These are sort of like an ebay auction: 24 hours before the vote these start to stream in. Often they are placeholders "text to be supplied" or very obscure references to the organization designated for the earmark. Not even the toiling interns who are supposed to vet these for their bosses can keep up last minute submissions.
There should be a rule that all text must be submitted into the bill 24 hours before the vote. No putting in "Text to be supplied" and sticking in stuff last second. No adding $2 million for a Ferry Boat minutes before the bill. (Real earmark, though I don't know for sure that it came in in the final minutes.) Of course, this goes hand in hand with two other rules I think should be instituted: 1) all items in the bill must relate to the bill at large. e.g. No putting in subsidies for an Iowa corn field in a health care bill. 2) all Congressfolk should be required to read the bill before voting on it. No claiming "Oh, I didn't read *that part* of the bill or I would have voted against it."
I'm not holding my breath that any of this will come to pass anytime soon, however.
My old car (a 1998 Toyota Corolla with 104K miles) was failing (transmission trouble) so I bought a new car - a 2009 Nissan Sentra. I would have loved to have gotten a hybrid, but I found that hybrids tend to be priced much higher than I'm willing to spend on a car that's mainly used to move me from home to work and back. A Toyota Prius would have cost me nearly $8,000 more than my Nissan Sentra. I travel only about 8,000 miles per year. For my Nissan Sentra (29 average mpg) that means about 276 gallons of gas. For the Prius (46 average mpg) that means 174 gallons. If I got $3,000 as a tax credit, I would have to make up the remaining $5,000 in saved gas. At 100 gallons per year, and assuming I keep the car for 10 years (not a bad assumption, I had my last car for 10 years), gas would need to average $5 a gallon or more. Right now, with gas under $2.50, it just doesn't make sense for me to put down more money for a hybrid.
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one with Flash problems on FireFox. Mine seem to fall into two main categories:
1) Annoying: Flash file doesn't load for some reason forcing me to use IE (usually in the form of IETab) to load the content.
2) System Breaking: Flash file tries to load a JavaScript function in IE. Fine if the file was *OPENED* in IE, but it wasn't. It was opened in FireFox. My default browser is FireFox. Why is it opening an IE window at "javascript:SomeFunction();"? And, when that fails, why does it try again and again and again and... well, you get the point. I go into FireFox and close down the tab with the offending web page, but not until my system has loaded 50 instances of IE and slowed down to a crawl.
I've tried uninstalling Flash and FireFox and reinstalling them but it doesn't fix the problem.
I think we forget that you're a lot more likely to die by being struck by lightning than by being hit by a terrorist attack.
So what you're saying is that we should pass laws making lightning illegal? And that anyone who possesses the tools to make lightning (which is basically just electricity) should be locked up? Won't someone think of the children?!! Ban all electricity now before the terrorists and child pornographers use lightning!!
Seriously, though, I agree with your post. Too many people take a remote threat and blow it way out of proportion. These people are either a) ignorant of the real danger level or b) politicians looking to increase their power by exploiting group a as much as possible.
But terrorists could still drive around and find their way. Which is why we should blur reality. Anyone who opposes my proposal to blur reality (including any "that's not possible" arguments) must be terrorist-loving child-haters!
That leaves promotion which is where I see the future for record labels. They'll become glorified ad agencies. A band will contact Label X and will sign on to promote their songs. The label will get a share of the profits in exchange for getting the word out. The more profits the song gets, the more the label makes thus giving them an incentive to promote it well. Unlike today's setup, however, the label gets no copyright control and the band can choose to walk away from the label (who then ceases getting paid on the band's songs) if they're unsatisfied with the label's performance. The band can then sign on with another label, keeping all of their past songs under their own control. The labels won't go away, but they'll shrink tremendously in size and power.
I agree. We already have that $100 Wall Wart (not "Wal-Mart") computer. Imagine having a souped up version of that as the brains behind the "paper screen." It can be off in an out of the way location, using Ethernet Over Power to connect to the Internet. You'd pull out the "paper screen," browse your morning news sites, maybe a Twitter feed or two, some blog postings, Slashdot, etc. When you're done, it can fit into a tiny storage location (bookshelf, counter, etc) with no issues.
For a business use of this, I liked another poster's suggestion of replacing projector/screens with a wall-sized flex-screen. Another option would be to have a portable "paper screen" constantly reporting on different server statuses (perhaps with some interactive ways of managing servers). You could stick it with the other papers you carry to the meeting and glance at it now and them to make sure everything's running fine. All without the added bulk of a laptop.
Killing babies still has a much better chance of growing me a new liver.
I know you were trying for humor, but don't fall into the pro-lifer's trap of calling fetus' "babies." In fact, at the stage that most embryonic stem cells are harvested, it isn't even a fetus. It's a blastocyst ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blastocyst ). The pro-lifer's want people to have images in their heads of sweet, innocent babies sitting there cooing while evil scientists sharpen their knives, slaughter them, and cackle wildly as they "process" them into stem cells.
The dirty little secret that they don't like acknowledging is that most of these embryos come from leftover eggs from fertility treatments. Either the couples have had enough kids and have eggs left over, or they don't have any more money to continue. (IVF is very expensive.) These eggs aren't going to be stuck in the back of a freezer somewhere for some other couple, they'll be incinerated as medical waste. So when pro-lifers stop embryonic stem cell research, they're really sending the embryos off to be destroyed. If they really wanted to "save" these embryos, they would lobby for new laws that would a) make IVF illegal or b) make destruction of leftover eggs illegal. Neither of these options is realistic, though, and would meet with heavy opposition. The pro-lifers realize this and so they attack the low hanging fruit of embryonic stem cells, ignoring that those eggs are headed to the incinerator.
As a side note, I've heard that the octopulet mother had 18 eggs left over. She had 2 rounds each with 6 eggs implanted that failed and then a third round of 6 eggs implanted that turned into 8 babies. She said that she didn't want those eggs destroyed. Fair enough, they were her eggs. Of course, the option she ignored was that she could have donated (possibly even sold) them to childless couples. If she donated 3 eggs per couple (the usual amount inserted at one time), she could have helped 6 couples have babies instead of having 8 more kids to take care of herself.
It would still be a step up from the current scenario, though, of buy the software, open the box, put the install disc in, *THEN* see the EULA and:
1) Agree to it and install the software, or
2) Don't agree to it and be unable to return the software due to open box thus:
a) causing you to be out the money without software you can use, or
b) forcing you to agree to the EULA so you can get use out of the software that you've bought and can't return.
The URL-on-box scenario would let you buy the software, go home, read the EULA and then either return the software unopened or open the box, install the software, and agree to the EULA.
Call me a Luddite, but parents shouldn't let their Kindles take over parental responsibilities. They should let TV take them over like God (and the big media companies) intended!
Don't forget us freeloading parents. Who knew that I was committing an act of copyright infringement while I read my son his bedtime story? I guess I be a pirate then. *ARRR* Where do I get my eye-patch?
Re:Ah, the era of homepages
on
Jurassic Web
·
· Score: 1
There was still all the porn you could imagine though.
Yeah, but it was all ASCII Art. Not that I'd *AHEM* know anything about that.;-)
Side note: I actually almost got a job posting Porn images to a newsgroup back in the 90's. I finally decided that I just didn't want that sort of thing on my resume so I didn't take the job.
The music "industry" is not music. It's just middle men. They create drag, friction, between the musicians and the fans. They are an unneeded artifice, a relic of an earlier age, in my mind.
I think we still need a "music industry" (by which I mean music labels). Their purpose has just shifted. Once upon a time, if you were part of a band and wanted nationwide (or worldwide) distribution and marketing, you needed to go to a label. Only they had the resources to record your music, press your albums, distribute them across the country/world, and promote your band so that people knew about you. Of course, today, anyone can record their own music, burn their own CDs (or convert their songs to MP3), and distribute their own songs worldwide (either via a service like eMusic or Amie Street or via the band's own website). About the only thing left is promotion. Yes, bands can do that themselves, but let's face it, few musicians are good at marketing.
The way I see the future music labels would be glorified advertising agencies. Band X would approach Music Label Y and sign a contract for promotion. The contract would *NOT* assign any copyrights to the label. After all, the agency that produces a Super Bowl ad owns rights to the product they're advertising, so why would the "Label Advertising Firm?" The label would either get a flat fee or a percentage of sales (as determined by a third party) for the length of the contract. If the artist left or the contract ended, the label would stop getting payments. They would need to find new talent to advertise. They wouldn't get paid for an artist's old songs.
Customers would benefit because it would help to separate a few artists out of the crowd, making it easier to decide whose songs to buy. (Let's face it, most people just buy "Top 10" artists and that's it.) Bands would benefit since they would have their copyright to do with as they please. Labels would survive, but at a much-reduced level. Most of the people who would lose out would be the middle managers of the current labels as the label contracts and reforms itself.
Not only that, but sometimes switching your family members to another browser doesn't "take." My wife's grandmother kept having a problem with spyware. I figured that one cause might be IE, so I set her up with FireFox. I showed her how to use it and off she went.... then came back to me to ask me to put IE back on. (Never was "taken off" but the desktop icon was removed and the defaults were changed.) She just couldn't handle simple things such as "Favorites" being called "Bookmarks." Reluctantly, I restored IE for her. As a counter-point, though, my wife's father uses Firefox now even though he constantly annoys me by calling it "Fox Fire."
Any call for rational discussion is seen as a sign of emotional coldness.
Actually, it's worse than that. Any call for rational discussion is equated to supporting child pornography. If a politician opposes a law like this, he's tarred and feathered as a child porn supporter. His opponent in the next election will proclaim left and right that Politician X supports the rights of child porn lovers and wants to sell perverted images of your kids to these monsters. The politician who opposes the law (even if the grounds he opposes it on are just and constitutional) will quickly find himself kicked out of power. The "Anti-Child-Porn-Won't-Someone-Think-Of-The-Children" politician will take his seat and the scales will shift a bit more towards lunacy. Other politicians (not being dumb) will notice this and quickly adjust their stances to protect their jobs. The scales then shatter as everyone rushes to be on the "right side" of the issue.
Other than that, I agree. When these calls go out to give police the ability to do XYZ to catch child porn viewers/producers or to filter the Internet, the thinking part of many peoples' brains shuts down. They don't see how the bill would ever affect them (because they aren't dirty, stinking child porn lovers) and so they support the law. They buy wholeheartedly into the "you've got nothing to fear if you've got nothing to hide" argument. They don't even consider how it can be abused (police falsely accusing someone of child porn as a result of retribution/corruption) and broadened beyond the original scope (if child porn, why not terrorists; if terrorists, why not anti-American sentiment; if anti-American sentiment, why not comments against the President; if not comments against the President, why not negative comments against big businesses...). All they see is black (child porn lovers) and white (those good, decent folk who want to stop the evils of child porn).
Unfortunately, the Internet Graveyard is littered with sites that tried (and failed) to implement micropayment systems. The closest that came to successfully implementing a micropayment system is Paypal. Most of the others went belly-up taking people's deposited money with them. I'm not saying it can't be done and I agree that it is needed, but it's tough to do right.
I've also seen several instances where the newspapers (and/or TV News) take the blog's report and re-report it as 100% accurate news (whether or not it is). Other news outlets then pick up on that first one's reporting and the whole thing snowballs. So blogs can be the starting point that feeds the mainstream media.
You know, not all of us Slashdotters are virgins living in mom and dad's basement. Some of us are married with a few kids. Of course, then we're back to your original definition of "soon." Carry on.
You can go to a judge but chances are he would say to enter into arbitration like your "contract" (the TOS) says. After arbitration, you can decide to appeal to a real court, but - as the Consumerist puts it:
I'm going to appeal the decision to a real court.
No you're not, because:
In all states but California, there are no records kept of the arbitration, so it's impossible to appeal.
The deference that the Supreme Court has extended to arbitration has meant judges usually won't even overrule unethical or blatantly wrong judgments.
A study of fifty-two arbitration clauses that are in typical consumer contracts found that forty of them describe the arbitrator's decision as final or non-appealable, and the only five agreements that allowed appeal simply provided for a new arbitration.
The first thing I thought of when I heard that Facebook was giving themselves the right to "sublicense" the content was the Virgin Mobile ad awhile back. An ad agency took a photo from Flickr without the user's permission and without a consent from the girl in the photo. They then used it in a series of ads that the girl and her family found offensive. Virgin Mobile was sued as a result.
Now, supposed this happened with Facebook under the new TOS. I take a photo of someone and post it on my Facebook page. Company X decides that's the perfect photo for their upcoming ads. They license the photo from Facebook and use it in their ads. I and the person in my photo find out about it and we are offended (me that my photo is being used without permission/compensation and the photo subject because they appear in the ads).
What our options be? I, being a Facebook user who has agreed to the TOS, have mandatory arbitration as my only option (another TOS clause). The arbitrator does what arbitrators do over 90% of the time and rules for the company (Facebook) who hired them. The person in the photo can go to the courts, but it would be a lengthy, costly battle whose outcome would be uncertain.
The Virgin Mobile case was clear. The company was wrong to lift the Flickr ad. My Facebook hypothetical situation wouldn't have been so clear.
You wouldn't be able to take them to court at all. You see, that same TOS forces you into mandatory arbitration. So Facebook would choose an arbitrator and you would need to travel to a state of their choosing to meet with the arbitrator that Facebook is paying. The arbitrator would then decide whose side to rule in favor of. Studies have shown that arbitrators rule in favor of the company over 90% of the time so I wouldn't put too much faith in getting a fair shake. And don't go crying to the courts, they've repeatedly upheld arbitrator clauses and judgments. As the Consumerist put it, it's the Worst Choose Your Own Adventure Ever: http://consumerist.com/5148154/mandatory-binding-arbitration-the-worst-choose-your-own-adventure-ever
There were two other points to their TOS change, besides the "rights continue past the closing of the account" that got people riled up:
1. Facebook could sell your uploaded content (including writings, photos, etc) to third parties. 2. Facebook didn't notify users of the TOS change. Instead, you "accepted" the change by continuing to use the service even if you didn't know that the terms had changed.
Combine this with Facebook shutting down accounts for certain actions (like posting breastfeeding photos) and you could get the following situation:
1. User logs in, is unaware that the TOS has changed. 2. User uploads photo to Facebook. 3. Facebook deems photo inappropriate, closes down account. 4. Facebook takes content from the closed account (remember, they own rights to it past account closure) and sell it to an ad agency without the user's approval or notification and without the user/copyright holder being compensated.
Don't like it? Well, you can't take them to court because the TOS binds you to Mandatory Arbitration and who do you think is going to win that? You? Or the company that chooses and pays the arbitrator? (If you answered that you would win, I've got a bridge to sell you.)
I post the baby photos for the hospital I work in and the two worst names I've seen are: Secret Angel and Everlasting Love. Yes, someone named their child first name "Secret" middle name "Angel" and someone else named their child first name "Everlasting" middle name "Love." What kind of teasing are poor little Secret and Everlasting going to go through?
I've also seen "Bruce Wayne" also (first & middle name), but was disappointed to not see any Batman reference on the kid's photo. At least that kid might have a future as a billionaire who fights crime on the side.;-)
And, yes, all those names are real. I've made nothing up.
Slashdot Mirror
There should be a rule that all text must be submitted into the bill 24 hours before the vote. No putting in "Text to be supplied" and sticking in stuff last second. No adding $2 million for a Ferry Boat minutes before the bill. (Real earmark, though I don't know for sure that it came in in the final minutes.) Of course, this goes hand in hand with two other rules I think should be instituted: 1) all items in the bill must relate to the bill at large. e.g. No putting in subsidies for an Iowa corn field in a health care bill. 2) all Congressfolk should be required to read the bill before voting on it. No claiming "Oh, I didn't read *that part* of the bill or I would have voted against it."
I'm not holding my breath that any of this will come to pass anytime soon, however.
My old car (a 1998 Toyota Corolla with 104K miles) was failing (transmission trouble) so I bought a new car - a 2009 Nissan Sentra. I would have loved to have gotten a hybrid, but I found that hybrids tend to be priced much higher than I'm willing to spend on a car that's mainly used to move me from home to work and back. A Toyota Prius would have cost me nearly $8,000 more than my Nissan Sentra. I travel only about 8,000 miles per year. For my Nissan Sentra (29 average mpg) that means about 276 gallons of gas. For the Prius (46 average mpg) that means 174 gallons. If I got $3,000 as a tax credit, I would have to make up the remaining $5,000 in saved gas. At 100 gallons per year, and assuming I keep the car for 10 years (not a bad assumption, I had my last car for 10 years), gas would need to average $5 a gallon or more. Right now, with gas under $2.50, it just doesn't make sense for me to put down more money for a hybrid.
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one with Flash problems on FireFox. Mine seem to fall into two main categories:
1) Annoying: Flash file doesn't load for some reason forcing me to use IE (usually in the form of IETab) to load the content.
2) System Breaking: Flash file tries to load a JavaScript function in IE. Fine if the file was *OPENED* in IE, but it wasn't. It was opened in FireFox. My default browser is FireFox. Why is it opening an IE window at "javascript:SomeFunction();"? And, when that fails, why does it try again and again and again and... well, you get the point. I go into FireFox and close down the tab with the offending web page, but not until my system has loaded 50 instances of IE and slowed down to a crawl.
I've tried uninstalling Flash and FireFox and reinstalling them but it doesn't fix the problem.
So what you're saying is that we should pass laws making lightning illegal? And that anyone who possesses the tools to make lightning (which is basically just electricity) should be locked up? Won't someone think of the children?!! Ban all electricity now before the terrorists and child pornographers use lightning!!
Seriously, though, I agree with your post. Too many people take a remote threat and blow it way out of proportion. These people are either a) ignorant of the real danger level or b) politicians looking to increase their power by exploiting group a as much as possible.
But terrorists could still drive around and find their way. Which is why we should blur reality. Anyone who opposes my proposal to blur reality (including any "that's not possible" arguments) must be terrorist-loving child-haters!
That leaves promotion which is where I see the future for record labels. They'll become glorified ad agencies. A band will contact Label X and will sign on to promote their songs. The label will get a share of the profits in exchange for getting the word out. The more profits the song gets, the more the label makes thus giving them an incentive to promote it well. Unlike today's setup, however, the label gets no copyright control and the band can choose to walk away from the label (who then ceases getting paid on the band's songs) if they're unsatisfied with the label's performance. The band can then sign on with another label, keeping all of their past songs under their own control. The labels won't go away, but they'll shrink tremendously in size and power.
I agree. We already have that $100 Wall Wart (not "Wal-Mart") computer. Imagine having a souped up version of that as the brains behind the "paper screen." It can be off in an out of the way location, using Ethernet Over Power to connect to the Internet. You'd pull out the "paper screen," browse your morning news sites, maybe a Twitter feed or two, some blog postings, Slashdot, etc. When you're done, it can fit into a tiny storage location (bookshelf, counter, etc) with no issues.
For a business use of this, I liked another poster's suggestion of replacing projector/screens with a wall-sized flex-screen. Another option would be to have a portable "paper screen" constantly reporting on different server statuses (perhaps with some interactive ways of managing servers). You could stick it with the other papers you carry to the meeting and glance at it now and them to make sure everything's running fine. All without the added bulk of a laptop.
I know you were trying for humor, but don't fall into the pro-lifer's trap of calling fetus' "babies." In fact, at the stage that most embryonic stem cells are harvested, it isn't even a fetus. It's a blastocyst ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blastocyst ). The pro-lifer's want people to have images in their heads of sweet, innocent babies sitting there cooing while evil scientists sharpen their knives, slaughter them, and cackle wildly as they "process" them into stem cells.
The dirty little secret that they don't like acknowledging is that most of these embryos come from leftover eggs from fertility treatments. Either the couples have had enough kids and have eggs left over, or they don't have any more money to continue. (IVF is very expensive.) These eggs aren't going to be stuck in the back of a freezer somewhere for some other couple, they'll be incinerated as medical waste. So when pro-lifers stop embryonic stem cell research, they're really sending the embryos off to be destroyed. If they really wanted to "save" these embryos, they would lobby for new laws that would a) make IVF illegal or b) make destruction of leftover eggs illegal. Neither of these options is realistic, though, and would meet with heavy opposition. The pro-lifers realize this and so they attack the low hanging fruit of embryonic stem cells, ignoring that those eggs are headed to the incinerator.
As a side note, I've heard that the octopulet mother had 18 eggs left over. She had 2 rounds each with 6 eggs implanted that failed and then a third round of 6 eggs implanted that turned into 8 babies. She said that she didn't want those eggs destroyed. Fair enough, they were her eggs. Of course, the option she ignored was that she could have donated (possibly even sold) them to childless couples. If she donated 3 eggs per couple (the usual amount inserted at one time), she could have helped 6 couples have babies instead of having 8 more kids to take care of herself.
It would still be a step up from the current scenario, though, of buy the software, open the box, put the install disc in, *THEN* see the EULA and:
1) Agree to it and install the software, or
2) Don't agree to it and be unable to return the software due to open box thus:
a) causing you to be out the money without software you can use, or
b) forcing you to agree to the EULA so you can get use out of the software that you've bought and can't return.
The URL-on-box scenario would let you buy the software, go home, read the EULA and then either return the software unopened or open the box, install the software, and agree to the EULA.
Call me a Luddite, but parents shouldn't let their Kindles take over parental responsibilities. They should let TV take them over like God (and the big media companies) intended!
Don't forget us freeloading parents. Who knew that I was committing an act of copyright infringement while I read my son his bedtime story? I guess I be a pirate then. *ARRR* Where do I get my eye-patch?
Yeah, but it was all ASCII Art. Not that I'd *AHEM* know anything about that. ;-)
Side note: I actually almost got a job posting Porn images to a newsgroup back in the 90's. I finally decided that I just didn't want that sort of thing on my resume so I didn't take the job.
I think we still need a "music industry" (by which I mean music labels). Their purpose has just shifted. Once upon a time, if you were part of a band and wanted nationwide (or worldwide) distribution and marketing, you needed to go to a label. Only they had the resources to record your music, press your albums, distribute them across the country/world, and promote your band so that people knew about you. Of course, today, anyone can record their own music, burn their own CDs (or convert their songs to MP3), and distribute their own songs worldwide (either via a service like eMusic or Amie Street or via the band's own website). About the only thing left is promotion. Yes, bands can do that themselves, but let's face it, few musicians are good at marketing.
The way I see the future music labels would be glorified advertising agencies. Band X would approach Music Label Y and sign a contract for promotion. The contract would *NOT* assign any copyrights to the label. After all, the agency that produces a Super Bowl ad owns rights to the product they're advertising, so why would the "Label Advertising Firm?" The label would either get a flat fee or a percentage of sales (as determined by a third party) for the length of the contract. If the artist left or the contract ended, the label would stop getting payments. They would need to find new talent to advertise. They wouldn't get paid for an artist's old songs.
Customers would benefit because it would help to separate a few artists out of the crowd, making it easier to decide whose songs to buy. (Let's face it, most people just buy "Top 10" artists and that's it.) Bands would benefit since they would have their copyright to do with as they please. Labels would survive, but at a much-reduced level. Most of the people who would lose out would be the middle managers of the current labels as the label contracts and reforms itself.
Not only that, but sometimes switching your family members to another browser doesn't "take." My wife's grandmother kept having a problem with spyware. I figured that one cause might be IE, so I set her up with FireFox. I showed her how to use it and off she went.... then came back to me to ask me to put IE back on. (Never was "taken off" but the desktop icon was removed and the defaults were changed.) She just couldn't handle simple things such as "Favorites" being called "Bookmarks." Reluctantly, I restored IE for her. As a counter-point, though, my wife's father uses Firefox now even though he constantly annoys me by calling it "Fox Fire."
Actually, it's worse than that. Any call for rational discussion is equated to supporting child pornography. If a politician opposes a law like this, he's tarred and feathered as a child porn supporter. His opponent in the next election will proclaim left and right that Politician X supports the rights of child porn lovers and wants to sell perverted images of your kids to these monsters. The politician who opposes the law (even if the grounds he opposes it on are just and constitutional) will quickly find himself kicked out of power. The "Anti-Child-Porn-Won't-Someone-Think-Of-The-Children" politician will take his seat and the scales will shift a bit more towards lunacy. Other politicians (not being dumb) will notice this and quickly adjust their stances to protect their jobs. The scales then shatter as everyone rushes to be on the "right side" of the issue.
Other than that, I agree. When these calls go out to give police the ability to do XYZ to catch child porn viewers/producers or to filter the Internet, the thinking part of many peoples' brains shuts down. They don't see how the bill would ever affect them (because they aren't dirty, stinking child porn lovers) and so they support the law. They buy wholeheartedly into the "you've got nothing to fear if you've got nothing to hide" argument. They don't even consider how it can be abused (police falsely accusing someone of child porn as a result of retribution/corruption) and broadened beyond the original scope (if child porn, why not terrorists; if terrorists, why not anti-American sentiment; if anti-American sentiment, why not comments against the President; if not comments against the President, why not negative comments against big businesses...). All they see is black (child porn lovers) and white (those good, decent folk who want to stop the evils of child porn).
Unfortunately, the Internet Graveyard is littered with sites that tried (and failed) to implement micropayment systems. The closest that came to successfully implementing a micropayment system is Paypal. Most of the others went belly-up taking people's deposited money with them. I'm not saying it can't be done and I agree that it is needed, but it's tough to do right.
I've also seen several instances where the newspapers (and/or TV News) take the blog's report and re-report it as 100% accurate news (whether or not it is). Other news outlets then pick up on that first one's reporting and the whole thing snowballs. So blogs can be the starting point that feeds the mainstream media.
You know, not all of us Slashdotters are virgins living in mom and dad's basement. Some of us are married with a few kids. Of course, then we're back to your original definition of "soon." Carry on.
You can go to a judge but chances are he would say to enter into arbitration like your "contract" (the TOS) says. After arbitration, you can decide to appeal to a real court, but - as the Consumerist puts it:
Ad agencies have used photos without model releases in the past. See Virgin Mobile and the Flickr photo: http://www.switched.com/2007/09/21/virgin-mobile-steals-teens-flickr-photo-for-ad/ If they're caught, they'll settle for some undisclosed sum and then go right back to buying photos from Facebook.
The first thing I thought of when I heard that Facebook was giving themselves the right to "sublicense" the content was the Virgin Mobile ad awhile back. An ad agency took a photo from Flickr without the user's permission and without a consent from the girl in the photo. They then used it in a series of ads that the girl and her family found offensive. Virgin Mobile was sued as a result.
Now, supposed this happened with Facebook under the new TOS. I take a photo of someone and post it on my Facebook page. Company X decides that's the perfect photo for their upcoming ads. They license the photo from Facebook and use it in their ads. I and the person in my photo find out about it and we are offended (me that my photo is being used without permission/compensation and the photo subject because they appear in the ads).
What our options be? I, being a Facebook user who has agreed to the TOS, have mandatory arbitration as my only option (another TOS clause). The arbitrator does what arbitrators do over 90% of the time and rules for the company (Facebook) who hired them. The person in the photo can go to the courts, but it would be a lengthy, costly battle whose outcome would be uncertain.
The Virgin Mobile case was clear. The company was wrong to lift the Flickr ad. My Facebook hypothetical situation wouldn't have been so clear.
You wouldn't be able to take them to court at all. You see, that same TOS forces you into mandatory arbitration. So Facebook would choose an arbitrator and you would need to travel to a state of their choosing to meet with the arbitrator that Facebook is paying. The arbitrator would then decide whose side to rule in favor of. Studies have shown that arbitrators rule in favor of the company over 90% of the time so I wouldn't put too much faith in getting a fair shake. And don't go crying to the courts, they've repeatedly upheld arbitrator clauses and judgments. As the Consumerist put it, it's the Worst Choose Your Own Adventure Ever: http://consumerist.com/5148154/mandatory-binding-arbitration-the-worst-choose-your-own-adventure-ever
There were two other points to their TOS change, besides the "rights continue past the closing of the account" that got people riled up:
1. Facebook could sell your uploaded content (including writings, photos, etc) to third parties.
2. Facebook didn't notify users of the TOS change. Instead, you "accepted" the change by continuing to use the service even if you didn't know that the terms had changed.
Combine this with Facebook shutting down accounts for certain actions (like posting breastfeeding photos) and you could get the following situation:
1. User logs in, is unaware that the TOS has changed.
2. User uploads photo to Facebook.
3. Facebook deems photo inappropriate, closes down account.
4. Facebook takes content from the closed account (remember, they own rights to it past account closure) and sell it to an ad agency without the user's approval or notification and without the user/copyright holder being compensated.
Don't like it? Well, you can't take them to court because the TOS binds you to Mandatory Arbitration and who do you think is going to win that? You? Or the company that chooses and pays the arbitrator? (If you answered that you would win, I've got a bridge to sell you.)
That's why you give your child a nickname. Like "Little Bobby Tables." http://xkcd.com/327/
I post the baby photos for the hospital I work in and the two worst names I've seen are: Secret Angel and Everlasting Love. Yes, someone named their child first name "Secret" middle name "Angel" and someone else named their child first name "Everlasting" middle name "Love." What kind of teasing are poor little Secret and Everlasting going to go through?
I've also seen "Bruce Wayne" also (first & middle name), but was disappointed to not see any Batman reference on the kid's photo. At least that kid might have a future as a billionaire who fights crime on the side. ;-)
And, yes, all those names are real. I've made nothing up.