The problem is that the current copyright fines ($750 - %150,000 per infringement) were set at a time when the major source of infringement was businesses or "pirate for profit" operations (the folks who sell illegal copies of movies/music on the street corner). If you caught a CD press operation with 100 CDs, you could fine them $750,000 and drain their current financial resources dry. If a business considered infringing on copyright, the fine would (theoretically) deter them from doing so.
The problem is that a lot of current infringement is done by average everyday folks not looking for a profit. If I download a single movie from an unauthorized torrent (say, a leaked copy of a movie still in the theaters), I could be sued for $150,000. That much of a fine could easily bankrupt me - all for a single movie download. Yes, I know that the RIAA/MPAA go after uploaders, not downloaders and yes, I know that they would likely be awarded a smaller fine, but the fact remains that I could be bankrupted over a single instance of casual, not-for-profit copyright infringement. The law needs to be updated to bring the fines more in line with today's crimes.
If it was up to me, we'd upgrade everyone to IE7/8 or Firefox and work in exceptions for the folks who need to use the IE6-only system. Unfortunately, I don't have any say in the matter, so I'm stuck supporting IE6 while the vendor keeps promising an IE7/8 compatible version. As I don't use the IE6-only system, for all I know they could have upgraded it already and just didn't roll out any IE updates yet.
Twitter isn't a communications medium. The Web is the communications medium. Twitter just prepackages it for you, and you can have any color you want so long as that color is black (i.e. like the first cars).
By that reasoning, this Slashdot discussion isn't a communications medium either. For that matter, the Web isn't actually a communications medium, since it is built upon The Internet in general. In addition, Twitter encompasses more than just the Web. Some people (like myself) tweet using a desktop client, some tweet using Twitter.com, but many tweet (and get tweets) using text messages from cell phones. This means you can select the client/tool that you prefer to use (car color in your analogy).
You can do all of that without Twitter. Again you are describing the Web. Twitter just provides a one-size-fits-all way to go about it. That, and only that, is what some people dislike about it.
It is hardly one-size-fits-all. Sure, they provide the service (complete with service limitations like 140 characters), but you can choose the client/tool you use, you can choose whose tweets you read, you can choose what you use it for (company announcements/PR, talking with friends, etc). Just because another method of communicating is similar to previously developed methods doesn't discount the new method as useless?
To use China as the example, were Twitter allowed in China, people could potentially tweet information from breaking events to people inside of and outside of China. This could serve to let people outside of China know if another Tienanmen Square was happening in real-time and it could be used to prevent the Chinese government from being able to cover up the new Tienanmen Square incident from their own populace. Add in services like TwitPic and you can get real-time information and photos from breaking events.
Most times, I've found that people who are criticizing Twitter don't do so because of something intrinsic about the service, but because they never used it and only know about it from stereotypes. The stereotypical Twitter user is someone who posts little snippets of their life that no one else is interested in. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of those people, but it's quite easy to filter them out. Just don't follow them (or, if a useful Twitter user becomes an inane one, unfollow them). There are actually plenty of people posting on Twitter that provide interesting information/news. Some examples are donttrythis (Adam from Mythbusters), grantimahara, BadAstronomer, GregGrunberg (from Heroes), wendilynnmakeup (makeup artist on Heroes), and others. (I listed the famous ones or ones with famous connections, but there are plenty of non-famous people I follow also.) If the poster has used Twitter and decided it's not for him, fine. If he's never used Twitter at all and has decided that it's worthless because he's heard that it's worthless, that just annoys me.
I'm in a similar situation. Our employees are stuck with IE6 because some internal app (not one I built!) won't support over IE6 (and definitely doesn't support Firefox). So I need IE6 to test internal pages. However, our external website is being browsed on by users with IE6, IE7, and Firefox. Firefox is no problem, that's my main browser anyway. But how do I upgrade to IE7 while still allowing myself the ability to see pages in IE6? Virtual machines are nice, but require me to "boot" a Windows instance just to test one page.
Luckily, I found Xenocode's tool: http://www.xenocode.com/browsers/ Their program loads a virtual instance of the browser so now I'm running IE6 (native), Firefox (native), IE7 (virtual), and IE8 (virtual). I can have all of my windows open at once and cycle through the browser versions as I make changes to the pages. It's a lifesaver (and free to boot).
Some users can't upgrade. In my company, we're still using IE6. Not my decision, mind you. As the web master, I'd love to see us move to IE7/8 or (better) Firefox. Unfortunately, we rely on a web-based system that doesn't play well with IE7/8 or Firefox. So until the vendor upgrades their browser support, we're stuck. I'm lucky enough to have rights to install Firefox and use http://www.xenocode.com/browsers/ to run IE7 and IE8 for testing purposes, but 99% of our users are forced to use IE6.
Twitter, like any communications medium, is what you make of it. You could start a blog and write about nothing other than the cute things your cat did today, you could write about topics of earth-shattering importance, or your blog could fall somewhere in the middle. You could Twitter about nothing other than the inane details of your life (cue link to the Penny Arcade strip) or you could use Twitter to connect to and keep in touch with a group of people online. E-mail, web pages, television, etc. They can all be used for the inane and valueless or for the interesting and full-of-meaning.
In addition, what is value-less and what is full-of-meaning can vary from person to person. You might think that your post comparing the captaining styles of "Classic Kirk" vs Picard vs "New Movie Kirk" is great, but others might find it to be a fluff piece written by a fan with nothing better to do. Someone else might write a post detailing the pros and cons of a new fashion trend and, while they might think it is a valuable thing you share, you might find it meaningless. One person's trash is another person's treasure.
Not only that, but if illegally obtained evidence was admissible, people could be "raided" purely because certain people in power (politicians, police, etc) didn't like them. Suppose your city's mayor is corrupt and decides that you were a threat to him. He orders the police chief (his best buddy in corruption) to arrest you under some trumped up charge. Doesn't matter what, that charge isn't meant to stick. However, after arresting you, they fish through all of your stuff searching for something illegal to pin to you. They don't have a warrant to do this and so it is illegal, but it doesn't matter to them. They uncover something (everyone's broken some law at some point) and switch charges to the one with the (illegally obtained) evidence.
Now, if the court accepts the illegally obtained evidence, they are validating a corrupt mayor's abuse of power. This is likely a bigger crime than the charges that the illegally obtained evidence supports. If they toss out the illegally obtained evidence, they're letting someone guilty of what is likely a minor crime go free, but they are dealing a blow against abuse of power.
When I was a child, I was way too literal. My parents told me that I wasn't allowed to cross the street, so I wouldn't. Every day, the bus would drop me off in front of my house and I would walk in. One day, the bus went down my block in the opposite direction and the doors opened across the street from my house. Following my parents' directions (don't cross the street), I stayed on the bus. After all, if I got off, I'd have to cross the street and I wasn't allowed to do that! As the bus drove off, the other kids who got off at my stop ran to my house and told my mother that I stayed on the bus. My mother had to hop in her car and chase after the bus to get me off. Best I can figure, I planned to ride the bus until he dropped me off in front of my house as usual.
My parents' reaction, I'm sure, was a modification of the "no crossing the street" rule, to handle the "dropped off across the street from home" case. No, they didn't have the option of a child locating device, but I'm sure their method (teaching your child to handle the situation) would work just a nicely today. As an added bonus, it costs less, is less likely to break, and can be applied to multiple varying situations. (What to do when encountering a stranger, what to do if offered food they are allergic to, etc.)
And at least Kabbalah is a more valid religion. Sure, the form that the stars practice is "Kabbalah Lite - Now with extra Watering Down!", but the basis behind it does have valid religious roots (Jewish Mysticism). Scientology is just some bad sci-fi story idea that L. Ron Hubbard came up with and decided to make it into a religion instead of writing a short story based on it. Evil alien warlords trapping alien souls in human bodies may have made for a halfway decent short story, but it makes for an awful "religion".
Vader a victim of irony? Raised and a firm believer in the Amish way of life, Vader winds up dependent on a technological suit to survive until he is "saved" by his son by overthrowing the person who put him in the suit. (No, not Obi Wan who sliced/diced him, but Palpatine who actually hooked him up to the suit.) I believe thinking this through this much fills my Geek Quota for the day.
Apparently, when I don't sleep well for a few days (combination of not going to sleep until very late, kids waking me up very early and often, and EA Sports ACTIVE kicking my keister), I lose my ability to discern parody from reality.;-)
I wasn't going to comment at length about this, but this guy's rant just screams for a line-by-line rebuttal.
Like all Scientologists, I am outraged that in the 21st century, it is acceptable for Wikipedia's ArbCom to commit such a despicable hate crime as blocking Scientology parishioners from editing Wikipedia in the comfort and security of Scientology-owned properties.
Sorry, but this isn't a hate crime. Blocking someone from using your privately owned service (which Wikipedia essentially is even if the public contributes to it) is perfectly legal. You can even block groups of people. If an evangelical Christian group started post-bombing a forum I run telling people to accept Jesus or burn in hell, I'd ban the lot of them. They could scream and shout all they wanted, but it wouldn't be a hate crime and they wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on if they tried to sue me for access to my site.
Blocking the IP addresses of computers located at Scientology's Pac Base, Int Base and Celebrity Centre is just a way to force Scientology parishioners into an undesired beingness.
So leaving the Scientology compound is undesirable? Isn't that one of the signs of being a cult? Telling members that they should either reside on "the compound" or else?
What's next, will Scientologists have to wear yellow, six-pointed stars on our clothing?"
I'll have to get back to you on this. Wikipedia's takeover of the US government is still in the pre-alpha stages. Seriously, though, how does a private entity banning a group on grounds of abuse equal Nazism. Oh right, because it happened to them, therefore it is evil incarnate.
The goal of Scientology is a sane world, without criminals, without psychiatric terror, without war. Ultimately, the goal of Scientology is sanity itself. Only the insane would attempt to stop Scientology.
Personally, I've always found sanity overrated. *cue Daffy Duck looney laugh as I bounce off the walls*
With this brutal decision, not only is Wikipedia criminally attacking the world's most ethical people, members of the Scientology religion, but it is preventing Scientologists from presenting our religion in the most positive and truthful light.
Brutal? Criminally attacking? I must have missed the news story where Wikipedia sent storm troopers into the Scientology compounds to shoot random people, beat them with their own monitors, and hang them with Ethernet cabling. It didn't happen? It was just an IP ban? The horrors!!!!
I'll give "the world's most ethical people" a pass since every group pretty much thinks they are the best. Otherwise why would they belong to the group. (Yes, I'm stifling a lot of laughter given Scientology's past behavior here.) But presenting their "religion" in "the most positive and truthful light"? Translation: "Wikipedia wouldn't let us mass-edit pages to spin everything to favor us. How dare they not give us the final word on what should be written about us on their own site!!!"
There is so much nonsense on the internet about Scientology,
I'll agree with him here. Tons of nonsense. Of course, it doesn't help when your "religion" is nonsense to begin with.
all of which was written by anti-religion extremists in the employ of the Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical industry.
This post brought to you by the letter P, the number 666, and a big honkin' paycheck from Psychiatrists Insistent on Scrapping Scientology.
Many are also being paid by certain depraved, degenerate factions within the German government.
Perhaps he can instruct me how to receive these payments. I missed out on the "Jews run the world" power position. At least I can settle for "paid by the Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical industry a
I'll skip commenting on the "Wikipedia Ban = Nazism" claim. Many, many other people, I'm sure, will point out just how ridiculous it is. After you place that ridiculousness to the side, however, I found something odd. The person making the comparison is "Scientology religion's chief executive officer Mr. David Miscavige". A religion's "chief executive officer"? Since when does a religion have a CEO? Am I just ignorant of the structure of religions other than Judaism (which has a very loose-knit make up - the joke is that if you ask two Jews a question, you'll get three opinions)? Are there other religions with CEO's?
Actually, I would argue that something of value is being lost. The secular Jews that I'm talking about don't even care about Jewish culture. Many never go to any temple, they'll intermarry and won't raise their kids as Jewish. Many will even adopt non-Jewish customs like celebrating Christmas (because everyone's doing it and it's a "non-religious holiday that just involves a tree and presents"). In a generation or two, these "fully Secular Jews" will dissolve completely into American society, possibly even converting to Christianity.
In addition, these secular Jews fall prey to conversion attempts by groups like Jews for Jesus who pretend to be Jewish but really aren't. Jews for Jesus was began back in the 70's by Christian groups upset that Jews weren't converting to Christianity more often. So they made an organization that pretends that it is Jewish but really provides a "gateway" to conversion to Christianity.
The net effect isn't that these people are giving up religion entirely. They're giving up the Jewish religion and going to Christianity merely because that's what the majority of American society follows. And, as they fade from Jewish life entirely (religion *AND* culture) large parts of Jewish life fade away.
Not Christianity, of course, but the Temple that I belong to charges large annual membership fees. Those fees give you access not so much to the religious services (no one would turn you away because you're not a paid member), but to the Temple's other features like Hebrew School and various events/social activities. We can't afford the full membership fees, so they give us a reduced membership fee. They're willing to cut their fees drastically to keep us as members. The Church of Scientology definitely wouldn't reduce their various fees in order to help an impoverished member climb the Scientology ladder.
Prosecuted religions typically thrive as the "community" comes together against the perceived threat, see: Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism.
Can't speak for Christianity or Mormonism, but I do know that the biggest threat facing the American Jewish community today is the lack of a big threat. Confusing? Basically, since there isn't any big threat, Jews aren't practicing as much, intermarrying more, not joining temples, etc. Whole segments of the community are dissolving into secular society. After surviving multiple millennia of threat after threat, it seems ironic that the threat to Judaism would be no threat to Judaism.
I have more faith in the czar. He/she won't stop at headlines. There will be a few studies commissioned and a hearing or two also. They may even get some guidelines passed that everyone who knows anything about the subject will agree are impossible to enforce and/or contain loopholes large enough to drive a Mack truck through.
Hard drives and tape drives still carry data from the 1970s
Interesting side note to this. My sister's computer recently wouldn't work. She brought it to a computer tech to be fixed. (I wouldn't fix it for two big reasons. 1) They live too far away and 2) I've fixed it in the past only to have them disable the protections I put in place - firewall, antivirus, etc - because they were "too annoying.") As my sister was telling me of what the tech said he needed to do, I stopped her on one important point. He was insisting on replacing the hard drive because "they only work for 3-5 years so this one's likely to die any day now." I told her that I had hard drives work for 8 or more years and there's no reason (short of abuse) why a hard drive shouldn't last over a decade. Whether the drive's space limits will make it useful past 10 years is another question entirely, but it should still be usable. I advised her that the tech was just trying to sell her stuff that she didn't need. Of course, during my next phone call to her, I won't be surprised to hear how she replaced the hard drive because it was 5 years old and going to die soon.
By "a cut of the sales" I meant that they would get a small (say 3%) cut on song sales. This would give the labels-turned-promotion-companies an incentive to increase sales. Every extra sale is more money in their pocket. With a flat fee, they would earn the same amount of money if they ran a nationwide TV/Radio campaign or if they sat on their rumps and just did nothing. Granted, I don't think any "no nothing" labels would survive, but they might cut corners on their promotions in an effort to raise their profits.
I do agree that there should be a clear way to measure their effectiveness, though. This way the band can tell whether they want to keep or ditch the label. In addition, the labels could use the effectiveness ratings to sign up new talent. ("Band X saw their sales jump 150% when they switched from Label Y to us.")
No, I haven't. However, with Time Warner Cable chomping at the bit to institute ultra-low caps & overage fees, I've been thinking of replacing my current router (which otherwise works fine) with one that can generate reports on our bandwidth usage. If I do replace the router, one that can log/generate reports on bandwidth and has USB ports would be quite intriguing. Any suggestions?
I have (off the top of my head) 6. One in each of my laptop computers. One in my (admittedly rarely used) desktop computer. One in each of our two cars. My new car can play MP3 CDs & has an auxillary input. Our "older" (2003) mini-van just has a CD player. Finally, we have an old CD boombox that we use to play music to help our boys sleep. (This list doesn't count standalone DVD players that can also play CDs.) I buy music both in CD and MP3 format. Yes, CDs get ripped to MP3, and yes, eventually, people will buy digital files instead of CDs, but for now ignoring the CD market completely seems like a bad idea. Especially if the entry fee to said market is only $31. If I was an artist, I'd pay the $31 and take a chance that four or more of my fans wanted to buy a CD.
Just because you put your independent band up on MySpace and SonicBids and your own website and sell your songs on iTunes and your CD on CDBaby doesn't magically make everyone in the world suddenly know you exist and want to buy your stuff. Somehow they still have to stumble across you in the first place, out of the trillions of other bands who have done the same as you.
This is where I think the future of the recording labels lie. Amazon and iTunes (as well as other services) have shown that distribution is being taken out of the labels' hands. Now Amazon is working to take manufacturing out of their hands also. Recording has been practically out of their hands for awhile now. (Recording artists can buy what used to be thought of as professional level gear for relatively little money now.) The only thing left is Promotion.
The way I see the future of labels (if you'll even be able to call them that) is this: Band X wants to record some songs and sell them. They buy the equipment to record, sign up with Amazon/Apple/whoever to manufacture/distribute, and then sign up with Label A for promotion. Label A gets a cut of the sales, but doesn't own any rights to the music. If Band X is unhappy with how Label A is promoting them, they can drop the label and move on. Label A gets a final paycheck (for work done up to contract termination) and then the next promotion label gets the sales cut paychecks. Labels will have an incentive to treat their bands well and increase sales because otherwise they (the labels) don't get paid. The current labels will fight this tooth and nail, of course, but I think that it is almost inevitable.
Our current home network setup has my wife and I primarily using laptops. Our printer, however, is shared out by a desktop computer upstairs. The desktop computer also acts as a file server. (For example, keeping years' worth of photos that we wouldn't keep on the individual laptops.) While the monitor is shut off unless the desktop computer is actively being used (rarely), we would definitely save power by turning the desktop computer off. This would mean, however, that we would need to go upstairs and turn it on whenever we wanted to print or retrieve a file.
I wonder how much energy these wall wart servers draw. If it's less than a standard desktop PC (which I build back in 2002), then it might be worth it to buy one, hook up a large USB HDD and the printer and share those out. Anyone know if this is possible (laptop & desktop computers currently run Windows XP)? If it is possible, any ideas how much power (if any) I would save?
I have a 5 year old. Trust me, you want to start with a baby. They're relatively easy. Sure, they can't tell you what's wrong when they hurt (man is that frustrating as a parent), but they really don't move much and don't get into much trouble in the beginning. By 5, children will actively seek out trouble (mainly testing to see what they can get away with). Forget "The Terrible Twos." Two is bad, but by three the child has a better idea of how to misbehave. By four or five, the kid refines their misbehaving skills to grey-hair inducing levels.
This isn't to say that I don't love my kids. They can just be really trying sometimes. Parenting is tough. I can see why some people "check out" and let the TV be their babysitter, though I don't agree with the practice.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that the current copyright fines ($750 - %150,000 per infringement) were set at a time when the major source of infringement was businesses or "pirate for profit" operations (the folks who sell illegal copies of movies/music on the street corner). If you caught a CD press operation with 100 CDs, you could fine them $750,000 and drain their current financial resources dry. If a business considered infringing on copyright, the fine would (theoretically) deter them from doing so.
The problem is that a lot of current infringement is done by average everyday folks not looking for a profit. If I download a single movie from an unauthorized torrent (say, a leaked copy of a movie still in the theaters), I could be sued for $150,000. That much of a fine could easily bankrupt me - all for a single movie download. Yes, I know that the RIAA/MPAA go after uploaders, not downloaders and yes, I know that they would likely be awarded a smaller fine, but the fact remains that I could be bankrupted over a single instance of casual, not-for-profit copyright infringement. The law needs to be updated to bring the fines more in line with today's crimes.
If it was up to me, we'd upgrade everyone to IE7/8 or Firefox and work in exceptions for the folks who need to use the IE6-only system. Unfortunately, I don't have any say in the matter, so I'm stuck supporting IE6 while the vendor keeps promising an IE7/8 compatible version. As I don't use the IE6-only system, for all I know they could have upgraded it already and just didn't roll out any IE updates yet.
By that reasoning, this Slashdot discussion isn't a communications medium either. For that matter, the Web isn't actually a communications medium, since it is built upon The Internet in general. In addition, Twitter encompasses more than just the Web. Some people (like myself) tweet using a desktop client, some tweet using Twitter.com, but many tweet (and get tweets) using text messages from cell phones. This means you can select the client/tool that you prefer to use (car color in your analogy).
It is hardly one-size-fits-all. Sure, they provide the service (complete with service limitations like 140 characters), but you can choose the client/tool you use, you can choose whose tweets you read, you can choose what you use it for (company announcements/PR, talking with friends, etc). Just because another method of communicating is similar to previously developed methods doesn't discount the new method as useless?
To use China as the example, were Twitter allowed in China, people could potentially tweet information from breaking events to people inside of and outside of China. This could serve to let people outside of China know if another Tienanmen Square was happening in real-time and it could be used to prevent the Chinese government from being able to cover up the new Tienanmen Square incident from their own populace. Add in services like TwitPic and you can get real-time information and photos from breaking events.
Most times, I've found that people who are criticizing Twitter don't do so because of something intrinsic about the service, but because they never used it and only know about it from stereotypes. The stereotypical Twitter user is someone who posts little snippets of their life that no one else is interested in. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of those people, but it's quite easy to filter them out. Just don't follow them (or, if a useful Twitter user becomes an inane one, unfollow them). There are actually plenty of people posting on Twitter that provide interesting information/news. Some examples are donttrythis (Adam from Mythbusters), grantimahara, BadAstronomer, GregGrunberg (from Heroes), wendilynnmakeup (makeup artist on Heroes), and others. (I listed the famous ones or ones with famous connections, but there are plenty of non-famous people I follow also.) If the poster has used Twitter and decided it's not for him, fine. If he's never used Twitter at all and has decided that it's worthless because he's heard that it's worthless, that just annoys me.
I'm in a similar situation. Our employees are stuck with IE6 because some internal app (not one I built!) won't support over IE6 (and definitely doesn't support Firefox). So I need IE6 to test internal pages. However, our external website is being browsed on by users with IE6, IE7, and Firefox. Firefox is no problem, that's my main browser anyway. But how do I upgrade to IE7 while still allowing myself the ability to see pages in IE6? Virtual machines are nice, but require me to "boot" a Windows instance just to test one page.
Luckily, I found Xenocode's tool: http://www.xenocode.com/browsers/ Their program loads a virtual instance of the browser so now I'm running IE6 (native), Firefox (native), IE7 (virtual), and IE8 (virtual). I can have all of my windows open at once and cycle through the browser versions as I make changes to the pages. It's a lifesaver (and free to boot).
Some users can't upgrade. In my company, we're still using IE6. Not my decision, mind you. As the web master, I'd love to see us move to IE7/8 or (better) Firefox. Unfortunately, we rely on a web-based system that doesn't play well with IE7/8 or Firefox. So until the vendor upgrades their browser support, we're stuck. I'm lucky enough to have rights to install Firefox and use http://www.xenocode.com/browsers/ to run IE7 and IE8 for testing purposes, but 99% of our users are forced to use IE6.
Twitter, like any communications medium, is what you make of it. You could start a blog and write about nothing other than the cute things your cat did today, you could write about topics of earth-shattering importance, or your blog could fall somewhere in the middle. You could Twitter about nothing other than the inane details of your life (cue link to the Penny Arcade strip) or you could use Twitter to connect to and keep in touch with a group of people online. E-mail, web pages, television, etc. They can all be used for the inane and valueless or for the interesting and full-of-meaning.
In addition, what is value-less and what is full-of-meaning can vary from person to person. You might think that your post comparing the captaining styles of "Classic Kirk" vs Picard vs "New Movie Kirk" is great, but others might find it to be a fluff piece written by a fan with nothing better to do. Someone else might write a post detailing the pros and cons of a new fashion trend and, while they might think it is a valuable thing you share, you might find it meaningless. One person's trash is another person's treasure.
Not only that, but if illegally obtained evidence was admissible, people could be "raided" purely because certain people in power (politicians, police, etc) didn't like them. Suppose your city's mayor is corrupt and decides that you were a threat to him. He orders the police chief (his best buddy in corruption) to arrest you under some trumped up charge. Doesn't matter what, that charge isn't meant to stick. However, after arresting you, they fish through all of your stuff searching for something illegal to pin to you. They don't have a warrant to do this and so it is illegal, but it doesn't matter to them. They uncover something (everyone's broken some law at some point) and switch charges to the one with the (illegally obtained) evidence.
Now, if the court accepts the illegally obtained evidence, they are validating a corrupt mayor's abuse of power. This is likely a bigger crime than the charges that the illegally obtained evidence supports. If they toss out the illegally obtained evidence, they're letting someone guilty of what is likely a minor crime go free, but they are dealing a blow against abuse of power.
When I was a child, I was way too literal. My parents told me that I wasn't allowed to cross the street, so I wouldn't. Every day, the bus would drop me off in front of my house and I would walk in. One day, the bus went down my block in the opposite direction and the doors opened across the street from my house. Following my parents' directions (don't cross the street), I stayed on the bus. After all, if I got off, I'd have to cross the street and I wasn't allowed to do that! As the bus drove off, the other kids who got off at my stop ran to my house and told my mother that I stayed on the bus. My mother had to hop in her car and chase after the bus to get me off. Best I can figure, I planned to ride the bus until he dropped me off in front of my house as usual.
My parents' reaction, I'm sure, was a modification of the "no crossing the street" rule, to handle the "dropped off across the street from home" case. No, they didn't have the option of a child locating device, but I'm sure their method (teaching your child to handle the situation) would work just a nicely today. As an added bonus, it costs less, is less likely to break, and can be applied to multiple varying situations. (What to do when encountering a stranger, what to do if offered food they are allergic to, etc.)
And at least Kabbalah is a more valid religion. Sure, the form that the stars practice is "Kabbalah Lite - Now with extra Watering Down!", but the basis behind it does have valid religious roots (Jewish Mysticism). Scientology is just some bad sci-fi story idea that L. Ron Hubbard came up with and decided to make it into a religion instead of writing a short story based on it. Evil alien warlords trapping alien souls in human bodies may have made for a halfway decent short story, but it makes for an awful "religion".
Vader a victim of irony? Raised and a firm believer in the Amish way of life, Vader winds up dependent on a technological suit to survive until he is "saved" by his son by overthrowing the person who put him in the suit. (No, not Obi Wan who sliced/diced him, but Palpatine who actually hooked him up to the suit.) I believe thinking this through this much fills my Geek Quota for the day.
Apparently, when I don't sleep well for a few days (combination of not going to sleep until very late, kids waking me up very early and often, and EA Sports ACTIVE kicking my keister), I lose my ability to discern parody from reality. ;-)
I wasn't going to comment at length about this, but this guy's rant just screams for a line-by-line rebuttal.
Sorry, but this isn't a hate crime. Blocking someone from using your privately owned service (which Wikipedia essentially is even if the public contributes to it) is perfectly legal. You can even block groups of people. If an evangelical Christian group started post-bombing a forum I run telling people to accept Jesus or burn in hell, I'd ban the lot of them. They could scream and shout all they wanted, but it wouldn't be a hate crime and they wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on if they tried to sue me for access to my site.
So leaving the Scientology compound is undesirable? Isn't that one of the signs of being a cult? Telling members that they should either reside on "the compound" or else?
I'll have to get back to you on this. Wikipedia's takeover of the US government is still in the pre-alpha stages. Seriously, though, how does a private entity banning a group on grounds of abuse equal Nazism. Oh right, because it happened to them, therefore it is evil incarnate.
Personally, I've always found sanity overrated. *cue Daffy Duck looney laugh as I bounce off the walls*
Brutal? Criminally attacking? I must have missed the news story where Wikipedia sent storm troopers into the Scientology compounds to shoot random people, beat them with their own monitors, and hang them with Ethernet cabling. It didn't happen? It was just an IP ban? The horrors!!!!
I'll give "the world's most ethical people" a pass since every group pretty much thinks they are the best. Otherwise why would they belong to the group. (Yes, I'm stifling a lot of laughter given Scientology's past behavior here.) But presenting their "religion" in "the most positive and truthful light"? Translation: "Wikipedia wouldn't let us mass-edit pages to spin everything to favor us. How dare they not give us the final word on what should be written about us on their own site!!!"
I'll agree with him here. Tons of nonsense. Of course, it doesn't help when your "religion" is nonsense to begin with.
This post brought to you by the letter P, the number 666, and a big honkin' paycheck from Psychiatrists Insistent on Scrapping Scientology.
Perhaps he can instruct me how to receive these payments. I missed out on the "Jews run the world" power position. At least I can settle for "paid by the Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical industry a
I'll skip commenting on the "Wikipedia Ban = Nazism" claim. Many, many other people, I'm sure, will point out just how ridiculous it is. After you place that ridiculousness to the side, however, I found something odd. The person making the comparison is "Scientology religion's chief executive officer Mr. David Miscavige". A religion's "chief executive officer"? Since when does a religion have a CEO? Am I just ignorant of the structure of religions other than Judaism (which has a very loose-knit make up - the joke is that if you ask two Jews a question, you'll get three opinions)? Are there other religions with CEO's?
Actually, I would argue that something of value is being lost. The secular Jews that I'm talking about don't even care about Jewish culture. Many never go to any temple, they'll intermarry and won't raise their kids as Jewish. Many will even adopt non-Jewish customs like celebrating Christmas (because everyone's doing it and it's a "non-religious holiday that just involves a tree and presents"). In a generation or two, these "fully Secular Jews" will dissolve completely into American society, possibly even converting to Christianity.
In addition, these secular Jews fall prey to conversion attempts by groups like Jews for Jesus who pretend to be Jewish but really aren't. Jews for Jesus was began back in the 70's by Christian groups upset that Jews weren't converting to Christianity more often. So they made an organization that pretends that it is Jewish but really provides a "gateway" to conversion to Christianity.
The net effect isn't that these people are giving up religion entirely. They're giving up the Jewish religion and going to Christianity merely because that's what the majority of American society follows. And, as they fade from Jewish life entirely (religion *AND* culture) large parts of Jewish life fade away.
Not Christianity, of course, but the Temple that I belong to charges large annual membership fees. Those fees give you access not so much to the religious services (no one would turn you away because you're not a paid member), but to the Temple's other features like Hebrew School and various events/social activities. We can't afford the full membership fees, so they give us a reduced membership fee. They're willing to cut their fees drastically to keep us as members. The Church of Scientology definitely wouldn't reduce their various fees in order to help an impoverished member climb the Scientology ladder.
Can't speak for Christianity or Mormonism, but I do know that the biggest threat facing the American Jewish community today is the lack of a big threat. Confusing? Basically, since there isn't any big threat, Jews aren't practicing as much, intermarrying more, not joining temples, etc. Whole segments of the community are dissolving into secular society. After surviving multiple millennia of threat after threat, it seems ironic that the threat to Judaism would be no threat to Judaism.
I have more faith in the czar. He/she won't stop at headlines. There will be a few studies commissioned and a hearing or two also. They may even get some guidelines passed that everyone who knows anything about the subject will agree are impossible to enforce and/or contain loopholes large enough to drive a Mack truck through.
Hard drives and tape drives still carry data from the 1970s
Interesting side note to this. My sister's computer recently wouldn't work. She brought it to a computer tech to be fixed. (I wouldn't fix it for two big reasons. 1) They live too far away and 2) I've fixed it in the past only to have them disable the protections I put in place - firewall, antivirus, etc - because they were "too annoying.") As my sister was telling me of what the tech said he needed to do, I stopped her on one important point. He was insisting on replacing the hard drive because "they only work for 3-5 years so this one's likely to die any day now." I told her that I had hard drives work for 8 or more years and there's no reason (short of abuse) why a hard drive shouldn't last over a decade. Whether the drive's space limits will make it useful past 10 years is another question entirely, but it should still be usable. I advised her that the tech was just trying to sell her stuff that she didn't need. Of course, during my next phone call to her, I won't be surprised to hear how she replaced the hard drive because it was 5 years old and going to die soon.
By "a cut of the sales" I meant that they would get a small (say 3%) cut on song sales. This would give the labels-turned-promotion-companies an incentive to increase sales. Every extra sale is more money in their pocket. With a flat fee, they would earn the same amount of money if they ran a nationwide TV/Radio campaign or if they sat on their rumps and just did nothing. Granted, I don't think any "no nothing" labels would survive, but they might cut corners on their promotions in an effort to raise their profits.
I do agree that there should be a clear way to measure their effectiveness, though. This way the band can tell whether they want to keep or ditch the label. In addition, the labels could use the effectiveness ratings to sign up new talent. ("Band X saw their sales jump 150% when they switched from Label Y to us.")
No, I haven't. However, with Time Warner Cable chomping at the bit to institute ultra-low caps & overage fees, I've been thinking of replacing my current router (which otherwise works fine) with one that can generate reports on our bandwidth usage. If I do replace the router, one that can log/generate reports on bandwidth and has USB ports would be quite intriguing. Any suggestions?
I have (off the top of my head) 6. One in each of my laptop computers. One in my (admittedly rarely used) desktop computer. One in each of our two cars. My new car can play MP3 CDs & has an auxillary input. Our "older" (2003) mini-van just has a CD player. Finally, we have an old CD boombox that we use to play music to help our boys sleep. (This list doesn't count standalone DVD players that can also play CDs.) I buy music both in CD and MP3 format. Yes, CDs get ripped to MP3, and yes, eventually, people will buy digital files instead of CDs, but for now ignoring the CD market completely seems like a bad idea. Especially if the entry fee to said market is only $31. If I was an artist, I'd pay the $31 and take a chance that four or more of my fans wanted to buy a CD.
Just because you put your independent band up on MySpace and SonicBids and your own website and sell your songs on iTunes and your CD on CDBaby doesn't magically make everyone in the world suddenly know you exist and want to buy your stuff. Somehow they still have to stumble across you in the first place, out of the trillions of other bands who have done the same as you.
This is where I think the future of the recording labels lie. Amazon and iTunes (as well as other services) have shown that distribution is being taken out of the labels' hands. Now Amazon is working to take manufacturing out of their hands also. Recording has been practically out of their hands for awhile now. (Recording artists can buy what used to be thought of as professional level gear for relatively little money now.) The only thing left is Promotion.
The way I see the future of labels (if you'll even be able to call them that) is this: Band X wants to record some songs and sell them. They buy the equipment to record, sign up with Amazon/Apple/whoever to manufacture/distribute, and then sign up with Label A for promotion. Label A gets a cut of the sales, but doesn't own any rights to the music. If Band X is unhappy with how Label A is promoting them, they can drop the label and move on. Label A gets a final paycheck (for work done up to contract termination) and then the next promotion label gets the sales cut paychecks. Labels will have an incentive to treat their bands well and increase sales because otherwise they (the labels) don't get paid. The current labels will fight this tooth and nail, of course, but I think that it is almost inevitable.
Our current home network setup has my wife and I primarily using laptops. Our printer, however, is shared out by a desktop computer upstairs. The desktop computer also acts as a file server. (For example, keeping years' worth of photos that we wouldn't keep on the individual laptops.) While the monitor is shut off unless the desktop computer is actively being used (rarely), we would definitely save power by turning the desktop computer off. This would mean, however, that we would need to go upstairs and turn it on whenever we wanted to print or retrieve a file.
I wonder how much energy these wall wart servers draw. If it's less than a standard desktop PC (which I build back in 2002), then it might be worth it to buy one, hook up a large USB HDD and the printer and share those out. Anyone know if this is possible (laptop & desktop computers currently run Windows XP)? If it is possible, any ideas how much power (if any) I would save?
I have a 5 year old. Trust me, you want to start with a baby. They're relatively easy. Sure, they can't tell you what's wrong when they hurt (man is that frustrating as a parent), but they really don't move much and don't get into much trouble in the beginning. By 5, children will actively seek out trouble (mainly testing to see what they can get away with). Forget "The Terrible Twos." Two is bad, but by three the child has a better idea of how to misbehave. By four or five, the kid refines their misbehaving skills to grey-hair inducing levels.
This isn't to say that I don't love my kids. They can just be really trying sometimes. Parenting is tough. I can see why some people "check out" and let the TV be their babysitter, though I don't agree with the practice.
I think that's safe to say, but I feel no urge to test this particular theory myself.