Government policies that close doors to competition are bad. Linux might work in some situations, but not in others. There are plenty of good software packages out there to use, and plenty of specific packages for government, that wont exist in OSS until someone is paid (gobs of cash) to write them.
It might be worth your while to re-read the Villanueva Letter. It sounds as if you've forgotten some of the key principles that should be involved in government decisions to employ free software and open standards.
As an aside, does anyone know if you can get any info from your phone provider on thses "anonymous" text messages, Also, can you do a reverse lookup on premium rate lines? (I know if you register a PO box, your information must be available, is the same for premium rate lines?)
Check out the UK premium rate line regulator, ICSTIS. You can post complaints to their website, and from personal experience I know they act on them (monthly reports are available here). They even send you a nice letter after everything's sorted out, telling you who owned the premium line (plus contact details), how fast it was shut down (inc. all the relevant code violations), and how much the offenders were fined (thousands of pounds, as a rule).
(Do mention that your number is TPS registered, when you complain -- they hate that!)
They'll do reverse lookups on premium rate lines for you, too.
I wonder if this russian fellow was inspired by that action.
I doubt it -- if you RTFA you'll see the minister trusted a spammer to remove him from their list -- not the act of a well-informed individual.
Re:Get your SciFi right
on
Science Faction
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
If 1984 was talking about any government, it was talking about Socialism, as the name of the government was IngSoc.
If you can read 1984 (inc. the Newspeak appendix) and come away with the impression that the names of things tell you what they are, you have a problem. Maybe the Ministry of Love can help you sort it out...
To quote Immanuel Goldstein's Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism:
Socialism, a theory which appeared in the early nineteenth century and was the last link in a chain of thought stretching back to the slave rebellions of antiquity, was still deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages. But in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly abandoned. The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the century, Ingsoc in Oceania, Neo-Bolshevism in Eurasia, Death-Worship, as it is commonly called, in Eastasia, had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality. These new movements, of course, grew out of the old ones and tended to keep their names and pay lip-service to their ideology. But the purpose of all of them was to arrest progress and freeze history at a chosen moment. The familiar pendulum swing was to happen once more, and then stop.
So the 'Ingsoc' movement grew out of English Socialism, kept its name, paid lip service to its ideology; BUT...
Re:Get your SciFi right
on
Science Faction
·
· Score: 4, Informative
1984 is about totalitarianism in general, not communism in particular.
(And it's a dystopia, not a distopia).
"Don't worry about Big Brother" because it'd be embarrassingly inefficient? I don't want to be subjected to embarrassingly inefficient state voyeurism, either. So I still do worry.
Yeah, but that's just the fine for calling an opted-out TPS user. There are otherwaystocatchpremiumrateabuse (examples mix text spam and premium rate abuse). You'll see international examples here, too. With the efforts of Oftel and ICSTIS, I feel someone's doing an adequate job -- and the fines reported in these stories are way over £5,000.
From my experience, TPS works well -- I now get hardly any telemarketing calls, and those that do get through (c. one a month) are from amateur outfits which hang up within seconds of me starting to explain their "mistake".
The related MPS (Mail Preference Service) also works well. I now get no credit card offers through the mail. (I understand the US average is 60 per month for a household).
I don't have a problem with convicted criminals being implanted, and their movements tracked for a certain amount of time, it'll reduce the prison populations and, hopefully, ensure convicts don't commit more crimes because theyd be found out easier.
Then you might enjoy this breaking news from the BBC:
Tagged youth jailed for killing
A teenager has been given three years detention for killing his girlfriend, a crime he committed while wearing an electronic tag.
The case is bound to renew debate into the effectiveness of tagging.
The youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was 16 at the time of the crime.
Curfew
He had denied murdering the 19-year-old woman, who also cannot be named, but was convicted of her manslaughter.
She was found shot in the chest in a block of flats on the Stockwell Gardens estate in south London in September last year.
The youth was under supervision in the community on an electronic tag when he shot her dead.
Read the title: 'digital' = by finger, not by hand.
That's why it's four times faster to animate something digitally than it would be to do the same job by hand (five times faster if the animator uses their thumbs, too).
The corporate logo of BT used to be a figure playing pan-pipes. "Pan" is (of course) a goat-like pagan deity, identified by Christians as Satan.
In the UK in the eighties, you could get your phone numbers either from BT (the incumbent former monopolist) or from their jumped-up competitor, Mercury. The Roman deity "Mercury" was known in Greek as Hermes the Messenger; who was confused in late antiquity with Hermes Trismegistus (Thrice-Powerful Hermes), the father of magic; who was identified by Christians as Satan.
Yeah. The funny bit is that WoS appear (from the correspondence log on their site) to have replied to the munged.no.junk.mail address. Who knows whether IDSA received anything?:-)
This case really reminds me of the Harrison trawl, where RIAA lawyers asserted that George Harrison owned copyright to images named "Portrait of Mrs. Harrison Williams 1943" and (perhaps more seriously) "Nude Preteens and Young Teens Naked... Brian is 14 and Harrison is 8".
Maybe he does. In the latter case, shouldn't somebody tell the police? We could do with another paedophile frenzy here in the UK...:-)
'In general, the concept and imagination involved is stunning. However, much more work, refinement, and especially regulation and simplification is necessary before the game is managable.'
Amen to that, brother! Maybe the fourth edition rules will clear this up...
Allowing government policy to steer the direction of popular science is one of the greatest threats to our freedom.
RTFA. This is self-censorship, not gub'mint policy.
Now, they look to seriously hinder all biological research. Who's going to spend years and grant money working on projects when they won't even get published?
(1) Who's "THEY"? Is it the same They that shot Kennedy / own Roswell / worship space-lizards? Or a different They? Conspiracy theorists need to know!
(2) Given that the 2001 anthrax attacks appear (to all unbiased observers) to have come from within the US bioweapons research community, might this not be a Good Thing after all?
The ancient Romans knew what they were doing when they made their laws accessible to everyone in a public place. Here's an introductory article, explaining why this was important, and here's the surviving text.
Of course, maybe in the last two and a half thousand years the patrician aristocracy has once again risen into the ascendent, unfettered by uppity tribunes of the People.
Doom -- nope, that was the original Wolfenstein 3D. No Nazis in Doom
I agree there are bits of "political activism" in the way some factions are portrayed (e.g. the Soviet leaders in Red Alert are made overtly corrupt and evil; the Western leaders aren't), but, that said, plenty of games (inc. Red Alert & NOLF2) show cowardly, corrupt, incompetent, venal, or nuke-happy Western presidents, politicians and generals. What sort of psychological effect does that have on people? Probably not much.
BTW, isn't the way America's Army works cunning? Everyone plays as the good guys -- the other side appears to you as terrorists, but their players think they're American soldiers. Very crafty implementation; also, perhaps even more interesting (psychologically and politically speaking) than consciously "playing the bad guys."
That was, reportedly, reduced by allowing a contraban printer to "slip through" blockades on goods to Iraq. The printer had a virus that spread through the air defense network.
This hoary April Fool's joke lurches into the sunlight again, thanks to GMontag. Go back to sleep, and shame on whoever moderated this up.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the story, straight from the horse's mouth:
The US started differently than European nations, and has a long history of distrust of the government.
That's by no means unique to Americans. I'm European, and I distrust the US government, too.
Government policies that close doors to competition are bad. Linux might work in some situations, but not in others. There are plenty of good software packages out there to use, and plenty of specific packages for government, that wont exist in OSS until someone is paid (gobs of cash) to write them.
It might be worth your while to re-read the Villanueva Letter. It sounds as if you've forgotten some of the key principles that should be involved in government decisions to employ free software and open standards.
As an aside, does anyone know if you can get any info from your phone provider on thses "anonymous" text messages, Also, can you do a reverse lookup on premium rate lines? (I know if you register a PO box, your information must be available, is the same for premium rate lines?)
Check out the UK premium rate line regulator, ICSTIS. You can post complaints to their website, and from personal experience I know they act on them (monthly reports are available here). They even send you a nice letter after everything's sorted out, telling you who owned the premium line (plus contact details), how fast it was shut down (inc. all the relevant code violations), and how much the offenders were fined (thousands of pounds, as a rule).
(Do mention that your number is TPS registered, when you complain -- they hate that!)
They'll do reverse lookups on premium rate lines for you, too.
you're confessing your sins to somebody who doesn't have the power to forgive you...
Or - more importantly - any obligation to keep your confession secret from those who would use it to harm you.
OK 35 minutes, who'd even know?
:-)
So you never heard of the 18 minute gap?
there is a huge market for pirate video's too (as hilary rosen so vociferously predicted)
You mean Jack Valenti, right? That old "Boston Strangler" argument against home video-taping?
I wonder if this russian fellow was inspired by that action.
I doubt it -- if you RTFA you'll see the minister trusted a spammer to remove him from their list -- not the act of a well-informed individual.
If you can read 1984 (inc. the Newspeak appendix) and come away with the impression that the names of things tell you what they are, you have a problem. Maybe the Ministry of Love can help you sort it out...
To quote Immanuel Goldstein's Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism:So the 'Ingsoc' movement grew out of English Socialism, kept its name, paid lip service to its ideology; BUT...
1984 is about totalitarianism in general, not communism in particular.
(And it's a dystopia, not a distopia).
"Don't worry about Big Brother" because it'd be embarrassingly inefficient? I don't want to be subjected to embarrassingly inefficient state voyeurism, either. So I still do worry.
FYI, "this ISC mob" is Microsoft.
See Bruce Perens' article MS 'Software Choice' scheme a clever fraud for a reasoned demolition of their stance.
Yeah, but that's just the fine for calling an opted-out TPS user. There are other ways to catch premium rate abuse (examples mix text spam and premium rate abuse). You'll see international examples here, too. With the efforts of Oftel and ICSTIS, I feel someone's doing an adequate job -- and the fines reported in these stories are way over £5,000.
From my experience, TPS works well -- I now get hardly any telemarketing calls, and those that do get through (c. one a month) are from amateur outfits which hang up within seconds of me starting to explain their "mistake".
The related MPS (Mail Preference Service) also works well. I now get no credit card offers through the mail. (I understand the US average is 60 per month for a household).
Your comments?
Read the title: 'digital' = by finger, not by hand.
That's why it's four times faster to animate something digitally than it would be to do the same job by hand (five times faster if the animator uses their thumbs, too).
The Borg were original before First Contact
Only if you never encountered the Comprise from Vacuum Flowers by Michael Swanwick, published back in 1987.
The corporate logo of BT used to be a figure playing pan-pipes. "Pan" is (of course) a goat-like pagan deity, identified by Christians as Satan.
In the UK in the eighties, you could get your phone numbers either from BT (the incumbent former monopolist) or from their jumped-up competitor, Mercury. The Roman deity "Mercury" was known in Greek as Hermes the Messenger; who was confused in late antiquity with Hermes Trismegistus (Thrice-Powerful Hermes), the father of magic; who was identified by Christians as Satan.
Numbers, Pan, Hermes, Satan... interesting times?
Yeah. The funny bit is that WoS appear (from the correspondence log on their site) to have replied to the munged .no.junk.mail address. Who knows whether IDSA received anything? :-)
... Brian is 14 and Harrison is 8".
:-)
This case really reminds me of the Harrison trawl, where RIAA lawyers asserted that George Harrison owned copyright to images named "Portrait of Mrs. Harrison Williams 1943" and (perhaps more seriously) "Nude Preteens and Young Teens Naked
Maybe he does. In the latter case, shouldn't somebody tell the police? We could do with another paedophile frenzy here in the UK...
... so the next monster he encountered cut off his head with a vorpal blade?
Or did I miss the punchline?
'In general, the concept and imagination involved is stunning. However, much more work, refinement, and especially regulation and simplification is necessary before the game is managable.'
Amen to that, brother! Maybe the fourth edition rules will clear this up...
Allowing government policy to steer the direction of popular science is one of the greatest threats to our freedom.
RTFA. This is self-censorship, not gub'mint policy.
Now, they look to seriously hinder all biological research. Who's going to spend years and grant money working on projects when they won't even get published?
(1) Who's "THEY"? Is it the same They that shot Kennedy / own Roswell / worship space-lizards? Or a different They? Conspiracy theorists need to know!
(2) Given that the 2001 anthrax attacks appear (to all unbiased observers) to have come from within the US bioweapons research community, might this not be a Good Thing after all?
The ancient Romans knew what they were doing when they made their laws accessible to everyone in a public place. Here's an introductory article, explaining why this was important, and here's the surviving text.
Of course, maybe in the last two and a half thousand years the patrician aristocracy has once again risen into the ascendent, unfettered by uppity tribunes of the People.
what if convicted felon Poindexter might have actually done some good with his (admittedly grotesque, and probably wildly impractical) database?
OK, let's say we remember just two things about Poindexter. One, he's a liar. Two, he knows sod all about how email works.
So, what are the odds of him inadvertently doing some good?
Doom -- nope, that was the original Wolfenstein 3D. No Nazis in Doom
I agree there are bits of "political activism" in the way some factions are portrayed (e.g. the Soviet leaders in Red Alert are made overtly corrupt and evil; the Western leaders aren't), but, that said, plenty of games (inc. Red Alert & NOLF2) show cowardly, corrupt, incompetent, venal, or nuke-happy Western presidents, politicians and generals. What sort of psychological effect does that have on people? Probably not much.
BTW, isn't the way America's Army works cunning? Everyone plays as the good guys -- the other side appears to you as terrorists, but their players think they're American soldiers. Very crafty implementation; also, perhaps even more interesting (psychologically and politically speaking) than consciously "playing the bad guys."
That was, reportedly, reduced by allowing a contraban printer to "slip through" blockades on goods to Iraq. The printer had a virus that spread through the air defense network.
This hoary April Fool's joke lurches into the sunlight again, thanks to GMontag. Go back to sleep, and shame on whoever moderated this up.
Your link is to an entirely irrelevant page about advertising on commercial channels, which mentions the 9pm watershed only in passing.
This is a link to a relevant page about the BBC's policy on family viewing and the 9pm "watershed," while this is the equivalent from the ITC.