...Then again, web design is also pretty easy on a P-133 running Win95. Oh yeah, Apache 1.3.12 for DOS, there's a program with a giant footprint... could never do the stuff in Windows you can do in Linux, could you?
it's about time. The Voodoo3 can only display 16-bit color, even in 2D graphics. All other graphic cards had this years ago, it is so utterly ridiculous that the voodoo3 did not support at least 24-bit 2D color. I'm tired of looking at X in 16-bit color. Had I known this, I wouldn't have bought the Voodoo3. It's about time 3dfx did something right.
Sorry, I thought this was a discussion on how much a web site should be worth and why.
Come on, do I have to spell it out? The guy was offtopic... he wasn't talking about web site valuation, he was attacking the Slashdot community for trying to rationalize mp3's that violate artists' copyrights...
This is the same reason why copying MP3's adds value to the artist, rather than taking it away.
This statement is way too sweeping. I can't believe I'm actually having to say this, but here goes:
Popularity != Net Worth (especially when you're talking about.mp3's)
'Nuff said.
-Ryan
PS: All mainstream Christian denominations agree with you on the money issue.:-)
Nice idiotic response yourself. If he created the web site, then he automatically owns a copyright on the content. To what degree it's acutally enforcable is a different story; masses-of-text copyright violations are much easier to enforce than graphics or fonts (which are virtually unenforcable). I should know, I've been through them.
The value is not in the media itself, but in the attention given to it.
Right idea, wrong context. In a discussion of copyright violation, value is irrelevant. Just because nobody likes the book/music/website/whatever, the material is not suddenly public domain. The Golden Rule: He who holds the gold (the content, in this case), makes the rules.
If you don't believe me, try putting a value on a human life (your own, for instance).
-Ryan
Re:Technically, you are incorrect.
on
The Mind of God
·
· Score: 1
Come one, get a grip. I took geology and astronomy in college. So what if I got my numbers wrong, that doesn't mean anything. It's not my area of expertise, give me a break. I got the general idea, and it didn't change any of my arguments or yours.
Wake up, man. Fossils don't prove anything. They prove exactly what I said that the earth is: hundreds of millions (correction: billions) of years old. No scientific journal has ever presented any sort of evidence for evolution.
First of all, I don't read those anti-evolution pamphlets and such that many people who believe in God pass around. They're utterly ridiculous and in my opinion lower the credibility of the Christian community.
Second of all, I'm not a fundamentalist, and don't think they have any solid ground to stand on either. So you can forget about that.
How do you know that later editors didn't re-write the story?
Ever hear of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Of course, they are being translated by scientists who are predominantly Christian... guess that means that it's still one big conspiracy, eh?
The only connection between the two is the one that people like you demand on, simply because you insist that Genesis is literal truth.
Maybe I'm having memory lapse... I don't recall ever making a connection. I thought I was the one arguing against evolution!
You mean all those autopsy videos and stuff are a scam?!!
Whoops, correction on myself
on
The Mind of God
·
· Score: 1
Not the exact geneology, but down to the Stem of Jesse. Exact down to a point, I guess would be the better description.
Ryan Kirk Topflight Productions
Technically, you are incorrect.
on
The Mind of God
·
· Score: 1
"The former hypothesis can be supported entirely by conventional science."
Technically, incorrect. There is no evidence or proof of evolution (I don't mean species adaptation, I mean the hypothesis that humans evolved from lower primates which evolved from fish). It may be the easiest to believe based on logic alone, but no evidence has ever been procured to support it. Therefore, it is not the "truth by default."
There is, however, proof of ancient scripture fortelling many events, including the exact geneology of Christ, among other things. However, I do not offer this as evidence as the proof of the truthfulness of the Bible (more on this later).
The principle argument evolution has on its side is that the earth (through carbon dating) has been tested to be hundreds of millions of years old, and that since this seemingly contradicts the Bible's timetable, then God must not exist. I believe this jump in logic to be one of the biggest holes in the arguments against God (obviously, God was not necessarily using the Earth's timetable before he even built it).
Clearly everyone must try to discover the truth themselves. I believe, however (speaking from my Christian bias) that books such as these, written by men, do not contain exact truth. I also believe that no amount of hard evidence can ever convince people to believe in God either. The best proof comes from God himself, which is told about in James 1:5.
Sorry I'm not trying to sound preachy -- just all this duscussion about truth, you know... I couldn't help it!
Christ was not a radical. His ministry was foretold hundreds of years beforehand and his resurrection did exactly as predicted: it fulfilled the Mosaic Law. It was well understood that with Christ's coming and resurrection, the Mosaic Law ("an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth") would be nullified and that a new law -- for a (mostly) more mature society -- would be given ("love thy neighbor as thyself"). The Pharisees recognized this and is one of the principle reasons for his crucifixion.
I'm wondering if you've actually ever read any portion of the Constitution. Specifically, the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech...
Read: Congres shall make no law. Not the states, not the city of Los Angeles, California. Congress. The Constitution literally only applies to the federal govermnet. Over time, however, the Supreme Court has ruled (somewhat controversially) that certain amendments (including the 1st) should apply to states also. However, there has never, EVER been a Supreme Court ruling that said the 1st Amendment applied to city and county governments! On top of that, cases brought to the Supreme Court against States regarding the 1st Amendment and pornography have, by an extremely wide margin, been either unsuccessful, or the Supreme Court has turned them away.
It's widely accepted that the founding fathers didn't create a democracy (we democracized the government over time, by adding stuff like the direct election of US Senators, etc.), but that they created an oligarchy, to keep the masses in check. The moral of the story: Government has a lot more power than you realize.
The other moral of the story: BKX should keep his mouth shut when he doesn't know what he's talking about.
More argument about censorship... how much time have we officially wasted now?
If everybody is really worried about censorship, protesting against CyberPatrol and SurfWatch is the wrong place to start. I suggest the FCC. After all, this is the same government agency that "filters" your TV -- indeed, they have placed restructions on almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum! I find it interesting that people (read: I am probably talking about you) believe that it is okay for libraries to "filter" (i.e., make unavailable, especially to minors) certain books and magazines, yet somehow these same libraries should be disallowed from blocking this exact same material on their computers. There is a double-standard here: you cannot keep libraries from filtering the internet without also telling them to make pornography (in the form of books and magazines) readily available to anyone and everyone.
Right now, this entire campaign just smells like one big geekfest ("liberate our computers!") instead of a true free speech movement. If you're really worried about a perceived violation of your Constitutional rights, I suggest you get your priorities in line. Remember, however, that the Supreme Court has ruled that obscenity is not covered under the 1st Amendment. It has also ruled that government agencies such as the FCC are not unconstitutional either, even though the Constitution makes no mention of them. The reality is, pornography filtration is here to stay no matter what you try to do.
Thus I say to you, Good luck trying to get the FCC to lift its restrictions. Better yet, try going to your average American suburb or small town and tell them they are wrong for having city zoning laws that keep adult bookstores away from the middle of their neighborhoods. This is just pure craziness.
Part of the arguments I see here is that since software filters are not 100% effective, they shouldn't be used at all. Where is this logic coming from? This does not make sense. "People are trying to fix the problem, but are only human and are not 100% effective; therefore, we should eliminate all efforts to keep young children from being accidentally expose to pornography." That's the key: these libraries are not trying to keep every Joe Schmoe from being able to access pornography; they are only trying to keep kids from accidentally running across it (and don't give me that "you can't find pornography unless you go out and look for it" crap). Until a government agency does a study, we are not going to get true objective results as to the accuracy of the software filters, and even if/when one is completed, I'm still not certain that will matter; obviously the concensus up to this point has been, "something is better than nothing." Thus my prediction: pornography filters on library computers are here, and are going to be here, for a long time. Quit being puppets to liberalism and use a little common sense: software filtration is not illegal/unconstitutional, and if a community wants to have filters, let'em have'em, and go download your pr0n on the free computers at your nearest college library.
Okay. So now I get to pay some type of monthly subscription fee, so that I can wear an extra pager around (which I hate), so that I can go to a movie theater to find out someone two rows in front of me also likes kayaking, even though I won't be able to talk to them because the movie's playing, and I'm there already with friends or a date anyway; or go to a dance club where I can go talk to anyone in the first place; or when I go to a party and am too afraid to introduce myself to anyone (wait - that never happens), or I can get a date with my hygeinist or my Albertson's cashier!!! All right, count me in! This thing is too good to be true!
Really, what are the chances of this actually working? Is anyone really walking by tons of new people every day at work, or don't they already know pretty much everyone there? Maybe you're just randomly walking around downtown... Then you have to assume that when you actually meet someone, you'll both actually have time to stop to talk instead of getting to wherever you happen to be gonig.
Or, you could just go hang out at the type of place where people that hold your same interests do... or even better, DO some of your interests that necessitate other people (such as a club or something), so that you'll already be around people with the same interests as you...
Does this seem like a ridiculous idea to anyone but me?
"Increasing pressure from users who didn't buy those cards because they couldn't be supported has led the manufacturers to release the hardware specifications, and those cards are now well supported.
Similarly, I think that pressure from the open-source community can become strong enough to force companies to open their formats."
I think this is probably a bit too optimistic. No matter how formidable the Open Source movement becomes, companies are probably not going to be releasing the full specifications for everything they develop. Competition won't allow for it.
It's much more likely that, as Linux becomes more popular, hardware companies will begin to write drivers for Linux, instead of releasing the specs... on the software side, if we can't get vendors to start using open source formats, the time honored tradition of reverse engineering proprietary formats will continue...
There is one aspect of this that we have forgotten about (although Bezos indirectly hints at it in his latter) : lobbyist.
No doubt, if this plan for shorter software patents gets off the ground, major players such as IBM will begin to lobby heavily in their behalf. We're going to have to respond at some point with a little lobbying of our own.
This might be one bit of overhead that's worth the investment now. (Better than having to ask a lawyer 24/7, "Can I do this?" "Can I do this?").
This goes back to what Bezos was saying; Amazon.com initiated one-click but once Barnes&Noble saw how they implemented it they stole it right away. Even the major players can get stomped on on the internet!
Yeah Southpark is real important stuff. What's with all the Southpark articles? Does anybody really care? Maybe we should all waste some more time talking about stupid shows. Ooh I know let's talk about Beavis and Butthead. yeah yeah, fire. yeah.
Your arguments are not very good. I am getting impatient. Do I have to keep explaining myself?
"Also, you say all blocking strategies fail. Based on what criteria?" "Simple: they let through explicit pornongraphy and they ban innocuous sites."
This does not mean they fail. It means they are not perfect. But they filter out 90 - 95% of pornography sites. And the number of sites "wrongfully blocked" has so far been proven to be only a very small percentage. By the number of people that use the programs, and taking into account the dynamic nature of the internet, even a 90% success rate is not a failure. Remember, the assertion is not that they block out all pornography, just most of it, while trying to keep the number of wrongfully blocked sites to a minimum. This being the case, the programs (at least the better ones) are a success any way you slice it.
"And your references are?"
I gave one. TIME Magazine. This, coming from a reviewer who is adamantly against software filtration, still said that if you're intent on using them, NetNanny and SurfWatch are among the best.
I said: "Some claim to have their black lists reviewed by humans. They lie. "
You said: "Because a) they don't have the company size required (considerably larger that Yahoo, remember) and b) they ban innocuous sites. Hence impossiblity. They do claim to do the impossible, hence the lie. "
This paragraph is just stupid. Let me count the ways:
The "inocuous sites" are banned because the algorithm searches for words like "sex" and "breasts" in conjunction! SurfWatch claims to have 100,000 sites in its blacklist, and the rest of its sites are banned by an algorithm. I hate to say it, brother, but 100,000 is not that much. Add to this the fact that in all likelihood much of the blacklist was created by humans -- e.g. when they come across a site with no text for the algorithm to parse yet lots of obvious pornography in the form of images.
"So if they are reviewing them all, how did they get blocked in the first place? Hmmmm? "
Don't play dumb. You know the innocent sites were blocked by the algorithm and weren't blacklisted.
I have now officially wasted over an hour. Please don't reply to this using the same stale arguments. I started this thread because I asked a question. It got moderated down, and now nobody has bothered to answer it except you. Thanks for trying, but unfortunately, you have failed to answer my question satisfactionally. I have become quite irritated with myself that I have wasted such a large amount of time on this stupid discussion.
I was referring to the list on censorware.org, which apparently is the most complete available?
Your post is full of discrepancies!!
"It would be impossible to generate a complete list, for the same reason that it is impossible to develop a blocking strategy that works."
This is a loaded statement, and uses poor logic. Only so many sites are blocked by the software, it is not an infinite amount. It CAN be determined. Also, you say all blocking strategies fail. Based on what criteria? I believe the common consensus is that although they do have their faults, they do in fact work rather well, and are definitely better than no protection at all (hence the reason why so many people still prefer to use them).
"Check out the censorware site in the article for reviews of the major blocking software. It all fails.
Wow, imagine that. A site dedicated to abolishing software filters, and guess what, their review of them is that they all fail. I suggest you check out some of the reviews of sources that are perhaps a little more trustworthy, for instance TIME Magazine.
"Some claim to have their black lists reviewed by humans. They lie. "
And you would know this how...
"In fact, the number of sites wrongfully blocked is incredibly large, and kept secret. "
And if it's kept a secret, you would know how...?
Yes, it's all one big conspiracy, isn't it. As even the author of the article admitted, as soon as the makers of SurfWatch become aware of sites that have been blocked that didn't need to be, they unblock those sites and release it in a free update to the program. I would hardly call this a secret.
"Arguably the worst way that censorware fails is that it lets an enormous amount of porn right through. So it induces a false sense of security in those who would rather not take the trouble to mind their own children. "
That first line is still pretty subjective, and I would argue it to be somewhat inaccurate, although admittedly it has foundation. Part of using software filtration is educating people about its positive and negative features. Just because something is not the perfect solution doesn't mean people are wrong for trying to use the best solution available. The point of the software, however, it not to completely block 100% of all pornography and nothing else, though that would be a good means to the end. Still though, any kid really intent on finding pornography is going to be able to find it no matter what. The real goal however is to keep kids from accidentally running across it while doing other things. In this vein, as reputable reviews have noted, the filters are largely successful.
One would have to truly be a moron if they are lulled into a false sense of security by these programs. Any parent who has looked into the subject even just a little would know that these filters aren't 100% effective. If they don't know that then they just don't care. I agree though that informing people of the problem is important.Although most of the companies are pretty upfront about the effectiveness of the software, censoreware.org and other efforts are helping to inform people about some of filtration's pitfalls.
As I said before, Just because something is not the perfect solution doesn't mean people are wrong for trying to use the best solution available. Maybe we would be a little more productive if we tried helping making the software better instead of continually trying to bring it down.
Slashdot Mirror
It hurts for big stuff... not web design. I did my site entirely on a 133
http://topflight.net
...Then again, web design is also pretty easy on a P-133 running Win95. Oh yeah, Apache 1.3.12 for DOS, there's a program with a giant footprint... could never do the stuff in Windows you can do in Linux, could you?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/05/04/08212 00&cid=694
here is a link to it.
It's particularly far down in the pack.
it's about time. The Voodoo3 can only display 16-bit color, even in 2D graphics. All other graphic cards had this years ago, it is so utterly ridiculous that the voodoo3 did not support at least 24-bit 2D color. I'm tired of looking at X in 16-bit color. Had I known this, I wouldn't have bought the Voodoo3. It's about time 3dfx did something right.
Sorry, I thought this was a discussion on how much a web site should be worth and why.
Come on, do I have to spell it out? The guy was offtopic... he wasn't talking about web site valuation, he was attacking the Slashdot community for trying to rationalize mp3's that violate artists' copyrights...
This is the same reason why copying MP3's adds value to the artist, rather than taking it away.
This statement is way too sweeping. I can't believe I'm actually having to say this, but here goes:
Popularity != Net Worth (especially when you're talking about .mp3's)
'Nuff said.
-Ryan
PS: All mainstream Christian denominations agree with you on the money issue. :-)
The value is not in the media itself, but in the attention given to it.
Right idea, wrong context. In a discussion of copyright violation, value is irrelevant. Just because nobody likes the book/music/website/whatever, the material is not suddenly public domain. The Golden Rule: He who holds the gold (the content, in this case), makes the rules.
If you don't believe me, try putting a value on a human life (your own, for instance).
-Ryan
Wake up, man. Fossils don't prove anything. They prove exactly what I said that the earth is: hundreds of millions (correction: billions) of years old. No scientific journal has ever presented any sort of evidence for evolution.
First of all, I don't read those anti-evolution pamphlets and such that many people who believe in God pass around. They're utterly ridiculous and in my opinion lower the credibility of the Christian community.
Second of all, I'm not a fundamentalist, and don't think they have any solid ground to stand on either. So you can forget about that.
How do you know that later editors didn't re-write the story?
Ever hear of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Of course, they are being translated by scientists who are predominantly Christian... guess that means that it's still one big conspiracy, eh?
The only connection between the two is the one that people like you demand on, simply because you insist that Genesis is literal truth.
Maybe I'm having memory lapse... I don't recall ever making a connection. I thought I was the one arguing against evolution!
You mean all those autopsy videos and stuff are a scam?!!
Ryan Kirk
Topflight Productions
"The former hypothesis can be supported entirely by conventional science."
Technically, incorrect. There is no evidence or proof of evolution (I don't mean species adaptation, I mean the hypothesis that humans evolved from lower primates which evolved from fish). It may be the easiest to believe based on logic alone, but no evidence has ever been procured to support it. Therefore, it is not the "truth by default."
There is, however, proof of ancient scripture fortelling many events, including the exact geneology of Christ, among other things. However, I do not offer this as evidence as the proof of the truthfulness of the Bible (more on this later).
The principle argument evolution has on its side is that the earth (through carbon dating) has been tested to be hundreds of millions of years old, and that since this seemingly contradicts the Bible's timetable, then God must not exist. I believe this jump in logic to be one of the biggest holes in the arguments against God (obviously, God was not necessarily using the Earth's timetable before he even built it).
Clearly everyone must try to discover the truth themselves. I believe, however (speaking from my Christian bias) that books such as these, written by men, do not contain exact truth. I also believe that no amount of hard evidence can ever convince people to believe in God either. The best proof comes from God himself, which is told about in James 1:5.
Sorry I'm not trying to sound preachy -- just all this duscussion about truth, you know... I couldn't help it!
Ryan Kirk
Topflight Productions
Christ was not a radical. His ministry was foretold hundreds of years beforehand and his resurrection did exactly as predicted: it fulfilled the Mosaic Law. It was well understood that with Christ's coming and resurrection, the Mosaic Law ("an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth") would be nullified and that a new law -- for a (mostly) more mature society -- would be given ("love thy neighbor as thyself"). The Pharisees recognized this and is one of the principle reasons for his crucifixion.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech...
Read: Congres shall make no law. Not the states, not the city of Los Angeles, California. Congress. The Constitution literally only applies to the federal govermnet. Over time, however, the Supreme Court has ruled (somewhat controversially) that certain amendments (including the 1st) should apply to states also. However, there has never, EVER been a Supreme Court ruling that said the 1st Amendment applied to city and county governments! On top of that, cases brought to the Supreme Court against States regarding the 1st Amendment and pornography have, by an extremely wide margin, been either unsuccessful, or the Supreme Court has turned them away.
It's widely accepted that the founding fathers didn't create a democracy (we democracized the government over time, by adding stuff like the direct election of US Senators, etc.), but that they created an oligarchy, to keep the masses in check. The moral of the story: Government has a lot more power than you realize.
The other moral of the story: BKX should keep his mouth shut when he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Ryan Kirk
Topflight Productions
More argument about censorship... how much time have we officially wasted now?
If everybody is really worried about censorship, protesting against CyberPatrol and SurfWatch is the wrong place to start. I suggest the FCC. After all, this is the same government agency that "filters" your TV -- indeed, they have placed restructions on almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum! I find it interesting that people (read: I am probably talking about you) believe that it is okay for libraries to "filter" (i.e., make unavailable, especially to minors) certain books and magazines, yet somehow these same libraries should be disallowed from blocking this exact same material on their computers. There is a double-standard here: you cannot keep libraries from filtering the internet without also telling them to make pornography (in the form of books and magazines) readily available to anyone and everyone.
Right now, this entire campaign just smells like one big geekfest ("liberate our computers!") instead of a true free speech movement. If you're really worried about a perceived violation of your Constitutional rights, I suggest you get your priorities in line. Remember, however, that the Supreme Court has ruled that obscenity is not covered under the 1st Amendment. It has also ruled that government agencies such as the FCC are not unconstitutional either, even though the Constitution makes no mention of them. The reality is, pornography filtration is here to stay no matter what you try to do.
Thus I say to you, Good luck trying to get the FCC to lift its restrictions. Better yet, try going to your average American suburb or small town and tell them they are wrong for having city zoning laws that keep adult bookstores away from the middle of their neighborhoods. This is just pure craziness.
Part of the arguments I see here is that since software filters are not 100% effective, they shouldn't be used at all. Where is this logic coming from? This does not make sense. "People are trying to fix the problem, but are only human and are not 100% effective; therefore, we should eliminate all efforts to keep young children from being accidentally expose to pornography." That's the key: these libraries are not trying to keep every Joe Schmoe from being able to access pornography; they are only trying to keep kids from accidentally running across it (and don't give me that "you can't find pornography unless you go out and look for it" crap). Until a government agency does a study, we are not going to get true objective results as to the accuracy of the software filters, and even if/when one is completed, I'm still not certain that will matter; obviously the concensus up to this point has been, "something is better than nothing." Thus my prediction: pornography filters on library computers are here, and are going to be here, for a long time. Quit being puppets to liberalism and use a little common sense: software filtration is not illegal/unconstitutional, and if a community wants to have filters, let'em have'em, and go download your pr0n on the free computers at your nearest college library.
Well, there goes my precious karma...
Ryan Kirk
Windows, maybe Mac, if they put out an updatable flash BIOS.
Linux? Well, I'm not exactly a device driver writer myself... It'll happen soon enough.
Okay. So now I get to pay some type of monthly subscription fee, so that I can wear an extra pager around (which I hate), so that I can go to a movie theater to find out someone two rows in front of me also likes kayaking, even though I won't be able to talk to them because the movie's playing, and I'm there already with friends or a date anyway; or go to a dance club where I can go talk to anyone in the first place; or when I go to a party and am too afraid to introduce myself to anyone (wait - that never happens), or I can get a date with my hygeinist or my Albertson's cashier!!! All right, count me in! This thing is too good to be true!
Really, what are the chances of this actually working? Is anyone really walking by tons of new people every day at work, or don't they already know pretty much everyone there? Maybe you're just randomly walking around downtown... Then you have to assume that when you actually meet someone, you'll both actually have time to stop to talk instead of getting to wherever you happen to be gonig.
Or, you could just go hang out at the type of place where people that hold your same interests do... or even better, DO some of your interests that necessitate other people (such as a club or something), so that you'll already be around people with the same interests as you...
Does this seem like a ridiculous idea to anyone but me?
Ryan Kirk
Topflight Productions
"Increasing pressure from users who didn't buy those cards because they couldn't be supported has led the manufacturers to release the hardware specifications, and those cards are now well supported.
Similarly, I think that pressure from the open-source community can become strong enough to force companies to open their formats."
I think this is probably a bit too optimistic. No matter how formidable the Open Source movement becomes, companies are probably not going to be releasing the full specifications for everything they develop. Competition won't allow for it.
It's much more likely that, as Linux becomes more popular, hardware companies will begin to write drivers for Linux, instead of releasing the specs... on the software side, if we can't get vendors to start using open source formats, the time honored tradition of reverse engineering proprietary formats will continue...
There is one aspect of this that we have forgotten about (although Bezos indirectly hints at it in his latter) : lobbyist.
No doubt, if this plan for shorter software patents gets off the ground, major players such as IBM will begin to lobby heavily in their behalf. We're going to have to respond at some point with a little lobbying of our own.
This might be one bit of overhead that's worth the investment now. (Better than having to ask a lawyer 24/7, "Can I do this?" "Can I do this?").
This goes back to what Bezos was saying; Amazon.com initiated one-click but once Barnes&Noble saw how they implemented it they stole it right away. Even the major players can get stomped on on the internet!
what to do, what to do...
Hmm... A Jaguar using a Nintendo controller? I don't think so...
[look at the icon, sheesh]
Yeah Southpark is real important stuff. What's with all the Southpark articles? Does anybody really care? Maybe we should all waste some more time talking about stupid shows. Ooh I know let's talk about Beavis and Butthead. yeah yeah, fire. yeah.
Wow, look at all this great humor. Times like these make me proud be be a /.'er.
Ryan
Your arguments are not very good. I am getting impatient. Do I have to keep explaining myself?
"Also, you say all blocking strategies fail. Based on what criteria?" "Simple: they let through explicit pornongraphy and they ban innocuous sites."
This does not mean they fail. It means they are not perfect. But they filter out 90 - 95% of pornography sites. And the number of sites "wrongfully blocked" has so far been proven to be only a very small percentage. By the number of people that use the programs, and taking into account the dynamic nature of the internet, even a 90% success rate is not a failure. Remember, the assertion is not that they block out all pornography, just most of it, while trying to keep the number of wrongfully blocked sites to a minimum. This being the case, the programs (at least the better ones) are a success any way you slice it.
"And your references are?"
I gave one. TIME Magazine. This, coming from a reviewer who is adamantly against software filtration, still said that if you're intent on using them, NetNanny and SurfWatch are among the best.
I said: "Some claim to have their black lists reviewed by humans. They lie. "
You said: "Because a) they don't have the company size required (considerably larger that Yahoo, remember) and b) they ban innocuous sites. Hence impossiblity. They do claim to do the impossible, hence the lie. "
This paragraph is just stupid. Let me count the ways:
The "inocuous sites" are banned because the algorithm searches for words like "sex" and "breasts" in conjunction! SurfWatch claims to have 100,000 sites in its blacklist, and the rest of its sites are banned by an algorithm. I hate to say it, brother, but 100,000 is not that much. Add to this the fact that in all likelihood much of the blacklist was created by humans -- e.g. when they come across a site with no text for the algorithm to parse yet lots of obvious pornography in the form of images.
"So if they are reviewing them all, how did they get blocked in the first place? Hmmmm? "
Don't play dumb. You know the innocent sites were blocked by the algorithm and weren't blacklisted.
I have now officially wasted over an hour. Please don't reply to this using the same stale arguments. I started this thread because I asked a question. It got moderated down, and now nobody has bothered to answer it except you. Thanks for trying, but unfortunately, you have failed to answer my question satisfactionally. I have become quite irritated with myself that I have wasted such a large amount of time on this stupid discussion.
Ryan Kirk
http://topflight.net
I was referring to the list on censorware.org, which apparently is the most complete available?
Your post is full of discrepancies!!
"It would be impossible to generate a complete
list, for the same reason that it is impossible to
develop a blocking strategy that works."
This is a loaded statement, and uses poor logic. Only so many sites are blocked by the software, it is not an infinite amount. It CAN be determined. Also, you say all blocking strategies fail. Based on what criteria? I believe the common consensus is that although they do have their faults, they do in fact work rather well, and are definitely better than no protection at all (hence the reason why so many people still prefer to use them).
"Check out the censorware site in the article for reviews of the major blocking
software. It all fails.
Wow, imagine that. A site dedicated to abolishing software filters, and guess what, their review of them is that they all fail. I suggest you check out some of the reviews of sources that are perhaps a little more trustworthy, for instance TIME Magazine.
"Some claim to have their black lists reviewed by humans.
They lie. "
And you would know this how...
"In fact, the number of sites wrongfully blocked is incredibly large, and
kept secret. "
And if it's kept a secret, you would know how...?
Yes, it's all one big conspiracy, isn't it. As even the author of the article admitted, as soon as the makers of SurfWatch become aware of sites that have been blocked that didn't need to be, they unblock those sites and release it in a free update to the program. I would hardly call this a secret.
"Arguably the worst way that censorware fails is that it lets an enormous amount
of porn right through. So it induces a false sense of security in those who would
rather not take the trouble to mind their own children. "
That first line is still pretty subjective, and I would argue it to be somewhat inaccurate, although admittedly it has foundation. Part of using software filtration is educating people about its positive and negative features. Just because something is not the perfect solution doesn't mean people are wrong for trying to use the best solution available. The point of the software, however, it not to completely block 100% of all pornography and nothing else, though that would be a good means to the end. Still though, any kid really intent on finding pornography is going to be able to find it no matter what. The real goal however is to keep kids from accidentally running across it while doing other things. In this vein, as reputable reviews have noted, the filters are largely successful.
One would have to truly be a moron if they are lulled into a false sense of security by these programs. Any parent who has looked into the subject even just a little would know that these filters aren't 100% effective. If they don't know that then they just don't care. I agree though that informing people of the problem is important.Although most of the companies are pretty upfront about the effectiveness of the software, censoreware.org and other efforts are helping to inform people about some of filtration's pitfalls.
As I said before, Just because something is not the perfect solution doesn't mean people are wrong for trying to use the best solution available. Maybe we would be a little more productive if we tried helping making the software better instead of continually trying to bring it down.
Ryan Kirk
http://topflight.net
The number of sites that are "wrongfully blocked" is so increditly small, that argument is ridiculous. Have you looked at the list?