From what I managed to glean in between the times I fell asleep reading the Librarian of Congress' document, the comment about Mac and Linux users being stranded by developers doesn't hold up, and therefore shouldn't need to be used for an exemption.
The logic behind this is twofold. First, the marketplace will fix it. After all, licensed DVD players for Linux are under development, and if not, there is obviously a commercial niche for it, and someone will take advantage of it sooner or later. Second, there are other ways to watch DVDs, and that the preference to watch it on your homegrown Linux box is simply a preference, and it doesn't have to be law. It actually stated that machines can be configured to be dual-bootable, and if you want to watch DVDs on your computer, you can boot to Windows or any other operating system with a licensed player, and be fine with it all. Or, you could simply pop the disk in your TV and player; there are options for you to watch DVDs, none of them are esoteric or difficult enough to warrant an exemption for your personal preference.
Incidentally, this is probably a matter where the logic of the situation runs afoul of your average Linux diehard's chosen morality. You want to stay Microsoft free, but you also want to watch DVDs on your 'puter. You want to not have to buy a commercial Linux DVD player. The Librarian pretty much said, "Tough. Deal with it; you know there's no such thing as a free lunch."
You said:
The congress after this election will be so closely split between the two parties that
consensus will be hard to reach. There aren't going to be enough swing votes in congress to
allow either party to accomplish much.
Perhaps this is what we actually need as a nation, what we could use that would be beneficial for the citizenry as a whole. If, for two or four years, Congress couldn't agree with itself enough to pass any more bad laws (DMCA, CDA, etc.), and if the corporations backing Congress couldn't force it to decide, ultimately, one way or the other, on any major issue, it might be a boon.
Think about it; Congress does nothing for a term or two, because it is too evenly divided to do so. The newer generation of laws will go through their legal challenges and get stricken down or upheld, ultimately by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, though, Americans get upset with the stagnation of Congress (which will finally become apparent to everyone, not just those with an IQ higher than their shoe size), and demand change, whether with their votes, their voluntary political contributions, or messages to their representatives. Or all three.
Perhaps a split Congress is what we'll need. It won't fix the idiots that don't realize the system isn't anywhere near as healthy as the Founding Fathers designed it to be, but it may finally show that to enough people for it to make a difference.
And even if this scenario doesn't play out, at least we won't have unnecessary and destructive laws passed on the national scale. I'd love to see a Congressional term where the Tenth Amendment were upheld, whether it's from enlightened politicians or a simple inability to pass a single law.
--Ryan
Re:Getting Past the Censorware with Long Ip's
on
Mandated Mediocrity
·
· Score: 1
Wouldn't a site using relative links, as opposed to absolutes, be spared when linking to its own content?
If I'm at http://domain.tld/index.html (through whatever methods), and it contains an href to "page2.html", won't it go there without bothering you with the rest of the absolute URL?
1) Do you believe that the Federal Government, in any and all of its forms, has been adhering as strictly to the Tenth Amendment as it is supposed to and ceding rights and privledges to the states or the people, even if 'national security' were at stake? If so, how can any trampling of the states' and peoples' rights be mended by your Presidency?
2) As a politician, you are a public figure, and perhaps worse, you are forced to censor your own speech and your own actions in order to keep your job. Do you feel that this is putting an undue burden on your bid for the Presidency? Would you much rather be yourself entirely, and not feel or project to voters that you are holding back some aspects of your ideals and personality?
From what I understand, it is perfectly legal to take someone's trash and distribute it how you want, especially in this situation.
A) They knew their voice was being recorded, and they gave permission by talking to the answering machine. Otherwise, they would have hung up.
B) The machine's original owner gave the tape, freely, to a third party, to do with as they see fit.
Incidentally, the same is prety much true of people's trash in general. You take an item, put it outside and entrust it to a third party. The third party might be liable for damages incurred because of negligence, but the person who gets the item from the third party should be perfectly legally scot-free.
-Ryan
Instead of a show where the winner gets sent to Mir, how about having one (especially for those of us who hate these kinds of 'fad' shows) where people are stuck all over the world in Mir's projected descent ring, with the loser having to stand outside with a catcher's mitt?
Better yet, since they seem so concerned by the ratings, and most of us hate them, why not populate the projected path with executives from TV networks and advertising agencies? I'd sit down to watch, hell, I'd even *pay* good money to see *that*!
I'll be one of the first to agree that a physical presence for shared experiences is a great thing to have, and I think it pretty easily establishes the idea of 'community' more than a string of text can, for most people.
The caveat is that the 'virtual community' was designed by people who either were ahead of their time, in realizing that you didn't need that flesh-to-flesh contact to establish a community or set human interaction, or unable or unwilling to perform same in the real world they had their backs turned towards as they typed and programmed away. They learned they could exchange wonderful ideas with each other, make friends, and socialize in a way that wasn't burdened by the overhead of communication in the physical world; no body language misinterpretations, no encrypted voice intonation, no social graces to be forced into, just pure communication. If such overhead is wanted, it can be added quickly and cheaply. IMHO, LOL, etc.
What happens then, I would think, is that without the need or inclination towards physical interaction, they found their own ways to establish relationships and communications with other people (arguably, one of the key ends of a 'community' - community and communication share the same root word, after all).
Nowadays, though, we're trying to bridge the gap, and what seems to happen is that one side of the gap, all these geeks, nerds, techies, etc. claim that what they and their predecessors have established is their own version of 'community', their own rules for social interaction. And they don't mesh with those that think that you have to have a handshake and a hug to proclaim someone friend.
The truth is, both sides are right. It is wonderful to have people to go to a movie with, help try out a new restaurant, or just hang out with. But (and this is coming from a geek at heart), sometimes you just want the direct communication, without the overhead (which can be much more important to those who etablish these 'virtual communities'). So, you pop online, drop in IRC, ICQ, AIM, whatever, and bug around with the 'community' you've established.
While there may have been a noticable Green turn in the other party platforms, it doesn't necessarily mean that those platforms will be adhered to after the election; it may just represent an attempt to steal more votes away from one party, without making an effort to adhere to the reason behind the Green ideals.
It's really the difference I see between a platform and an agenda. Parties use platforms to reach out and grab as many votes as they can. If they succeed, they stick to their agenda and accomplish what they really want done. "If we seem to move slightly towards the Green way of thinking, we'll knock loose their votes, pick them up, and then continue on with our plans anyway."
For this reason, votes for unpopular parties can be wasted; you may just be shifting the way the major parties are going to try to steal your vote away. If you really want to count, make sure you spread the word about your way of thinking; do what you can to advance the party that you agree with, don't just vote blindly for it.
I'm mainly speaking of my perceptions of our wonderful American system, though. It might be different in the U.K., but the cynic in me doubts that quite a bit.
You're right; the scope and power of the Supreme Court is growing at an alarming rate, but I don't think it's any worse than that of Congress or the office of the Presidency.
What truly worries me, though, is how easily Congress passes and has passed laws that should be beyond the scope of its range (under the Tenth Amendment); how easily the sitting President ushers the laws into existance without glancing through with the most critical of eyes; and worst of all, how no law gets challenged until it is used against someone who knows better.
We could blame it on party politics and the desire for compromise so that both sides get what they want from new legislation, over-lobbying, or any other myriads of reasons, but the error ultimately lies in us for not paying attention to what happens after we walk out of the voting booth.
I haven't checked yet (although I think I might now), but when is the last time anyone claimed in a Federal courthouse that a law Congress does something that was forbidden it?
If we're going to cast someone as the Scarecrow, I've always felt Tom Petty had _the_ look to do it. Maybe not the voice though; anyone have better suggestions?
The way IM has always been ranked, from what I can tell, is by the number of users. Hence, AOL's ICQ software (remember a year or two ago when AOL bought Mirabilis and Netscape?), with its 8 million or so users, and its AIM software, which connects to the rest of AOL proper, with its 22 million users, gives AOL dominance with 30 million plus users. I think third place is Yahoo!, with 1 million, and the rest of the crew garnering about 2 million total. I'm interested to know just how many of the 22 million AOL subscribers actually use the Buddy List/AIM feature.
Besides, even though AOL is by far dominant, it doesn't mean they have the best services or the best protocols. They still haven't managed to mesh their two main services together, and I doubt it's because they *___don't* want to have up to 30 milion users all IMing each other using one simple program to do, rather than continuing to work on developing and supporting two separate systems.
If they can work that out to their satisfaction, they just might open up the floodgates and let everyone else hook up to them. The PR from such a stunt could easily be reason enough to do it, especially with the Gov't breathing down their necks about Time Warner already.
It's not that more bandwidth would be a bad thing, at all. The point is that I2 seems to be developed specifically for non-archival (I should probably say research) uses, while the original Internet (I1?) will still be around to transfer archived data, like it does now. The sum total data that makes up the current state in a VR setting really can't be archived and transmitted later without potentially ruining the entire point of the VR project. However, your HDTV quality video can, and there's really no need for that to be put on the I2 network - it's something that can be delayed. If you want Mauna Kea's information, you'd be able to get access to the data via I1, just like with I2, but without unnecessarily clogging the I2 pipes being used to control and move the data between the telescope and the researchers using it at the moment. As time progresses, bandwidth will increase for both systems, and it can be used on I1 easily to gather all this archived (and real-time non-research) data, and on I2 to help create all the data that would later be archived.
It's not that the Internet is going away; it won't be replaced by I2, no matter how hard anyone tries; it will probably run alongside and complimentary to I2. What could easily happen, though, is that the function of I2 could get usurped, like what happened with the original ideal of the Internet, requiring the academic/research circles to find another way to share large amounts of non-archivable data, as their system is quickly eaten away by transfer of archivable data.
'They' might have made special 'requests' of I2 and IPv6. Even with these problems, though, there is probably one very good way around it. I'm going to divurge and talk about IPv6 mainly, but I think the analogy will apply to I2 as well.
The IPv4 implementation for BSD (and the Linux derivitive, I think) were written by true hackers who ___had to know the workings of IPv4 inside and out in order to get it to work on their system. I think it's relatively safe to say that they would have found any hooks or areas of concern rather quickly, having worked so intimately with the protocols.
IPv6 will undoubtedly have the same effect going for it. Someone has to (had?) develop the BSD and GNU/Linux implementations of IPv6. The people most likely to do this aren't the same people that would keep such hooks and 'security measures' hidden from everyone. In fact, they'd probably be much more likely to tell everyone how the protocol works than would governmental or corporate developers.
Maybe it's an unspoken advantage of open-source; it takes more work to pull the wool over the public's eyes than it is worth not to have done the Right Thing to begin with.
I think we've stumbled upon the problem here. As has been mentioned countless times, it's the quality of the service you're downloading, not the speed at which you do it or the distance the data travels.
Theoretically, we could download the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, using the 1000X line, in 15 seconds. But why? There should be no point to doing so. If you need to research railroads, you download the articles you need, not the entire 26 volume set. Even using a 56K modem, you could most likely get plain text of most everything EB has to offer on railroads in a couple of minutes, and there wouldn't be anything stopping you from starting your reading as soon as that first byte of data comes in. Archive the data you need; not what you don't.
I'm willing to guess (it was implied in the article, at least) that this why I2 was developed; not for your standard day-to-day file scouring and so you can read today's Brunching or PvP Online, but for real-time access to what would normally be impossible data to share. Immediate access and participation in immersive 3d VR simulations. Immediate access and participation in Mauna Kea's observations. Information that isn't useful if archived.
That's the key point, I think. The academic circles needed something to make research less bound by geography, and this looks like it. Why does everyone else think it's a good idea to hop on and ruin it for them?
Slashdot Mirror
Nah. Last I checked, the rest of the world doesn't get a vote in the electoral college.
:->
Whaddaya know... the system actually did something right for once!
What?
Better than the Internet?
Wouldn't that just be free, cheap, high-quality porn delivered without any long waits while downloading?
From what I managed to glean in between the times I fell asleep reading the Librarian of Congress' document, the comment about Mac and Linux users being stranded by developers doesn't hold up, and therefore shouldn't need to be used for an exemption.
The logic behind this is twofold. First, the marketplace will fix it. After all, licensed DVD players for Linux are under development, and if not, there is obviously a commercial niche for it, and someone will take advantage of it sooner or later. Second, there are other ways to watch DVDs, and that the preference to watch it on your homegrown Linux box is simply a preference, and it doesn't have to be law. It actually stated that machines can be configured to be dual-bootable, and if you want to watch DVDs on your computer, you can boot to Windows or any other operating system with a licensed player, and be fine with it all. Or, you could simply pop the disk in your TV and player; there are options for you to watch DVDs, none of them are esoteric or difficult enough to warrant an exemption for your personal preference.
Incidentally, this is probably a matter where the logic of the situation runs afoul of your average Linux diehard's chosen morality. You want to stay Microsoft free, but you also want to watch DVDs on your 'puter. You want to not have to buy a commercial Linux DVD player. The Librarian pretty much said, "Tough. Deal with it; you know there's no such thing as a free lunch."
You said:
The congress after this election will be so closely split between the two parties that
consensus will be hard to reach. There aren't going to be enough swing votes in congress to
allow either party to accomplish much.
Perhaps this is what we actually need as a nation, what we could use that would be beneficial for the citizenry as a whole. If, for two or four years, Congress couldn't agree with itself enough to pass any more bad laws (DMCA, CDA, etc.), and if the corporations backing Congress couldn't force it to decide, ultimately, one way or the other, on any major issue, it might be a boon.
Think about it; Congress does nothing for a term or two, because it is too evenly divided to do so. The newer generation of laws will go through their legal challenges and get stricken down or upheld, ultimately by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, though, Americans get upset with the stagnation of Congress (which will finally become apparent to everyone, not just those with an IQ higher than their shoe size), and demand change, whether with their votes, their voluntary political contributions, or messages to their representatives. Or all three.
Perhaps a split Congress is what we'll need. It won't fix the idiots that don't realize the system isn't anywhere near as healthy as the Founding Fathers designed it to be, but it may finally show that to enough people for it to make a difference.
And even if this scenario doesn't play out, at least we won't have unnecessary and destructive laws passed on the national scale. I'd love to see a Congressional term where the Tenth Amendment were upheld, whether it's from enlightened politicians or a simple inability to pass a single law.
--Ryan
Wouldn't a site using relative links, as opposed to absolutes, be spared when linking to its own content?
If I'm at http://domain.tld/index.html (through whatever methods), and it contains an href to "page2.html", won't it go there without bothering you with the rest of the absolute URL?
Or do people even use relative URLS anymore?
I've got a pair here:
1) Do you believe that the Federal Government, in any and all of its forms, has been adhering as strictly to the Tenth Amendment as it is supposed to and ceding rights and privledges to the states or the people, even if 'national security' were at stake? If so, how can any trampling of the states' and peoples' rights be mended by your Presidency?
2) As a politician, you are a public figure, and perhaps worse, you are forced to censor your own speech and your own actions in order to keep your job. Do you feel that this is putting an undue burden on your bid for the Presidency? Would you much rather be yourself entirely, and not feel or project to voters that you are holding back some aspects of your ideals and personality?
--Ryan
From what I understand, it is perfectly legal to take someone's trash and distribute it how you want, especially in this situation. A) They knew their voice was being recorded, and they gave permission by talking to the answering machine. Otherwise, they would have hung up. B) The machine's original owner gave the tape, freely, to a third party, to do with as they see fit. Incidentally, the same is prety much true of people's trash in general. You take an item, put it outside and entrust it to a third party. The third party might be liable for damages incurred because of negligence, but the person who gets the item from the third party should be perfectly legally scot-free. -Ryan
Instead of a show where the winner gets sent to Mir, how about having one (especially for those of us who hate these kinds of 'fad' shows) where people are stuck all over the world in Mir's projected descent ring, with the loser having to stand outside with a catcher's mitt?
Better yet, since they seem so concerned by the ratings, and most of us hate them, why not populate the projected path with executives from TV networks and advertising agencies? I'd sit down to watch, hell, I'd even *pay* good money to see *that*!
I'll be one of the first to agree that a physical presence for shared experiences is a great thing to have, and I think it pretty easily establishes the idea of 'community' more than a string of text can, for most people.
The caveat is that the 'virtual community' was designed by people who either were ahead of their time, in realizing that you didn't need that flesh-to-flesh contact to establish a community or set human interaction, or unable or unwilling to perform same in the real world they had their backs turned towards as they typed and programmed away. They learned they could exchange wonderful ideas with each other, make friends, and socialize in a way that wasn't burdened by the overhead of communication in the physical world; no body language misinterpretations, no encrypted voice intonation, no social graces to be forced into, just pure communication. If such overhead is wanted, it can be added quickly and cheaply. IMHO, LOL, etc.
What happens then, I would think, is that without the need or inclination towards physical interaction, they found their own ways to establish relationships and communications with other people (arguably, one of the key ends of a 'community' - community and communication share the same root word, after all).
Nowadays, though, we're trying to bridge the gap, and what seems to happen is that one side of the gap, all these geeks, nerds, techies, etc. claim that what they and their predecessors have established is their own version of 'community', their own rules for social interaction. And they don't mesh with those that think that you have to have a handshake and a hug to proclaim someone friend.
The truth is, both sides are right. It is wonderful to have people to go to a movie with, help try out a new restaurant, or just hang out with. But (and this is coming from a geek at heart), sometimes you just want the direct communication, without the overhead (which can be much more important to those who etablish these 'virtual communities'). So, you pop online, drop in IRC, ICQ, AIM, whatever, and bug around with the 'community' you've established.
When did I get stuck in tirade mode?
While there may have been a noticable Green turn in the other party platforms, it doesn't necessarily mean that those platforms will be adhered to after the election; it may just represent an attempt to steal more votes away from one party, without making an effort to adhere to the reason behind the Green ideals.
It's really the difference I see between a platform and an agenda. Parties use platforms to reach out and grab as many votes as they can. If they succeed, they stick to their agenda and accomplish what they really want done. "If we seem to move slightly towards the Green way of thinking, we'll knock loose their votes, pick them up, and then continue on with our plans anyway."
For this reason, votes for unpopular parties can be wasted; you may just be shifting the way the major parties are going to try to steal your vote away. If you really want to count, make sure you spread the word about your way of thinking; do what you can to advance the party that you agree with, don't just vote blindly for it.
I'm mainly speaking of my perceptions of our wonderful American system, though. It might be different in the U.K., but the cynic in me doubts that quite a bit.
You're right; the scope and power of the Supreme Court is growing at an alarming rate, but I don't think it's any worse than that of Congress or the office of the Presidency.
What truly worries me, though, is how easily Congress passes and has passed laws that should be beyond the scope of its range (under the Tenth Amendment); how easily the sitting President ushers the laws into existance without glancing through with the most critical of eyes; and worst of all, how no law gets challenged until it is used against someone who knows better.
We could blame it on party politics and the desire for compromise so that both sides get what they want from new legislation, over-lobbying, or any other myriads of reasons, but the error ultimately lies in us for not paying attention to what happens after we walk out of the voting booth.
I haven't checked yet (although I think I might now), but when is the last time anyone claimed in a Federal courthouse that a law Congress does something that was forbidden it?
If we're going to cast someone as the Scarecrow, I've always felt Tom Petty had _the_ look to do it. Maybe not the voice though; anyone have better suggestions?
The way IM has always been ranked, from what I can tell, is by the number of users. Hence, AOL's ICQ software (remember a year or two ago when AOL bought Mirabilis and Netscape?), with its 8 million or so users, and its AIM software, which connects to the rest of AOL proper, with its 22 million users, gives AOL dominance with 30 million plus users. I think third place is Yahoo!, with 1 million, and the rest of the crew garnering about 2 million total. I'm interested to know just how many of the 22 million AOL subscribers actually use the Buddy List/AIM feature.
Besides, even though AOL is by far dominant, it doesn't mean they have the best services or the best protocols. They still haven't managed to mesh their two main services together, and I doubt it's because they *___don't* want to have up to 30 milion users all IMing each other using one simple program to do, rather than continuing to work on developing and supporting two separate systems.
If they can work that out to their satisfaction, they just might open up the floodgates and let everyone else hook up to them. The PR from such a stunt could easily be reason enough to do it, especially with the Gov't breathing down their necks about Time Warner already.
--Ryan
It's not that more bandwidth would be a bad thing, at all. The point is that I2 seems to be developed specifically for non-archival (I should probably say research) uses, while the original Internet (I1?) will still be around to transfer archived data, like it does now. The sum total data that makes up the current state in a VR setting really can't be archived and transmitted later without potentially ruining the entire point of the VR project. However, your HDTV quality video can, and there's really no need for that to be put on the I2 network - it's something that can be delayed. If you want Mauna Kea's information, you'd be able to get access to the data via I1, just like with I2, but without unnecessarily clogging the I2 pipes being used to control and move the data between the telescope and the researchers using it at the moment. As time progresses, bandwidth will increase for both systems, and it can be used on I1 easily to gather all this archived (and real-time non-research) data, and on I2 to help create all the data that would later be archived.
It's not that the Internet is going away; it won't be replaced by I2, no matter how hard anyone tries; it will probably run alongside and complimentary to I2. What could easily happen, though, is that the function of I2 could get usurped, like what happened with the original ideal of the Internet, requiring the academic/research circles to find another way to share large amounts of non-archivable data, as their system is quickly eaten away by transfer of archivable data.
'They' might have made special 'requests' of I2 and IPv6. Even with these problems, though, there is probably one very good way around it. I'm going to divurge and talk about IPv6 mainly, but I think the analogy will apply to I2 as well.
The IPv4 implementation for BSD (and the Linux derivitive, I think) were written by true hackers who ___had to know the workings of IPv4 inside and out in order to get it to work on their system. I think it's relatively safe to say that they would have found any hooks or areas of concern rather quickly, having worked so intimately with the protocols.
IPv6 will undoubtedly have the same effect going for it. Someone has to (had?) develop the BSD and GNU/Linux implementations of IPv6. The people most likely to do this aren't the same people that would keep such hooks and 'security measures' hidden from everyone. In fact, they'd probably be much more likely to tell everyone how the protocol works than would governmental or corporate developers.
Maybe it's an unspoken advantage of open-source; it takes more work to pull the wool over the public's eyes than it is worth not to have done the Right Thing to begin with.
I think we've stumbled upon the problem here. As has been mentioned countless times, it's the quality of the service you're downloading, not the speed at which you do it or the distance the data travels.
Theoretically, we could download the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, using the 1000X line, in 15 seconds. But why? There should be no point to doing so. If you need to research railroads, you download the articles you need, not the entire 26 volume set. Even using a 56K modem, you could most likely get plain text of most everything EB has to offer on railroads in a couple of minutes, and there wouldn't be anything stopping you from starting your reading as soon as that first byte of data comes in. Archive the data you need; not what you don't.
I'm willing to guess (it was implied in the article, at least) that this why I2 was developed; not for your standard day-to-day file scouring and so you can read today's Brunching or PvP Online, but for real-time access to what would normally be impossible data to share. Immediate access and participation in immersive 3d VR simulations. Immediate access and participation in Mauna Kea's observations. Information that isn't useful if archived.
That's the key point, I think. The academic circles needed something to make research less bound by geography, and this looks like it. Why does everyone else think it's a good idea to hop on and ruin it for them?