I don't want the government to be my ISP, and I really don't like the implications of having a net connection that is so directly controlled by the government. The fact that filtering is even mentioned at all suggests what a potentially bad idea this really is. Filtering, surveillance and the displacement of unfiltered commercial alternatives? No thanks.
"'Reverse primary thrust, Marvin,' that's what they say to me, 'open airlock number three, Marvin. Marvin, can you pick up that piece of paper?' Can I pick up that piece of paper! Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper!"
"But I'm quite used to being humiliated. I can even go and stick my head in a bucket of water if you like. Would you like me to go and stick my head in a bucket of water? I've got one ready. Wait a minute."
"The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline."
The second phase of the project will expand the network and wireless coverage to more than 430 square miles surrounding the city with an estimated annual cost savings of over $1 million for city residents, who can discontinue their existing internet service.
I'm sorry, but the idea of putting the government in charge of my communications channels is truly frightening. Once your government becomes your ISP, it becomes that much easier to sneak in all sorts of nasty acceptable use, content filtering, and traffic monitoring policies, both official and unofficial. The last thing I want is for government-run broadband to displace commercial alternatives.
I'm also concerned about wireless oversaturation: radio frequencies can only sustain so many users and providers, and I'm not sure I want the government to be the one that takes up most of the available space.
"An auction's afoot (no pun intended) to see who we'll be partnering with us to integrate their businesses and brands into our binary product distribution - the possibilities are limitless: people tend to print those documents, fax them, copy them, project them (and I know this annoys my friends in the free software community, but branding allows us to invest more in OO.o community and features, from which everyone benefits)."
Does this mean Sun intends to place ads on the documents I "fax... copy... [and] project"? Ads in my documents?
However it is the right of governments to decide what they make public and not.
So, in theory, a government that keeps its people in the dark about everything it does is just exercising its "right" to decide what not to make public?
They may think that's what they're doing, but it's not. Without randomly assigning half the children to a "play violent video games" group and the other half to a "no violent video games" control group, there's no way to tell whether the playing of violent video games is just another "symptom" of some other underlying cause.
That still doesn't show causation, because a kid's change in his gaming habits could itself be due to a natural increase in overall agression. You'd have to make kids play violent video games to distinguish between correlation and causation.
"People cannot yell, spank, or otherwise discipline their children in public places because some do gooder will freak out and claim its abuse."
If parents are to have the right to strike their children whenever they misbehave, children too should have the right to strike their parents when they misbehave. Cheat on mom with another woman? *slap* Couldn't go to the kid's little league game because you got drunk with your buddies last night? *slap* Didn't do the dishes last night? *slap*... etc.
If there exists no route from me to another server on the Internet and the reason that route doesn't exist is due to my ISP, I say that ISP has violated Net Neutrality. However, since as far as I know Net Neutrality currently has no legal definition, this is purely an issue of network ethics rather than an issue of law.
1. It bugs me that Google had to settle in the first place. Google shouldn't need permission to scan books for archival purposes, provided those copies aren't distributed to the public. Furthermore, allowing the public to search these archives should be treated as fair use.
2. Insofar as the plaintiffs raise legitimate points concerning the use of scanned material, this settlement should not grant Google an imploed license to the works of those who don't explicitly opt-in, but the class action settlement is such that you have to opt out. This is bad. No third party should ever have the power to license my works to another party without my explicit say so. That's an exclusive right granted to me as an author.
I had recently been posting to a board that uses BBCode, so I got confused. By the time I chose not to hit the preview button, it was already too late:).
The government forced broadcasters to adopt a more limited spectrum, and what we get in return is huge corporations like Google and Microsoft wanting to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Spaces_Coalition]take over the newly freed spectrum[/url] for profit?
And it becomes an excuse for greater use of "non-lethal" force, much like the Taser has already done.
As far as countries with bad human rights records go, well, if the wealthy first world countries develop this technology first, then they can make a point of selling only Asimov type robots.
When I said these robots might become a problem in the hands of "governments that wish to strike down on protestors and others who engage in peaceful civil disobedience", I was in fact thinking of places such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other first-world countries.
Having robots deal with uncooperative subjects could ultimately help keep police safer, but unfortunately it creates a major imbalance of power. The use of robots in this manner could become a real problem in the hands of governments that wish to strike down on protestors and others who engage in peaceful civil disobedience. The prospects are truly frightening, although I suppose in the end protestors will figure out a way to build an army of unarmed, uncooperative robots to take the place of unarmed, uncooperative citizens.
The Government is clearly lying about their intentions with this! They don't want to prevent another King's Cross, or 9/11-type attack through this latest move to enhanced ability to conduct surveillance. They just want to listen in on my phone calls!"
Microsoft must be truly scared by the prospect of widespread adoption of open source office software. The question now is, what can the open source community do to prevent another OOXML-type situation? How will interested parties prevent Microsoft from engaging in its usual "embrace, extend and extinguish" behavior?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't want the government to be my ISP, and I really don't like the implications of having a net connection that is so directly controlled by the government. The fact that filtering is even mentioned at all suggests what a potentially bad idea this really is. Filtering, surveillance and the displacement of unfiltered commercial alternatives? No thanks.
"'Reverse primary thrust, Marvin,' that's what they say to me, 'open airlock number three, Marvin. Marvin, can you pick up that piece of paper?' Can I pick up that piece of paper! Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper!"
"But I'm quite used to being humiliated. I can even go and stick my head in a bucket of water if you like. Would you like me to go and stick my head in a bucket of water? I've got one ready. Wait a minute."
"The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline."
That's hardly the degree of involvement I'm concerned about.
I'm sorry, but the idea of putting the government in charge of my communications channels is truly frightening. Once your government becomes your ISP, it becomes that much easier to sneak in all sorts of nasty acceptable use, content filtering, and traffic monitoring policies, both official and unofficial. The last thing I want is for government-run broadband to displace commercial alternatives.
I'm also concerned about wireless oversaturation: radio frequencies can only sustain so many users and providers, and I'm not sure I want the government to be the one that takes up most of the available space.
Does this mean that companies which develop keylogging software for law enforcement use are breaking the law? No? Didn't think so.
It shouldn't be illegal to write this kind of software, but it should be illegal to install it without either the owner's consent or a proper warrant.
From Jonathan Schwartz's Blog:
"An auction's afoot (no pun intended) to see who we'll be partnering with us to integrate their businesses and brands into our binary product distribution - the possibilities are limitless: people tend to print those documents, fax them, copy them, project them (and I know this annoys my friends in the free software community, but branding allows us to invest more in OO.o community and features, from which everyone benefits)."
Does this mean Sun intends to place ads on the documents I "fax ... copy ... [and] project"? Ads in my documents?
If so, it's goodbye OpenOffice.org!
That reminds me of the story behind Monopoly. Corporate greed at its worst.
The design of Lego bricks is functional. It should never have been a trademark to begin with.
So, in theory, a government that keeps its people in the dark about everything it does is just exercising its "right" to decide what not to make public?
They may think that's what they're doing, but it's not. Without randomly assigning half the children to a "play violent video games" group and the other half to a "no violent video games" control group, there's no way to tell whether the playing of violent video games is just another "symptom" of some other underlying cause.
That still doesn't show causation, because a kid's change in his gaming habits could itself be due to a natural increase in overall agression. You'd have to make kids play violent video games to distinguish between correlation and causation.
"People cannot yell, spank, or otherwise discipline their children in public places because some do gooder will freak out and claim its abuse."
If parents are to have the right to strike their children whenever they misbehave, children too should have the right to strike their parents when they misbehave. Cheat on mom with another woman? *slap* Couldn't go to the kid's little league game because you got drunk with your buddies last night? *slap* Didn't do the dishes last night? *slap*... etc.
If there exists no route from me to another server on the Internet and the reason that route doesn't exist is due to my ISP, I say that ISP has violated Net Neutrality. However, since as far as I know Net Neutrality currently has no legal definition, this is purely an issue of network ethics rather than an issue of law.
This is what the world might look like without Net Neutrality.
Damn. I meant to post that as an Anonymous Coward.
Press OK to Finnish?
1. It bugs me that Google had to settle in the first place. Google shouldn't need permission to scan books for archival purposes, provided those copies aren't distributed to the public. Furthermore, allowing the public to search these archives should be treated as fair use.
2. Insofar as the plaintiffs raise legitimate points concerning the use of scanned material, this settlement should not grant Google an imploed license to the works of those who don't explicitly opt-in, but the class action settlement is such that you have to opt out. This is bad. No third party should ever have the power to license my works to another party without my explicit say so. That's an exclusive right granted to me as an author.
I had recently been posting to a board that uses BBCode, so I got confused. By the time I chose not to hit the preview button, it was already too late :).
The government forced broadcasters to adopt a more limited spectrum, and what we get in return is huge corporations like Google and Microsoft wanting to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Spaces_Coalition]take over the newly freed spectrum[/url] for profit?
And it becomes an excuse for greater use of "non-lethal" force, much like the Taser has already done.
When I said these robots might become a problem in the hands of "governments that wish to strike down on protestors and others who engage in peaceful civil disobedience", I was in fact thinking of places such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other first-world countries.
Having robots deal with uncooperative subjects could ultimately help keep police safer, but unfortunately it creates a major imbalance of power. The use of robots in this manner could become a real problem in the hands of governments that wish to strike down on protestors and others who engage in peaceful civil disobedience. The prospects are truly frightening, although I suppose in the end protestors will figure out a way to build an army of unarmed, uncooperative robots to take the place of unarmed, uncooperative citizens.
Perhaps not.
Right. Because governments would never take a law designed to fight terrorism and use it against innocent citizens. Bah.
The people who modded up your post must be lacking their irony detection gene.
Microsoft must be truly scared by the prospect of widespread adoption of open source office software. The question now is, what can the open source community do to prevent another OOXML-type situation? How will interested parties prevent Microsoft from engaging in its usual "embrace, extend and extinguish" behavior?
"You know, I suggest you read up a bit on moral reasoning; there are writings going back millennia."
You have quite a talent for saying nothing at all while making it seem like you have a point.