If I were making marketing decisions for Sony's entertainment branch, I'd want to make sure we didn't see any of these ludicrous shortages... by making sure there were enough machines to meet that demand, even if it means pushing back release dates. Scenes of people camping overnight in front of stores; of actual fights over PS2s (remember the Tickle Me Elmos?); and of online auctions at incredibly inflated prices are sure cues that you're not moving enough product! I mean, if it's as good as you claim it is, customers wouldn't mind a delay if it means guaranteed availability.
No, on the other hand, France and much of the EU, as referred to in the parent posting, could be construed as 'not getting the point'. Criminalizing the possession of Nazi memorabilia seems a rather petty (not to mention pathetic) reaction to something that happened sixty years ago. Besides, it could be construed as an attempt to erase Hitler and his antics from collective memory, and we all know the fate of those who forget history, don't we? Look, memorabilia is one thing. Actually emulating Krystallnacht, etc. is something else entirely (assault and battery, property damage, and murder are illegal; it doesn't matter what ethnicity the victim is).
And don't even think of bringing gun ownership into the issue. Ownership of a gun does not a criminal make, either... in fact, I recall that many jurisdictions that cracked down on provate citizens' gun ownership (in an effort to reduce crime) actually saw an _increase_ in crime - reference articles under newsmax.com under the topic 'Guns/Gun Control'.
...but 'absoloutely no'. No sane service agreement should ever allow the host/ISP to crawl through a subscriber's space and remove things at will and with nothing in the way of notice. Such arbitrary power is far too open to abuse, period. On the flip side of the coin, neither should the host/ISP be held legally responsible for whatever its subscribers make available.
No, I don't think so. It is my opinion that the ruling in question has no basis in any sane reality. For one thing, it is technically impractical (as far as I know) for a web site to deny itself to certain countries. Two (as has been said so many times) nobody owns the Net, so this kind of unilateral action is at best legally dubious. Never mind that preventing people from accessing a site just because of where they are could well be grounds for a discrimination suit... and we all know that those are no fun.
On a larger issue, this knee-jerk reaction to Nazism that seems so endemic in Europe is hardly constructive... more like sticking one's head in the sand rather than facing history head-on and coping. Oh, and did I forget that you can't on the one hand claim democracy while on the other suppressing ideas you don't like?
While, as oldzoot said, leaks "have probably helped prevent things from being even worse than they are with regards to bureaucratic excess and violations of laws and personal freedoms", one must at the same time be cognizant of the harm that can be wrought by certain information falling into the wrong hands. A prime instance being the identities of undercover agents (DEA, FBI, whatever) in the field. Far too often people decrying secrecy are unaware or uninterested in the consequences of such disclosure.
Blowing the whistle on excesses and illegalities is one thing; endangering national security is another... secrecy legislation has to recognize those two facts and walk a very fine line indeed. That being said, it is good that this recent proposal was kicked back into the spawning pool.
That's all I really have to say. Making all that fuss over a piece of software just because of the design company CEO's religious affiliation? Quite childish, indeed. It also leaves one wide open for a discrimination lawsuit.
Besides... this sounds like the sort of thing a certain now-dead Austrian ex-corporal would have pulled back in the bad old days.
My advice to the people who made that decision: grow up.
Personally, I think schools' attempts to gag these 'gossip' sites (which, if the operators are smart, were set up without any use of school resources) ridiculous. That Columbine and its ilk keep being brought up as arguments is equally ridiculous - in fact, this censorship might well fuel the next batch of shooters... and you never know, they might go chemical.
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If I were making marketing decisions for Sony's entertainment branch, I'd want to make sure we didn't see any of these ludicrous shortages... by making sure there were enough machines to meet that demand, even if it means pushing back release dates. Scenes of people camping overnight in front of stores; of actual fights over PS2s (remember the Tickle Me Elmos?); and of online auctions at incredibly inflated prices are sure cues that you're not moving enough product! I mean, if it's as good as you claim it is, customers wouldn't mind a delay if it means guaranteed availability.
No, on the other hand, France and much of the EU, as referred to in the parent posting, could be construed as 'not getting the point'. Criminalizing the possession of Nazi memorabilia seems a rather petty (not to mention pathetic) reaction to something that happened sixty years ago. Besides, it could be construed as an attempt to erase Hitler and his antics from collective memory, and we all know the fate of those who forget history, don't we? Look, memorabilia is one thing. Actually emulating Krystallnacht, etc. is something else entirely (assault and battery, property damage, and murder are illegal; it doesn't matter what ethnicity the victim is).
And don't even think of bringing gun ownership into the issue. Ownership of a gun does not a criminal make, either... in fact, I recall that many jurisdictions that cracked down on provate citizens' gun ownership (in an effort to reduce crime) actually saw an _increase_ in crime - reference articles under newsmax.com under the topic 'Guns/Gun Control'.
No, I don't think so. It is my opinion that the ruling in question has no basis in any sane reality. For one thing, it is technically impractical (as far as I know) for a web site to deny itself to certain countries. Two (as has been said so many times) nobody owns the Net, so this kind of unilateral action is at best legally dubious. Never mind that preventing people from accessing a site just because of where they are could well be grounds for a discrimination suit... and we all know that those are no fun.
On a larger issue, this knee-jerk reaction to Nazism that seems so endemic in Europe is hardly constructive... more like sticking one's head in the sand rather than facing history head-on and coping. Oh, and did I forget that you can't on the one hand claim democracy while on the other suppressing ideas you don't like?
While, as oldzoot said, leaks "have probably helped prevent things from being even worse than they are with regards to bureaucratic excess and violations of laws and personal freedoms", one must at the same time be cognizant of the harm that can be wrought by certain information falling into the wrong hands. A prime instance being the identities of undercover agents (DEA, FBI, whatever) in the field. Far too often people decrying secrecy are unaware or uninterested in the consequences of such disclosure.
Blowing the whistle on excesses and illegalities is one thing; endangering national security is another... secrecy legislation has to recognize those two facts and walk a very fine line indeed. That being said, it is good that this recent proposal was kicked back into the spawning pool.
That's all I really have to say. Making all that fuss over a piece of software just because of the design company CEO's religious affiliation? Quite childish, indeed. It also leaves one wide open for a discrimination lawsuit. Besides... this sounds like the sort of thing a certain now-dead Austrian ex-corporal would have pulled back in the bad old days. My advice to the people who made that decision: grow up.
Personally, I think schools' attempts to gag these 'gossip' sites (which, if the operators are smart, were set up without any use of school resources) ridiculous. That Columbine and its ilk keep being brought up as arguments is equally ridiculous - in fact, this censorship might well fuel the next batch of shooters... and you never know, they might go chemical.
Force the hapless target system to calculate pi to some obscenely high decimal place.