Problem is, the RIAA is not "law enforcement". That is why this has become a privacy issue. If these guys were being criminally prosecuted by the government, then of course Verizon would have to hand over their info; that still doesn't make the law criminalizing the behavior right, but it's a far cry from being asked to hand over this kind of information to a corporation or other private entity.
I object to federal legislation that mandates that all libraries have to have stupid useless filtering software, that mandates that v chips must be installed in every TV, etc. What set me off was the commonly bandied about "A parent can't spend every waking moment over his child's shoulder" which is used to justify all manner of government nannyism. Whether GreyPoopon intended it that way or not, that is the most invidious means of the "it's for the children" crowd to take my rights away, both as an individual myself and as a parent. I do not have any objection to such capabilities being offered as an option, or, for the library example, if a given community wants to use them, but please spare me the stuff about not being able to be your kids' constant overseer; that doesn't justify federal involvement in any of these issues.
You know, I have little to no sympathy for Creationism as espoused by fundamentalist Christians, but labelling things you don't like and don't agree with as "quackery" is the fastest way I know of to prove that you're just as damned dogmatic about your own point of view as the fundies. You & James Randi are some of the most dogmatic, closed minded sons-of-bitches on the planet.
Yes, I was speaking about parents in general. My apologies for not making that clearer. I do honestly think that if you need to worry about your kid flipping the channel to The Mummy, perhaps you ought not leave the remote there for him to grab while you go to the bathroom.
There is no reason why parents should be forbidden aids that help them manage the technologies they and their children use.
Perhaps you need to review what I've said and point out where I said that parents should be forbidden such aids, instead of assuming that you can infer my "ideology" through one or two short posts to slashdot.
Anyone who says the global climate isn't warming is smoking crack.
However, anyone who says they KNOW that we're significantly contributing to it is also smoking crack.
It's not about who believes in global warming, it's who believes in "Global Warming" which is largely dogmatic scare tactics to turn us back into luddites.
No, the real question is why you are assuming, a priori, that our greenhouse gasses are the sole cause of the current warming trend. Especially in light of evidence that in the past we had warming trends that were much more significant in the absence of the same greenhouse gas production you're trying to stop.
Show me the money. Show me the proof (not a computer model which can be jiggered any old way to fit your biases--and I don't mean that people are doing so consciously or with malice, but it does happen) that our own contributions to the climate are more significant than those of the sun or of other factors.
I think given that we don't even half understand all the things that influence climate (we can't predict weather reliably more than a day or two in advance even now) it is far too premature to say we know for a fact that this tempurature spike is our fault. Reality is, it would be good to limit things, but we have to negotiate from the standpoint of where we really are: we SUSPECT rather than we KNOW. People who run around saying we know are only damaging the credibility of anyone else who has honest concerns about our contributions to global warming.
Though personally, I'm not inclined to agree that environmentalism is a purely political issue.
I used to think that too. Then a conservative friend of mine noted that he had quit the Sierra Club after repeatedly having to sit through tirades about Republicans that had not one damn thing to do with actual environmental issues. Looking around, talking with him, reading some of what passed as "discussion" in environmental circles, it became quite apparent that the majority of "greens" have hooked their wagons to a particular rigid point of view about what is and what should be, and have stopped thinking about the general point of science, which is to be flexible and seek truth.
Of course this goes on in most scientific fields--an orthodoxy is established, moves some sort of progress forward, and eventually something comes along to break down or modify the orthodoxy in strange new directions--but in environmental science, and particular around the issue of Global Warming, the orthodoxy is particularly entrenched and fighting particularly hard to hold its position regardless of the facts.
I don't think any reasonable person is going to argue with you that the right thing to do is to modify human behavior to best balance between "progress" and the environment (my conservative friend is among those reasonable people). Unfortunately, most of the so called "environmentalists" have already made up their mind and don't want to discuss it any further. It's like trying to have a religious discussion with Jerry Falwell, and people are just as incensed when these people try to shove their environmental religion down our throats as they are when the (im)Moral Majority does.
I stopped going to church, I experimented with drugs and alcohol but didn't kill myself or anyone else, I had more sex than I otherwise would have, though in retrospect not as much as I could have. Why does it matter? The point is, it is possible as a parent, even as two working parents (as mine were), to instill your values into your child sufficiently to help them protect themselves against the things you feel they should be protected against. It takes work to accomplish, no questions and not to lessen the effort, but it's not the impossibility "without government assistance" that many seem to want to act like it is. It's only impossible if you treat your kids like a part-time job.
A parent cannot look over their child's shoulder during every waking hour.
A parent can work to instill their values in the child to the point where they do not NEED to look over their child's shoulder every waking hour. My parents managed quite well, and I didn't stray very far from what they taught me until I was in college and adult enough to make my own choices. I hope that I can do as well with my son.
I have little sympathy for the point of view that as a parent you don't want to spend your time watching TV with your children, you don't want to be around when they're surfing the net, etc. There are plenty of simple straightforward ways to be present enough to reinforce your values with your children (computers and TVs go only in the public areas of the house, for one big example). If you think your child needs a nanny to make sure they're where they belong, then you better be that nanny, or hire someone who can be one, instead of fooling yourself that they aren't going to be smart enough to foil whatever technological blocks you put in their way.
There's a difference between the number of discs in your plan (in this case the "5 disc plan" meaning you can have 5 out at a time) and the number of discs you rent over time.
Thing is, Penny Arcade didn't use any Strawberry Shortcake images. It was all new artwork, in no way close to the style of the "original", so all they did was use a name and a concept (the girls in strawberry/plum clothing).
That's a far cry from actually appropriating Dr Seuss artwork for your own parody.
So that once the script kiddies or black hats get access to the eavesdropping features, nobody can hold them accountable. (not to mention watching the watchmen).
And if, after I've built my MythTV box, I decide I hate it, I still have a kickass PC system to do something else with (maybe even sell to someone for more than I paid to build it), and freedom to go buy a TiVo. Voila!
I didn't say I was writing my own system from scratch, did I? Any Geek time spent doing this would have been spent playing half life or some other equally useless thing anyway, so what's your beef?
And you will be stuck paying a monthly fee to the service provider until they go out of business, you may be locked into firmware upgrades which may restrict your ability to do things like skipping commercials, etc.
Personally, I prefer the idea of building something that I know I have full rights to modify as I see fit and don't have to pay perpetual fees for.
I don't think I really mistake that, nor do most people (at least engineers) agitating for electronic voting. Obviously auditability is a critical design spec that MUST be met or all other features are worthless.
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Problem is, the RIAA is not "law enforcement". That is why this has become a privacy issue. If these guys were being criminally prosecuted by the government, then of course Verizon would have to hand over their info; that still doesn't make the law criminalizing the behavior right, but it's a far cry from being asked to hand over this kind of information to a corporation or other private entity.
I object to federal legislation that mandates that all libraries have to have stupid useless filtering software, that mandates that v chips must be installed in every TV, etc. What set me off was the commonly bandied about "A parent can't spend every waking moment over his child's shoulder" which is used to justify all manner of government nannyism. Whether GreyPoopon intended it that way or not, that is the most invidious means of the "it's for the children" crowd to take my rights away, both as an individual myself and as a parent. I do not have any objection to such capabilities being offered as an option, or, for the library example, if a given community wants to use them, but please spare me the stuff about not being able to be your kids' constant overseer; that doesn't justify federal involvement in any of these issues.
Except most of the people on the "we have to stop global warming" bandwagon are not advocating "no more donuts". They're advocating a starvation diet.
You know, I have little to no sympathy for Creationism as espoused by fundamentalist Christians, but labelling things you don't like and don't agree with as "quackery" is the fastest way I know of to prove that you're just as damned dogmatic about your own point of view as the fundies. You & James Randi are some of the most dogmatic, closed minded sons-of-bitches on the planet.
Yes, I was speaking about parents in general. My apologies for not making that clearer. I do honestly think that if you need to worry about your kid flipping the channel to The Mummy, perhaps you ought not leave the remote there for him to grab while you go to the bathroom.
Perhaps you need to review what I've said and point out where I said that parents should be forbidden such aids, instead of assuming that you can infer my "ideology" through one or two short posts to slashdot.
However, anyone who says they KNOW that we're significantly contributing to it is also smoking crack.
It's not about who believes in global warming, it's who believes in "Global Warming" which is largely dogmatic scare tactics to turn us back into luddites.
Show me the money. Show me the proof (not a computer model which can be jiggered any old way to fit your biases--and I don't mean that people are doing so consciously or with malice, but it does happen) that our own contributions to the climate are more significant than those of the sun or of other factors.
I think given that we don't even half understand all the things that influence climate (we can't predict weather reliably more than a day or two in advance even now) it is far too premature to say we know for a fact that this tempurature spike is our fault. Reality is, it would be good to limit things, but we have to negotiate from the standpoint of where we really are: we SUSPECT rather than we KNOW. People who run around saying we know are only damaging the credibility of anyone else who has honest concerns about our contributions to global warming.
I used to think that too. Then a conservative friend of mine noted that he had quit the Sierra Club after repeatedly having to sit through tirades about Republicans that had not one damn thing to do with actual environmental issues. Looking around, talking with him, reading some of what passed as "discussion" in environmental circles, it became quite apparent that the majority of "greens" have hooked their wagons to a particular rigid point of view about what is and what should be, and have stopped thinking about the general point of science, which is to be flexible and seek truth.
Of course this goes on in most scientific fields--an orthodoxy is established, moves some sort of progress forward, and eventually something comes along to break down or modify the orthodoxy in strange new directions--but in environmental science, and particular around the issue of Global Warming, the orthodoxy is particularly entrenched and fighting particularly hard to hold its position regardless of the facts.
I don't think any reasonable person is going to argue with you that the right thing to do is to modify human behavior to best balance between "progress" and the environment (my conservative friend is among those reasonable people). Unfortunately, most of the so called "environmentalists" have already made up their mind and don't want to discuss it any further. It's like trying to have a religious discussion with Jerry Falwell, and people are just as incensed when these people try to shove their environmental religion down our throats as they are when the (im)Moral Majority does.
I stopped going to church, I experimented with drugs and alcohol but didn't kill myself or anyone else, I had more sex than I otherwise would have, though in retrospect not as much as I could have. Why does it matter? The point is, it is possible as a parent, even as two working parents (as mine were), to instill your values into your child sufficiently to help them protect themselves against the things you feel they should be protected against. It takes work to accomplish, no questions and not to lessen the effort, but it's not the impossibility "without government assistance" that many seem to want to act like it is. It's only impossible if you treat your kids like a part-time job.
Feel free to give us some citations for this. I'm sure you're right, but saying so doesn't make it so.
A parent can work to instill their values in the child to the point where they do not NEED to look over their child's shoulder every waking hour. My parents managed quite well, and I didn't stray very far from what they taught me until I was in college and adult enough to make my own choices. I hope that I can do as well with my son.
I have little sympathy for the point of view that as a parent you don't want to spend your time watching TV with your children, you don't want to be around when they're surfing the net, etc. There are plenty of simple straightforward ways to be present enough to reinforce your values with your children (computers and TVs go only in the public areas of the house, for one big example). If you think your child needs a nanny to make sure they're where they belong, then you better be that nanny, or hire someone who can be one, instead of fooling yourself that they aren't going to be smart enough to foil whatever technological blocks you put in their way.
There's a difference between the number of discs in your plan (in this case the "5 disc plan" meaning you can have 5 out at a time) and the number of discs you rent over time.
That's a far cry from actually appropriating Dr Seuss artwork for your own parody.
Where are my mod points?
So that once the script kiddies or black hats get access to the eavesdropping features, nobody can hold them accountable. (not to mention watching the watchmen).
What good is the UI if there's no data behind it? If Tivo goes out of business won't you be left without listings etc?
And if, after I've built my MythTV box, I decide I hate it, I still have a kickass PC system to do something else with (maybe even sell to someone for more than I paid to build it), and freedom to go buy a TiVo. Voila!
Because what you watch is being reported to your corporate masters...no thanks.
Good to see you can tell the future about how people will behave. Where were you on September 10 2001?
I didn't say I was writing my own system from scratch, did I? Any Geek time spent doing this would have been spent playing half life or some other equally useless thing anyway, so what's your beef?
Personally, I prefer the idea of building something that I know I have full rights to modify as I see fit and don't have to pay perpetual fees for.
I don't think I really mistake that, nor do most people (at least engineers) agitating for electronic voting. Obviously auditability is a critical design spec that MUST be met or all other features are worthless.
I doubt they're cheaper, but they could certainly be faster. The paper output is simply an audit trail.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems completely unclear whether this is arguing for or against electronic voting.