Ignoring the obvious troll in your message... NPR and PBS have served an important purpose: providing a balance, however small, to the biases of corporate television news.
Reasonable people can object to spending government money on such a project --- and the news infrastructure of the internet may in the near future make it no longer so much of an issue --- but the idea that, say, CBS is a better news source than NPR is absurd.
Membership in ANY community is largely self-selecting: you are a member if you believe you are, as long as the other people who believe themselves to be members don't kick you out.
Cost of change is an issue. My hausmate and I were talking about this last night, in particular about how purchasers can use customized software to talk to software that distributors are using --- it looks like a few years down the line (two or three) there will be standardized interfaces of some sort for this type of thing, driven largely by the big companies demanding that their partners use what they want to use, and forcing all of the small companies to go along.
What I'm concerned about, and the economist didn't mention this (They wouldn't) is this: all of this internetworking in the business world means efficiency gains, but it also means that the people currently doing by hand the things the software will do faster and better have to be retrained for something else. Who is going to retrain this army of purchasing department bureaucrats, and to do what?
I think the issue is less where you as an individual buy things, but where the companies you are buying from buy them.
Imagine a world where the local coffee shop buys the toilet paper for its bathroom from some toilet paper vendor on the internet, and has a device in the closet that automagically re-orders when there are only three rolls left (or some such). Or a supermarket inventory system that knows when it has fewer than six cases of budweiser left in the store it's time to submit an order to the anheuser-busch distributor web page, and does it for the store, without any human intervention.
For businesses, this could be a godsend. The consumer won't even notice... but that's sort of hte point, isn't it?
Ever use a search engine? Quite a bit of the returned links are porn sites. (A notable exception is Google.)
This is primarily because the vendors of porn sites, knowing the limited algorithms by which search engines work, abuse the system by placing META tags for other subjects into their pages.
As a user of search engines, I find this annoying even when porn isn't involved. But there's hope: this month's Scientific American has a very good article on two competing attempts to make intelligent search engines, one of them (not google) by analyzing link density.
If these pan out, search engines might actually be useful again in a year or two.:)
Christians believe one thing about the nature of the spirit world; I believe another. Honest Christians can back up their belief with spiritual experiences that I can explain via my beliefs, and vice-versa --- I think, fundamentally, we're experiencing the same thing and simply interpreting it differently.
I don't like a lot of Christian _politics_, as it feels designed to force someone else's worldview on me... but I've only rarely met Christians who wished to do that. They all have to pay the price for the deplorable actions of a few that generate a reputation the rest can't live down.
Re:There were so many other problems too
on
Episode II Rumours
·
· Score: 1
3. In the other films, Yoda was the master trainer of all Jedis. Obi Wan said that he thought he could train Anakin as well as Yoda but was wrong. Now in TPM, we have atraining system of masters and apprentices. Seems inconsistent.
Not really. In the other films, Yoda was the master trainer of all Jedis because he was the only one left --- and Obi-Wan, who is training Anakin over the objections of Yoda, simply expresses regret for having made that decision.
6. Why did TPM use an army of droids, while the other movies use armies of soldiers?
The basic problem with filtering porn from libraries is the question of how porn is defined.
Filtering engines are _stupid_. That's not to say the idea of filtering per se is, just that the level of technological acuity that these things can reach is such that it's next to impossible to avoid accidentally filtering out things which aren't, arguably, pornographic. A lot of jokes were made about the filter two years ago or so which would have blocked out discussions of breast cancer recovery (blocking was triggered by the frequent occurance of the word 'breast'); the thread about the Australian law included an interesting pointer to the results that failed when someone ran a dictionary through search software that was inhibited by a filter. ('Knight' returned no hits, presumably because knights play a big role in pornographic stories).
The danger is that such side effects are an inescapable result of attempting to ban 'pornography'. Whether such a ban in and of itself would be good is irrelevant... because that ban significantly would significantly limit access to other things.
Is it the role of the state to tell me what information I can and can't have access to?
Would you be paying sales tax to Florida, or would you be paying sales tax to California?
A workable scheme would be this: each vendor collects sales tax and keeps a record of what percentage goes to which state. They pay the taxes to their local state, and pass along the information about how its supposed to be distributed, and then once a year or so there are massive interstate transfers to make sure the money ends up in the hands of the right state government.
[This is essentially what happens now, as residents of certain states have to pay sales tax on things purchased from catalogs, etc, from outside of their states --- it would just get standardized across the entire country, which would reduce the costs to businesses.]
Unfortunately, the Federal Government does have legal authority to tax the internet: this authority derives from its power to regulate interstate commerce.
Absent the rest of the world, rationalization of sales tax as applied to the internet would most likely be a good thing --- one standard rule would make it much easier for vendors who right now are legally required to provide sales tax when purchases are made by residents of certain states, and not others. And it will prevent the day when some local bookstore, say, decides to sue the _state_ government on the grounds that it's a deprivation of equal protection under the fourteenth amendment for sales in retail stores to be taxed while sales online are not taxed.
That said, this misses the fundamental problem: if I buy $500 a month in books from amazon.com, and am not now paying sales tax, and the US government adopts rules that would require me to, what keeps me from transferring my $500/month to amazon.uk, in which case I wouldn't have to pay sales tax (again)?
I think probably in 4-5 years we'll see a massive movement among the governments of the industrialized world to bring their policies regarding on-line commerce into synch --- which will just mean that people who don't want to follow those rules move to places like Tonga. Still, since shipping from Tonga is expensive...
It summed up what you were feeling at the time, so it seemed reasonable to say it --- no matter the cost to the credibility of the next guy who tries to say the same thing in a nicer way?
There's an old saying about flies, vinegar, and honey. What should maybe be added to the saying is that a fly, once encrusted with vinegar, tends to distrust the honey thereafter.
> but its just sad to see them parade this > (unpleasant, granted)behaviour as Linux > specific.
The problem is that the Linux community, and our software, is more vulnerable to being damaged by adverse reactions to this kind of behavior than other communities/software are.
I know, because I spent years doing technical support in various capacities, that end users of every product in the world can generate this sort of unpleasantness --- but the very nature of the open source movement lends itself to a subtle loophole that enemies of the movement can exploit.
One of the great features of open source projects is that the users of the software can modify it to meet their own needs. The users, in essence, become the developers. In this context, that means that whereas normally users of software generate these flames, there is an implication that the _developers_ of open source software are generating these flames. And since, in the corporate world, sending mail like this would be considered highly unprofessional, reasonable IT managers can be forgiven for wondering, in what other ways are the developers of Linux unprofessional? And can people with such low regard for professional standards be trusted to write the systems on which my business depends?
This thinking operates below the surface, on a semi-rational, emotional plane: it is the instinctive reaction of conservative tribes unaccustomed to, and unable to deal with, massive sudden change. But it's nevertheless very, very real... and Linux is way more likely to trigger it than anything else, both because it's scary to those locked into the Windows world to begin with, and because by promoting the idea that users are developers, Linux becomes more vulnerable to the acts of deranged users than the average software.
I understand your metaphor --- but the problem is that the issue is, in a sense, the opposite.
If government money is spent enabling speech --- which, if the state is paying for the computer to be in the library, it is --- is it censorship to discriminate against certain types of speech based upon their content?
The ideologically pure response to this is to say "government money shouldn't be spent enabling speech." But sine the government has decided it's good to do that, we move on to this question. It's a tough one, because it's pretty much absurd to require the government to pay for a Hitler's birthday rally if it pays for a Cinco de Mayo celebration --- yet, at the same time, it would be clearly not acceptable for a public radio station to devote itself entirely to either environmentalism or a prohibitionist revival without at least attempting to give time to the opposing viewpoint.
How does this relate? By paying for internet access and computers and then restricting that access based on content, the state is essentially behaving no differently than it does when it funds radio and television stations, and then restricts their programming based on content (which it can't do).
It seems like you are saying that propoganda works because people are deliberately ignorant.
I think it's more true that people are (deliberately or not) not paying attention because of the propoganda.
When television, radio, and newspapers all blare either outright lies or half-truths designed to make you want or not want to buy particular things; when there is no reasonable way to rate the veracity of a source of information; when your experience tells you to trust neither politicians nor reporters because they're invariably wrong...
why should you pay attention to the news if you can't believe it anyway?
I will grant that almost all of the Christians I know are nice, friendly, generous, helpful people. That said, many of the nice friendly generous helpful Christians I know now, as an adult, believe that I, as a non-Christian, should be required by law to adhere to the tenets of their religion.
I have no problem with Christians who believe deeply, who have undergone a serious spiritual transformation and become a better person for it. What bothers me is people who won't give me my own spiritual space --- and when I see that the government has approved _posting a Christian religious text in state offices_, I feel like that's exactly what has happened.
This is an interesting argument: is it worse for the state to engage in propoganda campaigns, or for private companies to engage in propoganda campaigns? Which, ultimately, does the most harm to society?
(In other words, who do you trust more, the federal government or microsoft, time warner, and the coca-cola corporation?)
Unfortunately, as much as I dislike the posting of the 10 commandments in schools, on this one most of the Congress _is_ in touch with the people they represent. I know a lot of people that think this is a good idea --- a frightening number of people who believe that if we just taught our children to be good Christians, all the world's problems would go away.
It makes me sad, in a way, and on another level offends me --- every time that something like this passes I feel as if my government is telling me it would be happier if I moved somewhere else.
What I think got missed in Brin's article, and also is missed in most of the response to this, is highlighted by your post:
Phantom Menace significantly changed the subtext of the Star Wars story. The original trilogy could clearly be seen as attempting to inspire everyone to live up to the heroic mythos; the introduction of midichlorians shattered that by saying that only those who have some special trait need apply.
It's not Star Wars that's creepy... it's what the Phantom Menace DID to Star Wars. Or could have done: as it was only the opening chapter, the jury should still be out.
What's really interesting about that, though, is how the things that Borland must do are things that, realistically speaking, Borland was going to do anyway...
I think his point is that, if you're going to post inflammatory stuff like this, you at least ought to have the balls to do it under your own name and not hide behind the name of 'anonymous coward'.
My first thought when I heard the announcement was "my God! I'm now a foot soldier for the evil empire!" along with wondering about whether this was a sign I should be wandering along.
I've calmed down a bit from the exhaustion of last night, though, and so here's my take [heavy disclaimer: there are a lot of things I don't know, as I'm not in management.]
It's a good thing. It does NOT give MS active control of the company, or even passive control. It gives us a lot of cash --- $125 million is nothing to MS --- equal to almost 2/3 of our annual revenue. We now have resources; we have the room to breathe, and to try innovative things again.
You bring up an interesting point: under the existing US legal regime, are sites like slashdot which provide some form of moderation legally responsible for content? IOW, if someone were to post child pornography here, would the existence of a moderation system cause slashdot to be legally required to remove the post?
The impression I got from the articles is that an idea which is reasonably established in American law --- that ISPs are essentially functioning as common carriers, and if they do not engage in selectively blocking based upon content, then they are not responsible for content --- is not established in UK law, and demon is frightened that the legal apparatus in that country may go the other way.
If that's true, this may be nothing more than a temporary tactical manuever --- better not to fly in the face of the court when it's looking hard at you. On the other hand, or maybe this is the same hand, if their fear is justified, then there will suddenly be problems: UK law and US law will directly conflict (1), and there will be a place where ISPs are responsible for content (2), which is frightening.
I think instead of getting annoyed at Demon, we should all be screaming at the UK justice system...
Slashdot Mirror
Ignoring the obvious troll in your message ... NPR and PBS have served an important purpose: providing a balance, however small, to the biases of corporate television news.
Reasonable people can object to spending government money on such a project --- and the news infrastructure of the internet may in the near future make it no longer so much of an issue --- but the idea that, say, CBS is a better news source than NPR is absurd.
Isn't that the point?
Membership in ANY community is largely self-selecting: you are a member if you believe you are, as long as the other people who believe themselves to be members don't kick you out.
Cost of change is an issue. My hausmate and I were talking about this last night, in particular about how purchasers can use customized software to talk to software that distributors are using --- it looks like a few years down the line (two or three) there will be standardized interfaces of some sort for this type of thing, driven largely by the big companies demanding that their partners use what they want to use, and forcing all of the small companies to go along.
What I'm concerned about, and the economist didn't mention this (They wouldn't) is this: all of this internetworking in the business world means efficiency gains, but it also means that the people currently doing by hand the things the software will do faster and better have to be retrained for something else. Who is going to retrain this army of purchasing department bureaucrats, and to do what?
I think the issue is less where you as an individual buy things, but where the companies you are buying from buy them.
... but that's sort of hte point, isn't it?
Imagine a world where the local coffee shop buys the toilet paper for its bathroom from some toilet paper vendor on the internet, and has a device in the closet that automagically re-orders when there are only three rolls left (or some such). Or a supermarket inventory system that knows when it has fewer than six cases of budweiser left in the store it's time to submit an order to the anheuser-busch distributor web page, and does it for the store, without any human intervention.
For businesses, this could be a godsend. The consumer won't even notice
Ever use a search engine? Quite a bit of the returned links are porn sites. (A notable exception is Google.)
This is primarily because the vendors of porn sites, knowing the limited algorithms by which search engines work, abuse the system by placing META tags for other subjects into their pages.
As a user of search engines, I find this annoying even when porn isn't involved. But there's hope: this month's Scientific American has a very good article on two competing attempts to make intelligent search engines, one of them (not google) by analyzing link density.
If these pan out, search engines might actually be useful again in a year or two.
What's the point in insulting Christians? *grin*
... but I've only rarely met Christians who wished to do that. They all have to pay the price for the deplorable actions of a few that generate a reputation the rest can't live down.
Christians believe one thing about the nature of the spirit world; I believe another. Honest Christians can back up their belief with spiritual experiences that I can explain via my beliefs, and vice-versa --- I think, fundamentally, we're experiencing the same thing and simply interpreting it differently.
I don't like a lot of Christian _politics_, as it feels designed to force someone else's worldview on me
3. In the other films, Yoda was the master trainer of all Jedis. Obi Wan said that he thought he could train Anakin as well as Yoda but was wrong. Now in TPM, we have atraining system of masters and apprentices. Seems inconsistent.
Not really. In the other films, Yoda was the master trainer of all Jedis because he was the only one left --- and Obi-Wan, who is training Anakin over the objections of Yoda, simply expresses regret for having made that decision.
6. Why did TPM use an army of droids, while the other movies use armies of soldiers?
Technological decline. Standard-issue fall-from-greatness mythology.
The basic problem with filtering porn from libraries is the question of how porn is
... because that ban significantly would significantly limit access to other things.
defined.
Filtering engines are _stupid_. That's not to
say the idea of filtering per se is, just
that the level of technological acuity that
these things can reach is such that it's
next to impossible to avoid accidentally
filtering out things which aren't, arguably,
pornographic. A lot of jokes were made about
the filter two years ago or so which would
have blocked out discussions of breast cancer
recovery (blocking was triggered by the
frequent occurance of the word 'breast');
the thread about the Australian law included
an interesting pointer to the results that
failed when someone ran a dictionary through
search software that was inhibited by a filter.
('Knight' returned no hits, presumably
because knights play a big role in pornographic
stories).
The danger is that such side effects are an inescapable result of attempting to ban 'pornography'. Whether such a ban in and of itself would be good is irrelevant
Is it the role of the state to tell me what information I can and can't have access to?
Would you be paying sales tax to Florida, or would you be paying sales tax to California?
A workable scheme would be this: each vendor
collects sales tax and keeps a record of what
percentage goes to which state. They pay the
taxes to their local state, and pass along
the information about how its supposed to be
distributed, and then once a year or so
there are massive interstate transfers to make
sure the money ends up in the hands of the
right state government.
[This is essentially what happens now,
as residents of certain states have to
pay sales tax on things purchased from
catalogs, etc, from outside of their states ---
it would just get standardized across the
entire country, which would reduce the
costs to businesses.]
Unfortunately, the Federal Government does have legal authority to tax the internet: this authority derives from its power to regulate interstate commerce.
...
Absent the rest of the world, rationalization of
sales tax as applied to the internet would most
likely be a good thing --- one standard rule
would make it much easier for vendors who
right now are legally required to provide
sales tax when purchases are made by residents
of certain states, and not others. And it will
prevent the day when some local bookstore, say,
decides to sue the _state_ government on the
grounds that it's a deprivation of equal
protection under the fourteenth amendment
for sales in retail stores to be taxed
while sales online are not taxed.
That said, this misses the fundamental problem:
if I buy $500 a month in books from amazon.com,
and am not now paying sales tax, and the
US government adopts rules that would require me
to, what keeps me from transferring my $500/month
to amazon.uk, in which case I wouldn't have to
pay sales tax (again)?
I think probably in 4-5 years we'll see a massive
movement among the governments of the industrialized world to bring their policies
regarding on-line commerce into synch --- which
will just mean that people who don't want to
follow those rules move to places like
Tonga. Still, since shipping from Tonga is
expensive
It summed up what you were feeling at the time,
so it seemed reasonable to say it --- no matter
the cost to the credibility of the next guy
who tries to say the same thing in a nicer way?
There's an old saying about flies, vinegar, and honey. What should maybe be added to the saying
is that a fly, once encrusted with vinegar,
tends to distrust the honey thereafter.
> but its just sad to see them parade this > (unpleasant, granted)behaviour as Linux
... and Linux is way more likely
> specific.
The problem is that the Linux community, and
our software, is more vulnerable to being
damaged by adverse reactions to this kind of
behavior than other communities/software are.
I know, because I spent years doing technical
support in various capacities, that end users
of every product in the world can generate
this sort of unpleasantness --- but the very
nature of the open source movement lends itself
to a subtle loophole that enemies of the
movement can exploit.
One of the great features of open source projects
is that the users of the software can modify
it to meet their own needs. The users, in essence,
become the developers. In this context, that
means that whereas normally users of software
generate these flames, there is an implication that the _developers_ of open source software are generating these flames. And since, in the corporate world, sending mail like this would be considered highly unprofessional, reasonable IT managers can be forgiven for wondering, in what other ways are the developers of Linux unprofessional? And can people with such low regard for professional standards be trusted to write the systems on which my business depends?
This thinking operates below the surface, on
a semi-rational, emotional plane: it is the
instinctive reaction of conservative tribes
unaccustomed to, and unable to deal with,
massive sudden change. But it's nevertheless
very, very real
to trigger it than anything else, both because
it's scary to those locked into the Windows
world to begin with, and because by promoting
the idea that users are developers, Linux becomes
more vulnerable to the acts of deranged users
than the average software.
I understand your metaphor --- but the problem is that the issue is, in a sense, the opposite.
If government money is spent enabling speech --- which, if the state is paying for the computer to be in the library, it is --- is it censorship to discriminate against certain types of speech based upon their content?
The ideologically pure response to this is to say "government money shouldn't be spent enabling speech." But sine the government has decided it's good to do that, we move on to this question. It's a tough one, because it's pretty much absurd to require the government to pay for a Hitler's birthday rally if it pays for a Cinco de Mayo celebration --- yet, at the same time, it would be clearly not acceptable for a public radio station to devote itself entirely to either environmentalism or a prohibitionist revival without at least attempting to give time to the opposing viewpoint.
How does this relate? By paying for internet access and computers and then restricting that access based on content, the state is essentially behaving no differently than it does when it funds radio and television stations, and then restricts their programming based on content (which it can't do).
It seems like you are saying that propoganda works because people are deliberately ignorant.
...
I think it's more true that people are (deliberately or not) not paying attention because of the propoganda.
When television, radio, and newspapers all blare either outright lies or half-truths designed to make you want or not want to buy particular things; when there is no reasonable way to rate the veracity of a source of information; when your experience tells you to trust neither politicians nor reporters because they're invariably wrong
why should you pay attention to the news if you can't believe it anyway?
Josh,
I'm sorry you feel like I'm slapping you around.
I will grant that almost all of the Christians I know are nice, friendly, generous, helpful people. That said, many of the nice friendly generous helpful Christians I know now, as an adult, believe that I, as a non-Christian, should be
required by law to adhere to the tenets of their religion.
I have no problem with Christians who believe deeply, who have undergone a serious spiritual transformation and become a better person for it. What bothers me is people who won't give me my own spiritual space --- and when I see that the government has approved _posting a Christian religious text in state offices_, I feel like that's exactly what has happened.
This is an interesting argument: is it worse for the state to engage in propoganda campaigns, or for private companies to engage in propoganda campaigns? Which, ultimately, does the most harm to society?
(In other words, who do you trust more, the federal government or microsoft, time warner, and the coca-cola corporation?)
Unfortunately, as much as I dislike the
posting of the 10 commandments in schools,
on this one most of the Congress _is_ in
touch with the people they represent. I
know a lot of people that think this is a
good idea --- a frightening number of people
who believe that if we just taught our
children to be good Christians, all the
world's problems would go away.
It makes me sad, in a way, and on another
level offends me --- every time that
something like this passes I feel as if
my government is telling me it would be
happier if I moved somewhere else.
What I think got missed in Brin's article, and
... it's what
also is missed in most of the response to this,
is highlighted by your post:
Phantom Menace significantly changed the subtext
of the Star Wars story. The original trilogy
could clearly be seen as attempting to inspire
everyone to live up to the heroic mythos;
the introduction of midichlorians shattered
that by saying that only those who have some
special trait need apply.
It's not Star Wars that's creepy
the Phantom Menace DID to Star Wars. Or could
have done: as it was only the opening
chapter, the jury should still be out.
Well, I can't bind the company; i'm
not in management.
But I will bind myself to do anything in my
power to prevent it.
What's really interesting about that, though, ...
is how the things that Borland must do are things that, realistically speaking, Borland was going to do anyway
I think his point is that, if you're going
to post inflammatory stuff like this, you
at least ought to have the balls to do it
under your own name and not hide behind
the name of 'anonymous coward'.
-Robert West
Delphi QA
My first thought when I heard the announcement was "my God! I'm now a foot soldier for the evil empire!" along with wondering about whether this was a sign I should be wandering along.
I've calmed down a bit from the exhaustion of last night, though, and so here's my take
[heavy disclaimer: there are a lot of things I don't know, as I'm not in management.]
It's a good thing. It does NOT give MS active control of the company, or even passive control. It gives us a lot of cash --- $125 million is nothing to MS --- equal to almost 2/3 of our annual revenue. We now have resources; we have the room to breathe, and to try innovative things again.
I can promise you that that wn't happen.
You bring up an interesting point: under the existing US legal regime, are sites like slashdot which provide some form of moderation legally responsible for content? IOW, if someone were to post child pornography here, would the existence of a moderation system cause slashdot to be legally required to remove the post?
The impression I got from the articles is that an idea which is reasonably established in American law --- that ISPs are essentially functioning as common carriers, and if they do not engage in selectively blocking based upon content, then they are not responsible for content --- is not established in UK law, and demon is frightened that the legal apparatus in that country may go the other way.
...
If that's true, this may be nothing more than a temporary tactical manuever --- better not to fly in the face of the court when it's looking hard at you. On the other hand, or maybe this is the same hand, if their fear is justified, then there will suddenly be problems: UK law and US law will directly conflict (1), and there will be a place where ISPs are responsible for content (2), which is frightening.
I think instead of getting annoyed at Demon, we should all be screaming at the UK justice system