Re:While I'm not the first to say it...
on
Lawsuits Suck
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· Score: 1
One of the problems with the damn them all in Congress it's the money attitudes, is people focusing on big checks. Where do you think big checks come from? Sure, big donors somtimes, but small checks become big checks. Why give up because you can't write a big check, at least do the part you can.
Sure, money is influential. It's influential everywhere. That's not a reason to give up. A congressman/woman/whatever makes $135,000 a year. The hours pretty much suck judging by how often you can go to a late session. Most of them have to keep two homes and do the traveling thing a lot, which is probably fine if you like it - but how many do. You don't get any time off. Maybe not every single one of them deserves our collective respect, but if you want to get rich, there are probably easier ways to do it.
Maybe you need a bigger check to get the attention of some big name guy at the top, but for all of them there are probably a lot of smaller players you can influence more easily. Get some momentum going with those people, so you can get a couple of sure votes and then the influence of a handful (or more) people trying to influence others to your point of view, instead of one guy.
This case settled. It was announced on the W3C's web accessibilty list on July 26th, by Cynthia Waddell. Ms. Wadell is in charge of ADA compliance for the city of San Jose, and is well-regarded for her work in this area. She published a press release that I'll summarize. The contact information for those caring to verify is below. I'm to lazy to look for a link to this right now.
The article says that they settled on the 10th anniversary of the American with Disabilities Act. The National Federation of the Blind withdrew their complaint against AOL (the complaint being that AOL was violating ADA). For their part, AOL was going to continue work to make AOL 6.0 screen reader compliant, and that they would take steps to ensure current and future content of the AOL developed areas of AOL were compliant.
Presumably, the act of filing the complaint brought about action, and having achieved their goal, the NFB dropped charges. I assume they also hope this will be a message to other providers.
Here's the contact information from the press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS:
NFB: Curtis Chong 410-659-9314, ext. 349
Daniel Goldstein, Esq.
410-659-0717
Joseph Davis, Esq.
617-482-0600
Stanton Communications
410-727-6855
AOL: Rich D'Amato 703-265-1746
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND AND AMERICA ONLINE REACH
AGREEMENT ON
ACCESSIBILITY
The typical language used is such to suggest victimization, inequality, unfairness -- a need to be encouraged, given a nudge, coddled
Yep, it is absolutely offensive to think that I should be coddled in my choosen field, because I'm a female. And yes, a lot of attitudes have changed since the 1950's, but there are many that haven't. So, as long as there are people pushing girls away from technical areas, then others of us should help them find their way back - assuming of course that's where they want to go. You don't give extra encouragement or a nudge, because they are girls. You do it, because they've been discouraged, and as time and attitudes fix the problem, you stop doing it. And if a boy gets discouraged, you do it for him too. We are talking about children here.
You get what you get, and it isn't handed to you. If you're going to make it in a career, it's going to be because you work your ass off to attain it, not because your fifth grade teacher called on you more often than someone else when it came to answering an algebra question.
Sure, once you've thought about starting a career. I doubt most of us picked our careers in the fifth grade. Maybe you're interested in something and someone tells you in enough subtle ways you shouldn't do it, and you don't. Or you go on to something else that's also interesting to you, but there are less obstacles. So, you never find out enough about the first thing to make a career of it.
This is just a different slant on the privacy issue.
That's what I also thought after reading the article. Actually, my first thought was who thought this was a good headline for the article. The headline certainly got my attention, but I didn't find the content of the speach to be heretical. I was expecting to read how Stephenson said something along the lines of give up on privacy, encryption, etc. From what I read he gave a speech advocate reprioritizing efforts.
If the purpose of the conference was to provoke debate, then it sounds like Stephenson did a good job. If the purpose was to have a pep rally with everyone saying the same thing, then he probably did not.
Unless someone offers a critic of existing organizations, with changes to be made - I'd argue we may have to many organizations and creating another would continue to fragment what influence there is to be had.
Or in other words, what "we" don't need is to defuse our resources by building up a new organization, but use those resources to strengthen or affect change within existing organizations.
Let alone those that aren't "purely" technical - such as the ACLU or People for the American Way, that touch on things like 1st Amendment (yep, American biased I am) rights. I could keep going and going, but if I didn't bore you ten lines ago, you would be now.
The likelihood of having THE "geek organization" are slim. Finding issues we can individually devote our resources to and building coalitions where interests overlap is a more realistic goal.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the problems with the damn them all in Congress it's the money attitudes, is people focusing on big checks. Where do you think big checks come from? Sure, big donors somtimes, but small checks become big checks. Why give up because you can't write a big check, at least do the part you can. Sure, money is influential. It's influential everywhere. That's not a reason to give up. A congressman/woman/whatever makes $135,000 a year. The hours pretty much suck judging by how often you can go to a late session. Most of them have to keep two homes and do the traveling thing a lot, which is probably fine if you like it - but how many do. You don't get any time off. Maybe not every single one of them deserves our collective respect, but if you want to get rich, there are probably easier ways to do it. Maybe you need a bigger check to get the attention of some big name guy at the top, but for all of them there are probably a lot of smaller players you can influence more easily. Get some momentum going with those people, so you can get a couple of sure votes and then the influence of a handful (or more) people trying to influence others to your point of view, instead of one guy.
This case settled. It was announced on the W3C's web accessibilty list on July 26th, by Cynthia Waddell. Ms. Wadell is in charge of ADA compliance for the city of San Jose, and is well-regarded for her work in this area. She published a press release that I'll summarize. The contact information for those caring to verify is below. I'm to lazy to look for a link to this right now.
The article says that they settled on the 10th anniversary of the American with Disabilities Act. The National Federation of the Blind withdrew their complaint against AOL (the complaint being that AOL was violating ADA). For their part, AOL was going to continue work to make AOL 6.0 screen reader compliant, and that they would take steps to ensure current and future content of the AOL developed areas of AOL were compliant.
Presumably, the act of filing the complaint brought about action, and having achieved their goal, the NFB dropped charges. I assume they also hope this will be a message to other providers.
Here's the contact information from the press release: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACTS: NFB: Curtis Chong 410-659-9314, ext. 349 Daniel Goldstein, Esq. 410-659-0717 Joseph Davis, Esq. 617-482-0600 Stanton Communications 410-727-6855 AOL: Rich D'Amato 703-265-1746 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND AND AMERICA ONLINE REACH AGREEMENT ON ACCESSIBILITY
Yep, it is absolutely offensive to think that I should be coddled in my choosen field, because I'm a female. And yes, a lot of attitudes have changed since the 1950's, but there are many that haven't. So, as long as there are people pushing girls away from technical areas, then others of us should help them find their way back - assuming of course that's where they want to go. You don't give extra encouragement or a nudge, because they are girls. You do it, because they've been discouraged, and as time and attitudes fix the problem, you stop doing it. And if a boy gets discouraged, you do it for him too. We are talking about children here.
You get what you get, and it isn't handed to you. If you're going to make it in a career, it's going to be because you work your ass off to attain it, not because your fifth grade teacher called on you more often than someone else when it came to answering an algebra question.
Sure, once you've thought about starting a career. I doubt most of us picked our careers in the fifth grade. Maybe you're interested in something and someone tells you in enough subtle ways you shouldn't do it, and you don't. Or you go on to something else that's also interesting to you, but there are less obstacles. So, you never find out enough about the first thing to make a career of it.
That's what I also thought after reading the article. Actually, my first thought was who thought this was a good headline for the article. The headline certainly got my attention, but I didn't find the content of the speach to be heretical. I was expecting to read how Stephenson said something along the lines of give up on privacy, encryption, etc. From what I read he gave a speech advocate reprioritizing efforts.
If the purpose of the conference was to provoke debate, then it sounds like Stephenson did a good job. If the purpose was to have a pep rally with everyone saying the same thing, then he probably did not.
I had enough pep rallies in high school.
Unless someone offers a critic of existing organizations, with changes to be made - I'd argue we may have to many organizations and creating another would continue to fragment what influence there is to be had.
Or in other words, what "we" don't need is to defuse our resources by building up a new organization, but use those resources to strengthen or affect change within existing organizations.
There are a lot out there. I started with three:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
The Center for Democracy and Technology
From there I was able to also dig up links to:
The Internet Education Foundation
The Media Access Project (non-profit telecomm lawyers, interesting..)
The Global Internet Liberty Campaign
Digital Future Coalition
Let alone those that aren't "purely" technical - such as the ACLU or People for the American Way, that touch on things like 1st Amendment (yep, American biased I am) rights. I could keep going and going, but if I didn't bore you ten lines ago, you would be now.
The likelihood of having THE "geek organization" are slim. Finding issues we can individually devote our resources to and building coalitions where interests overlap is a more realistic goal.