Just as a side note: Depending on the situation, copyright and trademark holders are required under US law to defend their rights. Failing to do so, means that they can lose them. I don't know enough of the specifics, but a quick read of the code told me that I'd have to see a real lawyer. Sadly, the corps may not be acting deliberately malicous on this, they might be complelled to take the action. I'd appreciate if someone with some real legal knowledge would comment on this aspect of the situation. This might make a good Ask Slashdot feature too.
The more I think about it, I'm inclined to agree. The thing is that windows is deceptively easy to use. You can get a pc, start it up or even install windows with no knowledge or common sense whatsoever. You can figure out how to move things around and run programs, but if you run into problems you are screwed. And you will run into problems. And, actually troubleshooting the system is difficult. Much more so than any unix system. But its easy to set up, and get started. Although my experience with Red Hat went smoother than my windos 98 experience, so maybe I'm just suffering from delusions. The end user gets suckered in by the appearence of simplicity and nice pretty desktop.
You've hit it! The one thing that currently keeps Linux out of the mainstream is the lack of "userproof" interfaces. Linux works nicely as a server, as a shared worstation, and a stand alone solution for power user crowd. But, problem with all Unix variants is the power the os gives to clueless newbies and the operation complexity inherent in the system. By operation complexity, I mean its not something the average user can just sit down and figure out. A good mainstream interface has got to protect the lay user from blowing their foot off at the thigh, and has to be intuitive. Thats why windows has had the success that its had--that and the MS marketing machine. The average user doesn't give a hoot about the inherent beauty--or horror--of a system as long as he can sit down and begin using it.
Frankly I just don't understand why there has to be a common GUI for Linux--or any other OS for that matter. The interface layer of an "OS" is very distinct from the layers that do the work of an operating system. Given that, why is it bad to have a whole mess of interfaces floating around? Wired and other articles make it seem like the various GUIs compete with one another and sabotage Linux. Not true at all. The different GUIs make Linux more attractive in my book. I have a good OS, and I'm not stuck with an interface I don't like. In so far as the non technical user getting confused, I just don't see it. The various Linux packagers--Corel, Red Hat Suse, and the others--can and do invest time and money to create simpler and more streamlined interfaces. What this means to the consumer is that he or she has a bunch of good choices. Or will when they're finished developing the interfaces. Granted everything is based on X and that has its problems, but that doesn't have to be. Someone could easily come along and write new completely new display environment that would bolt right onto the underlying OS like X currently does. So, the Linux community isn't even really stuck with X. That kind of versatility makes Linux an even more attractive solution for anyone looking for an OS to drive their hardware product.
A friend of mine had a very realistic looking cat stuffy. She used leave it perched on her window sill in the dorm. When ever passerbys would look into her window, she'd grab a large book and violently whack the stuffed animal. College was such fun.
I like the item referring to tactical cross dressing. I'll have to try this one myself. Meanwhile, I think the military might want to look into this. Why, I can easily picture a day when elite anti terrorism teams storm the bad guys wearing falsies and heels. It might also really freak out the opposing side if the opposing side is one of those misogynist middle eastern countries. The image of spandex clad drag queens with stiff hairdos charging in with big guns and grendades is pretty unerving no matter how progressive you are. Yeah, I think this study raises some real possiblities.
I'm actually hoping Jamie responds to this one. Listening to the local news on my public radio station, I caught a story about state legislation mandating filtering in libraries. Does anyone else privvy to Michigan politics have a more info on that? I dunno if the statewide measure was about state libraries, or if it covers everything. I do remember the provision to mandate filters for university and college libaries got stripped from the bill. Anyway, you have to keep watching for these people becase they're relentless and if they fail at one level of government, they'll try at another.
On the positive side: Good going! That victory provides some enthusiasm on my part.
I stopped reading the print news papers a long time ago for the simple reason that they are nothing more than print versions of TV news. For the most part, they're sensationalistic and shallow. Stories have no depth, no follow up, and little integrity. The one exception is in local or community news and that varies from paper to paper. In fact, I often find the small undergroudn papers report local news with less bias and more detail than the mainstreams papers. If daily papers reported the news with higher standards more depth and followed up on stories, I would read them regardless of the medium they were printed on. The news paper editor Katz mentioned needs to look back a couple of decades at standards that used to be followed and return to them. That way, readers are attracted to the quality rather than the fact you have poor reporting printed on dead trees.
Re:Jon, *please* leave the research to the pros.
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Maybe its not research, but its a bit of skeptiscism that shows a need for more research. I gotta admit, I haven't read hte paper yet myself, but I have some questions I'm gonna be looking at when I go to read the paper. How does the use of the net vary among age groups? How does it vary by profession or career? Educational level? The basic point, here is whether the older group--or the so called lay users--are using the net as essentially another television set or whether they're using it as a connection tool. For the Slashdot crew, we live tech and incorporate it in our professional lives. So, its not a leap for us to bring it into our personal lives as way to socialize. I mean, we use IRC, Muds, Mucks, Chats, and play Net Quake--or whatever. So, we're connected, but the majority of people on the Internet these days are not technical. Do they use the net the same way we do? I have a feeling that all too many people use the web as a glorified TV. That type of use does represent isoloation. Now the question that I hope the study answers is: "How do people use the Net?"
This is why this is lamest protection scheme I ever heard of. So there's hardware in the display to decrypt it. So what? Some of us have the ablity to pull apart the display and separate the components. Put a cable on the end of the decrypter and you can feed it whereever you want. I could easily see a cottage industry spring to make special reverse enginreered box to decode the signal. This happened with cable back in the eighties. You might even be able to find the plans for one of these things on the web still. I get the feeling that these guys just don't have any grasp of history.
I have to admit some confusion on what the technology is for. Big deal, you encypt the wire, but you still have to tempest shield your CRT. Am I clueless on this? How big of a threat is someone tapping into my monitor cable. Waitaminute. I just figured it out. Copy protection. If I understand this right does that mean, the video signal out will be encrypted and that the monitor will decrypt the signal? Now I'm more confused... That sounds like the lamest copy protection scheme I ever heard of. I know I'm missing something. Can someone more knowledgeable explain the point of this new tech?
To elaborate, I'd like to point out that elected officals are ignorant by the very nature of their position. We live in a big, diverse country with big diverse states and so on. No one person can keep up with it all and be an expert. An elected offical must be a generalist. Elected officals rely on feedback from their constituents to inform them on the issues. IF that doesn't come in, what can they do? Not much else besides listen to the money. At least it comes and talks to them. Secondly, people often get frustrated at the pace of politics. They can't change things over night, and no one listens to them. Thats they way even a totally free and fair system works. You have to spend time building coalitions and alliances to be able to communicate effectively--you have to get a rep. Most newcomers to policy don't realize this and leave in disgust. The current conservative movement didn't just appear even if the '96 elections made it seem that way. This had been building as long ago as the late seventies. Thats the kind of time scale we're talking about to build power. And you have to start out small. Like school board or city council. From there most politicans spend a decade climbing up to offices in state before they're even able to think about national elected office. One problem with the tech community is our aversion to party affiliation. So many of us are rugged individualists that the idea of belonging to a party is distasteful. There are other ogranizations that wield power besides parties, and they're more familar to us. The taskforce that convenes to wrestle with an issue and then dissolves; the history of the Internet is full of these kind of groups. Associations: a lot of us belong to professional associations. Then there's the corporation--with all the startups these day's, a lot of us should be familar with this one. Corps have a big voice too. For instance, you lay out your concerns very clearly about the UCITA and finish with the statement that you will have to consider relocating your company to a state without this legislation. That speaks a lot to your average politican and _will_ make them look into the issue more deeply. Companies mean jobs, which mean taxes and so forth. No politican wants to lose these things. Thats why even small businesses form a powerful lobby at the local and state level. And right now most states are hot to keep high tech jobs and the high salaries they bring. We have a voice, we just need to figure out how to use it.
Whoa, the TV is always right. I encourage you to teach the young dude. I'm very worried about the crtitical thinking skills that young people are getting--or not. In an era when media is consolidated and journalistic stands have declined, you need to be able to determine how much BS yer getting fed regardless of the medium. I do haveta ask about the kids age: if he's a pre teen kid, chances are he doesn't got the bullshit upgrade that most teens seem to get when they hit 13. In anycase, you definitely need to foster a bit of healthy cynicism. Sorry for the OT rant.
The main advantage the religous movement had and still has is a locus for its community to come together; the church. Add to that a hierarchial, top down structure--true of most churches--and you have community that's very organized from the outset. The tech community now has the same kind of locus, namely places like Slashdot here, but by nature and tradtion, we're not given to any kind of hierarchy, so we're difficult to organize. We operate by making proposals, soliciting input, and refining plans til we get a consensus. We build lasting things that way, be they tech, ideas or policies, but we don't respond quickly. Corp structures have much in common with religous ones in terms that there's a definite hiearchy and a strong cohesion on purpose. So, both move very quickly often for short sighted reasons. So, you wanna oppose UCITA? Good for you, but you have to understand the disogranization of our community and plan ahead. Thing is with the UCITA is that its obscure, but its impact isn't. It will affect the way that many citizens go about their lives, yet the only people who understand are techs who a are a very small minority. In order to reach politicians, you have to reach the citizenship with this through the press--difficult now that AOL owns a lot of the press. So, where do we organize the effort? Through/. and more directly through our IT departments. The IT departments of most companies and institutions are against this proposal because it allows M$ and others to unilaterally pull the plug on licenses without appeal. IT departments are closer that most of us think to the execs of a corps and institutions. And these people are very influential in goverment, especially at the state level. So, start in your own backyard and see where that takes you.
Well, doing IT work in a medical institution tells me where all the scientifically inclined women go: into the biomedical sciences. Tell me you can be stupid and get into a Human Genetics grad program. Not likely. From my own experience its "cool" for girls to be interested in life sciences, especially the more abstract ones, while only geeks and losers go into math, computers and physics. I think a lot of this could be turned around by a good industry PR campaign tho. Now, I know some of the more eLitE of you out there will argue that the life sciences are easier than good 'ol CS or engin or physics, but next time you're up late at the lab, take a walk. Walk over to whatever set of buildings houses your U's bioscience's departments. You'll see a lot people up just as late as you are,working just as hard. I think biosciences are more approachable, but by the time you get to say junior college level, its much more competitve than comp sci.
The reason that money has such a loud voice in American politics is that by and large the citizens do not particpate. Money and those who hold it simply fill a void. If you actually take the time to write well thought out and crafted letters, those make a big difference. Heck you might even get invited to be part of the offical's policy advisory group. Granted my rep in hte house is a lot more progressive than most. The cynicism of the American citizen kinda dooms the whole process. A lot of us look at the state of affairs and take it as a given, thus losing the fight before the battle is even engaged.
You want to see an example of a successful grassroots campaign that did not have financial power? Look at the whole Christian politcal movement of the past two decades--Christian coalition etc... Love 'em or hate 'em you can't argue that they have been effective in pushing their policy. And, until the last half of the decade here, that haven't had all that much finanicial swing--and still don't compared to others. What they do is: 1) turn out to vote, and 2) communicate with their reps. And 3), they run for office. With or without money, the basic premise of American government, no matter which state you live in, is that the government is of the people, by the people and for the people. If the people don't participate, they don't get the government they want. So, look who's participating in government right now. Its the monied interests and the small organized groups with well defined objecttives. They're setting the policy the rest of us will live with.
I know I work long hours quite a bit, but work comes in waves for me. I have down time in which I work a "normal" work week or even cut early, but when I got a project it needs to be done. I wonder how many tech workers experience the same thing. Maybe its just a symptom of working below the money I could earn.
I also wonder if a lot of tech workers, especially programmers bring the long hours on themselves. A lot of coders just jump right in an start coding on a project without planning. Heck, I do it a lot myself, and get burnt by it. When I take the time and examine the project, make flow charts etc. I'm always surprised by how fast everything goes. There's a lot fewer unexpected problems, and the pieces just seem to fall into place. So, how much do y'all think the long hours represent an unfair demand, and how much of it is caused by poor planning? I'm betting there's some hard data we can draw from. After all, coding is basically a sub-discipline of systems engineering, and I know there's been time usage studies in this field.
Duh... I keep forgetting that most changes are brought about small groups of well organized people. I guess its just the fud of the way the era has been packaged. I think there might be a lesson for us here.
I suspect that every young anti-establishment movement attracts these angry types. Look at the anti-war movement, the anti-abortion movement, and even the civil rights movements had its share of firebrands. To make things worse, the Linux/Open Source movement encompasses several current anti-establishment trends at the moment; anti-globalism, anti censorship, anti corpratism and so on. In one way, these sorts help keep the movement in the limelight and bring attention to it, but the question is: what kind of attention. You also have to keep in mind, we've all been stuck with such an abysmal OS for so long, that when a viable alternative appeared, you had a lot of people flock to it out of anger rather than evaluating its pros and cons.
Anyway, Linux isn't alone in terms of having its zealots. Just work in a big institution to see this. You've got the Mac zealots, the Winfidels, and now the open source nuts engaging in open warefare. They're usually divided into physically separated fortified encampments and don't see one and other, let alone talk to each other except at meetngs where the accusations, insults, and sometimes the furniture flys.
Here's a thought I just had, make of what y'all will. How old are the people organizing all the censorship initiatives? I just longing for the "Sixties" and the whole free speech movement at the time--I ain't old enough to remember it, but it sure reads like a good time don't it. Anyway, I got to wondering: Where did all the hippies who engineered all the progressive movements back then disappear to? Have they transformed into these pro censorship types? If not, why aren't those guys flat out horrified by this whole thing and taking action? For that matter where did the pro censorship movement materialize from. Are these people who came of age in the aftermath of that period? Do they even fall into one age group? I'm just trying to figure out where these people got on the whole decency kick. Are they people who are now afraid of the changes they wrought in the first place, or are they people who grew after the change nostalic for the old--and largely imaginary world? The reason I'm asking these questions is that somewhere along the way a meme kinda crept into out collective consciousness: The idea that the world is a dangerous place. With that one idea, censorship in the name of protecting children becomes not only permissible, but mandatory. I'm just trying to figure out when it happened.
Now in terms of relevance to the whole geek/tech side of this community, the debate about censorship vs openess has a direct connection. The protocols which power the interconnectivity we enjoy are products of the memes of the late sixties and seventies. The TCP/IP protocols were designed to be transparent, open, and are not owened by anyone. They were developed out of a consensus. Same thing with Unix and the whole open source movment--which has been around a whole lot longer than Linux. You wonder perhaps what protocols and standards are going to come out of this era? Look at the society the techs live in. Right now, it looks as though we're headed for a closed two-tier where creativity and imagination are attacked. Doesn't bode well.
Good points. The biggest problem we see in folks like the MPAA is the lack of imaginiation needed to harness the potential of the "net" and other new media. All of a sudden, they have dropped at their feet a way of distributing works throughout the world for next to nothing in terms of a real business cost. Just think, they can do away with much of the distribution infrastructure and its attendant costs by going direct to the consumer. Yet, they spend a lot of effort trying to reign it in. It boggles my mind. The net and its ablity to distribute artistic works at a very low cost is what's making it possible for me to start up my recording label. I suspect that in a couple of years I might be able to get away with not even pressing physical CDs.
The biggest problem is in creating a culture of trust that makes consumers want to pay the price of the work--be it music, video or whatever--rather than pirating it. Really this problem is nothing new, but its crucial because without the payment, the artist doesn't get paid, and can't devote their time to the art. The old school media people controled physical production and kinda imposed a payment scheme. Even with the advent of tape duplicaton and so forth, if the consumer wanted a high quality product, they had to buy into the big comnpanies' infrastructure. With the advent of digtial communications that doesn't hold tru anymore, and that brings us back the golden rule. Rather than try to impose technological restrictions media enterprises need to make the consuming public aware that if they don't kick in some cash for what they want, the artists aren't going to be able to produce it. Mind you, the big companies are also going to have treat their artists a lot better in terms of getting a share of the revenues. Thats the other side of the new media coin here: the tech is cheap enough that small--almost hobby operators like myself--and the artists themselves can go into business. The established media represented by the MPAA is facing a dual threat to the way they do business: Small competitors and a growing number of artists who decided that they don't need the big guys to distrbute their work. So, the MPAA and their ilk has gone into attack mode to defend their effective monolopy. What do they attack? The tech that made the threat possible and the people who support and develop it.
Something else the Chrisian poster needs to consider is that yes: A lot of geeks--and geekophiles--have had very bad experiences with Christianity. Hate to say it, but there are a lot of Christians out there who seem to have never read Jesus' teachings, much less examined the guys life. I mean, where in the current Christian media stream do you see any references to redemption and acceptence? No where really. Yet, by all I've heard about the New Testament, Jesus was a big practioner of unconditional love, reaching out to all members of society. Now, I will point out that I never did read anymore of the Bible than was ramed down my throat as a kid, but I got a whole lot of the fear and hate, and very little of the love that's a big part of the religion. As a side note, I should actually sit down and make my self read the book so I can speak with some credibilty. Anyway, sincere Christians out there need to relize that and awful lot of the geek community has had a lot of abuse--I use the term loosely--at the hands of demagogues who claim to be Christian. So, we tend to be very suspicous--perhaps wrongly so--of the entire Christian faith.
Part of what Katz is critiscising here is something of the double standard that we in teh tech community maintain. Among ourselves we hold very rational debates in which we'll rip each others opinions to shreds while maintaing a certain amount of respect for each other. Katz is hardly the poster boy for flames. I see techies attacking outsiders regularly for their lack of technical status. Yeah, sometimes you have to shutdown someone who thinks they know more than they do--argubly Katz falls into this category--, but this type of hostility goes against much of the geek "creed". I mean, here we are pushing back against the dangers of closed code, the oppression of closeminded policymakers, and the closing of intellectual freedoms. Yet, in our personal conduct we act like a secret society. Sure, a lot of us like it that way, but its a destructive attitude when disagreement turns into personal hostility.
I read some of the comments attached to Katz' recent articles, and was pretty disgusted. The thing is that no one forced the flamers to read Katz articles, yet they're acting like someone chained them to chair and forced Katz down them with a plunger. This behavior is hypocritcal compared to the more normal behavior on other postings. You just don't see the behavior in most the other posts. I see a lot of debate. Infact, I've rarely seen someone get flamed for having a pro micorsoft point of view. In terms of the original articles, I see commenters methodically tearing apart the points raised in the articles, and drawing very strong conclusions. Now, when we get an article penned by someone like Katz, the trolls come out. Based on these guys, I'd conclude that/. is populated by a bunch of sexually repressed teenagers with serious social disablities. It ain't true of course, but think about how it looks to people on the outside. At this time, techies are trying to get the non technical world to understand issues like DVD, code as free speech, encryption, privacy protection, and the list goes on. The fact of hte matter is that most people will look at these postings and write off the whole group. Furthermore, the personal attacks act as a barrier to the sincerely interested from participating and dampens the interest necessary to grappled with the techincal issues that are a part of our lives.
So what? Well, we're trying to deal with vast unwashed hordes of the mainstream in the face the MPAA, the FRC, Microsoft, and other threats to our freedom. We need to be heard and taken seriously by the non technical world more than ever, and yet our response that world seems to be "You suck. #$@& off and die."
Now I will apologize for the sweeping generalizations and such in my post. I know that a lot of this doesn't apply to most people here, but the trolls sure make us look bad, and Katz has got a right to say something about people who write bestiality rape stories about him in response to his articles. I mean, c'mon people, grow the fuck up!
Went to look at the article and it looks as though the server got Slashdoted. Another notch on the barrel of the old/. dos gun;) This should article should be amusing after the server recovers from the avalanche.
Slashdot Mirror
Just as a side note: Depending on the situation, copyright and trademark holders are required under US law to defend their rights. Failing to do so, means that they can lose them. I don't know enough of the specifics, but a quick read of the code told me that I'd have to see a real lawyer. Sadly, the corps may not be acting deliberately malicous on this, they might be complelled to take the action. I'd appreciate if someone with some real legal knowledge would comment on this aspect of the situation. This might make a good Ask Slashdot feature too.
The more I think about it, I'm inclined to agree. The thing is that windows is deceptively easy to use. You can get a pc, start it up or even install windows with no knowledge or common sense whatsoever. You can figure out how to move things around and run programs, but if you run into problems you are screwed. And you will run into problems. And, actually troubleshooting the system is difficult. Much more so than any unix system. But its easy to set up, and get started. Although my experience with Red Hat went smoother than my windos 98 experience, so maybe I'm just suffering from delusions. The end user gets suckered in by the appearence of simplicity and nice pretty desktop.
You've hit it! The one thing that currently keeps Linux out of the mainstream is the lack of "userproof" interfaces. Linux works nicely as a server, as a shared worstation, and a stand alone solution for power user crowd. But, problem with all Unix variants is the power the os gives to clueless newbies and the operation complexity inherent in the system. By operation complexity, I mean its not something the average user can just sit down and figure out. A good mainstream interface has got to protect the lay user from blowing their foot off at the thigh, and has to be intuitive. Thats why windows has had the success that its had--that and the MS marketing machine. The average user doesn't give a hoot about the inherent beauty--or horror--of a system as long as he can sit down and begin using it.
Frankly I just don't understand why there has to be a common GUI for Linux--or any other OS for that matter. The interface layer of an "OS" is very distinct from the layers that do the work of an operating system. Given that, why is it bad to have a whole mess of interfaces floating around? Wired and other articles make it seem like the various GUIs compete with one another and sabotage Linux. Not true at all. The different GUIs make Linux more attractive in my book. I have a good OS, and I'm not stuck with an interface I don't like. In so far as the non technical user getting confused, I just don't see it. The various Linux packagers--Corel, Red Hat Suse, and the others--can and do invest time and money to create simpler and more streamlined interfaces. What this means to the consumer is that he or she has a bunch of good choices. Or will when they're finished developing the interfaces. Granted everything is based on X and that has its problems, but that doesn't have to be. Someone could easily come along and write new completely new display environment that would bolt right onto the underlying OS like X currently does. So, the Linux community isn't even really stuck with X. That kind of versatility makes Linux an even more attractive solution for anyone looking for an OS to drive their hardware product.
A friend of mine had a very realistic looking cat stuffy. She used leave it perched on her window sill in the dorm. When ever passerbys would look into her window, she'd grab a large book and violently whack the stuffed animal. College was such fun.
I like the item referring to tactical cross dressing. I'll have to try this one myself. Meanwhile, I think the military might want to look into this. Why, I can easily picture a day when elite anti terrorism teams storm the bad guys wearing falsies and heels. It might also really freak out the opposing side if the opposing side is one of those misogynist middle eastern countries. The image of spandex clad drag queens with stiff hairdos charging in with big guns and grendades is pretty unerving no matter how progressive you are. Yeah, I think this study raises some real possiblities.
I'm actually hoping Jamie responds to this one. Listening to the local news on my public radio station, I caught a story about state legislation mandating filtering in libraries. Does anyone else privvy to Michigan politics have a more info on that? I dunno if the statewide measure was about state libraries, or if it covers everything. I do remember the provision to mandate filters for university and college libaries got stripped from the bill. Anyway, you have to keep watching for these people becase they're relentless and if they fail at one level of government, they'll try at another.
On the positive side: Good going! That victory provides some enthusiasm on my part.
I stopped reading the print news papers a long time ago for the simple reason that they are nothing more than print versions of TV news. For the most part, they're sensationalistic and shallow. Stories have no depth, no follow up, and little integrity. The one exception is in local or community news and that varies from paper to paper. In fact, I often find the small undergroudn papers report local news with less bias and more detail than the mainstreams papers. If daily papers reported the news with higher standards more depth and followed up on stories, I would read them regardless of the medium they were printed on. The news paper editor Katz mentioned needs to look back a couple of decades at standards that used to be followed and return to them. That way, readers are attracted to the quality rather than the fact you have poor reporting printed on dead trees.
Maybe its not research, but its a bit of skeptiscism that shows a need for more research. I gotta admit, I haven't read hte paper yet myself, but I have some questions I'm gonna be looking at when I go to read the paper. How does the use of the net vary among age groups? How does it vary by profession or career? Educational level? The basic point, here is whether the older group--or the so called lay users--are using the net as essentially another television set or whether they're using it as a connection tool. For the Slashdot crew, we live tech and incorporate it in our professional lives. So, its not a leap for us to bring it into our personal lives as way to socialize. I mean, we use IRC, Muds, Mucks, Chats, and play Net Quake--or whatever. So, we're connected, but the majority of people on the Internet these days are not technical. Do they use the net the same way we do? I have a feeling that all too many people use the web as a glorified TV. That type of use does represent isoloation. Now the question that I hope the study answers is: "How do people use the Net?"
This is why this is lamest protection scheme I ever heard of. So there's hardware in the display to decrypt it. So what? Some of us have the ablity to pull apart the display and separate the components. Put a cable on the end of the decrypter and you can feed it whereever you want. I could easily see a cottage industry spring to make special reverse enginreered box to decode the signal. This happened with cable back in the eighties. You might even be able to find the plans for one of these things on the web still. I get the feeling that these guys just don't have any grasp of history.
I have to admit some confusion on what the technology is for. Big deal, you encypt the wire, but you still have to tempest shield your CRT. Am I clueless on this? How big of a threat is someone tapping into my monitor cable. Waitaminute. I just figured it out. Copy protection. If I understand this right does that mean, the video signal out will be encrypted and that the monitor will decrypt the signal? Now I'm more confused... That sounds like the lamest copy protection scheme I ever heard of. I know I'm missing something. Can someone more knowledgeable explain the point of this new tech?
To elaborate, I'd like to point out that elected officals are ignorant by the very nature of their position. We live in a big, diverse country with big diverse states and so on. No one person can keep up with it all and be an expert. An elected offical must be a generalist. Elected officals rely on feedback from their constituents to inform them on the issues. IF that doesn't come in, what can they do? Not much else besides listen to the money. At least it comes and talks to them. Secondly, people often get frustrated at the pace of politics. They can't change things over night, and no one listens to them. Thats they way even a totally free and fair system works. You have to spend time building coalitions and alliances to be able to communicate effectively--you have to get a rep. Most newcomers to policy don't realize this and leave in disgust. The current conservative movement didn't just appear even if the '96 elections made it seem that way. This had been building as long ago as the late seventies. Thats the kind of time scale we're talking about to build power. And you have to start out small. Like school board or city council. From there most politicans spend a decade climbing up to offices in state before they're even able to think about national elected office. One problem with the tech community is our aversion to party affiliation. So many of us are rugged individualists that the idea of belonging to a party is distasteful. There are other ogranizations that wield power besides parties, and they're more familar to us. The taskforce that convenes to wrestle with an issue and then dissolves; the history of the Internet is full of these kind of groups. Associations: a lot of us belong to professional associations. Then there's the corporation--with all the startups these day's, a lot of us should be familar with this one. Corps have a big voice too. For instance, you lay out your concerns very clearly about the UCITA and finish with the statement that you will have to consider relocating your company to a state without this legislation. That speaks a lot to your average politican and _will_ make them look into the issue more deeply. Companies mean jobs, which mean taxes and so forth. No politican wants to lose these things. Thats why even small businesses form a powerful lobby at the local and state level. And right now most states are hot to keep high tech jobs and the high salaries they bring. We have a voice, we just need to figure out how to use it.
Whoa, the TV is always right. I encourage you to teach the young dude. I'm very worried about the crtitical thinking skills that young people are getting--or not. In an era when media is consolidated and journalistic stands have declined, you need to be able to determine how much BS yer getting fed regardless of the medium. I do haveta ask about the kids age: if he's a pre teen kid, chances are he doesn't got the bullshit upgrade that most teens seem to get when they hit 13. In anycase, you definitely need to foster a bit of healthy cynicism. Sorry for the OT rant.
The main advantage the religous movement had and still has is a locus for its community to come together; the church. Add to that a hierarchial, top down structure--true of most churches--and you have community that's very organized from the outset. The tech community now has the same kind of locus, namely places like Slashdot here, but by nature and tradtion, we're not given to any kind of hierarchy, so we're difficult to organize. We operate by making proposals, soliciting input, and refining plans til we get a consensus. We build lasting things that way, be they tech, ideas or policies, but we don't respond quickly. Corp structures have much in common with religous ones in terms that there's a definite hiearchy and a strong cohesion on purpose. So, both move very quickly often for short sighted reasons. So, you wanna oppose UCITA? Good for you, but you have to understand the disogranization of our community and plan ahead. Thing is with the UCITA is that its obscure, but its impact isn't. It will affect the way that many citizens go about their lives, yet the only people who understand are techs who a are a very small minority. In order to reach politicians, you have to reach the citizenship with this through the press--difficult now that AOL owns a lot of the press. So, where do we organize the effort? Through /. and more directly through our IT departments. The IT departments of most companies and institutions are against this proposal because it allows M$ and others to unilaterally pull the plug on licenses without appeal. IT departments are closer that most of us think to the execs of a corps and institutions. And these people are very influential in goverment, especially at the state level. So, start in your own backyard and see where that takes you.
Well, doing IT work in a medical institution tells me where all the scientifically inclined women go: into the biomedical sciences. Tell me you can be stupid and get into a Human Genetics grad program. Not likely. From my own experience its "cool" for girls to be interested in life sciences, especially the more abstract ones, while only geeks and losers go into math, computers and physics. I think a lot of this could be turned around by a good industry PR campaign tho. Now, I know some of the more eLitE of you out there will argue that the life sciences are easier than good 'ol CS or engin or physics, but next time you're up late at the lab, take a walk. Walk over to whatever set of buildings houses your U's bioscience's departments. You'll see a lot people up just as late as you are,working just as hard. I think biosciences are more approachable, but by the time you get to say junior college level, its much more competitve than comp sci.
I think the real reason why women don't get into comp sci is that they aren't usually given lego to play with as girls. Think about it.
The reason that money has such a loud voice in American politics is that by and large the citizens do not particpate. Money and those who hold it simply fill a void. If you actually take the time to write well thought out and crafted letters, those make a big difference. Heck you might even get invited to be part of the offical's policy advisory group. Granted my rep in hte house is a lot more progressive than most. The cynicism of the American citizen kinda dooms the whole process. A lot of us look at the state of affairs and take it as a given, thus losing the fight before the battle is even engaged.
You want to see an example of a successful grassroots campaign that did not have financial power? Look at the whole Christian politcal movement of the past two decades--Christian coalition etc... Love 'em or hate 'em you can't argue that they have been effective in pushing their policy. And, until the last half of the decade here, that haven't had all that much finanicial swing--and still don't compared to others. What they do is: 1) turn out to vote, and 2) communicate with their reps. And 3), they run for office. With or without money, the basic premise of American government, no matter which state you live in, is that the government is of the people, by the people and for the people. If the people don't participate, they don't get the government they want. So, look who's participating in government right now. Its the monied interests and the small organized groups with well defined objecttives. They're setting the policy the rest of us will live with.
I know I work long hours quite a bit, but work comes in waves for me. I have down time in which I work a "normal" work week or even cut early, but when I got a project it needs to be done. I wonder how many tech workers experience the same thing. Maybe its just a symptom of working below the money I could earn.
I also wonder if a lot of tech workers, especially programmers bring the long hours on themselves. A lot of coders just jump right in an start coding on a project without planning. Heck, I do it a lot myself, and get burnt by it. When I take the time and examine the project, make flow charts etc. I'm always surprised by how fast everything goes. There's a lot fewer unexpected problems, and the pieces just seem to fall into place. So, how much do y'all think the long hours represent an unfair demand, and how much of it is caused by poor planning? I'm betting there's some hard data we can draw from. After all, coding is basically a sub-discipline of systems engineering, and I know there's been time usage studies in this field.
Duh... I keep forgetting that most changes are brought about small groups of well organized people. I guess its just the fud of the way the era has been packaged. I think there might be a lesson for us here.
I suspect that every young anti-establishment movement attracts these angry types. Look at the anti-war movement, the anti-abortion movement, and even the civil rights movements had its share of firebrands. To make things worse, the Linux/Open Source movement encompasses several current anti-establishment trends at the moment; anti-globalism, anti censorship, anti corpratism and so on. In one way, these sorts help keep the movement in the limelight and bring attention to it, but the question is: what kind of attention. You also have to keep in mind, we've all been stuck with such an abysmal OS for so long, that when a viable alternative appeared, you had a lot of people flock to it out of anger rather than evaluating its pros and cons.
Anyway, Linux isn't alone in terms of having its zealots. Just work in a big institution to see this. You've got the Mac zealots, the Winfidels, and now the open source nuts engaging in open warefare. They're usually divided into physically separated fortified encampments and don't see one and other, let alone talk to each other except at meetngs where the accusations, insults, and sometimes the furniture flys.
Here's a thought I just had, make of what y'all will. How old are the people organizing all the censorship initiatives? I just longing for the "Sixties" and the whole free speech movement at the time--I ain't old enough to remember it, but it sure reads like a good time don't it. Anyway, I got to wondering: Where did all the hippies who engineered all the progressive movements back then disappear to? Have they transformed into these pro censorship types? If not, why aren't those guys flat out horrified by this whole thing and taking action? For that matter where did the pro censorship movement materialize from. Are these people who came of age in the aftermath of that period? Do they even fall into one age group? I'm just trying to figure out where these people got on the whole decency kick. Are they people who are now afraid of the changes they wrought in the first place, or are they people who grew after the change nostalic for the old--and largely imaginary world? The reason I'm asking these questions is that somewhere along the way a meme kinda crept into out collective consciousness: The idea that the world is a dangerous place. With that one idea, censorship in the name of protecting children becomes not only permissible, but mandatory. I'm just trying to figure out when it happened.
Now in terms of relevance to the whole geek/tech side of this community, the debate about censorship vs openess has a direct connection. The protocols which power the interconnectivity we enjoy are products of the memes of the late sixties and seventies. The TCP/IP protocols were designed to be transparent, open, and are not owened by anyone. They were developed out of a consensus. Same thing with Unix and the whole open source movment--which has been around a whole lot longer than Linux. You wonder perhaps what protocols and standards are going to come out of this era? Look at the society the techs live in. Right now, it looks as though we're headed for a closed two-tier where creativity and imagination are attacked. Doesn't bode well.
Good points. The biggest problem we see in folks like the MPAA is the lack of imaginiation needed to harness the potential of the "net" and other new media. All of a sudden, they have dropped at their feet a way of distributing works throughout the world for next to nothing in terms of a real business cost. Just think, they can do away with much of the distribution infrastructure and its attendant costs by going direct to the consumer. Yet, they spend a lot of effort trying to reign it in. It boggles my mind. The net and its ablity to distribute artistic works at a very low cost is what's making it possible for me to start up my recording label. I suspect that in a couple of years I might be able to get away with not even pressing physical CDs.
The biggest problem is in creating a culture of trust that makes consumers want to pay the price of the work--be it music, video or whatever--rather than pirating it. Really this problem is nothing new, but its crucial because without the payment, the artist doesn't get paid, and can't devote their time to the art. The old school media people controled physical production and kinda imposed a payment scheme. Even with the advent of tape duplicaton and so forth, if the consumer wanted a high quality product, they had to buy into the big comnpanies' infrastructure. With the advent of digtial communications that doesn't hold tru anymore, and that brings us back the golden rule. Rather than try to impose technological restrictions media enterprises need to make the consuming public aware that if they don't kick in some cash for what they want, the artists aren't going to be able to produce it. Mind you, the big companies are also going to have treat their artists a lot better in terms of getting a share of the revenues. Thats the other side of the new media coin here: the tech is cheap enough that small--almost hobby operators like myself--and the artists themselves can go into business. The established media represented by the MPAA is facing a dual threat to the way they do business: Small competitors and a growing number of artists who decided that they don't need the big guys to distrbute their work. So, the MPAA and their ilk has gone into attack mode to defend their effective monolopy. What do they attack? The tech that made the threat possible and the people who support and develop it.
Something else the Chrisian poster needs to consider is that yes: A lot of geeks--and geekophiles--have had very bad experiences with Christianity. Hate to say it, but there are a lot of Christians out there who seem to have never read Jesus' teachings, much less examined the guys life. I mean, where in the current Christian media stream do you see any references to redemption and acceptence? No where really. Yet, by all I've heard about the New Testament, Jesus was a big practioner of unconditional love, reaching out to all members of society. Now, I will point out that I never did read anymore of the Bible than was ramed down my throat as a kid, but I got a whole lot of the fear and hate, and very little of the love that's a big part of the religion. As a side note, I should actually sit down and make my self read the book so I can speak with some credibilty. Anyway, sincere Christians out there need to relize that and awful lot of the geek community has had a lot of abuse--I use the term loosely--at the hands of demagogues who claim to be Christian. So, we tend to be very suspicous--perhaps wrongly so--of the entire Christian faith.
Part of what Katz is critiscising here is something of the double standard that we in teh tech community maintain. Among ourselves we hold very rational debates in which we'll rip each others opinions to shreds while maintaing a certain amount of respect for each other. Katz is hardly the poster boy for flames. I see techies attacking outsiders regularly for their lack of technical status. Yeah, sometimes you have to shutdown someone who thinks they know more than they do--argubly Katz falls into this category--, but this type of hostility goes against much of the geek "creed". I mean, here we are pushing back against the dangers of closed code, the oppression of closeminded policymakers, and the closing of intellectual freedoms. Yet, in our personal conduct we act like a secret society. Sure, a lot of us like it that way, but its a destructive attitude when disagreement turns into personal hostility.
I read some of the comments attached to Katz' recent articles, and was pretty disgusted. The thing is that no one forced the flamers to read Katz articles, yet they're acting like someone chained them to chair and forced Katz down them with a plunger. This behavior is hypocritcal compared to the more normal behavior on other postings. You just don't see the behavior in most the other posts. I see a lot of debate. Infact, I've rarely seen someone get flamed for having a pro micorsoft point of view. In terms of the original articles, I see commenters methodically tearing apart the points raised in the articles, and drawing very strong conclusions. Now, when we get an article penned by someone like Katz, the trolls come out. Based on these guys, I'd conclude that /. is populated by a bunch of sexually repressed teenagers with serious social disablities. It ain't true of course, but think about how it looks to people on the outside. At this time, techies are trying to get the non technical world to understand issues like DVD, code as free speech, encryption, privacy protection, and the list goes on. The fact of hte matter is that most people will look at these postings and write off the whole group. Furthermore, the personal attacks act as a barrier to the sincerely interested from participating and dampens the interest necessary to grappled with the techincal issues that are a part of our lives.
So what? Well, we're trying to deal with vast unwashed hordes of the mainstream in the face the MPAA, the FRC, Microsoft, and other threats to our freedom. We need to be heard and taken seriously by the non technical world more than ever, and yet our response that world seems to be "You suck. #$@& off and die."
Now I will apologize for the sweeping generalizations and such in my post. I know that a lot of this doesn't apply to most people here, but the trolls sure make us look bad, and Katz has got a right to say something about people who write bestiality rape stories about him in response to his articles. I mean, c'mon people, grow the fuck up!
Went to look at the article and it looks as though the server got Slashdoted. Another notch on the barrel of the old /. dos gun ;) This should article should be amusing after the server recovers from the avalanche.