As long as you stay happily with your computer, you're warm and safe. This should be a natural geek advantage where real estate is concerned: who needs to pay a premium for views or climate?
For hundreds of years the term "Czar" was synonymous with a corrupt autocrat. (Hmm, come to think of it, that makes sense where the Drug Czar is concerned). But why, in a supposedly free country, should we think it's a good deal to create "Czars." And has any federal "Czar" actually accomplished anything?
It's Good that Internet Cos. Don't Make Money
on
The Not-So-Free Web
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· Score: 2
Ideally, all the big businesses will fail, too, and the Internet will become the domain of small, specialized businesses and hobbyists/nonprofits who offer things for the love of it. That will build a virtuous, Jeffersonian cyber-yeomanry that will help make the Internet an interesting and liberating place.
"I'd rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother in the FBI." Securities Commissioner Tom Krebs, discussing the heavyhanded Ineptitude of the FBI 20 years ago. Apparently, some things never change.
It's the economic driver of the Internet. We should be thanking God that people can somehow get off from images on a small dim screen. Why else would He create us with such drives, if not to facilitate the early adoption of new technologies?
Naw. Chinese culture doesn't place a premium on responsibility. It places a premium on rulers NOT being held responsible, because they cannot admit to any flaws. That's the problem.
The Net ultimately will help this, if Chinese citizens get sufficient exposure to the rest of the world. But it won't happen overnight.
You can argue about the specifics, but from where I sit Britain appears to be gradually transitioning into a police state. Cameras, instrusive computer surveillance, a proliferation of armed (and increasingly rude) police, indiscriminate sweeps to gather and archive DNA evidence, etc. It's not so much any one of these things, as the obvious attitude of the government (and particularly the odious Jack Straw) that the people are cattle to be controlled, rather than citizens with rights. From being the beacon of freedom, Britain is now probably the least free nation in Europe, well behind the Germans. That should be disturbing. That most British citizens don't seem to care only makes it worse.
Speaking as a professor, this makes sense
on
Open Courses at MIT
·
· Score: 1
As a professor myself, I think this is a great idea. It's no big threat to MIT -- you go to a university for the interaction more than the course content. And the faculty is willing to go along because it's being given away: that's in keeping with their mission as educators. If MIT were in a partnership with Microsoft or somebody, the faculty would feel (rightly) like they were being taken advantage of. This way they're not. The gift economy is very prevalent in academia, so this fits right in. I love it.
Dr Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist, has researched the connection between the conditions that lead to prison riots and the conditions that lead to school shooting. They're similar. Her website is at www.violentkids.com.
Sunstein's fear has some basis, I guess. But in fact I think people are being driven away from traditional media by the same phenomena. Most trad. media are written by, of, and for -- and increasingly *about* -- a narrow class of traditional journalists who share the same worldview, political opinions, lifestyle, etc. It's already the "Them Media." For many people, that's reason enough to tune them out.
If mass media were more inclusive, and less solipsistic and biased, this would be less of a problem.
Any truth to the rumor they were vacuum-distilling their own hooch there? Any leftovers would explain the bluish tinge to the reentry flames, I guess....
This is kinda offtopic, but Stephenson's first novel, "The Big U" is now back in print. I just bought a copy. For the many who've been looking for it in used bookstores, it's now available.
I'm disappointed in Amazon's behavior, since in many ways I like their product/service. I hope that the ABA, and other lawyers' groups, will take on the many abuses of intellectual property law that are taking place.
Earth and Mars have been transferring tons of bacteria-laden rocks to one another for millions of years. This means that each planet has already been exposed to the other's bacterial life.
At any rate, Mars's soil is full of peroxides. Between that and the high UV flux, there's not much likelihood of Earth bacteria surviving.
First, if you parody your employer, they can fire you because the Constitution doesn't bind private parties. It does bind the government. That's because they work for us. We don't work for them.
And what's this about the website being accessible from school? All websites are accessible from anywhere unless they're blocked. Big deal.
Finally, I think this post misses the important privacy issue. The kid did what he did on his own time. Have we forgotten that there *is* such a thing as our own time? Or is all our time the property of our employers and of the government now? If it is, I want some goddamn overtime checks.
This seems to fall into the "it's clever so it must be done" category. It's probably best understood as performance art aimed at the idiocy of the Windows file-sharing defaults. But that's fish in a barrel.
You need a free market, but free doesn't just mean free from governmental control. You need enforceable contracts, tolerably low levels of official corruption, and the right set of (usually unspoken) assumptions about how things work. The West has that; most other areas don't. Unfortunately, cultural changes take a long time.
Slashdot Mirror
Irony is wasted in this place.
The Constitution doesn't apply to laws that are for protecting the children. And nowadays, all laws are for protecting the children.
As long as you stay happily with your computer, you're warm and safe. This should be a natural geek advantage where real estate is concerned: who needs to pay a premium for views or climate?
Douglas Adams is dead. But Jack Valenti goes on and on and on...
For hundreds of years the term "Czar" was synonymous with a corrupt autocrat. (Hmm, come to think of it, that makes sense where the Drug Czar is concerned). But why, in a supposedly free country, should we think it's a good deal to create "Czars." And has any federal "Czar" actually accomplished anything?
Ideally, all the big businesses will fail, too, and the Internet will become the domain of small, specialized businesses and hobbyists/nonprofits who offer things for the love of it. That will build a virtuous, Jeffersonian cyber-yeomanry that will help make the Internet an interesting and liberating place.
If you're on-call, you're working. Wouldn't they fire you if you turned off your pager? If so, then you're working and should be paid.
"I'd rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother in the FBI." Securities Commissioner Tom Krebs, discussing the heavyhanded Ineptitude of the FBI 20 years ago. Apparently, some things never change.
It's the economic driver of the Internet. We should be thanking God that people can somehow get off from images on a small dim screen. Why else would He create us with such drives, if not to facilitate the early adoption of new technologies?
Naw. Chinese culture doesn't place a premium on responsibility. It places a premium on rulers NOT being held responsible, because they cannot admit to any flaws. That's the problem. The Net ultimately will help this, if Chinese citizens get sufficient exposure to the rest of the world. But it won't happen overnight.
America: gun ownership up, crime rate down. Britain: gun ownership down, crime rate up. Figure it out.
You can argue about the specifics, but from where I sit Britain appears to be gradually transitioning into a police state. Cameras, instrusive computer surveillance, a proliferation of armed (and increasingly rude) police, indiscriminate sweeps to gather and archive DNA evidence, etc. It's not so much any one of these things, as the obvious attitude of the government (and particularly the odious Jack Straw) that the people are cattle to be controlled, rather than citizens with rights. From being the beacon of freedom, Britain is now probably the least free nation in Europe, well behind the Germans. That should be disturbing. That most British citizens don't seem to care only makes it worse.
As a professor myself, I think this is a great idea. It's no big threat to MIT -- you go to a university for the interaction more than the course content. And the faculty is willing to go along because it's being given away: that's in keeping with their mission as educators. If MIT were in a partnership with Microsoft or somebody, the faculty would feel (rightly) like they were being taken advantage of. This way they're not. The gift economy is very prevalent in academia, so this fits right in. I love it.
And then make mad, passionate love to it...
Dr Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist, has researched the connection between the conditions that lead to prison riots and the conditions that lead to school shooting. They're similar. Her website is at www.violentkids.com.
Sunstein's fear has some basis, I guess. But in fact I think people are being driven away from traditional media by the same phenomena. Most trad. media are written by, of, and for -- and increasingly *about* -- a narrow class of traditional journalists who share the same worldview, political opinions, lifestyle, etc. It's already the "Them Media." For many people, that's reason enough to tune them out. If mass media were more inclusive, and less solipsistic and biased, this would be less of a problem.
Any truth to the rumor they were vacuum-distilling their own hooch there? Any leftovers would explain the bluish tinge to the reentry flames, I guess....
This is kinda offtopic, but Stephenson's first novel, "The Big U" is now back in print. I just bought a copy. For the many who've been looking for it in used bookstores, it's now available.
What's going on down there? Is it Mad Cow Disease?
In a Salon article just after the Napster decision, Moglen had the best insight: RIAA is killing its own industry here. You go, lawprof.
I'm disappointed in Amazon's behavior, since in many ways I like their product/service. I hope that the ABA, and other lawyers' groups, will take on the many abuses of intellectual property law that are taking place.
Earth and Mars have been transferring tons of bacteria-laden rocks to one another for millions of years. This means that each planet has already been exposed to the other's bacterial life. At any rate, Mars's soil is full of peroxides. Between that and the high UV flux, there's not much likelihood of Earth bacteria surviving.
First, if you parody your employer, they can fire you because the Constitution doesn't bind private parties. It does bind the government. That's because they work for us. We don't work for them. And what's this about the website being accessible from school? All websites are accessible from anywhere unless they're blocked. Big deal. Finally, I think this post misses the important privacy issue. The kid did what he did on his own time. Have we forgotten that there *is* such a thing as our own time? Or is all our time the property of our employers and of the government now? If it is, I want some goddamn overtime checks.
This seems to fall into the "it's clever so it must be done" category. It's probably best understood as performance art aimed at the idiocy of the Windows file-sharing defaults. But that's fish in a barrel.
You need a free market, but free doesn't just mean free from governmental control. You need enforceable contracts, tolerably low levels of official corruption, and the right set of (usually unspoken) assumptions about how things work. The West has that; most other areas don't. Unfortunately, cultural changes take a long time.