Ok, this is a test run that we haven't really had access to in the past. Pretty sporting of Compaq to show their hand. However, AlphaServers and ProLiants are not exactly new, or exceptional hardware. When are we going to see the communal tests on something that is more in the range of a Turbo Laser 8400? After all they do own DEC.
But in general, be nice, professional and be prepared. Most likely you won't get more that 20 minutes with the representetive, but you can meet with the telecom aide for a lot longer, he/she's the one who really does the work on this anyway. Lay out your point of view like this:
- A little background of the problem - Your personal impact as a constituent - several possible solutions - Brief closing
If possible, practice your twenty minute gig beforehand, also try to get time with the aide the same day, the aide will update the member at the end of the day. If possible, bring a camera and get a picture of the two of you, they love that stuff.
What message? That a bunch of long hairs impacted the workers commuting in and out of Seattle for 3 days? This isn't the sixties, the ITO protesters were horribly ineffective. The press that I saw never promoted the protesters issues, they just took pictures and reported on the exciting stuff, like rock throwing, masses in the streets, general civil unrest. The interviews I saw on CNN , ABC etc, were the field reporters asking the protesters why they were protesting. Almost every protesters response was something along the lines of " hey man, like, we're for freedom and all that." When asked specifically what they were protesting, most didn't know.
I do look down on most civil disobedience because there are better ways to go about making a change happen, specifically when dealing with the US government. Throwing rocks and bottles and staging sit ins does nothing to help reverse or modify the policies or the DMCA.
I agree that getting publicity will help in curbing the DMCA, but WTO style antics are not step one, writing you representatives is step one. Save the civil disobedience and hacktivism for the hippies, the anti-DMCA front needs to professional or at least have the appearance that we're not a bunch of pot smokin' kids, and needs to use the avenues in place. They will work if they are used.
Normally I agree with you, however I think your view is somewhat narrow.
Have you ever sat down with your congressman or senator? Explained as a constituent your point of view? From you post I would have to say probably not. I have and I was amazed at the impact. The big companies have their industry lobbies and their PACs but the constituents voice has a much higher volume. I forget the exact numbers, but it goes something like this when in comparative perspective you look at constituent volume vs lobby volume.
1 Constituent letter = 100 Lobby or PAC letters 1 Constituent phone call = 500 Lobby or PAC phone calls 1 Constituent face to face meeting = 100 Lobby or PAC meetings
Again, I'm not right on with the numbers, however I am in the ballpark. Your voice does have an impact and just giving up because big bad corporation has more money than me just doesn't hold water. You can have a difference and the avenues for you to have a face to face with your elected officials are there and easy to use. Pick up the phone and call to get a meeting. It's that simple.
Civil disobedience is not always very effective, IMO it actually hurts more that it helps. Especially if it is run by this crowd. No flames intended. Look, how do you think it would appear if a bunch of slashdotters and the like engaged in some sort of hacktivism? You would come off as just a bunch of l33t script kiddies and be spun to be the bad guys. Look at what happened at WTO in Seattle. From a post BroncBuster over at attrition posted earlier today:
So what we have now is Hacktivism boiling down to nothing more then Script Kiddie antics. Great. I am sure this will help to convince people that it is a legit method of action.
All the protests and Dos attacks made for some sexy headlines, but in the long run made the folks attempting the disobedience look like a bunch of hippies with nothing better to do than stage riots, both physical and electronic.
Maybe a better track would be to use the channels available to us, like writing your congressmen or joining an association like EFF . Civil disobedience doesn't change laws, Congress does.
Don't just bitch about it here on/.. Go do something! Write the DMCA, write your representatives in Washington, join EFF or an association like it. Complaining that the DMCA and all behind it are evil open source killers etc. etc. does no good whatsoever. Get involved if you want to make a difference. There are plenty of vehicles. Write letters, send an e-mail, make a phone call. Do these actions as individuals, as members of a LUG, as constituents or just as joe average net user. Write the execs and the share holders of the corporations and industries behind the support of the DMCA.
Look, the current administration is not going to help. Clinton's policies surrounding this are all over the road. His administration is focusing on only two things, 1, ramp up the failing Clinton legacy and 2, get Gore in the White House. This needs to come from grass roots efforts, they do have impact if they are communicated effectively. This means politely, professionally and with out flame. Find out who your local congressional member or senator is and communicate with them that the DMCA is way off base and catering not to the general good of the citizens, but to specific industries.
Make sure that in all your verbal or written communication to either an elected official, industry lobby or industry exec that you be nice. Elected officials really don't respond well to flames, spam, mail floods or harsh language. You will come off as a script kiddie and be completely ignored. For a loose reference, re-read the Linux Advocacy Guide, it will give you the right sort of flavor for your communications. The bottom line is don't JUST bitch about how "big brothers keepin' us down man" do something about it!
Reminds me of the old Negraponti[sp?] analogy of the library in his "Being Digital" book.
If you go to the library and check out a book, the next person must wait for you to return the book before he/she can check it out.
If you go to the digital library and check out a book, there is always a book left.
A fundamental shift in business model. The companies who can understand this shift have a significant advantage on how we are going to be tdoing business tomorrow. The same goes for DMCA if they apply the same "Old School" model to today./tomorrows technical environment problems, the problems will not get addressed, they will increase ten fold.
I don't thing the folks behind DMCA are nessasarily evil, they just simply are using the wrong tools, the wrong model and for some reason forcing a round peg in a square hole.
The MHz race is boiling down to nothing more than a marketing warefare. The overall impact from speed this or speed that printed on the box makes a huge difference in sales, especially with the big manufactures who they have had partnerships for years. Technically, for Intel this is really not all that big a deal, just another step in the longer term strategy of Intel. They have to announce "Break through this or break through that about once a quater to keep shareholders happy. Used to be about once every six months or so, but with AMD biting at their heels with the Athalons selling like hotcakes, they need to keep up. The down side is that addind x MHz every quarter or so takes time and resources away from development of the next architecture. Newer architecture on processors will make a significant impact on my buying decisions, not 50 MHz a quarter, It just doesn't give me enough to make it worthwhile.
With Sony this is not that common. Horibble PR to push it out before it was ready. All that memory encryption maybe? Serves 'em right to a degree, everything Sony puts out is on NDA. Open Source is an unmentioned term. If you want to work toward development on PS2, in general it'll cost you over 30K just to get going.
I doubt if this will impact the US launch, I think it's slated for September?? The encryptioin issues and work arounds to make it "US-importable" will IMO be almost a different product. The PS2, US version will also be much more that a game console, its a vehicle to pump more up-sell product into the US/ More movies, CD's, Games, services etc..It's the basis for a long and drawn out marketing campaign.
Should be required reading for PHB's
on
Database Nation
·
· Score: 2
Good reviews, and the book will have good impact for security/privacy awareness. My next click is going to be over to Think Geek to buy the book. This seems to me a s a "must buy" for the PHB audience. Having line level folks get this book in front of the policy makers could have a positive effect on the culture shift to thinking about how your customers view both privacy and security up front. I beleive having a policy maker read this will contribute to making the "Double Click" practices a thing of the past. Scary stuff because it doesn't seem all that far away.
I agree to a point, I do understand that they have erned a right to be there. My concern is with representation that will be good for the internet as a whole. If just one segment hase access to making the rules, in can't be good for the whole.
I like the rent concept, that's essentially what registering a TLD is anyway.
BTW, good to see AC has more to offer than just Hot Grits. You should log in.
I know I did. Also I know it's not feasable to have 8 gazillion people/entities making collective decisions. My point is more to the flavor of equal representation. In the US Govt. there are districts, delagates etc., who in theory are the funnel for the average joe. This is the citizens way of having representation. In ICANN, in it's current structure. The only representation is for the Governments and for big business.
This should be entirely in the hands of free enterprise
But it wont be. It will be in the hands of the 18 council members who are 50% self appointed. I cant see them giving any decision making ability back to "Free enterprise". The businesses or fields who got them a seat on the council via lobby goups, grants etc. will be the only ones who get direct benefit.
To drastically increase the barriers to entry would be a vast improvement. P. I disagree, not with the basic concept, but I beleive it's way to late to increase the barriers.
Bullshit! The whole effort was set up to benefit business, not anyone else.
The organization initially operated under the direction of an interim board appointed by a small group of Internet founders and insiders. Its main mandate was to introduce competition into the business of registering domain names
Those constituencies -- representing such commercial interests as Internet service providers, intellectual property interests, and registrars of domain names -- were officially agreed upon last year, and nine board members to represent them were elected last fall by the supporting organizations.
The one quote from the article that jumped out at me was.
Specifically, they said, Icann needs to define its mission more clearly and adopt language that limits its scope of power.
I see some value it what the base scope of their effort was, but with the current structure, they will have way to much power and that will lead to more rules, more regs, higher access costs, $1K domain registrations etc. etc.
The biggest problem I have with it is that "Joe Average" will lose out to big busiess every time. The elections, and appointments to the council and the policy that follows will have next to no input from the "Joe Average" public. The only representation will be bought by businesses who can afford lobbying to get a person on the council, and decisions, policy and direction will be set by these folks.
The "Joe Average" ICANN registration IMO is a total sham, once "Joe Average" ICANN member votes in the initial 9 board member election, he/she's out of the decision/policy making process.
Using the model they have been puching stikes me more as a republic than a democracy. The basic difference in my view being that in a true democracy, you get majority rule etc. In a repblic, much like ICANN, elected or appointed individuals have the granted right to make policy changes how They see fit. This is the inherent flaw with the way they have structured the program.
The Icann voting process would allow any user who was/is over the age of 16,(Yeah like that can be proved on-line) international election of the special council, then they appoint their on chioces on 9 more members to the board. The other nine will be representing commercial interests only. Follow the money to get to the root of the policy, the whole thing is geared toward big business who can afford to lobby their representetive to the council to push their agenda. The meeting in Cairo will be more of the same. ICANN has members.icann.org (too lazy to link) which is set up for non commercial interests to voice their opinions. I don't beleive this weill get any attention at all, more a pr move than anything else.
The merger will have Verisign issue 2.15 of its shares for each share of Network Solutions stock prior to the upcoming 2-for-1 split. Looks like Verisign stockholders are going to make a killing.
On the down side, dealing with NS was bad enough, having new management at the helm of the registration ship makes me dread the inevitable upcoming changes. I doubt that Verisigns interests are for the good of the internet.
No ID nessasary to take part in any public election. Now it's clear how we ended up with so many boneheads getting elected at the state level.
Completely off-topic, but just two weeks ago a Bill went before the state senate to change the law to state that you must have a valid picture ID when you vote. Makes sense to me, but the senate voted it down because they said it would create too much administrative overhead. DoH!
The federal government should take steps to improve online traceability and promote international cooperation to identifyInternet users, according to a draft of the report commissioned by President Clinton.
No! No!No! No!No! No!No! No!
This is the last thing we need. If your interested in helping curb this late term legacy building crap aimed at removing more of our already damaged privacy, write your representatives!
Grass roots efforts that come from constituents have enormous impact on capitol hill. This isn't cast in stone yet, it is merely a proposal that will go before the house and be turned in to a bill. If you write your senators, congressmen, local and regional delegates you could have some impact on stopping this.
Bitchin' and moanin' on Slashdot doesn't really change the fact that a bill will be introduced to the house as a result of this. Try to get in front of your representatives, face to face. It's not really tough to do, just give 'em a call or write a letter. E-Mails ok, but not very effective.
Couple of things to remember,
Be NICE. Elected officials really don't respond well to flames, spam, mail floods or harsh language. For a loose reference, re-read the Linux Advocacy Guide, it will give you the right sort of flavor for your communications. The bottom line is don't JUST bitch about big brother taking more of your privacy away, do something about it.
oops. I stand corrected. I really didn't do it on purpose.
I think your right though on the point that when, not if, this becomes commonplace and the cell contracts are driven by ads, it will run up the prices to the end consumers.
This sounds perfectly logical to me. You cant watch TV, surf a page drive down the street etc. without getting spammed. Why should cell phones be any different.
Who knows, it may bring the price down a little with some of the targeted profit margin being met by the advertisers. At least on a cell phone, and later on Palm like devices, the screens are so small, the visual impact isn't all that annoying. Generally I only look at the screen on my cell when I'm dialing, then don't look at the display at all when I'm talking. Seems like a good trade off for lower air charges. Most of our society is numb to this anyway, look at radio ads, we just mentally tune them out. Heres an example.
What does this say:
Paris in the the springtime.
Did you read it correctly the first time? Propably not. There are two "The's" in the phrase. Our minds generally just overlook or tune out what we instinctively think is irrevelant. In this case it was "the". The same is true for most ads, spam etc. We will just mentally tune the cell ads out just like we do on television. Hopefully lower prices will be the end result.
Although I think this is honorable and wanting to give back to the open source community and/or donate to a particular effort, I would have to recommend also visiting financial counsel. As a PHB and being fortunate to have options, I know first hand that supporting cause X or foudation Y makes you feel good and the community will give back 10 fold in many ways.
But,
If you don't do it right you will get absolutely hosed financially in the long run. If you don't balance the charitable load and carefully execute, the tax man will eat you alive.
Quick example. Say you are going to donate 10K of your option money to a cause. First off all the pre tax verbage in the package really only takes out about half thats owed. So even on a charitable contribution, be prepared to knock off another 20%. Now your dealing with 8K. Next, execution, meaning what form of donation, grant, product, etc. These methods all have pro's and cons. Lastly, how is the donation going to be used. If its for product, thats one thing, helping support a legal defense fund, thats another, monies going toward a non-profit needing admin and support is still another.
The long and short of it is, unfortunately/. is not really the best place to get financial advise, although I'm sure many different opinions will be shared on where to donate, bottom line, Get professional financial advice along with other guidance, like here at/..
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, this is a test run that we haven't really had access to in the past. Pretty sporting of Compaq to show their hand. However, AlphaServers and ProLiants are not exactly new, or exceptional hardware. When are we going to see the communal tests on something that is more in the range of a Turbo Laser 8400? After all they do own DEC.
But in general, be nice, professional and be prepared. Most likely you won't get more that 20 minutes with the representetive, but you can meet with the telecom aide for a lot longer, he/she's the one who really does the work on this anyway. Lay out your point of view like this:
- A little background of the problem
- Your personal impact as a constituent
- several possible solutions
- Brief closing
If possible, practice your twenty minute gig beforehand, also try to get time with the aide the same day, the aide will update the member at the end of the day. If possible, bring a camera and get a picture of the two of you, they love that stuff.
I do look down on most civil disobedience because there are better ways to go about making a change happen, specifically when dealing with the US government. Throwing rocks and bottles and staging sit ins does nothing to help reverse or modify the policies or the DMCA.
I agree that getting publicity will help in curbing the DMCA, but WTO style antics are not step one, writing you representatives is step one. Save the civil disobedience and hacktivism for the hippies, the anti-DMCA front needs to professional or at least have the appearance that we're not a bunch of pot smokin' kids, and needs to use the avenues in place. They will work if they are used.
Normally I agree with you, however I think your view is somewhat narrow.
Have you ever sat down with your congressman or senator? Explained as a constituent your point of view? From you post I would have to say probably not. I have and I was amazed at the impact. The big companies have their industry lobbies and their PACs but the constituents voice has a much higher volume. I forget the exact numbers, but it goes something like this when in comparative perspective you look at constituent volume vs lobby volume.
1 Constituent letter = 100 Lobby or PAC letters
1 Constituent phone call = 500 Lobby or PAC phone calls
1 Constituent face to face meeting = 100 Lobby or PAC meetings
Again, I'm not right on with the numbers, however I am in the ballpark. Your voice does have an impact and just giving up because big bad corporation has more money than me just doesn't hold water. You can have a difference and the avenues for you to have a face to face with your elected officials are there and easy to use. Pick up the phone and call to get a meeting. It's that simple.
So what we have now is Hacktivism boiling down to nothing more then Script Kiddie antics. Great. I am sure this will help to convince people that it is a legit method of action.
All the protests and Dos attacks made for some sexy headlines, but in the long run made the folks attempting the disobedience look like a bunch of hippies with nothing better to do than stage riots, both physical and electronic.
Maybe a better track would be to use the channels available to us, like writing your congressmen or joining an association like EFF . Civil disobedience doesn't change laws, Congress does.
Look, the current administration is not going to help. Clinton's policies surrounding this are all over the road. His administration is focusing on only two things, 1, ramp up the failing Clinton legacy and 2, get Gore in the White House. This needs to come from grass roots efforts, they do have impact if they are communicated effectively. This means politely, professionally and with out flame. Find out who your local congressional member or senator is and communicate with them that the DMCA is way off base and catering not to the general good of the citizens, but to specific industries.
Make sure that in all your verbal or written communication to either an elected official, industry lobby or industry exec that you be nice. Elected officials really don't respond well to flames, spam, mail floods or harsh language. You will come off as a script kiddie and be completely ignored. For a loose reference, re-read the Linux Advocacy Guide, it will give you the right sort of flavor for your communications. The bottom line is don't JUST bitch about how "big brothers keepin' us down man" do something about it!
The house of representatives has a search facility to find your representative:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
The senates listing is here:
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.c fm
If you go to the library and check out a book, the next person must wait for you to return the book before he/she can check it out.
If you go to the digital library and check out a book, there is always a book left.
A fundamental shift in business model. The companies who can understand this shift have a significant advantage on how we are going to be tdoing business tomorrow. The same goes for DMCA if they apply the same "Old School" model to today./tomorrows technical environment problems, the problems will not get addressed, they will increase ten fold.
I don't thing the folks behind DMCA are nessasarily evil, they just simply are using the wrong tools, the wrong model and for some reason forcing a round peg in a square hole.
The MHz race is boiling down to nothing more than a marketing warefare. The overall impact from speed this or speed that printed on the box makes a huge difference in sales, especially with the big manufactures who they have had partnerships for years. Technically, for Intel this is really not all that big a deal, just another step in the longer term strategy of Intel. They have to announce "Break through this or break through that about once a quater to keep shareholders happy. Used to be about once every six months or so, but with AMD biting at their heels with the Athalons selling like hotcakes, they need to keep up. The down side is that addind x MHz every quarter or so takes time and resources away from development of the next architecture. Newer architecture on processors will make a significant impact on my buying decisions, not 50 MHz a quarter, It just doesn't give me enough to make it worthwhile.
I doubt if this will impact the US launch, I think it's slated for September?? The encryptioin issues and work arounds to make it "US-importable" will IMO be almost a different product. The PS2, US version will also be much more that a game console, its a vehicle to pump more up-sell product into the US/ More movies, CD's, Games, services etc..It's the basis for a long and drawn out marketing campaign.
Good reviews, and the book will have good impact for security/privacy awareness. My next click is going to be over to Think Geek to buy the book. This seems to me a s a "must buy" for the PHB audience. Having line level folks get this book in front of the policy makers could have a positive effect on the culture shift to thinking about how your customers view both privacy and security up front. I beleive having a policy maker read this will contribute to making the "Double Click" practices a thing of the past. Scary stuff because it doesn't seem all that far away.
I like the rent concept, that's essentially what registering a TLD is anyway.
BTW, good to see AC has more to offer than just Hot Grits. You should log in.
I know I did. Also I know it's not feasable to have 8 gazillion people/entities making collective decisions. My point is more to the flavor of equal representation. In the US Govt. there are districts, delagates etc., who in theory are the funnel for the average joe. This is the citizens way of having representation. In ICANN, in it's current structure. The only representation is for the Governments and for big business.
But it wont be. It will be in the hands of the 18 council members who are 50% self appointed. I cant see them giving any decision making ability back to "Free enterprise". The businesses or fields who got them a seat on the council via lobby goups, grants etc. will be the only ones who get direct benefit.
To drastically increase the barriers to entry would be a vast improvement. P. I disagree, not with the basic concept, but I beleive it's way to late to increase the barriers.
The organization initially operated under the direction of an interim board appointed by a small group of Internet founders and insiders. Its main mandate was to introduce competition into the business of registering domain names
Those constituencies -- representing such commercial interests as Internet service providers, intellectual property interests, and registrars of domain names -- were officially agreed upon last year, and nine board members to represent them were elected last fall by the supporting organizations.
Specifically, they said, Icann needs to define its mission more clearly and adopt language that limits its scope of power.
I see some value it what the base scope of their effort was, but with the current structure, they will have way to much power and that will lead to more rules, more regs, higher access costs, $1K domain registrations etc. etc.
The "Joe Average" ICANN registration IMO is a total sham, once "Joe Average" ICANN member votes in the initial 9 board member election, he/she's out of the decision/policy making process.
The Icann voting process would allow any user who was/is over the age of 16,(Yeah like that can be proved on-line) international election of the special council, then they appoint their on chioces on 9 more members to the board. The other nine will be representing commercial interests only. Follow the money to get to the root of the policy, the whole thing is geared toward big business who can afford to lobby their representetive to the council to push their agenda. The meeting in Cairo will be more of the same. ICANN has members.icann.org (too lazy to link) which is set up for non commercial interests to voice their opinions. I don't beleive this weill get any attention at all, more a pr move than anything else.
On the down side, dealing with NS was bad enough, having new management at the helm of the registration ship makes me dread the inevitable upcoming changes. I doubt that Verisigns interests are for the good of the internet.
No ID nessasary to take part in any public election. Now it's clear how we ended up with so many boneheads getting elected at the state level.
Completely off-topic, but just two weeks ago a Bill went before the state senate to change the law to state that you must have a valid picture ID when you vote. Makes sense to me, but the senate voted it down because they said it would create too much administrative overhead. DoH!
No! No!No! No!No! No!No! No!
This is the last thing we need. If your interested in helping curb this late term legacy building crap aimed at removing more of our already damaged privacy, write your representatives!
Grass roots efforts that come from constituents have enormous impact on capitol hill. This isn't cast in stone yet, it is merely a proposal that will go before the house and be turned in to a bill. If you write your senators, congressmen, local and regional delegates you could have some impact on stopping this.
Bitchin' and moanin' on Slashdot doesn't really change the fact that a bill will be introduced to the house as a result of this. Try to get in front of your representatives, face to face. It's not really tough to do, just give 'em a call or write a letter. E-Mails ok, but not very effective.
Couple of things to remember,
Be NICE. Elected officials really don't respond well to flames, spam, mail floods or harsh language. For a loose reference, re-read the Linux Advocacy Guide, it will give you the right sort of flavor for your communications. The bottom line is don't JUST bitch about big brother taking more of your privacy away, do something about it.
I think your right though on the point that when, not if, this becomes commonplace and the cell contracts are driven by ads, it will run up the prices to the end consumers.
Did you get a reduction in cost as a result?
Who knows, it may bring the price down a little with some of the targeted profit margin being met by the advertisers. At least on a cell phone, and later on Palm like devices, the screens are so small, the visual impact isn't all that annoying. Generally I only look at the screen on my cell when I'm dialing, then don't look at the display at all when I'm talking. Seems like a good trade off for lower air charges. Most of our society is numb to this anyway, look at radio ads, we just mentally tune them out. Heres an example.
What does this say:
Paris in the
the springtime.
Did you read it correctly the first time? Propably not. There are two "The's" in the phrase. Our minds generally just overlook or tune out what we instinctively think is irrevelant. In this case it was "the". The same is true for most ads, spam etc. We will just mentally tune the cell ads out just like we do on television. Hopefully lower prices will be the end result.
But,
If you don't do it right you will get absolutely hosed financially in the long run. If you don't balance the charitable load and carefully execute, the tax man will eat you alive.
Quick example. Say you are going to donate 10K of your option money to a cause. First off all the pre tax verbage in the package really only takes out about half thats owed. So even on a charitable contribution, be prepared to knock off another 20%. Now your dealing with 8K. Next, execution, meaning what form of donation, grant, product, etc. These methods all have pro's and cons. Lastly, how is the donation going to be used. If its for product, thats one thing, helping support a legal defense fund, thats another, monies going toward a non-profit needing admin and support is still another.
The long and short of it is, unfortunately /. is not really the best place to get financial advise, although I'm sure many different opinions will be shared on where to donate, bottom line, Get professional financial advice along with other guidance, like here at /..
Yeah, but too bad they are rolling it into a suite that they have applied for a patent on. Not really in the flavor or spirit of OpenBSD.