At the public school I attend we are not allowed to use chatrooms on the internet. If I have a question and search engines(and not to mention my teachers) aren't answering it for me, I am not allowed to ask the professors around the world that the internet is supposed to give me access to, for fear of pedaphiles raping me or some bullshit.
Since this is by far the most fantastically stupid thing I've heard or read all day (and believe me -- I hear a lot of really stupid shit), I feel obliged to comment multiple times on it.
Response #1
Whoever you are going to ask probably does not spend all day in their office hanging out on IRC, or worse yet AIM. In fact, IRC and AIM are hardly what I (or many others) would consider educational resources and are probably blocked because if you're using them, it probably means you're fucking around (regardless of whether or not you're talking to pedophiles or your friends) when someone else could actually be doing research.
Response #2
Ever hear of E-mail? If you're going to get in contact with professor, either this or taking a class taught by him is the way to do it (though certainly in my experience neither is a sure bet:)). In fact, short of calling a professor at home, E-mail is probably the best way to contact him and certainly will annoy him the least. They most certainly are not all hanging out in some IRC channel or AIM room. That is simply ridiculous.
Everthing2 has some nasty shit on it. There are a lot of unbelievably uninhibited and irresponsible individuals with some very militantly conservative parents (connection?) in high school in America today, the thoughts of that combined with the liability of unrestricted access probably gives some administrators nightmares -- it's not their fault they're idiots who can't come up with a better solution and don't want to lose their jobs. (Frankly, a better solution would be no internet access, as it's pretty worthless, but that's not the "in" thing. "Internet" = "education" is the in thing, unfortunately coexisting with "internet" = "porn" and "porn" = "bad". But hey, that's life.)
I don't have much time to post this, because I can see someone coming over to my area to check the screens. That's what passes for a censorship network right now.
Actually, the censorship is automatic. Chances are you wouldn't have even been allowed to visit slashdot.
You're exactly right! Actually, almost -- keep in mind public libraries are paid for with taxpayer dollars, and if the taxpayers (through their representatives) don't want those resources being used for porn, then on go the porn filters. Also, it is not US government policy to filter political content -- imagine the outcry if they tried that! Chinese internet cafes are private sector businesses and the chinese government wants to prevent its citizens from seeing anti-prc political content, i.e., "hide the colored chalk"
The biggest difference is that the chinese government is placing a restriction on the private sector- but we do that here too.
Umm, no. Stop making up facts to argue with.
In China you have to be licensed to just use the Internet. And their entire country is behind a filtering proxy. Put up a site with controversial content like, say, Falun Gong or whatever -- you're dead. None of these things are true in the United States. Oh no, so we can't get porn in the public library.
The idea of the Virtual War is a uniquely American contribution to this chilling history. Here was a savvy, spin-conceived conflict if ever there was one: an unequivocally bad dictator pummeled by thousands of superbly-armed American soldiers who suffered few casualties and were led by a General as good with sound bites as he was with a field map.
.
In the overall context of personal and commercial Net traffic, assaultive comments are rare. (Boy, did The Matrix do it better. Piracy, they say, is wrong, and copyright isn't necessarily a bad thing.. Individualism values a humane workplace.
If "Virtual War" has a flaw, it may be in failing to take account the influence of modern media on the shaping of military conflicts. But that's exactly the sensibility that pervades MyVideoGames. military left Vietnam convinced they were undermined as much by grisly TV footage shown at home as by the North Vietnamese. (Read More)
"The spirit of the hacker is one of the great creative wellspings of our time, causing the inanimate circuits to sing with ever more individualized and quirky voices; the spirit of the bard is eternal and irreplaceable, telling us what we are doing here and what we mean to each other. As for the idea of living outside guarded, walled enclaves, that's already more than a fantasy: Just visit Redmond (a name frequently invoked in "Shadowrun") for a couple of days, or Silicon Valley (the epitome of the megacorp enclave from which average folks get driven out) and the idea takes on real meaning. MyVideoGame. The technology we depend on doesn't bring us together.
Pity the cop whose job it is to enforce existing copyright -- tracing and punishing violators -- online.
Slashdot Mirror
Since this is by far the most fantastically stupid thing I've heard or read all day (and believe me -- I hear a lot of really stupid shit), I feel obliged to comment multiple times on it.
Response #1
Whoever you are going to ask probably does not spend all day in their office hanging out on IRC, or worse yet AIM. In fact, IRC and AIM are hardly what I (or many others) would consider educational resources and are probably blocked because if you're using them, it probably means you're fucking around (regardless of whether or not you're talking to pedophiles or your friends) when someone else could actually be doing research.
Response #2
Ever hear of E-mail? If you're going to get in contact with professor, either this or taking a class taught by him is the way to do it (though certainly in my experience neither is a sure bet:)). In fact, short of calling a professor at home, E-mail is probably the best way to contact him and certainly will annoy him the least. They most certainly are not all hanging out in some IRC channel or AIM room. That is simply ridiculous.
Everthing2 has some nasty shit on it. There are a lot of unbelievably uninhibited and irresponsible individuals with some very militantly conservative parents (connection?) in high school in America today, the thoughts of that combined with the liability of unrestricted access probably gives some administrators nightmares -- it's not their fault they're idiots who can't come up with a better solution and don't want to lose their jobs. (Frankly, a better solution would be no internet access, as it's pretty worthless, but that's not the "in" thing. "Internet" = "education" is the in thing, unfortunately coexisting with "internet" = "porn" and "porn" = "bad". But hey, that's life.)
Actually, the censorship is automatic. Chances are you wouldn't have even been allowed to visit slashdot.
There are internet cafes in the US. The US government has yet to force them to filter anti-US poltical content. When I see that I will agree with you.
You're exactly right! Actually, almost -- keep in mind public libraries are paid for with taxpayer dollars, and if the taxpayers (through their representatives) don't want those resources being used for porn, then on go the porn filters. Also, it is not US government policy to filter political content -- imagine the outcry if they tried that! Chinese internet cafes are private sector businesses and the chinese government wants to prevent its citizens from seeing anti-prc political content, i.e., "hide the colored chalk"
Umm, no. Stop making up facts to argue with.
In China you have to be licensed to just use the Internet. And their entire country is behind a filtering proxy. Put up a site with controversial content like, say, Falun Gong or whatever -- you're dead. None of these things are true in the United States. Oh no, so we can't get porn in the public library.
1. That is a point of debate not an accepted universal truth
2. Go home for unrestricted access
3. You won't be shot for trying to circumvent it
. In the overall context of personal and commercial Net traffic, assaultive comments are rare. (Boy, did The Matrix do it better. Piracy, they say, is wrong, and copyright isn't necessarily a bad thing.. Individualism values a humane workplace. If "Virtual War" has a flaw, it may be in failing to take account the influence of modern media on the shaping of military conflicts. But that's exactly the sensibility that pervades MyVideoGames. military left Vietnam convinced they were undermined as much by grisly TV footage shown at home as by the North Vietnamese. (Read More) "The spirit of the hacker is one of the great creative wellspings of our time, causing the inanimate circuits to sing with ever more individualized and quirky voices; the spirit of the bard is eternal and irreplaceable, telling us what we are doing here and what we mean to each other. As for the idea of living outside guarded, walled enclaves, that's already more than a fantasy: Just visit Redmond (a name frequently invoked in "Shadowrun") for a couple of days, or Silicon Valley (the epitome of the megacorp enclave from which average folks get driven out) and the idea takes on real meaning. MyVideoGame. The technology we depend on doesn't bring us together.
Pity the cop whose job it is to enforce existing copyright -- tracing and punishing violators -- online.
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