The web, and the world for that matter, should not be designed around the lowest common denominator.
I don't understand this particular attitude. You've given us some examples pushed to the ludicrous in order to prove a point, but it is fairly easy to go in the opposite direction. Design toilet stalls that don't work for people under 5'10".
What is the "lowest common denominator?" People who are in some way disabled and need to use alternatives to traditional browsing methods? People who use older web browsers? I've had clients who think that people who don't use the latest version of IE on a Windows computer should completely be ignored when designing a site. No kidding. These sites would be mostly broken used on a Mac. And completely useless to anyone using a Linux box.
I do agree with what someelse mentioned a little bit earlier, even though they meant it sarcastically- "make the government do it for their own sites." Damn straight. Even more than private sites, the government has the obligation to provide its information services to its citizens. Especially with the increasing moves towards online dissemination of information and services.
Certain aspects of technology should be adapted for people with usability issues. Why shouldn't it be a fundamental design requirement? Is it "too hard?" In this case, it's not. Even the newest version of Macromedia MX is fairly accessible, including the whiz-bang features of Flash.
What does being the prime market for a technology have to do with this type of accessibility?
Of course there are exceptions. Certain online games, for example, will always be inaccessible. But they should be exceptions, not rules. Business has not been very good about self-regulation in the area of privacy. Why should it be any different in this case?
How does European law define "integrity?" The term can be used to refer to the wholeness or completeness of a work, unaltered from its original state, or the term can be used to refer to moral (in this case, artistic) values. So EU copyright law applies to the author's artistic intent?
This brings up some of the same vagueness the term "authenticity" possesses.
I have a library degree. In "library school" things I learned about included information architecture, web design, HTML, XML, Javascript and CSS, metadata, authentication and authenticity, network and information security, databases (Access, mySQL) how to install and run Linux, and most importantly how to organize and present information. It was library school that introduced me to Open Source adn Free Software. The basic fuctions and principles of libraries and librarians are probably the most useful of the bunch, even in my current tech job.
Yes, this was talked about earlier. Some of the comments provided then were helpful, others less than so. There was a lot of FUD about how using any form of share or NetBIOS at all meant that you were "already hacked." If an administrator knows what they're doing, that's not true.
I work at a large university. The obvious solutions don't quite work for us. We'd like to be able to block 135-139. However, some of us are required to use Outlook. *pause* On an Exchange server. *pause* And, we've been told that some of the Outlook functionality depends on the Messenger service being available.
I block it. But not everyone (particularly some administrative staff and some professors) has the technical knowledge to do so, and some people actually use it.
Most universities are considered an ISP. The services are not free, typically being added to fees. However, universities must meet more stringent rules than ISPs due to FERPA and other federal legislation regarding privacy.
Student records with peronsally-identifiable information cannot be collected unless it is legally required to collect this information. Furthermore, student records must meet standards of integrity (that the record is not altered) and confidentiality (that the record cannot be accessed by those unauthorized to access the record). Many university networks can't meet these standards.
Furthermore, even if a large percentage is against school rules (not illegal) or illegal by copyright law, the technology has legitimate uses. Since universities value academic and intellectual freedom highly, this is not an argument that will, or should, work.
Universities do pay for bandwidth, albeit at a lower cost than most commercial entities. These costs, of course, are passed along to students (and/or taxpayers).
I'm a bit disappointed in Chapel Hill's copyright policy and the way they adress MP3's (to paraphrase, 'most are illegal').
It's interesting to note that each of these policies treats fair use for education purposes a bit differently, and all are very vague and conservative in their treatment of fair use...
Some of the instructions are, quite frankly, wrong in their specifics (for example, U Mich's instructions on how to determine if a work is copyrighted, while factually accurate for current works really applies only to things created in the last decade or so).
I also work at a university, and we've gotten- and had to respond to- a few DMCA notifications from the RIAA. These events really are a pain, primarily in man hours. A big problem is that these types of events really make university officials want to attack P2P usage in general. Attacking bandwidth "costs" is often an excuse to ban P2P networks altogether, even though there are ways to restrict bandwidth... actually, is there any place that addresses this topic, specifically? It would be nice to have alternatives to show to university administrators...
Nausicca.net has release dates (with sub/dub info).
Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) is a really great film. To answer a person's earlier comment, no, Disney has not edited the film in any way. The only real change in the dub has been some "offscreen" English dialog to better explain ome of the cultural references that English-speaking audiences might not get. But they are very well done and don't take away from the rest of the film. Actually, I liked this dub much better than the dub for Princess Mononoke, and while it's not quite as accurate as the subtitled version it's still very good.
As far as the "scary" scenes- I wouldn't have a problem allowing children to watch this movie. There are intense scenes, but there are intense moments in many children's stories- Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretal, etc. These scenes are a bit scarier than the Disneyfied versions of the same stories, but I'd say they are pretty comparable.
Even friends that are not huge anime fans loved it.
You are entitled to use it any way you want. You are not entitled to copy and distribute it. You have the right to burn it, break it, copy it for your own use, sell it, give it away (as long as you don't keep a copy, copy parts of it for educational purposes, etc. The doctrine of first sale and fair use give you those rights.
Some people argue that fair use is not a right, only a defense against claims of copyright infringement. But many will argue that point. These aren't things that will be solved by technology, they are social issues.
If you are the type of person who gets a great deal of job satisfaction from helping others, the public sector tends to offer more opportunities than the private sector in that regard.
If you are good, you have the opportunity to advance in the public sector as well as in the private sector. The biggest difference is that the attached pay raise might not be great.
1. Transitional fossils- and living species- are found all the time. Read Scientific American and Biological Journals. Look online, or for actually authoritative information GO TO THE LIBRARY. Better yet, take a course in evolution at a local university.
2. Er... what scientific principle states that comets were developed at the time of the big bang? The two aren't necessarily related at all. Of course, this argument has nothing to do with evolution and has to do with the big bang.
3. See the end of the last section. I don't know what happened 10E-38th second after the Big Bang. What is the point of that question?
4. This argument was debunked a long time ago, and most creationists who've done a fair amount of research won't touch it. Again, go to the library and do some research. A quick google search pulls up: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/moondust .html
5. This isn't an argument at all. Given that one is unable to accept the premise the "perfection of scripture" in a logical discussion, any conclusion drawn is invalid. Even if one were to accept this argument, how does one explain the "hoaxes and embarrasements" of scripture? Why don't various religions and denominations exclude and include certain texts? Why would the presence of hoaxes do anything to discredit the whole? And more importantly, how is this related to hoaxes involved in science?
6. There are several responses here, but before any of them make sense we'd need more information. What modern information theory are you referring to? I have a degree in the biological sciences and a degree in information studies, and I have no idea how the two subjects are interconnected. Could you elaborate?
Slashdot Mirror
The web, and the world for that matter, should not be designed around the lowest common denominator.
I don't understand this particular attitude. You've given us some examples pushed to the ludicrous in order to prove a point, but it is fairly easy to go in the opposite direction. Design toilet stalls that don't work for people under 5'10".
What is the "lowest common denominator?"
People who are in some way disabled and need to use alternatives to traditional browsing methods? People who use older web browsers?
I've had clients who think that people who don't use the latest version of IE on a Windows computer should completely be ignored when designing a site. No kidding. These sites would be mostly broken used on a Mac. And completely useless to anyone using a Linux box.
I do agree with what someelse mentioned a little bit earlier, even though they meant it sarcastically- "make the government do it for their own sites." Damn straight. Even more than private sites, the government has the obligation to provide its information services to its citizens. Especially with the increasing moves towards online dissemination of information and services.
Certain aspects of technology should be adapted for people with usability issues. Why shouldn't it be a fundamental design requirement? Is it "too hard?" In this case, it's not. Even the newest version of Macromedia MX is fairly accessible, including the whiz-bang features of Flash.
What does being the prime market for a technology have to do with this type of accessibility?
Of course there are exceptions. Certain online games, for example, will always be inaccessible. But they should be exceptions, not rules. Business has not been very good about self-regulation in the area of privacy. Why should it be any different in this case?
I have a question.
How does European law define "integrity?"
The term can be used to refer to the wholeness or completeness of a work, unaltered from its original state, or the term can be used to refer to moral (in this case, artistic) values. So EU copyright law applies to the author's artistic intent?
This brings up some of the same vagueness the term "authenticity" possesses.
I have a library degree.
In "library school" things I learned about included information architecture, web design, HTML, XML, Javascript and CSS, metadata, authentication and authenticity, network and information security, databases (Access, mySQL) how to install and run Linux, and most importantly how to organize and present information. It was library school that introduced me to Open Source adn Free Software. The basic fuctions and principles of libraries and librarians are probably the most useful of the bunch, even in my current tech job.
Yes, this was talked about earlier. Some of the comments provided then were helpful, others less than so. There was a lot of FUD about how using any form of share or NetBIOS at all meant that you were "already hacked." If an administrator knows what they're doing, that's not true.
I work at a large university. The obvious solutions don't quite work for us. We'd like to be able to block 135-139. However, some of us are required to use Outlook. *pause* On an Exchange server. *pause* And, we've been told that some of the Outlook functionality depends on the Messenger service being available.
I block it. But not everyone (particularly some administrative staff and some professors) has the technical knowledge to do so, and some people actually use it.
Most universities are considered an ISP. The services are not free, typically being added to fees. However, universities must meet more stringent rules than ISPs due to FERPA and other federal legislation regarding privacy.
Student records with peronsally-identifiable information cannot be collected unless it is legally required to collect this information. Furthermore, student records must meet standards of integrity (that the record is not altered) and confidentiality (that the record cannot be accessed by those unauthorized to access the record). Many university networks can't meet these standards.
Furthermore, even if a large percentage is against school rules (not illegal) or illegal by copyright law, the technology has legitimate uses. Since universities value academic and intellectual freedom highly, this is not an argument that will, or should, work.
Universities do pay for bandwidth, albeit at a lower cost than most commercial entities. These costs, of course, are passed along to students (and/or taxpayers).
I'm a bit disappointed in Chapel Hill's copyright policy and the way they adress MP3's (to paraphrase, 'most are illegal').
It's interesting to note that each of these policies treats fair use for education purposes a bit differently, and all are very vague and conservative in their treatment of fair use...
Some of the instructions are, quite frankly, wrong in their specifics (for example, U Mich's instructions on how to determine if a work is copyrighted, while factually accurate for current works really applies only to things created in the last decade or so).
I also work at a university, and we've gotten- and had to respond to- a few DMCA notifications from the RIAA. These events really are a pain, primarily in man hours. A big problem is that these types of events really make university officials want to attack P2P usage in general. Attacking bandwidth "costs" is often an excuse to ban P2P networks altogether, even though there are ways to restrict bandwidth... actually, is there any place that addresses this topic, specifically? It would be nice to have alternatives to show to university administrators...
Nausicca.net has release dates (with sub/dub info).
Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) is a really great film. To answer a person's earlier comment, no, Disney has not edited the film in any way. The only real change in the dub has been some "offscreen" English dialog to better explain ome of the cultural references that English-speaking audiences might not get. But they are very well done and don't take away from the rest of the film. Actually, I liked this dub much better than the dub for Princess Mononoke, and while it's not quite as accurate as the subtitled version it's still very good.
As far as the "scary" scenes- I wouldn't have a problem allowing children to watch this movie. There are intense scenes, but there are intense moments in many children's stories- Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretal, etc. These scenes are a bit scarier than the Disneyfied versions of the same stories, but I'd say they are pretty comparable.
Even friends that are not huge anime fans loved it.
You are entitled to use it any way you want.
You are not entitled to copy and distribute it.
You have the right to burn it, break it, copy it for your own use, sell it, give it away (as long as you don't keep a copy, copy parts of it for educational purposes, etc. The doctrine of first sale and fair use give you those rights.
Some people argue that fair use is not a right, only a defense against claims of copyright infringement. But many will argue that point. These aren't things that will be solved by technology, they are social issues.
If you are the type of person who gets a great deal of job satisfaction from helping others, the public sector tends to offer more opportunities than the private sector in that regard.
If you are good, you have the opportunity to advance in the public sector as well as in the private sector. The biggest difference is that the attached pay raise might not be great.
1. Transitional fossils- and living species- are found all the time. Read Scientific American and Biological Journals. Look online, or for actually authoritative information GO TO THE LIBRARY. Better yet, take a course in evolution at a local university.
t .html
2. Er... what scientific principle states that comets were developed at the time of the big bang? The two aren't necessarily related at all. Of course, this argument has nothing to do with evolution and has to do with the big bang.
3. See the end of the last section. I don't know what happened 10E-38th second after the Big Bang. What is the point of that question?
4. This argument was debunked a long time ago, and most creationists who've done a fair amount of research won't touch it. Again, go to the library and do some research. A quick google search pulls up:
http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/moondus
5. This isn't an argument at all. Given that one is unable to accept the premise the "perfection of scripture" in a logical discussion, any conclusion drawn is invalid. Even if one were to accept this argument, how does one explain the "hoaxes and embarrasements" of scripture? Why don't various religions and denominations exclude and include certain texts? Why would the presence of hoaxes do anything to discredit the whole? And more importantly, how is this related to hoaxes involved in science?
6. There are several responses here, but before any of them make sense we'd need more information. What modern information theory are you referring to? I have a degree in the biological sciences and a degree in information studies, and I have no idea how the two subjects are interconnected. Could you elaborate?