From his low-rise offices in the suburbs of southwest London, Powell and his crack team of cybersleuths work on a problem that they
estimate to be worth $15 billion a year: the unauthorized copying of software, music, books, film and other fruits of the vast and growing
media industry.
As I was often told as a child, something is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. Huge numbers like this $15 billion figure are often used to demonstrate how big the problem of piracy is, but what proof is there that people would pay for everything if they couldn't download anything for free? How many people would pay $600 for Photoshop or $15-20 for each CD they download in mp3 format? How much of that $15 billion has already been paid by people who either wanted to sample music or expensive software or already owned a legitimate license? How much of that $15 billion represents data that was deleted shortly after being downloaded or was never used? As anyone who is familiar with eBay knows, things don't always sell for as much as they are supposed to be worth. Claiming $15 billion in damages is easy - proving it is impossible.
I put it to you that the reason companies and governments are being forced into these drastic actions is because people, the geeks and high school students who use napster for one, are not responsible with the ability to copy music.
If you are not responsible, you do not have any rights, and any whining is pointless and idiotic.
Those who would copy music need to start being responsible.
What about those of us who are responsible? Why should we be punished because of the actions of others? Responsibility is a tricky subject. It can't be forced, but it often may be possible to punish irresponsibility. In the end, you have to punish the criminals and leave everyone else alone. The consequences of unjust punishment usually involve fun things like rebellion, war, etc. Unfortunately, companies and governments tend to be rather short-sighted, which explains why they tend to be rather unpopular.
For those of you that have gone to college - how many of you have walked into an undergrad class to find that the whole semester was a Japanese TA reading to you out of a book in a mono-tone broken English accent? I wasn't about to continue pay for that crap.
Don't blame education in general because you went to the wrong school or took the wrong classes. In the 5+ years I've been here, I've never had a TA of any kind teach a class (which is because they don't let TAs teach classes here). All of my classes have been taught by professors, with the exception of three classes that were taught by Instructors (PhD students who have proven themselves capable of teaching). I have also found my previous 12 years of education to be extremely useful in college, mainly because there is a lot that you are expected to either already know or figure out yourself. If you don't learn how to take notes, study for exams, manage your time, write lab reports, plot data, or conduct research in the library, you will have a hard time getting through the first couple years of a science or engineering program. Whether or not you realize it, many important skills are taught in high school. That's the main difference between high school and college - in high school, the material may not be that detailed, but that leaves time to focus on developing skills and abilities that are required for higher education or a work environment. This also explains why so many people who were top students in high school do poorly in college - they had an easy time at the material, so they didn't have to extend their abilities to succeed.
When I heard about this yesterday, I couldn't believe there would be a law about the apparent age of computer generated people engaging in sexual activity. Then I remembered some of the other great laws that the US congress has come up with recently. When I heard the justification for this law, I was completely baffled. Here was what I was thinking at the time:
You want to ban virtual child pornography because it might encourage pedophiles to molest children? What if it just encourages them to go for real child porn, continuing the demand for real child porn, resulting in the continuation of the problem that the ban on child porn was supposed to fix?
The reason for the ban on child porn is (or at least should be) for the protection of children that could be abused for the purposes of creating child porn. Saying that child porn causes pedophiles to molest children is like saying that adult porn causes the objectification of women - there is no established causative link between the two. Violence in video games is another example - am I violent because of the games, or do I like violent games because I'm a violent person? (I don't actually like violent games, so don't get the wrong idea here.)
If child porn is made without the use of actual children, then there is no link between the fake child porn and child abuse. Child abuse is wrong, but in this society we (the people, not our government unfortunately) prefer to punish criminal behavior and not anything that could in some way contribute to some criminal behavior in some people in some cases under some circumstances somehow. We allow things like alcohol, guns, knives, cars, and thousands of blunt objects, any one of which could be used to kill people, but we can't allow fake child porn so law-abiding pedophiles can get their jollies without hurting anyone? Unless being a pedophile becomes illegal, the government clearly oversteps its bounds when it passes legislation banning material that is not the result of or the likely cause of harmful activities.
Disclaimer:
I am not a pedophile, nor do I promote pedophilia, but the right to produce fake child porn deserves at least as much protection as the right to have and express racist ideas (which is more likely to cause harmful acts than fake porn), which is currently protected by the courts. And no, I'm not a racist either.
Hey now - my Umax S900 is still alive and well, easily keeping up with much more recent technology. Six PCI slots, standard processor slot, plenty of room for RAM, and six drive bays make it easier to work with than many of Apple's computers of the same vintage. It was also a great deal, thanks to Small Dog Electronics. I also got a barebones C600 from them for almost nothing, which will someday become a working Linux box (as soon as I get around to getting everything installed and configured). Both of these are essentially identical to the Apple machines they were copies of, with the exception of the generic PC-style cases and power supplies. They are great computers from an innovative company.
Why stop with regulating the internet? Everyone knows that the people causing trouble on the internet are the ones with all the computers. All computers should be registered with the federal government, because they could be used to violate copyright, circumvent access control mechanisms, produce and distribute kiddie porn, steal your credit card numbers, spread harmful ideas, and contribute to our society's moral decay. There's no good reason for a decent god-fearing person to own more than one computer - people who own multiple computers are therefore criminals and must be stopped before they destroy our peaceful civilization. It is time for us to stand up against these techno-weenies and take back the country God gave us!
I personally think that if evolution is taught in schools, it should be taught as a theory in an objective philosophy class as it contains an inherent world view.
Just how many high schools have an objective philosophy class? I agree with your opinion as far as "if evolution is taught in schools, it should be taught as a theory." This is the proper way to deal with things that try to explain how our world works, like evolution, continental drift, and the big bang - as theories, not absolute fact. These theories and others like them are important mainly because they are currently the most widely accepted scientific explanations for different phenomena. The goal of a high school science science class should not be to make the students experts at each subject, but instead to make students familiar with the concepts used in each area. Earth science classes teach that it was believed at one time that the earth was the center of the universe; biology classes teach that it is currently believed that evolution is the cause of the diversity of life on this planet. In both cases, it is important to understand both the reasons for belief in the theories as well as areas where the theories fail to account for certain information. If a theory is to be removed from the curriculum, it should be for scientific reasons and not religious ones (even then, an understanding of the theory is a good basis for explaining the new theory, as in the case of the Earth's place in the universe). If you don't like it, then teach your children otherwise. Don't force others to remain ignorant of the current state of scientific understanding just because you read something different in a book.
science has no agenda other than the search for truth
Many scientists on the other hand tend to have an agenda of justifying their research. You tend to be able to maintain funding if your results stay positive. Also, in many cases old scientists decide what research by younger scientists should be funded - it isn't likely that someone will fund research that intends to disprove something he spent his entire life trying to prove. This pushes many new ideas out of the realm of traditional academic research and into the hands of people with more academic freedom - the independently wealthy eccentric types, the starving scientist types, and people outside the field of study who have an interest in learning ("gentleman physicists" is one term I have heard used on this topic). In other words, creationists are just another type of scientists who don't want anyone disputing their results, regardless of the truth.
Re:H.L. Menken predicted this
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"Traffic"
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If a parent fights the megacorporations and tries to guide his children into a healthy lifestyle, local governments, which are owned by developers, make sure that there are no bicycle paths, skateboard parks, obstacle/fitness courses, etc. for children to play safely on (such things cost developers money to build and affect the bottom line, after all).
"Hey, there's a vegetarian down the street, tear down the playground!"
Seriously though (well, not really), you left out one important part of the Grand Conspiracy - personal injury lawyers. Remember, "children" and "play safely" don't really go together too well. With team sports, you can always sue a player or coach if your child gets injured. Individual recreational activities limit the blame to either the injured person (not likely in this society) or the owner of the property that the injury took place on. That makes recreational areas a big liability in a country with more lawyers than it could ever really need. These lawyers need food, shelter, and luxury cars, so they jump on any opportunity to make someone pay for something (as long as they get a cut). The atmosphere this creates is one of suspicion and distrust. Why try to save someone's life if you could get sued if you don't succeed? Why apologize for something if it could be taken as an admission of guilt? Why say anything if the speech could be viewed as harmful, offensive, inciteful, or otherwise "wrong" in some way? With everyone busy looking out for themselves, they can't combine their abilities and resources to put up a unified front against real threats. The people need someone to trust, and that's where good old Uncle Sam comes in, just like a big brother...
If you cannot control the content of what is taught to some extent, they do not work as well as they should.
Schools have a great amount of control over what is taught in the classroom - the hiring/firing of teachers, textbooks, course outlines, etc. are usually determined by or approved by an entity representing the school or school district. However, the internet is not a classroom and is not controlled by a school, nor should it be - it is usually used as an extension of the school library, not a replacement for a teacher; the internet is no more a teacher than an issue of Newsweek. No content filtering software installed on school computers should block anything that the school library would be allowed to obtain or that a student would be allowed to say in a hallway. Sure, kids shouldn't be looking at porn at school, but when the internet is involved, the precedent to follow is the policy on bringing physical porn to school and distributing it - punish the kid who breaks the rule. Until software can block at least some "bad" material without blocking any good or neutral material, it should not be used. If the software companies actually checked every blocked site (as most of them falsely claim) and release the list of blocked sites, then blocking software would probably be acceptable to most people, assuming that the blocked content was obviously inappropriate for the specific environment (porn in school, etc.). The alternatives are to monitor internet access and punish anyone who breaks any rules, block the internet entirely, or block all sites except those specifically allowed for classwork or research (only allow access to what you want to have in the school, as is done with materials in a school library). As for "instilling values," that's a job for parents, not teachers, legislators, or software.
Needless to say, after such an experience, if you still believe in software vendors and closed source systems for critical operation you should have your head examined
What counts as "critical operation?" Most people use computers for e-mail, surfing the web, word processing, porn, and wasting time - hardly anything critical. Why should they be limited to an interface that makes these tasks unnecessarily difficult or impossible? Different people prefer different interfaces for different tasks - no one interface is the best for everything. Let's try some examples:
WYSIWYG HTML Editor vs. Hand-Coded HTML
I do all of my HTML by hand, but my web site consists of some text and a few graphics. I like having complete control over the output, but I wouldn't want to hand-code an extremely large, graphically-intensive, whiz-bang, multimedia site. Some people can't even grasp the concept of basic HTML - graphical editors and Word-to-HTML translaters allow the rest of us to point and laugh at their pathetic attempts. Without them, those people would not have attempted to learn HTML and would not participate in information exchange on the web.
Word vs. LaTeX
It's easy to pick on Word because of all its shortcomings, but for simple documents and simple people, Word is helpful. Some people want to be able to make text bold or italic by pushing a button. Sure it can be a pain to get Word to do exactly what you want, but if you wish you could easily edit the source of a Word document, then you probably already use TeX of some sort (or are just too lazy and prefer complaining). LaTeX is nice for controlling the exact layout of a document, but some people prefer the more limited options of point and click to the more complicated options of type, type, memorize, look up commands, type, type.
Elitism vs. Ease of use
Saying that all computer users should be able to navigate a CLI or generate any kind of document using only text is like saying that all tourists should speak the native language(s) of the country they visit. For many people, computers are like a strange and unfamiliar world. While it is helpful to be fluent in the local language, it is always easier on the tourists if someone there speaks their language. The GUI plays the part of the translator for a computer - it facilitates communication between the system and the user. The goal here isn't to make advanced computer knowledge so commonplace that a CS degree becomes worthless, it is to allow people to use computers as tools to enhance productivity, communication, and knowledge of the world around them. The measure of worth isn't something like Word vs. LaTeX, it's more like Word vs. typewriter. Most people don't want the absolute best way to do something, they want the most cost-effective way - the most return for the least investment.
People who see the GUI as the path to destruction are just as wrong as the people who said that computers would reduce paper consumption and kill written language. Both of these were completely wrong because they failed to factor in human nature - if I use less paper and time to produce a document, I can produce more documents in greater quantities (and reading something on paper is easier than reading something on a glowing piece of glass); if I can send a piece of text to people instantly, I don't have to listen to them and I can send one message to multiple people with no additional time or effort (and text is easier and smaller than audio or video - a picture is worth a thousand words, so it is overkill if you only have a hundred words to say). By extension, if I can improve what I do now by using computers without needing to learn about computers, I can focus on what I want to do and not what I have to do to get it done. Imagine a computer that doesn't need a system administrator - this is the ideal conclusion of personal computer evolution, a computer that just works without demanding anything of the user. If you want advanced features, get them for yourself, but don't force them on people who can't handle them.
Gamers aren't all identical and therefore can't be lumped into a single stereotype, even if this lumping is done by someone going by the name of "JonKatz."
This series of articles has to be the most worthless heap of trash I've seen since I stopped watching election coverage about a month ago.
According to CNN, Browne came in third in 2 states, fourth in 20, fifth in 22, sixth in 6, and was not on the ballot in 1. In several of the states that placed him third or fourth, Nader and/or Buchanan were not on the ballot. Browne beat Buchanan in 16 states and was on two ballots that Buchanan was not on. Unfortunately, CNN does not show the national total for Browne.
Four years ago, they did a similar article on the electoral college, and how it actually gives more power to the average voter when a very large pool of voters exists.
The flawed assumption here is that giving a voter more power is a good thing. While it might help voter turnout (which is unlikely given that this year's extremely close race failed to increase voter turnout significantly), more power in one person's hands must equate to less power in someone else's hands. All voters should have an equal voice, not just voters who live in states with close races. I'm in Massachusetts, and everybody pretty much ignored the people here. I voted in New York, and the situation there was the same. Everyone assumed (correctly) that Gore would win these states, so the Republican voters in New York City, Boston, and the rest of both states had no power in this election. The Democrats completely ignored California, confident of victory. The electoral college system does not force candidates to campaign in all 50 states - it forces them to campaign in highly contested states and ignore many major population centers.
Journalistic integrity is more of a problem with the internet than it has ever been with print or television media. These days, any idiot with a WebTV can pretend to be a journalist, and idiots tend to be rather vocal, if not eloquent (no, this is not a reference to dubya, oh wait, I guess it is now...). As the number of attempts at news increases, it becomes more difficult to determine which ones should be ignored (unless you just ignore them all). It doesn't help that even "respectable" news sources tend to be completely wrong. How many times have people (in print and online media) claimed that Gore claimed to have invented the internet? The media, in many cases, no longer reports facts - it reports opinions disguised as facts. This is far more dangerous than simply stating a misinformed opinion. Many people lack the intelligence to question what they are told in the evening news, newspaper, or an internet news site; they can however ignore someone's opinion, and often do when that opinion differs from their own. People are rather frustrating. In all the so-called reporting that I do (I have never called myself a reporter, but others have), I simply present my opinion and the logical reasoning that it resulted from. I will often change my opinion slightly while writing an article, mainly because of the research and thought I put into my serious writing (/. doesn't count). Unfortunately, a lot of people don't spend the time to check facts or seriously consider opposing viewpoints before throwing together something that may or may not resemble news. Integrity takes time and effort, and people are usually lazy. The only way to help the situation is to start with your own integrity and then expect the same from others, including news sources or even/. comments. This means thinking before you call Gore a pathological liar or Bush a cokehead, moron, or empty suit (or Nader a god, commie, hero, or nut). This means actually doing something other than complaining about everyone else. This means it will never work, but one can dream...
First, it makes a lot of sense for the same company to suggest a.sex type TLD and a.kids TLD at the same time. Having both would allow for different levels of parental censorship. Parents who can't be bothered to raise their kids can either block all nasty porn sites (.sex) or limit their kids to sites that are so dull and boring that they can't possibly offend anyone (.kids). This tactic also gives a greater chance of success at making "family-friendly" browsing possible - if both aren't accepted, maybe one will be.
As for enforcing the use of these TLDs, someone will probably have to figure out what would and wouldn't be allowed in a.kids kind of TLD, and all of this will take time and money, but those costs could just be passed on to people who keep complaining that the web isn't perfectly sterile and empty of thought - in other words, let them deal with it. An occasional check-up to make sure a.kids site hasn't turned into kiddie porn is all it would take to enforce this (and there are probably lots of people who would do this for free). If things get too restrictive, people might just realize how silly this nonsense really is.
There is no need to force any adult site to move to a special TLD. Many would probably do so voluntarily, just like many take precautions to keep people from "accidentally" viewing porn. It's good PR to look like you care about protecting underage people from nakedness, just like how beer and cigarette companies pretend to discourage children from using their products (although they are probably under pressure to do that). I'm sure a.sex TLD would be quite popular with adult sites anyway - everyone would want a domain with their favorite type of sex. The added bonus is that people could finally use the internet as it was intended by blocking all but the.sex sites.
The only downsides are that if these mutated bacteria/fungi turn out to be deadly and highly contagious and gets back to earth, it could spell doom for humanity. You could just see Hollywood jump on this kind of story to make the next doom-gloom movie, Armageddon and its ilk.
Don't have to tell me that, after years of watching secretaries jot down passwords on 3x5 cards and post-it notes and tuck them into the pencil drawer of a desk.
Kind of like the time I saw someone (on a Mac) with a password for a web/FTP account in the Stickies program (virtual post-it note) displayed on the desktop. This wasn't so bad though, since the same password, along with all server and username information, was published in the appendix of a project report that anyone could check out of my school's library. To make matters worse, the password was a word that could be found on their homepage. When I told them about it, they changed it to a different word that could also be found on their homepage.
Re:I like this show, but TLC never reruns it
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More Junkyard Wars
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I think it's a bit faked myself because a lot of the competitions end up being pretty close...which some of those contraptions are so horrid you would think the competition would be an absolute blowout.
Most of the episodes I saw ended with major failures for at least one team (both had problems in the last episode). The cannon that wouldn't fire, the amphibious vehicle that spun in circles, the glider that didn't... I'm amazed that anything they build actually works long enough to win a competition.
While it was an interesting article, the NY Times needed comments from 7 people to put together what has already been said about the issue of file sharing by many other people over the past few months. I even covered most of the more interesting points in a Napster article I wrote a few weeks ago. Of course, I'm not a US Senator or the RIAA's cast-iron bit-, er, president, yeah, um, president...
They should not have to pay for the network administration it would take to block napster (not that it'd cost much, but they don't owe a dime, and it's the principle of the thing).
Instead they'll have to pay for lawyers to advise them and defend them if there should be any legal action. Harvard, Stanford, Duke, MIT, etc. can afford this, but many smaller colleges and universities can't. For them, blocking Napster is the cheapest legal defense.
Ok class, now we're going to look at 20th century entertainment. Swipe your debit cards to activate your electronic books and put on your privacy goggles so only you can read the text. In the late twentieth century, there was a strange concept called "fair use." People were actually allowed to do whatever they wanted with information content they purchased. They could read, watch, or listen to it as much as they wanted, they could loan it out to friends, they could even copy it for personal use. Even television signals were fair game. All of this made the poor media giants angry because it was costing them additional sales. Finally, the government fought back against this injustice and put an end to unrestricted use of information for good. Now we live in a wonderful world where nobody can get away with not paying for every single piece of information they use every time they use it. That concludes today's lesson, you will now be charged the usual fee for any notes you have taken. Remember, if you tell anyone else about this lecture, you will be in violation of the Intellectual Property Act of 2005.
Were they? What are "quality control issues" exactly? Did Firestone say that all tires were perfect and would remain perfect forever? What exactly did Firestone do wrong, besides trying to make tires and only being 99.999% successful?
I haven't been following this story very closely, so I don't have all of the facts (and it is still being investigated, so all of the facts aren't out yet), but so far it looks like one of the problems was that rubber that had been rejected was later used in tires when the supply of good rubber ran low. There were a few other details, but I don't remember them (and you seem to have completely made up your mind on the issue, so it isn't worth the effort to do any research). As I stated in my previous post, this created additional risk beyond what could be expected from an ordinary tire - I never claimed that there was no risk to begin with or that Firestone claimed perfection, please read the post before you respond.
Firestone is probably going to go out of business. Does that make you happy? Perhaps you'd like to see Ford go out of business too? You could probably get the car dealers and tire dealers too, if you really worked at it.
Did you even read my post? I didn't say anything about wanting companies to go out of business, nor did I imply it. I simply pointed out that your argument was severely flawed. You don't seem to be contesting any of my arguments, so you either didn't read them, agree with them, or can't come up with a snappy comeback.
The point is that the 2 incidents cited were completely overblown.
Does that make the company's actions right in either case? These incidents usually lead to investigations that reveal a wide range of problems, which then tend to be corrected throughout the industry. Would you prefer it if either incident had become bad enough to directly impact a large number of people's lives?
Life is dangerous and accidents happen. No amount of cash in the hands of lawyers or power in the hands of government workers will change this.
So we shouldn't have any government regulation, right? How about no government? You seem to be advocating anarchy here. The reality is, there is always a balance of profits vs. safety, since safety usually costs money. Consumers alone often can't push the balance too far toward safety, since, as you continue to point out, the number of people directly affected in any one case tends to be rather small (only a few hundred at most). Things are even worse when the safety risks aren't immediate and obvious like in the Firestone incident - if people don't know that they are being put at risk by a product, they probbly won't stop buying it. This is why we have regulations and this is why companies that endanger the safety of customers knowingly and willingly will get in trouble and sometimes go out of business.
Are sports injuries avoidable if it is given that you are playing? Not entirely, but that's a risk that the potential victims are willing to take. Did Firestone tell the people who bought cars with defective tires that quality control issues were overlooked? The potential victims in this case were not informed of the added risk from those tires. There's the difference - corporations shouldn't be deciding what additional risk is acceptable for me to take. By your logic it should be legal for someone to slip poison in your drink. You can always not drink it.
Auto injuries are avoidable by staying home.
That's assuming that cars stay on the road. I suppose you wouldn't mind having a car drive into your living room and hit you, since it is obvious that you could have avoided that situation. Why have rules at all? If you don't want to get gunned down on the street, you should stay home. If you don't want your posessions stolen, you shouldn't have bought them. If you don't want to die, you shouldn't have left the womb.
Corporations answer to their shareholders, who, surprise, surprise, are the public.
The problem with this is that if a company produces a product that kills some of its shareholders, the shares get passed on to someone else, and the dead ex-shareholders no longer have a voice (literal or figurative). If they admit that the product kills people, stock prices will drop and the new shareholders will get angry (until the product kills them of course). If the people getting hurt aren't even shareholders, the company shouldn't even care, right? Therefore, it would make sense for a company to try and hide any little problems like defective tires in order to keep profits up.
Remember, most of the movies which 'illustrate' examples of corporate abuse (i.e. The China Syndrome, etc.) are eggagerations created by entities which (thank god) don't have much power themselves. We shouldn't let Hollywood-created 'realities' egg us on to fight 'the corporations.'
The DeCSS case was a movie? I really need to get out more... That would explain the ruling though. And the MPAA doesn't have much power? What you need to remember is that we usually only hear of major abuses like the Firestone fiasco, not the minor ones where only a handful of people are screwed over at a time (or where the victims are bad people like pirates and hackers). By your logic, corporations should be ignored as long as they are good at hiding abuses of power. Natural selection dictates that the only corporations that will survive will be the ones that are most successful at fooling people like you and silencing people who get too suspicious. Someone should make a movie out of that. Oh wait, lots of books, movies, and television shows have used that plot, but they must all be unrealistic exaggerations that we can't possibly learn from, right?
Slashdot Mirror
As I was often told as a child, something is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. Huge numbers like this $15 billion figure are often used to demonstrate how big the problem of piracy is, but what proof is there that people would pay for everything if they couldn't download anything for free? How many people would pay $600 for Photoshop or $15-20 for each CD they download in mp3 format? How much of that $15 billion has already been paid by people who either wanted to sample music or expensive software or already owned a legitimate license? How much of that $15 billion represents data that was deleted shortly after being downloaded or was never used? As anyone who is familiar with eBay knows, things don't always sell for as much as they are supposed to be worth. Claiming $15 billion in damages is easy - proving it is impossible.
If you are not responsible, you do not have any rights, and any whining is pointless and idiotic.
Those who would copy music need to start being responsible.
What about those of us who are responsible? Why should we be punished because of the actions of others? Responsibility is a tricky subject. It can't be forced, but it often may be possible to punish irresponsibility. In the end, you have to punish the criminals and leave everyone else alone. The consequences of unjust punishment usually involve fun things like rebellion, war, etc. Unfortunately, companies and governments tend to be rather short-sighted, which explains why they tend to be rather unpopular.
Don't blame education in general because you went to the wrong school or took the wrong classes. In the 5+ years I've been here, I've never had a TA of any kind teach a class (which is because they don't let TAs teach classes here). All of my classes have been taught by professors, with the exception of three classes that were taught by Instructors (PhD students who have proven themselves capable of teaching). I have also found my previous 12 years of education to be extremely useful in college, mainly because there is a lot that you are expected to either already know or figure out yourself. If you don't learn how to take notes, study for exams, manage your time, write lab reports, plot data, or conduct research in the library, you will have a hard time getting through the first couple years of a science or engineering program. Whether or not you realize it, many important skills are taught in high school. That's the main difference between high school and college - in high school, the material may not be that detailed, but that leaves time to focus on developing skills and abilities that are required for higher education or a work environment. This also explains why so many people who were top students in high school do poorly in college - they had an easy time at the material, so they didn't have to extend their abilities to succeed.
You want to ban virtual child pornography because it might encourage pedophiles to molest children? What if it just encourages them to go for real child porn, continuing the demand for real child porn, resulting in the continuation of the problem that the ban on child porn was supposed to fix?
The reason for the ban on child porn is (or at least should be) for the protection of children that could be abused for the purposes of creating child porn. Saying that child porn causes pedophiles to molest children is like saying that adult porn causes the objectification of women - there is no established causative link between the two. Violence in video games is another example - am I violent because of the games, or do I like violent games because I'm a violent person? (I don't actually like violent games, so don't get the wrong idea here.)
If child porn is made without the use of actual children, then there is no link between the fake child porn and child abuse. Child abuse is wrong, but in this society we (the people, not our government unfortunately) prefer to punish criminal behavior and not anything that could in some way contribute to some criminal behavior in some people in some cases under some circumstances somehow. We allow things like alcohol, guns, knives, cars, and thousands of blunt objects, any one of which could be used to kill people, but we can't allow fake child porn so law-abiding pedophiles can get their jollies without hurting anyone? Unless being a pedophile becomes illegal, the government clearly oversteps its bounds when it passes legislation banning material that is not the result of or the likely cause of harmful activities.
Disclaimer:
I am not a pedophile, nor do I promote pedophilia, but the right to produce fake child porn deserves at least as much protection as the right to have and express racist ideas (which is more likely to cause harmful acts than fake porn), which is currently protected by the courts. And no, I'm not a racist either.
Hey now - my Umax S900 is still alive and well, easily keeping up with much more recent technology. Six PCI slots, standard processor slot, plenty of room for RAM, and six drive bays make it easier to work with than many of Apple's computers of the same vintage. It was also a great deal, thanks to Small Dog Electronics. I also got a barebones C600 from them for almost nothing, which will someday become a working Linux box (as soon as I get around to getting everything installed and configured). Both of these are essentially identical to the Apple machines they were copies of, with the exception of the generic PC-style cases and power supplies. They are great computers from an innovative company.
Motorola's clones on the other hand...
Why stop with regulating the internet? Everyone knows that the people causing trouble on the internet are the ones with all the computers. All computers should be registered with the federal government, because they could be used to violate copyright, circumvent access control mechanisms, produce and distribute kiddie porn, steal your credit card numbers, spread harmful ideas, and contribute to our society's moral decay. There's no good reason for a decent god-fearing person to own more than one computer - people who own multiple computers are therefore criminals and must be stopped before they destroy our peaceful civilization. It is time for us to stand up against these techno-weenies and take back the country God gave us!
Just how many high schools have an objective philosophy class? I agree with your opinion as far as "if evolution is taught in schools, it should be taught as a theory." This is the proper way to deal with things that try to explain how our world works, like evolution, continental drift, and the big bang - as theories, not absolute fact. These theories and others like them are important mainly because they are currently the most widely accepted scientific explanations for different phenomena. The goal of a high school science science class should not be to make the students experts at each subject, but instead to make students familiar with the concepts used in each area. Earth science classes teach that it was believed at one time that the earth was the center of the universe; biology classes teach that it is currently believed that evolution is the cause of the diversity of life on this planet. In both cases, it is important to understand both the reasons for belief in the theories as well as areas where the theories fail to account for certain information. If a theory is to be removed from the curriculum, it should be for scientific reasons and not religious ones (even then, an understanding of the theory is a good basis for explaining the new theory, as in the case of the Earth's place in the universe). If you don't like it, then teach your children otherwise. Don't force others to remain ignorant of the current state of scientific understanding just because you read something different in a book.
Many scientists on the other hand tend to have an agenda of justifying their research. You tend to be able to maintain funding if your results stay positive. Also, in many cases old scientists decide what research by younger scientists should be funded - it isn't likely that someone will fund research that intends to disprove something he spent his entire life trying to prove. This pushes many new ideas out of the realm of traditional academic research and into the hands of people with more academic freedom - the independently wealthy eccentric types, the starving scientist types, and people outside the field of study who have an interest in learning ("gentleman physicists" is one term I have heard used on this topic). In other words, creationists are just another type of scientists who don't want anyone disputing their results, regardless of the truth.
"Hey, there's a vegetarian down the street, tear down the playground!"
Seriously though (well, not really), you left out one important part of the Grand Conspiracy - personal injury lawyers. Remember, "children" and "play safely" don't really go together too well. With team sports, you can always sue a player or coach if your child gets injured. Individual recreational activities limit the blame to either the injured person (not likely in this society) or the owner of the property that the injury took place on. That makes recreational areas a big liability in a country with more lawyers than it could ever really need. These lawyers need food, shelter, and luxury cars, so they jump on any opportunity to make someone pay for something (as long as they get a cut). The atmosphere this creates is one of suspicion and distrust. Why try to save someone's life if you could get sued if you don't succeed? Why apologize for something if it could be taken as an admission of guilt? Why say anything if the speech could be viewed as harmful, offensive, inciteful, or otherwise "wrong" in some way? With everyone busy looking out for themselves, they can't combine their abilities and resources to put up a unified front against real threats. The people need someone to trust, and that's where good old Uncle Sam comes in, just like a big brother...
Schools have a great amount of control over what is taught in the classroom - the hiring/firing of teachers, textbooks, course outlines, etc. are usually determined by or approved by an entity representing the school or school district. However, the internet is not a classroom and is not controlled by a school, nor should it be - it is usually used as an extension of the school library, not a replacement for a teacher; the internet is no more a teacher than an issue of Newsweek. No content filtering software installed on school computers should block anything that the school library would be allowed to obtain or that a student would be allowed to say in a hallway. Sure, kids shouldn't be looking at porn at school, but when the internet is involved, the precedent to follow is the policy on bringing physical porn to school and distributing it - punish the kid who breaks the rule. Until software can block at least some "bad" material without blocking any good or neutral material, it should not be used. If the software companies actually checked every blocked site (as most of them falsely claim) and release the list of blocked sites, then blocking software would probably be acceptable to most people, assuming that the blocked content was obviously inappropriate for the specific environment (porn in school, etc.). The alternatives are to monitor internet access and punish anyone who breaks any rules, block the internet entirely, or block all sites except those specifically allowed for classwork or research (only allow access to what you want to have in the school, as is done with materials in a school library). As for "instilling values," that's a job for parents, not teachers, legislators, or software.
What counts as "critical operation?" Most people use computers for e-mail, surfing the web, word processing, porn, and wasting time - hardly anything critical. Why should they be limited to an interface that makes these tasks unnecessarily difficult or impossible? Different people prefer different interfaces for different tasks - no one interface is the best for everything. Let's try some examples:
WYSIWYG HTML Editor vs. Hand-Coded HTML
I do all of my HTML by hand, but my web site consists of some text and a few graphics. I like having complete control over the output, but I wouldn't want to hand-code an extremely large, graphically-intensive, whiz-bang, multimedia site. Some people can't even grasp the concept of basic HTML - graphical editors and Word-to-HTML translaters allow the rest of us to point and laugh at their pathetic attempts. Without them, those people would not have attempted to learn HTML and would not participate in information exchange on the web.
Word vs. LaTeX
It's easy to pick on Word because of all its shortcomings, but for simple documents and simple people, Word is helpful. Some people want to be able to make text bold or italic by pushing a button. Sure it can be a pain to get Word to do exactly what you want, but if you wish you could easily edit the source of a Word document, then you probably already use TeX of some sort (or are just too lazy and prefer complaining). LaTeX is nice for controlling the exact layout of a document, but some people prefer the more limited options of point and click to the more complicated options of type, type, memorize, look up commands, type, type.
Elitism vs. Ease of use
Saying that all computer users should be able to navigate a CLI or generate any kind of document using only text is like saying that all tourists should speak the native language(s) of the country they visit. For many people, computers are like a strange and unfamiliar world. While it is helpful to be fluent in the local language, it is always easier on the tourists if someone there speaks their language. The GUI plays the part of the translator for a computer - it facilitates communication between the system and the user. The goal here isn't to make advanced computer knowledge so commonplace that a CS degree becomes worthless, it is to allow people to use computers as tools to enhance productivity, communication, and knowledge of the world around them. The measure of worth isn't something like Word vs. LaTeX, it's more like Word vs. typewriter. Most people don't want the absolute best way to do something, they want the most cost-effective way - the most return for the least investment.
People who see the GUI as the path to destruction are just as wrong as the people who said that computers would reduce paper consumption and kill written language. Both of these were completely wrong because they failed to factor in human nature - if I use less paper and time to produce a document, I can produce more documents in greater quantities (and reading something on paper is easier than reading something on a glowing piece of glass); if I can send a piece of text to people instantly, I don't have to listen to them and I can send one message to multiple people with no additional time or effort (and text is easier and smaller than audio or video - a picture is worth a thousand words, so it is overkill if you only have a hundred words to say). By extension, if I can improve what I do now by using computers without needing to learn about computers, I can focus on what I want to do and not what I have to do to get it done. Imagine a computer that doesn't need a system administrator - this is the ideal conclusion of personal computer evolution, a computer that just works without demanding anything of the user. If you want advanced features, get them for yourself, but don't force them on people who can't handle them.
Gamers aren't all identical and therefore can't be lumped into a single stereotype, even if this lumping is done by someone going by the name of "JonKatz."
This series of articles has to be the most worthless heap of trash I've seen since I stopped watching election coverage about a month ago.
According to CNN, Browne came in third in 2 states, fourth in 20, fifth in 22, sixth in 6, and was not on the ballot in 1. In several of the states that placed him third or fourth, Nader and/or Buchanan were not on the ballot. Browne beat Buchanan in 16 states and was on two ballots that Buchanan was not on. Unfortunately, CNN does not show the national total for Browne.
The flawed assumption here is that giving a voter more power is a good thing. While it might help voter turnout (which is unlikely given that this year's extremely close race failed to increase voter turnout significantly), more power in one person's hands must equate to less power in someone else's hands. All voters should have an equal voice, not just voters who live in states with close races. I'm in Massachusetts, and everybody pretty much ignored the people here. I voted in New York, and the situation there was the same. Everyone assumed (correctly) that Gore would win these states, so the Republican voters in New York City, Boston, and the rest of both states had no power in this election. The Democrats completely ignored California, confident of victory. The electoral college system does not force candidates to campaign in all 50 states - it forces them to campaign in highly contested states and ignore many major population centers.
Journalistic integrity is more of a problem with the internet than it has ever been with print or television media. These days, any idiot with a WebTV can pretend to be a journalist, and idiots tend to be rather vocal, if not eloquent (no, this is not a reference to dubya, oh wait, I guess it is now...). As the number of attempts at news increases, it becomes more difficult to determine which ones should be ignored (unless you just ignore them all). It doesn't help that even "respectable" news sources tend to be completely wrong. How many times have people (in print and online media) claimed that Gore claimed to have invented the internet? The media, in many cases, no longer reports facts - it reports opinions disguised as facts. This is far more dangerous than simply stating a misinformed opinion. Many people lack the intelligence to question what they are told in the evening news, newspaper, or an internet news site; they can however ignore someone's opinion, and often do when that opinion differs from their own. People are rather frustrating. In all the so-called reporting that I do (I have never called myself a reporter, but others have), I simply present my opinion and the logical reasoning that it resulted from. I will often change my opinion slightly while writing an article, mainly because of the research and thought I put into my serious writing (/. doesn't count). Unfortunately, a lot of people don't spend the time to check facts or seriously consider opposing viewpoints before throwing together something that may or may not resemble news. Integrity takes time and effort, and people are usually lazy. The only way to help the situation is to start with your own integrity and then expect the same from others, including news sources or even /. comments. This means thinking before you call Gore a pathological liar or Bush a cokehead, moron, or empty suit (or Nader a god, commie, hero, or nut). This means actually doing something other than complaining about everyone else. This means it will never work, but one can dream...
As for enforcing the use of these TLDs, someone will probably have to figure out what would and wouldn't be allowed in a .kids kind of TLD, and all of this will take time and money, but those costs could just be passed on to people who keep complaining that the web isn't perfectly sterile and empty of thought - in other words, let them deal with it. An occasional check-up to make sure a .kids site hasn't turned into kiddie porn is all it would take to enforce this (and there are probably lots of people who would do this for free). If things get too restrictive, people might just realize how silly this nonsense really is.
There is no need to force any adult site to move to a special TLD. Many would probably do so voluntarily, just like many take precautions to keep people from "accidentally" viewing porn. It's good PR to look like you care about protecting underage people from nakedness, just like how beer and cigarette companies pretend to discourage children from using their products (although they are probably under pressure to do that). I'm sure a .sex TLD would be quite popular with adult sites anyway - everyone would want a domain with their favorite type of sex. The added bonus is that people could finally use the internet as it was intended by blocking all but the .sex sites.
The Andromeda Strain, copyright 1969.
Kind of like the time I saw someone (on a Mac) with a password for a web/FTP account in the Stickies program (virtual post-it note) displayed on the desktop. This wasn't so bad though, since the same password, along with all server and username information, was published in the appendix of a project report that anyone could check out of my school's library. To make matters worse, the password was a word that could be found on their homepage. When I told them about it, they changed it to a different word that could also be found on their homepage.
Most of the episodes I saw ended with major failures for at least one team (both had problems in the last episode). The cannon that wouldn't fire, the amphibious vehicle that spun in circles, the glider that didn't... I'm amazed that anything they build actually works long enough to win a competition.
While it was an interesting article, the NY Times needed comments from 7 people to put together what has already been said about the issue of file sharing by many other people over the past few months. I even covered most of the more interesting points in a Napster article I wrote a few weeks ago. Of course, I'm not a US Senator or the RIAA's cast-iron bit-, er, president, yeah, um, president...
Instead they'll have to pay for lawyers to advise them and defend them if there should be any legal action. Harvard, Stanford, Duke, MIT, etc. can afford this, but many smaller colleges and universities can't. For them, blocking Napster is the cheapest legal defense.
Ok class, now we're going to look at 20th century entertainment. Swipe your debit cards to activate your electronic books and put on your privacy goggles so only you can read the text. In the late twentieth century, there was a strange concept called "fair use." People were actually allowed to do whatever they wanted with information content they purchased. They could read, watch, or listen to it as much as they wanted, they could loan it out to friends, they could even copy it for personal use. Even television signals were fair game. All of this made the poor media giants angry because it was costing them additional sales. Finally, the government fought back against this injustice and put an end to unrestricted use of information for good. Now we live in a wonderful world where nobody can get away with not paying for every single piece of information they use every time they use it. That concludes today's lesson, you will now be charged the usual fee for any notes you have taken. Remember, if you tell anyone else about this lecture, you will be in violation of the Intellectual Property Act of 2005.
I haven't been following this story very closely, so I don't have all of the facts (and it is still being investigated, so all of the facts aren't out yet), but so far it looks like one of the problems was that rubber that had been rejected was later used in tires when the supply of good rubber ran low. There were a few other details, but I don't remember them (and you seem to have completely made up your mind on the issue, so it isn't worth the effort to do any research). As I stated in my previous post, this created additional risk beyond what could be expected from an ordinary tire - I never claimed that there was no risk to begin with or that Firestone claimed perfection, please read the post before you respond.
Firestone is probably going to go out of business. Does that make you happy? Perhaps you'd like to see Ford go out of business too? You could probably get the car dealers and tire dealers too, if you really worked at it.
Did you even read my post? I didn't say anything about wanting companies to go out of business, nor did I imply it. I simply pointed out that your argument was severely flawed. You don't seem to be contesting any of my arguments, so you either didn't read them, agree with them, or can't come up with a snappy comeback.
The point is that the 2 incidents cited were completely overblown.
Does that make the company's actions right in either case? These incidents usually lead to investigations that reveal a wide range of problems, which then tend to be corrected throughout the industry. Would you prefer it if either incident had become bad enough to directly impact a large number of people's lives?
Life is dangerous and accidents happen. No amount of cash in the hands of lawyers or power in the hands of government workers will change this.
So we shouldn't have any government regulation, right? How about no government? You seem to be advocating anarchy here. The reality is, there is always a balance of profits vs. safety, since safety usually costs money. Consumers alone often can't push the balance too far toward safety, since, as you continue to point out, the number of people directly affected in any one case tends to be rather small (only a few hundred at most). Things are even worse when the safety risks aren't immediate and obvious like in the Firestone incident - if people don't know that they are being put at risk by a product, they probbly won't stop buying it. This is why we have regulations and this is why companies that endanger the safety of customers knowingly and willingly will get in trouble and sometimes go out of business.
Are sports injuries avoidable if it is given that you are playing? Not entirely, but that's a risk that the potential victims are willing to take. Did Firestone tell the people who bought cars with defective tires that quality control issues were overlooked? The potential victims in this case were not informed of the added risk from those tires. There's the difference - corporations shouldn't be deciding what additional risk is acceptable for me to take. By your logic it should be legal for someone to slip poison in your drink. You can always not drink it.
Auto injuries are avoidable by staying home.
That's assuming that cars stay on the road. I suppose you wouldn't mind having a car drive into your living room and hit you, since it is obvious that you could have avoided that situation. Why have rules at all? If you don't want to get gunned down on the street, you should stay home. If you don't want your posessions stolen, you shouldn't have bought them. If you don't want to die, you shouldn't have left the womb.
The problem with this is that if a company produces a product that kills some of its shareholders, the shares get passed on to someone else, and the dead ex-shareholders no longer have a voice (literal or figurative). If they admit that the product kills people, stock prices will drop and the new shareholders will get angry (until the product kills them of course). If the people getting hurt aren't even shareholders, the company shouldn't even care, right? Therefore, it would make sense for a company to try and hide any little problems like defective tires in order to keep profits up.
Remember, most of the movies which 'illustrate' examples of corporate abuse (i.e. The China Syndrome, etc.) are eggagerations created by entities which (thank god) don't have much power themselves. We shouldn't let Hollywood-created 'realities' egg us on to fight 'the corporations.'
The DeCSS case was a movie? I really need to get out more... That would explain the ruling though. And the MPAA doesn't have much power? What you need to remember is that we usually only hear of major abuses like the Firestone fiasco, not the minor ones where only a handful of people are screwed over at a time (or where the victims are bad people like pirates and hackers). By your logic, corporations should be ignored as long as they are good at hiding abuses of power. Natural selection dictates that the only corporations that will survive will be the ones that are most successful at fooling people like you and silencing people who get too suspicious. Someone should make a movie out of that. Oh wait, lots of books, movies, and television shows have used that plot, but they must all be unrealistic exaggerations that we can't possibly learn from, right?