Your response assumes that I would see people tried regardless of whether they could receive a fair trial or not. My preference goes far deeper than that, I'd rather see no trial at all if it can not be held without bias and see the public testimony reported on freely. After all, this is supposed to be public testimony.
The whole notion that you would restrict publication of what could be crucial information for proper public oversight of government on the off chance that a prospective jurer might read it and that it would make them incapable of deliberating on the facts as presented in a trial is dubious at best. If they are so concerned with due process, then don't hold a public inquiry at all until after the trial. But bias is not usually the result of specific information of the type being censored, but rather generalizations and innuendo, which there can be no restriction on.
Governemnet corruption cannot be adequately addressed institutionally, but rather must be addressed by political means. That means getting the information to the people that are best able to make decisions that are in the public interest, the people themselves.
You say it best "This is not a trial, just a public inquiry."
"public" usually means, well it usually means public.
"it's not as though the testimony is "secret" - journalists have been allowed in."
You are right it isn't "secret", it is being censored.
What is more important, that one or two people get prosecuted or that the public get to see how its money is being used? I'd say that unless we are talking about discrete incidents (and why would there be a special investigation if that were thae case), then the public is better served by knowing all the facts. Otherwise, just do a straight criminal investigation if this is really just about a couple bad apples.
Some people just put the most value on that 5-7 years of paid support before a product is end of lifed and you are forced to migrate onto the next version.
Of course, some people talk about proprietary software like it is always supported forever. But then those people are probably the ones that only last 5-7 years also.
How many people have lost their support or had it degraded significantly when a company goes out of business or sells off their software assets. That seems to happen even more often than products are end of lifed. At least with open source, you have the option to support it yourself or find a third party that offers support at the bug fixing level. Maybe if the software is easily replaced and easy to migrate from, then it makes more sense to just find the least expensive third party software that meets the requirements. But if the software is central to your product or service or integral to your business operations, and all else being equal, then open source does provide an inherent additional safety net for unforseen circumstances.
Do we really want to live in a world where there is no such thing as electronic evidence, since anyone can just say, "oops, it got deleted in the routine operations of my business... last night." I think not. See Burst v. Microsoft.
Sure they can say that, but will the courts believe them? Judges are not all stupid.
"Large companies, with IT budgets in the millions of dollars range have had computer problems, lost data, and have had hackers gain access to restricted areas."
Yes, but if it the government we are talking about, then it is very likely that the databases will be redundant and spread across several states and subcontractors. And forget millions of dollars, it will be billions of dollars before their done. Oh and by the time it is all finished it will be obsolete and we'll still use it for 30 years. Oh and regular folks won't be able to access it except through a terrible user interface that makes it impossible to search even though it would be easy to make it more usable, so that commercial companies will have to step in and provide "value added" services at additional cost. Then calls to make it more usable will be met with calls by congress not to interfere in the free market, ie compete with an artificial industry that the government created in the first place. Oh and then through a round of cost cutting it will be decided that having redundant and incompatible databases is a waste of resources...
Only then will the concern you raise be valid about putting all your eggs in one electronic basket. But I'd give it about 10 years, and a billion dollars or so.
"This takes very little away, but think about what it might add: the ability to pay for tolls, gas, or parking meters without swiping a card. You have to admit that'd be pretty cool."
Kinda like income tax witholding, you won't even hardly notice all those hours of wages getting sucked out of your life. And what's a few more pennies on a monthly statement when the people hired by your representatives decide they need a few more bucks.
yes, sure it is pretty cool... for scum sucking bureaucrats!
And the gag order expires when the person expires too, but that isn't the point.
The point is that the gag order should have its own a seperate limitation apart from the information that was collected, so that we can publicly address potential abuse of government power in a timely manner. 5 years seems completely reasonable.
Well, probably the same thing they did with Antonio Banderas in Zoro. The Doctor is just some sort of a title amongst the Time Lords. Who names their kid "The Doctor"
"The point with photocopiers is very real. There was talk of banning photocopiers for precisely that reason, until somebody figured out that for more than short extracts (which come under fair use), it was generally more trouble and money than it was worth to Xerox a book."
Well, does it still make sense now? Seems like we would want law to be more durable than the trend of the day. Don't books, especially college textbooks, cost substantially more and photocopiers cost less today then they did when the issue of photocopiers was first looked at?
If 'substantial non-infringing uses' is not still the law of the land for determining when technology is legal, then what should the standard be?
Seems to me the best thing is just to realize that any generalized device meant to facilitate the reproduction and distribution of content has inherent substantial non-infringining uses since anyone can produce content and distribute it as they see fit. Sure if I created a program that was only capable of distributing Britney Spears' music, that would clearly have no non-infringing uses, but any p2p software is ultimately just a file transfer program with some sort of file name search capability. It is Peer to Peer, meaning that two people are transferring a file between them. The only person to get into trouble here should be the person offering copies of the copyrighted material.
Every media and copying technology that you can name has substantial copyright infringing uses. , which is why substantial non-infringing uses should remain the standard for technology and media and substantial shouldn't be a measure of how many people are actually using the technology for non-infringing uses, but rather the degree to which there are non-infringing uses for the technology.
VCR use was rampant with copyright infringement, I know of no VCR user who did not at one time or another violate a copyright.
Any legal standard created that is based on use of a technology rather than its inherent functionality will be a very weak standard.
Why not do a survey of iPod users and if over 60% have a few pirated songs, then make Apple stop selling iPods. Or if photocopier machines are used primarily by students so they don't have to buy the books, then make xerox stop selling photo copier machines.
"as all governments inevitably trend toward maximum control and subjugation of their citizens"
Damn right. Even democratic governments innevitably centralize control. Though, the goal is never to subjugate people, that is where a government will end up. That is because the use or threat of force is the basic tool of government. If you disagree, I dare you to refuse to pay taxes or follow a law or refuse to be arrested. You are going to get your ass whooped by some burly men with clubs, guns and a badge. And if you survive you will get thrown into a cage until you submit.
For those of you who think centraliized authoritarian systems are a good thing, I am more than willing to be the one to tell you what to do.
Good point, the only feasible goals in supporting terrorist attacks within the united states is to force us to increase security within our borders therefore causing us to use resources that might have otherwise have gone to the middle east. Also, increased security has the effect of reducing economic activity, so there will eventually be fewer resources that we can spend on middle east intervention. The last effect of terrorist attacks that seems of interest is to force us to retaliate as indescriminately as possible and therefore swelling the ranks of their forces.
Check, check and check.
None of the Al Qaeda goals give a damn about freedom, one way or the other.
Only domestic terrorists would really care about forcing the government to take our freedoms, the aim being to make the government the enemy of the people or in their eyes to force the government to show its true face.
How else does the government act, but by coercion and threat of force? So, when anyone actively uses the law to compel a person to act, they are simply using coercion. Even the application of justice, as dictated by the government, is coercsion.
The use of the word is correct, even if you agree with Apple, which I do. Apple had two sticks, one was bigger than the other, and told this stupid kid to choose between them. Right or wrong does not matter, that is coercion. Sure, to say you coerced someone to act has a bad connotation, but sometimes you need to use coercion even when you are in the right.
Just as the word "propaganda" has come to have a negative connotation, but that the word simply means to promote a point of view or an idea. So people use it as an insult when someone is propogandizing, they will often comment and say, "that is just propaganda" as a way of diminishing the effect of the point. It is essentially a cheap shot, but it is correct.
"had no greater impact on employability or wage levels than being able to use a telephone or a pencil. "
Where they only looking at government jobs?
Re:I've had this in my office for years
on
Sunlight in a Tube
·
· Score: 0
A nifty little invention called a "win-dow".
Lucky son of a bitch.
Re:This is nothing new...
on
Sunlight in a Tube
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
"Not that I'm saying anything bad about the Amish; I doubt that the average person on the street, or the average slashdotter understands those either."
Come on now, it isn't as if they are going to be reading this.
Except during Rumspringa, of course. Hey, any Amish Slashdotters here? Got any cool wooden or goat case mods you want to share?
Slashdot Mirror
Your response assumes that I would see people tried regardless of whether they could receive a fair trial or not. My preference goes far deeper than that, I'd rather see no trial at all if it can not be held without bias and see the public testimony reported on freely. After all, this is supposed to be public testimony.
The whole notion that you would restrict publication of what could be crucial information for proper public oversight of government on the off chance that a prospective jurer might read it and that it would make them incapable of deliberating on the facts as presented in a trial is dubious at best. If they are so concerned with due process, then don't hold a public inquiry at all until after the trial. But bias is not usually the result of specific information of the type being censored, but rather generalizations and innuendo, which there can be no restriction on.
Governemnet corruption cannot be adequately addressed institutionally, but rather must be addressed by political means. That means getting the information to the people that are best able to make decisions that are in the public interest, the people themselves.
You say it best "This is not a trial, just a public inquiry."
"public" usually means, well it usually means public.
do a search for pizza with your address through google Local and there is an option to use a satelite map instead.
Probably more useful for a search for parks and such. Could see how many baseball diamonds there are or how much room there is for frisbee.
It would be nice to be able to turn on and off various landmark labeling like on NASA's World Wind.
"it's not as though the testimony is "secret" - journalists have been allowed in."
You are right it isn't "secret", it is being censored.
What is more important, that one or two people get prosecuted or that the public get to see how its money is being used? I'd say that unless we are talking about discrete incidents (and why would there be a special investigation if that were thae case), then the public is better served by knowing all the facts. Otherwise, just do a straight criminal investigation if this is really just about a couple bad apples.
Some people just put the most value on that 5-7 years of paid support before a product is end of lifed and you are forced to migrate onto the next version.
Of course, some people talk about proprietary software like it is always supported forever. But then those people are probably the ones that only last 5-7 years also.
How many people have lost their support or had it degraded significantly when a company goes out of business or sells off their software assets. That seems to happen even more often than products are end of lifed. At least with open source, you have the option to support it yourself or find a third party that offers support at the bug fixing level. Maybe if the software is easily replaced and easy to migrate from, then it makes more sense to just find the least expensive third party software that meets the requirements. But if the software is central to your product or service or integral to your business operations, and all else being equal, then open source does provide an inherent additional safety net for unforseen circumstances.
Do we really want to live in a world where there is no such thing as electronic evidence, since anyone can just say, "oops, it got deleted in the routine operations of my business... last night." I think not. See Burst v. Microsoft.
Sure they can say that, but will the courts believe them? Judges are not all stupid.
"Large companies, with IT budgets in the millions of dollars range have had computer problems, lost data, and have had hackers gain access to restricted areas."
Yes, but if it the government we are talking about, then it is very likely that the databases will be redundant and spread across several states and subcontractors. And forget millions of dollars, it will be billions of dollars before their done. Oh and by the time it is all finished it will be obsolete and we'll still use it for 30 years. Oh and regular folks won't be able to access it except through a terrible user interface that makes it impossible to search even though it would be easy to make it more usable, so that commercial companies will have to step in and provide "value added" services at additional cost. Then calls to make it more usable will be met with calls by congress not to interfere in the free market, ie compete with an artificial industry that the government created in the first place. Oh and then through a round of cost cutting it will be decided that having redundant and incompatible databases is a waste of resources...
Only then will the concern you raise be valid about putting all your eggs in one electronic basket. But I'd give it about 10 years, and a billion dollars or so.
Does anyone know if Zeta is in Beta?
"This takes very little away, but think about what it might add: the ability to pay for tolls, gas, or parking meters without swiping a card. You have to admit that'd be pretty cool."
Kinda like income tax witholding, you won't even hardly notice all those hours of wages getting sucked out of your life. And what's a few more pennies on a monthly statement when the people hired by your representatives decide they need a few more bucks.
yes, sure it is pretty cool... for scum sucking bureaucrats!
"as power plant efficiency at electric generators go up, the existing fleet of cars already on the road will all benefit from that improvement."
new power plants take years to plan and permit, and they stay in service for 30 years or more.
And the gag order expires when the person expires too, but that isn't the point.
The point is that the gag order should have its own a seperate limitation apart from the information that was collected, so that we can publicly address potential abuse of government power in a timely manner. 5 years seems completely reasonable.
Eventual release of the materials collected has nothing to do with a gag order imposed on a private citizen.
I blame Slashdot
Well, probably the same thing they did with Antonio Banderas in Zoro. The Doctor is just some sort of a title amongst the Time Lords. Who names their kid "The Doctor"
So, if there is never a trial and they never officially conclude the investigation, then no expiration of the gag order?
Just make it expire after 5 years and be done with it.
"The point with photocopiers is very real. There was talk of banning photocopiers for precisely that reason, until somebody figured out that for more than short extracts (which come under fair use), it was generally more trouble and money than it was worth to Xerox a book."
Well, does it still make sense now? Seems like we would want law to be more durable than the trend of the day. Don't books, especially college textbooks, cost substantially more and photocopiers cost less today then they did when the issue of photocopiers was first looked at?
If 'substantial non-infringing uses' is not still the law of the land for determining when technology is legal, then what should the standard be?
Seems to me the best thing is just to realize that any generalized device meant to facilitate the reproduction and distribution of content has inherent substantial non-infringining uses since anyone can produce content and distribute it as they see fit. Sure if I created a program that was only capable of distributing Britney Spears' music, that would clearly have no non-infringing uses, but any p2p software is ultimately just a file transfer program with some sort of file name search capability. It is Peer to Peer, meaning that two people are transferring a file between them. The only person to get into trouble here should be the person offering copies of the copyrighted material.
Every media and copying technology that you can name has substantial copyright infringing uses. , which is why substantial non-infringing uses should remain the standard for technology and media and substantial shouldn't be a measure of how many people are actually using the technology for non-infringing uses, but rather the degree to which there are non-infringing uses for the technology.
"Would you walk across the street at 1/50 odds?"
Depends what is on the other side.
I meant the other side of the street, just to be clear.
Would you walk across the street at 1/50 odds?
Depends what is on the other side.
VCR use was rampant with copyright infringement, I know of no VCR user who did not at one time or another violate a copyright.
Any legal standard created that is based on use of a technology rather than its inherent functionality will be a very weak standard.
Why not do a survey of iPod users and if over 60% have a few pirated songs, then make Apple stop selling iPods. Or if photocopier machines are used primarily by students so they don't have to buy the books, then make xerox stop selling photo copier machines.
"as all governments inevitably trend toward maximum control and subjugation of their citizens"
Damn right. Even democratic governments innevitably centralize control. Though, the goal is never to subjugate people, that is where a government will end up. That is because the use or threat of force is the basic tool of government. If you disagree, I dare you to refuse to pay taxes or follow a law or refuse to be arrested. You are going to get your ass whooped by some burly men with clubs, guns and a badge. And if you survive you will get thrown into a cage until you submit.
For those of you who think centraliized authoritarian systems are a good thing, I am more than willing to be the one to tell you what to do.
"and Jobs isn't willing to make a mediocre product."
that's remarkable insight, because most other CEOs sit around meetings and tell everyone that they want to make a mediocre product.
Good point, the only feasible goals in supporting terrorist attacks within the united states is to force us to increase security within our borders therefore causing us to use resources that might have otherwise have gone to the middle east. Also, increased security has the effect of reducing economic activity, so there will eventually be fewer resources that we can spend on middle east intervention. The last effect of terrorist attacks that seems of interest is to force us to retaliate as indescriminately as possible and therefore swelling the ranks of their forces.
Check, check and check.
None of the Al Qaeda goals give a damn about freedom, one way or the other.
Only domestic terrorists would really care about forcing the government to take our freedoms, the aim being to make the government the enemy of the people or in their eyes to force the government to show its true face.
How else does the government act, but by coercion and threat of force? So, when anyone actively uses the law to compel a person to act, they are simply using coercion. Even the application of justice, as dictated by the government, is coercsion.
The use of the word is correct, even if you agree with Apple, which I do. Apple had two sticks, one was bigger than the other, and told this stupid kid to choose between them. Right or wrong does not matter, that is coercion. Sure, to say you coerced someone to act has a bad connotation, but sometimes you need to use coercion even when you are in the right.
Just as the word "propaganda" has come to have a negative connotation, but that the word simply means to promote a point of view or an idea. So people use it as an insult when someone is propogandizing, they will often comment and say, "that is just propaganda" as a way of diminishing the effect of the point. It is essentially a cheap shot, but it is correct.
"had no greater impact on employability or wage levels than being able to use a telephone or a pencil. "
Where they only looking at government jobs?
A nifty little invention called a "win-dow".
Lucky son of a bitch.
"Not that I'm saying anything bad about the Amish; I doubt that the average person on the street, or the average slashdotter understands those either."
Come on now, it isn't as if they are going to be reading this.
Except during Rumspringa, of course. Hey, any Amish Slashdotters here? Got any cool wooden or goat case mods you want to share?