Ok, where to start. Yes, your comments on censorship are well taken - it is an extremely ineffective means of stopping clever, malicious people from gaining information. However, by limiting access to information, what you do is force the average terrorist into certain avenues of getting it - by asking for it, for example. Keep in mind that intelligence agencies are less software filters and spy satellites than they are a network of people. If a terrorist wants information and doesn't step very, very carefully, he's almost certain to trigger flags (informants warned to look for 'suspicious behavior') and draw attention to himself. This is what intelligence agencies do. It's the better part of their effectiveness. And tell me you don't honestly believe *kidnapping* someone with valuable and dangerous information is a clever way to avoid agency scrutiny. Reducing commonly available sources of information doesn't make it unavailale, it makes it harder to get without drawing attention.
Secondly, yes, censorship (and let's draw a distinction between self and government) stifles development, innovation, you name it. Will self-censorship expand into 'draconian censorship law?' No, we're not talking about the same thing here - not in principle, at any rate. If a community of professionals decides the public should know something and the government supersedes this decision, then I can see there being an issue. If a group of scientists decides to keep certain material unpublished, then they're ensuring that development occurs in specific and publicly unavailable areas, which is incidentally where it's already occuring. It just might stifle some researcher's vauable insight, but keep in mind information is a tool, in that its proper use depends much upon the user. And lack of a highly specialized tool might not stop you from doing something, just make it much harder. Denying the tool to all is not a perfect answer - it is an extremely poor one, with unfortunate repercussions. But it is, in principle, a means of reducing risk. And so long it is conducted by a group of people with, frankly, a better understanding than you or I of the impact of its release, I would have to say it's most likely a necessary evil.
Does anyone know if there are plans to release the movie/series on DVD (think "Director's cut")? Dune was hyped as one might expect a feature-length film to be, and I can't see how a USA subsidiary would fail to capitalize on all the attendent benefits of the money-making machine.
Did I like it? Yeah, despite the hammy acting, incongruent special effects and threadbare character development. In case some need their memories jostled, even halfway decent science fiction films are a rare commodity - refusing to suspend disbelief won't miraculously make the genre flourish. Besides, 20 million is really not that much when you're constructing a 6-hour movie - not that money is the litmus test for quality, mind you.
Perfect for the computer industry - create an ice replica of your latest innovation and leave it in a visible place. When it's melted, you know your product is obsolete and you can go back to the drawing board. Repeat as necessary.
- Idle hands are the Devil's workshop. Idle minds are God's.
Right. A ten thousand dollar table that'll save you the horrible labor of setting the table yourself. Personally, I think some people vastly overvalue the worth of their free time...
Re:The tech culture DOES remember its roots
on
Technoromanticism
·
· Score: 1
I find myself agreeing on most counts, but as far as I can tell, the gist of JonKatz' summary is that Coyne argues that the _narratives_ which dominate our impressions of the internet are grounded in priciples established (or at least reiterated) in the Enlightenment. Rephrased: the myth of a global forum (and it is largely a myth, as far as I'm concerned), in its electronic incarnation is the realization of a classical (as opposed to modern) ideal. Most people appear to be disputing the validity of said myth, which is quite laughably invalid, when perhaps they should be arguing if the myth might potentially inform the creation of a genuinely worldwide exchange (arguably a work in progress). I'd make and break the argument myself, but I'd have to make it via praxis and "institutional forgetting" and given that it's a Friday night, I don't much feel like it.
Apologies if the post seems disjointed or off-topic; the book review itself is a somewhat short and vague for such a broad and complex subject.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, where to start. Yes, your comments on censorship are well taken - it is an extremely ineffective means of stopping clever, malicious people from gaining information. However, by limiting access to information, what you do is force the average terrorist into certain avenues of getting it - by asking for it, for example. Keep in mind that intelligence agencies are less software filters and spy satellites than they are a network of people. If a terrorist wants information and doesn't step very, very carefully, he's almost certain to trigger flags (informants warned to look for 'suspicious behavior') and draw attention to himself. This is what intelligence agencies do. It's the better part of their effectiveness. And tell me you don't honestly believe *kidnapping* someone with valuable and dangerous information is a clever way to avoid agency scrutiny. Reducing commonly available sources of information doesn't make it unavailale, it makes it harder to get without drawing attention.
Secondly, yes, censorship (and let's draw a distinction between self and government) stifles development, innovation, you name it. Will self-censorship expand into 'draconian censorship law?' No, we're not talking about the same thing here - not in principle, at any rate. If a community of professionals decides the public should know something and the government supersedes this decision, then I can see there being an issue. If a group of scientists decides to keep certain material unpublished, then they're ensuring that development occurs in specific and publicly unavailable areas, which is incidentally where it's already occuring. It just might stifle some researcher's vauable insight, but keep in mind information is a tool, in that its proper use depends much upon the user. And lack of a highly specialized tool might not stop you from doing something, just make it much harder. Denying the tool to all is not a perfect answer - it is an extremely poor one, with unfortunate repercussions. But it is, in principle, a means of reducing risk. And so long it is conducted by a group of people with, frankly, a better understanding than you or I of the impact of its release, I would have to say it's most likely a necessary evil.
Does anyone know if there are plans to release the movie/series on DVD (think "Director's cut")? Dune was hyped as one might expect a feature-length film to be, and I can't see how a USA subsidiary would fail to capitalize on all the attendent benefits of the money-making machine. Did I like it? Yeah, despite the hammy acting, incongruent special effects and threadbare character development. In case some need their memories jostled, even halfway decent science fiction films are a rare commodity - refusing to suspend disbelief won't miraculously make the genre flourish. Besides, 20 million is really not that much when you're constructing a 6-hour movie - not that money is the litmus test for quality, mind you.
Perfect for the computer industry - create an ice replica of your latest innovation and leave it in a visible place. When it's melted, you know your product is obsolete and you can go back to the drawing board. Repeat as necessary. - Idle hands are the Devil's workshop. Idle minds are God's.
Right. A ten thousand dollar table that'll save you the horrible labor of setting the table yourself. Personally, I think some people vastly overvalue the worth of their free time...
I find myself agreeing on most counts, but as far as I can tell, the gist of JonKatz' summary is that Coyne argues that the _narratives_ which dominate our impressions of the internet are grounded in priciples established (or at least reiterated) in the Enlightenment. Rephrased: the myth of a global forum (and it is largely a myth, as far as I'm concerned), in its electronic incarnation is the realization of a classical (as opposed to modern) ideal. Most people appear to be disputing the validity of said myth, which is quite laughably invalid, when perhaps they should be arguing if the myth might potentially inform the creation of a genuinely worldwide exchange (arguably a work in progress). I'd make and break the argument myself, but I'd have to make it via praxis and "institutional forgetting" and given that it's a Friday night, I don't much feel like it. Apologies if the post seems disjointed or off-topic; the book review itself is a somewhat short and vague for such a broad and complex subject.