclosure of critical and/or sensitive information . . . Web sites include, but are not limited to, Family Readiness Group (FRG) pages, unofficial Army web sites. . . and personal published or unpublished works related to the Army."
So, why are they reviewing civilian websites if the goal isn't to potentially put pressure on ordinary civilians? It should be noted that I maintain an "unofficial Army web site". I also maintain a personal site with works relating to the Army.
So, why does the Army need to conduct routine checks of my website, if not to at least potentially send me nastygrams or warning notices? Will most civilians really know their rights -- or fight to uphold their rights -- in these matters, or will they consent to being "leaned on"?
Is the miliary toothless in this matter as regards civilians? Perhaps. But then again, if they can threaten your friends and family in the military, and possibly even threaten you, well... perhaps not.
Shouldn't we at least be a bit concerned that what might be toothless legislation now may not always be that way?
The point isn't that OPSEC is necessary, as many are simplistically framing this argument. This issue -- which isn't really denied -- is largely tangental to the new regulation changes. Rather, it's the fact that soldiers, contractors, their families, friends, etc. are no longer trusted to apply what they already know about OPSEC. Rather, they are being compelled into draconian security measures which do little to increase OPSEC, and much to increase censorship.
Every soldier knows that OPSEC is necessary and has been trained thoroughly on how to comply with OPSEC regulations. Soldiers in a combat zone know very well what they can and cannot say to people back home, and are professionals about it. Whenever there's even a smidgen of a potential OPSEC issue on a military forum, I have seen other soldiers chime in "OPSEC!" quite loudly, usually resulting in a thoughtful explanation of why the issue in question wasn't an OPSEC violation, or, in rare cases, an editing of the original post. Oftentimes the reason is that the media has already disclosed the information in question, which is, therefore, a matter of public record.
I run an online weblogging community for soldiers, and have interacted with hundreds of soldiers over the past few years. During that time period, not a single soldier has said anything so glaringly in violation of OPSEC. They don't telegraph their actions in such a detailed, explicit manner. Frankly, they rarely talk about where they are going until after they've arrived.
The wording of this new policy makes little to no difference in the level of OPSEC for soldiers who are currently deployed overseas, as compared to the previous policies. Rather, it specifically expands the level of OPSEC for soldiers and civilians who are at home. Under these new regulations, returned soldiers, contractors, families, and friends (i.e. me) of soldiers are all required to have everything they say pre-screened.
Well, as a civilian with free speech rights and a friend of many soldiers, I have to say no. Not just no, but hell no.
I have been maintaining a blog for over seven years now, and because of my unique situation, I have been in touch with numerous soldiers. I have also had the priviledge of making blog posts which matter, such as this one, where a friend of mine in the military specifically told me about this issue of Field Artillery Magazine, where it specifically says that white phosphorus was used in Fallujah for lethal "shake and bake" missions.
Prior to my "discovery" of this article, the U.S. State Department loudly proclaimed from their website that claims of WP attacks on Fallujah were merely enemy propaganda, and that it had been used for illumination purposes only. Afterwards -- and after I commented / spread the news to every blog on Technorati I could find that was discussing Fallujah -- the media picked up the story and the State Department corrected their statement.
In other words, your government lied to you, and it took an honest soldier citing public -- yet not widely known -- information to correct that lie.
This, by the way, is usually the way most of us get access to the truth. It took soldiers coming forward to bring out the truth of Abu Ghraib. It took soldiers and their families coming forward to expose the fact that they were being sent into harm's way without proper body armor. It took a soldier coming forward in a speech by Donald Rumsfeld to put an end to improvised "hillbilly armor" on Humvees.
So, if you want to defend proactively requiring them -- and I, as a friend of such soldiers -- from posting anything without prior approval from the powers that be, fine. Just expect to be kept in the dark and lied to a *LOT* more than you already are, and expect the negative, scandalously dangerous, unsafe, and irresponsible effects of poor government policies to get swept unde
Your comment is an overstated generalization that isn't particularly relevant to the issue at hand.
The point isn't that OPSEC is necessary. Every soldier knows that OPSEC is necessary and has been trained thoroughly on how to comply with OPSEC regulations. Soldiers in a combat zone know very well what they can and cannot say to people back home, and are professionals about it. Whenever there's even a smidgen of a potential OPSEC issue on a military forum, I have seen other soldiers chime in "OPSEC!" quite loudly, usually resulting in a thoughtful explanation of why the issue in question wasn't an OPSEC violation, or, in rare cases, an editing of the original post. Oftentimes the reason is that the media has already disclosed the information in question, which is, therefore, a matter of public record.
I run an online weblogging community for soldiers, and have interacted with hundreds of soldiers over the past few years. During that time period, not a single soldier has said anything so glaringly in violation of OPSEC. They don't telegraph their actions in such a detailed, explicit manner. Frankly, they rarely talk about where they are going until after they've arrived.
The wording of this new policy makes little to no difference in the level of OPSEC for soldiers who are currently deployed overseas, as compared to the previous policies. Rather, it specifically expands the level of OPSEC for soldiers and civilians who are at home. Under these new regulations, returned soldiers, contractors, families, and friends (i.e. me) of soldiers are all required to have everything they say pre-screened.
Well, as a civilian with free speech rights and a friend of many soldiers, I have to say no. Not just no, but hell no.
I have been maintaining a blog for over seven years now, and because of my unique situation, I have been in touch with numerous soldiers. I have also had the priviledge of making blog posts which matter, such as this one, where a friend of mine in the military specifically told me about this issue of Field Artillery Magazine, where it specifically says that white phosphorus was used in Fallujah for lethal "shake and bake" missions.
Prior to my "discovery" of this article, the U.S. State Department loudly proclaimed from their website that claims of WP attacks on Fallujah were merely enemy propaganda, and that it had been used for illumination purposes only. Afterwards -- and after I commented / spread the news to every blog on Technorati I could find that was discussing Fallujah -- the media picked up the story and the State Department corrected their statement.
In other words, your government lied to you, and it took an honest soldier citing public -- yet not widely known -- information to correct that lie.
This, by the way, is usually the way most of us get access to the truth. It took soldiers coming forward to bring out the truth of Abu Ghraib. It took soldiers and their families coming forward to expose the fact that they were being sent into harm's way without proper body armor. It took a soldier coming forward in a speech by Donald Rumsfeld to put an end to improvised "hillbilly armor" on Humvees.
So, if you want to defend proactively requiring them -- and I, as a friend of such soldiers -- from posting anything without prior approval from the powers that be, fine. Just expect to be kept in the dark and lied to a *LOT* more than you already are, and expect the negative, scandalously dangerous, unsafe, and irresponsible effects of poor government policies to get swept under the rug.
So yes, go ahead and argue for censorship. You might as well be arguing for security through obscurity, however, and we all know how well that argument holds up around here.
Yes, there is a place for secrecy regarding security matters, but that place is limited. You don't announce the gaping hole in
So, from what I understand:
1> The RIAA somehow used a file on Kazaa to track the fact that someone at the IP address supposedly used by someone at Ms. Lindor's house.
2> The RIAA has searched Ms. Lindor's drives, finding some evidence of Kazaa... and yet they want to search the hard drives of her son, who is presumably an adult at this point who does not live at the same address.
What probable cause reason do they have to suspect the son, as opposed to everyone else who has been through the home, or even those who may have accessed any possible wireless network they may have in the house?
It may be worth asking the RIAA whether they have knowledge of everyone else who has been in, staying at, or invited to the residence over the past few years, and whether they were also investigated. Likewise, why is the son's home computer necessarily more of a suspect than, say, the father's work computer, the mother's work computer, any laptops the family or their friends may have access to, etc.
Also, ask the RIAA whether they have established the fact that the family does not or did not have wireless networking in the home at the time of the alleged offense. If the family could've had wireless networking in the house, then any of their neighbors could just as reasonably have had access to their network / IP address, and could've used it to download music over the internet.
So, basically establish a wide, wide array of possible suspects... and then say, given all of these, why is the son being targeted? What suspects have the RIAA ruled out from the long list you've offered to them -- do they truely have any kind of reasonable suspicion of the son, or are they simply on a fishing expedition?
Also, what was the mechanism involved in the RIAA's tracking of downloads anyway? Wasn't it a bit comparable to enticement or entrapment, with the mp3s in question being a kind of bait?
Mention the existence of webpage "links" to Kazaa downloads. Indicate that these links look like a whole lot of other links on the internet. Ask the people there whether they've ever clicked on or downloaded a link, and whether each time they did so, they were 100% positive that what they downloaded or opened had a legal right to be there. Point out that there have been cases where the RIAA has questioned the right of the artists themselves to make their own songs available for download.... so how is the public to know when it is and isn't legally permissable for them to do so?
Point out how common it is for artists nowadays to make free links to download some of their works selectively available, often to promote their website and encourage people to drop by. Artists do this. Labels do this. Online music magazines do this. Online music sales companies do this.... and the public basically has no way of determining whether such downloads are legally permissible, or, whether once such tracks are legally downloaded, whether they can copy the tracks to another computer, move them to another players, share them with their friends, etc. How do we know that the person who downloaded the allegedly infringed tracks didn't suspect the tracks were legal to download?
Although I have long been skeptical of Citizens Against Government Waste, this does seem awfully suspicious, given the level of -- entirely justified -- criticism you've had against the COS in the past. There are plenty of educators who have personal sites that contain content that the current administration might not agree with, but presumably CAGW aren't for taking down all staff websites for all colleges. So, why single you out for "wasting" a few pennies a year of the taxpayer's money? If you ask me, what you're doing is a public service.
While I can completely understand that you would be very unlikely to have evidence showing CAGW took money from the COS, what information do you have that suggests that CAGW basically ran with an article / story of the COS? Did they parrot a criticism weighed against you by the COS elsewhere, for example?
I also noticed that your site, scientologywatch.org, isn't up anymore. Is that a result of the COS attempt to take your domain name down for infringing on their trademark, or is there some other problem?
LiveJournal already has sections of its code base that aren't open source, so using software and style add-ons to their advantage isn't just possible... it's already happening.
LiveJournal is a lot more than most people think.
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It is, for instance, a fully-functional RSS aggregator, which means that you can subscribe to and read most major weblogs in your customized "friends list".
LiveJournal also has interest-based communities on every subject under the sun, whether your interest is perl, porn, or just things happening in your neighborhood. Some very well known open source geeks can be found on LiveJournal, including some of the staff of
If you have an interest in languages or travel, LiveJournal has tens of thousands of members in other countries, who can share their unique perspectives with you. I have used LJ to communicate with soldiers in Iraq, and tsunami victims in Thailand. I also use it to read music reviews, download mp3s, amusing videos, torrents, etc.
Above all, it's really simple to avoid LJ drama. Don't be a drama queen, don't befriend drama queens, and if someone leaves an inappropriate comment, ban them from posting again. Most of the people I have on my friends list are very intelligent people. Only a small handful of them are teenagers... so as far as my journal goes, drama simply doesn't exist because I simply chose to not invite it.
Those who think that LJ is just drama and pithy comments just don't know LJ, period.
I would qualify that statement to the following...
"Hardly anyone wants to read comic *books* on a monitor."
This is an important distinction, because it's worth pointing out that millions of people read comics (strips or single panels) every day through visiting websites, email, web-based syndication, etc. Also, millions of people view Flash animations, which are in many cases just another form of comics, made appropriate for the media.
The fact of the matter is that standard sized "pages" do not translate well onto the web, and people resist reading documents presented in such a manner. You'd think that PDFs would fix this problem, but unfortunately not. We can talk all day about how PDFs allow people to put up photo-quality artwork on the web, but the basic fact is that half the time, PDFs crash my browser, and even when they don't, they don't feel like a "normal" reading experience. I understand why they're used sometime, but more often than not, I just think of PDFs as "the lazy man's way to put print content on the web". I get a bit resentful that they didn't create the content for the web, thereby making it far more useful (and usable) for me.
If you want to get readers on the web, you need to make sure your content fits the media. In other words, design for the web or scale the size of your creations so that they fix in a browser better... not much compromise is needed.
A good case in point here is MegaTokyo. They are getting plenty of regular readers, feeding people a page at a time, and producing what is effectively a comic book, without the book. Of course, they also benefit by having a storyline that works very well on the Internet, too.
Also, there are creations by Scott McCloud and friends which are designed specifically for the web and make use of scrolling, etc. These are also good, and also tend to get a fair amount of readers.
Now, assuming you have a comic that is well-suited for the web, you have to deal with the issue of how you distribute it. Frankly, when it comes to the internet, the widest audience is always the audience who wants something for free... and why shouldn't they? After all, if you won't give them something for free, someone else will.
Free is actually not a bad business model, however... there are lots of people who give something away for free (Sinfest, Red Meat, Megatokyo, etc.) who get a lot of readers, a dedicated fan base, and who use that as a platform for making and selling books, merchandise, collecting donations, etc.
Sure, you can try to lock up your creations and sell them, but you have to realize that if you do that, your work will be exposed to fewer people overall. So, if you are trying to make a name for yourself, locking up your creation isn't the best way to do it.
The ultimate truth, however, is that you have to give the people what they want (or didn't know that they wanted...), in the way they want it. Do that, and you should do fine. Just don't expect fame and riches overnight, because it can take years of hard work to build an audience for anything, and once you have an audience, you have to maintain a "relationship" with them and keep them coming back.
Some people, like the Bill Wattersons and the Charles Schultzes of this world, can create that simple, humanistic bond with their audience in four panels. You, however, might have to work harder...
Both Todd Allen and Scott McCloud have so far overlooked the potential for using web-based syndication (RSS, SOAP, etc.) and weblogs as an important, rapidly growing method for promoting comics.
Almost all major weblogs and newspapers feature an RSS feed nowadays, but they are also important for online comic strips too. Eight of the ten most popular RSS feeds read by LiveJournal users are for comic strips, with a "scraped" feed of Calvin in Hobbes coming in as the most popular feed. Currently, it only has around 3,000 readers, but if you start adding in everyone else out there reading Calvin & Hobbes' RSS feed with some other type of reader, you're talking about a serious, rapidly growing number of recurring readers -- the kind of people most likely to buy merchandise or donate to help support their favorite artists.
Web-based syndication can be a good thing for comic creators. Tom Tomorrow gains extra readers for his weblog and his cartoons with his RSS feed, and there are several comic strip artists out there using weblogs to post their latest strips, interact with their fans, promote new merchandise, and, yes, automatically create syndicated feeds.
Because tools like Syndirella or Cheesegrater are making it easier for people to scrape content off of websites, it's safe to say that we are in the early stages of a "Napsterization" of comics on the Internet.
This could be bad news for the big syndicates and even for the publishers, but it could be great news for the artists. Yes, they might have to give their work away for free, but they can also control how their work is syndicated, too. They can decide for themselves what their business model will be and promote it using their own weblogs, with their own syndicated feed.
All they need is an online tip jar...
Oops. Here is a post I made several days ago on Metafilter regarding the xenu.net blocking...
Here is a post I made several days ago on Metafilter regarding the xenu.net blocking.
Truth of the matter is that xenu.net wasn't the only site blocked. The owner of Xenu.net posted all the details to alt.religion.scientology.
In short, archive.org blocked a whole list of sites that the CoS objected to - not just one - and they did so without notifying the site owners that their material was blocked. This is a very wrongheaded thing for any site to do, much less one that is supposed to respect the historical value of archiving the Internet.
In order to get the legal protection that the DMCA offers, a site has to take down content almost immediately upon notification, *BUT* they are also obligated to try and notify the owner of that content about the take down. The owner of the content can then object to the take down, in which case the content can be unblocked. Legal action could then potentially be taken against the party who objected to the takedown of the content, with no liability whatsoever to the host of the content. Xenu.net was never given this option however. The owner of xenu.net also informed me the other day that archive.org has yet to respond to his requests for information regarding this issue.
Frankly, the minimum that archive.org could have done is to at least let its users know that threats from the CoS have caused them to block several sites about Scientology. Instead, they took down several sites (we still don't know which ones) without telling anybody. To me, this an act of cowardice. Did they have to block the content for legal reasons? Yes, I suspect they did. However, they didn't have to become a silent partner to an act of censorship.
"All that is needed for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good men to remain silent"... or words to that effect.
In other words, it's time for the sites that we all depend upon to wake up and grow a set.
I went to this webpage and submitted a letter to Elvis Costello, indicating my strong disapproval of him allowing his music to be used as a wedge to take away people's control over their computers; I will not buy any more of his albums until his position changes on this issue.
You might want to do the same...
Expect more shows sponsored by particular advertisers, much like they were in the '50s. Also, I recently heard that there are deals in the works, such as with the show "Law and Order", to digitally add product placement advertising to syndicated broadcasts. The same will probably happen with movies too.
If I see bottles of Coca~Cola all over Casablanca, I'm going to puke...
Who is behind it? Probably the San Jose Mercury News. Those are the same fonts used for Dan Gillmor's weblog, for instance.
Let's be plain. An ASP doesn't need a team of marketers, much less a VP or a CEO that's making $7M a year.
The death of dotcoms will be the best thing that has ever happened to open source. Why? Because we can successfully offer services that dotcoms can't afford to run anymore. We might even be able to make a living off of it...
LiveJournal is an open source ASP and we're able to deliver a free, open source service to 175,000 users at a profit, with actual paid staff. There is absolutely no reason that someone couldn't do the same thing with other ASPs.
When was the last time that a dotcom really solved your problem anyways? They're all about profit and rarely about innovation anyways; the sooner that the bad ones go away, the better off we'll all be. Stop relying on these f*cked companies to solve all your problems for you.
I can only speak for us, but I know that LiveJournal, for one, would gladly host open source projects and offer them free online communities. I'm sure that others would do the same.
Donations on the larger scale are VERY predictable, but it all comes down to this -- your work is only worth as much as others value it.
I am the "All things business" manager at LiveJournal, an open source, member supported community. We've raised around $80,000 since we started doing memberships, and now have three paid staffmembers.
I think the ultimate goal of open source projects should be to empower both users and designers. Part of that empowerment is making it possible for people to support the project, not only as coders and developers, but as active donors to the site. It's time for open source projects to put out the virtual tip jar... but the question I hear a lot is how do you make it work so that people actually support what you create?
The answer is kinda simple. You communicate with them, empower them, encourage them, get them to trust you, and ideally give them what they want. Admittedly, we do community design at LJ, so it's easier to build that kind of communication, but the same principles apply, and there are a ton of open source tools out there to add community to your website. Use them. Don't just throw some content up on a site that only a machine could love... Be human. Design your software for humans, too. Make communication easier within your group, and take the time to build in community on your site before you start building your software.
It is painfully hard for a group of people to build anything without effective communication. Don't take it for granted.
Actually, it's not. There are major consumer oriented installations of this technology going on in Germany right now, and there are companies that claim to have solved the problem with transformers, surges, ripple control, etc. Broadband down the power line will be feasible for many, many people sooner than you would think; certainly years before this sound card idea...
As it says at their site, it is currently only able to reach speeds of 96 kbps. Why not use a modem instead?
Other things worth noting: "Running on a 333 MHz AMD K6-2 processor, the software modem consumes about 38% of the CPU cycles." - Ouch. And that's on Linux. I wouldn't want to try something of the sort on Windoze with a few browser windows and an app or two open.
Could this technology become interesting? Perhaps... maybe in three years when they have the bugs worked out and the code optimized, you can use it to get 256 kbps, maybe... Personally, I'm not planning on waiting that long!
There are so many better solutions out there, and if you want my opinion, the real future of broadband is in the wire that is already running into your house. No, not the phone wire. This one. Now serving over 90% of the world's population...