Because the version passed by the House differs from the one which passed the Senate, Congress must again decide which version to pass.
Almost...the next step is for the bill to go to a conference committee where the differences between the House and Senate bills will either be worked out or if the committee can't come to an agreement, the bill dies. The House and Senate must approve the committee report for the bill to land on Clinton's desk.
Uhhhh....it seems that prior experiments with subscription based services haven't been all that successful in the past.
Think of slate.com, for example. Originally a subscription based service, Microsoft gave slate.com's founders (Michael Kinsley-I think??) boatloads of money to get the service up and running and did not require the service to make a profit for several years. However, not enough people came to make it successful and they just recently made the service free.
The only subscription based service that I can think of as doing well is the Motley Fool, which is a finance site. And I think that they offer up to the second info, which makes it so attractive to the stock market set.
Just a final thought if I have to start paying micropayments for content, does that mean I *still* have to pay ISP fees?
Other complex issues are already arising from genetic research -- parents seeking "perfect baby" are being given the option of avoiding the conception of children with certain illnesses... there has been little public discussion of the moral and ethical considerations. Nobody has voted on whether he or she wants to live in a world with only healthy, cheerful, smart and attractive inhabitants.
Ummmm....great arguement, but it fails to make sense in the respect that no one is being FORCED to "end a pregnancy" if there is an anomaly detected. Some parents to be CHOOSE to keep the pregnancy, because of religious and moral reasons. Take for example the Iowa McCaughey's, they chose not to abort some of their children even with warnings that the kids would probably be affected with some severe disabilities (in fact, two of the kids have cerebral palsy and most of those kids are developmentally delayed).
Also, just think about the general debate about abortion rights in the US. Most polls have found that there is a huge majority of the people who sit in the middle of the debate, qualifying their support with "I'd support abortion only in the cases of rape, incest or if the Mother's life was threatened." What people are not saying is "If the alpha-fetal protein test comes in a little low and my kid is probably going to have Downs syndrome, I have the right to abort."
A little OT, but I wanted to relate a little story to you. I just had a painful experience finding out that I could not withdraw any **earnings** without penalty (the IRS taking 10% of your earnings) within the 5 year mark of opening my account to buy a first home (which is one of the kind of qualified purchases you can make before you're 59 1/2).
In other words, to withdraw your earnings penalty free to use for first home, education, etc. you need to hold the account for the five year mark. Any money that you **put in** can be withdrawn.
So with all the hullaboo about the Roth being flexible, most of its advocates didn't mention that if you opened the account in 1998 you would have to wait to 2003 to get your earnings for "qualified purposes".
Some type of watch dog agency with the power to evaluate the protections and privacy afforded to citizens, and evaluate certain random cases to ensure that where these tools were used, they were used properly.
There already is a watch dog agency out there....and it is called the JUDICIAL BRANCH of government. The judicial branch works within our system of checks and balances against the Legislative (Congress) and Executive (President).
IANAL or a law enforcement officer, but I do understand that if some agency wants to monitor your communications, they have to get a judge to sign off on it. Plus, if you ever ARE charged, any lawyer with a half brain would question how the evidence was collected against you (you know, that little right you have that protects you from unreasonable search and seizure).
I am incredibly tired of people showing up to my non-child-proofed house and letting l'enfants terrible run amok. Their kids are used to the idea that if they can reach something, then it must be safe to play with, because that's the way it is at their own home. No, dammit, my wife's figurine collection isn't meant to be eaten. The DVD player is off-limits to small hands. Don't kick the dog. Just because it isn't locked up or nailed down doesn't make it fair game.
LOL, I hope to see you post this comment in about 2 years when your infant daughter is about 2 1/2 and climbing onto the sofa to get to the DVD player she wants to put her crayons into and your second one is crawling around and is putting the tiny tiniest pieces of dirt into his/her mouth. You do sound like a parent with a infant. Good luck, because you're going to need it with two little ones under the age of 5 under the same roof.
Jon, I don't agree with you on your point about the Harvard Dean being asked to step down for looking at porn at home on a university PC.
I've worked as a lowly PC tech and have been in a similar position, finding stuff on a work computer that should not have been there. It is **NOT** an "invasion of privacy" when there's a bunch of adult oriented.jpgs sitting in a C:\windows\temporaryinternetfiles folder.
If I were the tech in the same position, working on a university owned computer, I would have reported it to my superiors. No sense in losing one's job over someone's stupidity.
The incident you described just illustrates how much non-computer literate people don't understand about their machine's capabilities.
But the point is that we're sacrificing some very important rights (privacy) for others (not to be sexually harassed), and that is very scary indeed.
I understand your logic, but let's take this one step further to refine the idea at hand.
1) Someone is alleged to have broken the law (in this case, s/he might have sexually harassed someone).
2) We (as a society) have practiced that when someone is under suspicion, we will investigate the allegations to determine guilt.
3) Here's the twist, in today's modern society, we have progressed beyond asking the neighbor if he saw or heard anything strange around 10pm last night. Because of our connectedness via the Internet, electronic commerce and everything else, we have the ability not to only "ask the neighbor next door" but to look at credit card reciepts, phone records, usenet postings, etc.
The idea really at hand is if our investigators are justified in going beyond "asking the neighbor next door".
The danger isn't in the enforcement of sexual harassment or gender discrimination laws or any other type of laws (These are just some really good, visible examples that have stuck out in the public's mind as of late.)
The real danger is how people or institutions (Ken Starr, et al) MISUSE the information gathered in the name of these investigations and then use them in way inconsistent to the purpose of the investigation (leaks, etc.).
Just think about Charles Bakaly (a Starr aide) who is in court right now fighting charges that he leaked info about the Monica investigation to the NY Times.
Rosen convincingly assigns a lot of the blame to recently-enacted harassment laws, which made the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky dramas possible. As sexual harassment law expands, writes Rosen, people can be interrogated about their consensual relationships on the flimsiest of allegations.
The only problem with the above statement is that Paula Jones (trailer park hair and all) announced TO THE WORLD at a newsconference her allegations that she was "asked to touch it" by Clinton.
Therefore, she precipitated any and all investigations into her private life. Anyway, I honestly don't remember any "electronic invasions" into her private life, except for a stupid A&E Biography on her early years in Arkansas.
Coke=caffeinated dark soda Kleenex=tissue Xerox=paper copy Kodak=picture (a kodak moment, if you will) Microsoft=Operating system/software Now that's branding, having your product recognized as "the" product. It just makes me think of how far linux has to go in terms of the PR war.
Earthlink is a marketing partner with USAA (a fraternal organization which offers financial services--including reduced Earthlink ISP fees-- to current and former military officers, NCOs, and get this, FBI and DEA agents.)
So that means FBI agents can get Earthlink for their personal ISP at a reduced rate....hmmm
Diversity is rarely as big an issue as it is for their parents. Possibly because of the anonymity possible online, or perhaps because of natural social evolution, differences in race, religion and sexual orientation rarely come up.
I have to ask, why is GENDER missing from your list of things we have overcome with the advent of the OPEN MEDIA Katz???? I mean you DID reference chickclicks.com. But on the other hand, I do realize you usually sterotype geeks as being male.
and not an ongoing open source project, as some may like to think.
Of course at HQ they're going to be a bit concerned when rumors (like the Disney/pixar/whateverelse merger) proliferate unchecked and never seem to die.
I think the problem here isn't the fact that "rumor sites" exist, but instead, even after repeated denials by Apple, the rumors *STILL APPEAR* on the Net.
This event sure as heck isn't the downfall of "rumor sites", because I can't see how a company could get something that is true pulled without a large backlash.
If a kid can't do better than rudimentary math, she can't program.
If a kid doesn't have an education, the the kid isn't going to go farther than the local factory or field. And I think the Internet can help supplement a child's education (and the local infrastructure) but I don't think online instruction can replace the real thing.
The rise and usefulness of the Internet depends on many factors, not just making PCs available or how many miles of cable can be laid.
but Nixon and his wife have been dead for a few years now, so I am not quite sure what slinging around his social security number around the Net will accomplish....
The article reminded me of the beginning computer class that I taught a few months ago. (One of those this-is-a-mouse, this-is-a-keyboard types of classes). One evening we got into a discussion about those free PC deals after a student brought in an advertisement and asked me what I thought about it. I broke the numbers down for the class and explained that they really were not getting *anything* for free since A)the equipment offered was bare bones (like a whopping 32MB of RAM, a 4GB hard drive) and B) the rates $25/mo for dialup was ridiculously high. In addition, the consumer would have to *hope* they recieved a system that could be updated without voiding some warranty. I know that some of my students said that they only wanted a PC for "email and internet stuff", but I am sure that after my lecture the idea of them having to upgrade their cruddy "free PC" to do the most basic of tasks wasn't an inviting thought either.
Re: Expectant parents already perform...
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I know, but there are some that will take the test results and abort the fetus instead of carrying it to term. You have to admit, that is method of eradicating wayward genes.
News flash: No sex in Katz's Brave New World!
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Seriously, a large part of JK's supposition is that we are going to create "perfect children" via genetic manipulation.
That's fine and great, but since I don't see alcohol, Victoria's Secret and p0rn disappearing anytime soon, I seriously doubt that we are EVER going to totally control human reproduction. Especially when there's no 100% reliable form of birth control available.
I mean, anyone ever[y] heard of the absolute and canonical way to parent a child?
No, but if you do, can you pass it along MY way???;-)
Expectant parents already perform quality control
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Quality control is the perfect term for some aspects of genetic research. As of this week, quality control is truly possible for humans. Parents invevitably, even understandably, will seek perfect children.
Great hyperbole, but "quality control" as you define it, already happens today in the forms of ultrasound scans, amniocentisis, and other prenatal testing.
I don't know if this movement can be construed as scary, as you may believe.
Have you ever tried to herd 435 cats (I'm sorry, congressmen)? It can be difficult, and this isn't an issue that everyone will automatically rally around.
Also, the Playboy case is a bit different because it involved people involuntarily recieving the not-so scrambled signals into their homes. At least on the Net you have to point and click to get to the place where you aren't supposed to be.
But then again I don't make great proclamations about how nifty new/open net media is and then write for an old/closed format. You're the guy who wrote the sentence about the AOL/TimeWarner attorneys.
If that's a troll, then so be it.
BTW, this is coming from a/. reader who isn't the archtype, alienated haxOr. No need to blame inflated levels of testosterone, since I don't have any.
Slashdot Mirror
Almost...the next step is for the bill to go to a conference committee where the differences between the House and Senate bills will either be worked out or if the committee can't come to an agreement, the bill dies. The House and Senate must approve the committee report for the bill to land on Clinton's desk.
Here's a good link for political newbies.
I always knew that political science degree of mine would come in handy someday. ;-)
Think of slate.com, for example. Originally a subscription based service, Microsoft gave slate.com's founders (Michael Kinsley-I think??) boatloads of money to get the service up and running and did not require the service to make a profit for several years. However, not enough people came to make it successful and they just recently made the service free.
The only subscription based service that I can think of as doing well is the Motley Fool, which is a finance site. And I think that they offer up to the second info, which makes it so attractive to the stock market set.
Just a final thought if I have to start paying micropayments for content, does that mean I *still* have to pay ISP fees?
Ummmm....great arguement, but it fails to make sense in the respect that no one is being FORCED to "end a pregnancy" if there is an anomaly detected. Some parents to be CHOOSE to keep the pregnancy, because of religious and moral reasons. Take for example the Iowa McCaughey's, they chose not to abort some of their children even with warnings that the kids would probably be affected with some severe disabilities (in fact, two of the kids have cerebral palsy and most of those kids are developmentally delayed).
Also, just think about the general debate about abortion rights in the US. Most polls have found that there is a huge majority of the people who sit in the middle of the debate, qualifying their support with "I'd support abortion only in the cases of rape, incest or if the Mother's life was threatened." What people are not saying is "If the alpha-fetal protein test comes in a little low and my kid is probably going to have Downs syndrome, I have the right to abort."
In other words, to withdraw your earnings penalty free to use for first home, education, etc. you need to hold the account for the five year mark. Any money that you **put in** can be withdrawn.
So with all the hullaboo about the Roth being flexible, most of its advocates didn't mention that if you opened the account in 1998 you would have to wait to 2003 to get your earnings for "qualified purposes".
There already is a watch dog agency out there....and it is called the JUDICIAL BRANCH of government. The judicial branch works within our system of checks and balances against the Legislative (Congress) and Executive (President).
IANAL or a law enforcement officer, but I do understand that if some agency wants to monitor your communications, they have to get a judge to sign off on it. Plus, if you ever ARE charged, any lawyer with a half brain would question how the evidence was collected against you (you know, that little right you have that protects you from unreasonable search and seizure).
LOL, I hope to see you post this comment in about 2 years when your infant daughter is about 2 1/2 and climbing onto the sofa to get to the DVD player she wants to put her crayons into and your second one is crawling around and is putting the tiny tiniest pieces of dirt into his/her mouth. You do sound like a parent with a infant. Good luck, because you're going to need it with two little ones under the age of 5 under the same roof.
I've worked as a lowly PC tech and have been in a similar position, finding stuff on a work computer that should not have been there. It is **NOT** an "invasion of privacy" when there's a bunch of adult oriented .jpgs sitting in a C:\windows\temporaryinternetfiles folder.
If I were the tech in the same position, working on a university owned computer, I would have reported it to my superiors. No sense in losing one's job over someone's stupidity.
The incident you described just illustrates how much non-computer literate people don't understand about their machine's capabilities.
I understand your logic, but let's take this one step further to refine the idea at hand.
1) Someone is alleged to have broken the law (in this case, s/he might have sexually harassed someone).
2) We (as a society) have practiced that when someone is under suspicion, we will investigate the allegations to determine guilt.
3) Here's the twist, in today's modern society, we have progressed beyond asking the neighbor if he saw or heard anything strange around 10pm last night. Because of our connectedness via the Internet, electronic commerce and everything else, we have the ability not to only "ask the neighbor next door" but to look at credit card reciepts, phone records, usenet postings, etc.
The idea really at hand is if our investigators are justified in going beyond "asking the neighbor next door".
The real danger is how people or institutions (Ken Starr, et al) MISUSE the information gathered in the name of these investigations and then use them in way inconsistent to the purpose of the investigation (leaks, etc.).
Just think about Charles Bakaly (a Starr aide) who is in court right now fighting charges that he leaked info about the Monica investigation to the NY Times.
The only problem with the above statement is that Paula Jones (trailer park hair and all) announced TO THE WORLD at a newsconference her allegations that she was "asked to touch it" by Clinton.
Therefore, she precipitated any and all investigations into her private life. Anyway, I honestly don't remember any "electronic invasions" into her private life, except for a stupid A&E Biography on her early years in Arkansas.
Coke=caffeinated dark soda Kleenex=tissue Xerox=paper copy Kodak=picture (a kodak moment, if you will) Microsoft=Operating system/software Now that's branding, having your product recognized as "the" product. It just makes me think of how far linux has to go in terms of the PR war.
So that means FBI agents can get Earthlink for their personal ISP at a reduced rate....hmmm
I have to ask, why is GENDER missing from your list of things we have overcome with the advent of the OPEN MEDIA Katz???? I mean you DID reference chickclicks.com. But on the other hand, I do realize you usually sterotype geeks as being male.
Of course at HQ they're going to be a bit concerned when rumors (like the Disney/pixar/whateverelse merger) proliferate unchecked and never seem to die.
I think the problem here isn't the fact that "rumor sites" exist, but instead, even after repeated denials by Apple, the rumors *STILL APPEAR* on the Net.
This event sure as heck isn't the downfall of "rumor sites", because I can't see how a company could get something that is true pulled without a large backlash.
If a kid can't read, he can't use the Internet.
If a kid can't do better than rudimentary math, she can't program.
If a kid doesn't have an education, the the kid isn't going to go farther than the local factory or field. And I think the Internet can help supplement a child's education (and the local infrastructure) but I don't think online instruction can replace the real thing.
The rise and usefulness of the Internet depends on many factors, not just making PCs available or how many miles of cable can be laid.
but Nixon and his wife have been dead for a few years now, so I am not quite sure what slinging around his social security number around the Net will accomplish....
The article reminded me of the beginning computer class that I taught a few months ago. (One of those this-is-a-mouse, this-is-a-keyboard types of classes). One evening we got into a discussion about those free PC deals after a student brought in an advertisement and asked me what I thought about it. I broke the numbers down for the class and explained that they really were not getting *anything* for free since A)the equipment offered was bare bones (like a whopping 32MB of RAM, a 4GB hard drive) and B) the rates $25/mo for dialup was ridiculously high. In addition, the consumer would have to *hope* they recieved a system that could be updated without voiding some warranty. I know that some of my students said that they only wanted a PC for "email and internet stuff", but I am sure that after my lecture the idea of them having to upgrade their cruddy "free PC" to do the most basic of tasks wasn't an inviting thought either.
I know, but there are some that will take the test results and abort the fetus instead of carrying it to term. You have to admit, that is method of eradicating wayward genes.
That's fine and great, but since I don't see alcohol, Victoria's Secret and p0rn disappearing anytime soon, I seriously doubt that we are EVER going to totally control human reproduction. Especially when there's no 100% reliable form of birth control available.
No, but if you do, can you pass it along MY way??? ;-)
Great hyperbole, but "quality control" as you define it, already happens today in the forms of ultrasound scans, amniocentisis, and other prenatal testing.
That article sounds like a storyboard for a Dilbert strip.
Have you ever tried to herd 435 cats (I'm sorry, congressmen)? It can be difficult, and this isn't an issue that everyone will automatically rally around.
Also, the Playboy case is a bit different because it involved people involuntarily recieving the not-so scrambled signals into their homes. At least on the Net you have to point and click to get to the place where you aren't supposed to be.
If that's a troll, then so be it.
BTW, this is coming from a /. reader who isn't the archtype, alienated haxOr. No need to blame inflated levels of testosterone, since I don't have any.