Finally, true freedom of speech. What I find interesting is all the people that "supposedly" like freedom of speech until they begin thinking that anything can be said and then they become very Politically Correct about what should be free and what shouldn't be. Interestingly, this is mirroring American Politics and the attempts of Federal, State, and City goverments trying to limit this type of speech or that type of speech. Everyone is becoming a victim of someone else's freedom of speech.
What's funny is here is America Free Speech is a RIGHT!!! Whether that speech is hateful towards a group or is critical of the/a goverment at least our forefathers knew that and they accepted it because they felt that all speech has to be free in order for a society is to consider itself free. People have arguements whether that is correct or not but the reality is that free speech has been under attack for over a century in one form or another.
FreeNet is to give complete freedom over what you say. Whether you own it or are anonymous with it you still have the complete freedom to say it without retribution. That is what Freedom of Speech is all about. And is also one of the primary reasons that not even the Supreme Court wants to limit that kind of freedom on the internet. Anyone can say anything and no one institution has control over it. But does it stop the goverment from trying to limit it, even with two dead CDA bills, no, they now are trying to force issues with the ISP. The FBI is trying to get more generalized, rather then specific, rights to commandiere any computer with information that they suspect might be on a computer because of, oh my, terrorists or child pornographers.
When did American's want the goverment to keep a close eye on them? For over two hundred years people have flocked to America because thought control, and other basic freedoms, were considered of paramount importance. Now when technology begins to aid in securing those rights to freedom people begin to worry about the "criminals" and this is wrong because I don't like this speech it hurts me - because I'm a victim.
Is that the biggest conspiracy the goverment has created. Without creating it. Proproganda is still proproganda and anyone who believes that a goverment cares about freedom of speech but within reason, is a person blind to censorship.
Of course the really superb thing about FreeNet is that it is completly non-American and is truly about complete freedom!!
Long live FreeNet - finally true Freedom can exist!
Slowly the freedom to do anything is being taken away by the AOLPolice!! As well as the rest of the lobbyists, goverment, MPAA, RIAA! The internet is slowly turning into a police state. This is just the first!!
I guess it's time to start rethinking the Net in general. Is it possible to build an alternate network of computers using just non-commerical computers via a VPN. Redistribute an alternate web run by and for private citizens via that private network. Where anonynimity is truly key. Considering in someways that is what these product do. And if no one knows who you are and they can't necessarily find out what is on who's system wouldn't it become harder to sue the entire network since there would be no single person with control?
Yes it is!! And Jon makes an interesting point about how corporations our dispensing culture to us. We are the ones that buy into this censored culture by listening to the radio, loving a song, and paying for the CD. When something is new on that radio we, in some ways, believe that we found a hot new band. Usually, the band is not new it's just they finally got a distribution deal with a big label that can control what is heard on the radio because that band was able to show a following that was a good cross-section of society that the music label wanted to exploit. Slowly, these bands are pressured for more number 1 songs so that they will continue to be played on the radio and sell more albums. Usually, the sound of the band has changed and fans leave and call this same band a group of sell outs. The reality is the fans turned them into sell outs.
It's also interesting that the artists that are taking the side of the music industry are high dollar/high profile artists that sell a ton of cd's but have a deal in which they own most of their own music.
But what of the smaller bands that have a hold of the underground (ie: no label, or small label with no clout with the radio stations) do they want us to download their music. YES!!! The more people freely exchange their music the more of a fan base they build up. The question for them is - do they stay true to their fans and their own music or are they trying to get that big record deal to become rich?? And do we want to love them only to hate them when they reach the top for that almighty dollar??
The reason why I don't read newspapers is the same reason I don't watch TV news, or listen to the radio, or read news magazines. They all are very biased reports. Rather than reporting just facts too many reporters add their opinion. That's fine for an op ed piece but not when I'm reading the news. Also, they all follow trends that are duplicated over and over and over with really no value to what is being reported. A lil Monica anyone.
I stick to reading the AP wire. It seems to have less opinion and more fact and I'm able to discern more clearly the facts of a story. But even that is skewed in the sense of what is being reported. Each news item I look at I ask myself a few questions: 1. What are the facts of the story? 2. Did the story tell me how something occurred based on facts or are those blanks just being filled by supposition? 3. Did the title of the article really capture what the article is about or was it just something flashy do get me to read the article? 4. Is the article giving an opinion of the editor, reporter, publisher? 5. Is the story just plan sensationalistic and more to provoke an emotional reaction?
For you newspapers guys look at Columbine. Rather than reporting the facts or verifying eyewitnesses facts (since no two people perceive the samething) or even truly just reporting - you go into areas of discussion. See those kids that shot up a school were dangerous because they play violent video games. Or we have to save our children from goths because they are different.
To me stories like lose credibility for the simple fact that the reports are trying to place blame or figure out why something happened when in reality there is no why did this happen. Blame can be placed on anyone and reporters seem to love to place blame but to me it just echoes the days of yellow journalism and Randolph Hearst. So why believe them?
Isn't that what microsoft did. In fact isn't Reverse Engineering what a ton of software companies have been doing for years. Or is it going to be that if your a company that will sell the technology and keep properitary than that's okay. But GOD forbid that some hacker is going give the source away. Now it becomes lost revenue and everyone knows that in a time where the goverment is just waiting for more control we'll have the companies just hand it over to them.
Obiviously, I'm reading more into this whole thing. But it seems very plausible that if you reverse engineer and don't release the source code but build a better product than that's competition and if you just give away the source code it's now lost revenue.
Hadn't someone stated this last year. I distinctly remember an article where M$ was stating that they were going to port their media player and in fact there was a port on their website. Unfortunately, I've never known anyone who could get it to work.
Re:Here goes Katz again
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I concur. Now most of the information is controlled from one source on or off the net. That is not a good thing. Look at what Hearst was able to do with all the newspapers he once owned. His opinion had infected most of the world and people believed what his papers said. Now we have AOL and Time/Warner. Controlling a ton of information. It's bad enough that there are editors in the media that sensastionalize everything. I never liked time because rather than reporting they editorialize the news to their beliefs. CNN was once a media station that just spat out as much news as possible since they became apart of Time/Warner they too no longer report all the news just what Time/Warner believes. Think about how poorly the news sensationalized Columbine. Soon after almost every school targeted geeks and anyone who played doom. There is now a software that can profile potential subversives because we all know being subversive is being someone who wants to kill. Most of us agreed it was the media's fault. Alot that was reported took a long time until mistakes in original reports we caught and then the media took no responsibility to report the corrections.
Another case is Men chasing underage girls/boys over the net. I have never seen one report explain how many times this has happened. We you find crime statistics it's mind boggling that not that many incidents truly took place but the percentages that were expounded made it seem that 3 out of 5 kids were being harrassed by these people. Because the media has never had the ethics to truly report the numbers.
Time/Warner has constantly expounded the evils of being on the net and how dark and dangerous. And then with the other mouth expounded the good of technology (but look for this piece could become evil next month). Well, they now have taken care of what is evil by commandeering a good cross section of the people on the net via this AOL merger.
AOL I have always hated. Personal experience as well as those of others on the net show that if they deem your e-mail too sexually explicit then GOOD-BYE your no longer apart of that community. Remember AOL is Big Brother in the sense that they do actively monitor your communications via keywords and they will look at that nude Pamela Anderson Lee file that you have attached and if they decide that you have just been trading too much smut or offended someone else than good-bye.
So now is the time that your media will be controlled via Time/Warner and you personal info being watched by AOL. Welcome to the 21st century and say Hello to Big Brother. He's sixteen years late but we all knew he would show up.
I agree that here in the US eveyone would have a problem and any politician that tried that here would soon be out of a job. But in the UK this is something that would happen and the politician would still have a job. Here driving is considered almost a right rather than a privilage but in the UK driving is probably considered more of a privilage than a right. And there are less drivers in the UK than those have nots would be pushing for this more than the haves.
It's funny that this kid can talk about getting high on Freon and waiting for a friend that went out to get drugs and not one official really looked at that or questioned that...it was the violence that scared them. 15 years ago if a student wrote about drugs and was a displinary problem then the school would talk to the parents and figure out if the kid was doing drugs and considering statistics about when kids start experimenting with substance abuse it's really funny that that was not considered or even considered a problem.
I think the answer to how schools are dealing with certain issues is definately generational. Administrators today were teenagers in the 60's and 70's so they didn't really have to deal with violence in school (barring the occisional fist fight) when they were teenagers but drugs - they thought that schools were using draconian measures when the schools were looking for kids doing drugs. No these teenagers are the administrators and their view on drugs seem to be very relax. But if there is potential for violence then it's time to haul the kids off to jail and re-educate them. So I guess when the next generation comes to be the administrator maybe then there well be a relaxation in regards to violence and maybe this generation will listen to kids rather then trying to turn them into shiny happy people!
That's what I don't understand. Everytime that I have thought I was going to read something that was interesting I get a ton of BS that supposedly has something to do with his rant then the true rant and a unsupported conclusion. Case in point - he starts off with Bad News Popularity vs Good New Popularity. Okay, fine. He talks about the mistake the Sunday Times has done with RSA 512, okay I can keep up - this is Bad News at it's best. Then he critizes us because Jane wants to double check the research the journalist did - which obiviously wasn't up to par. Then his conclusion is that the paper's should run with the story because censorship is still censorship even if the story is wrong and the paper's still can print the corrections at a later date. (And someplace where no one really reads)
Well, why is he ranting about Bad News in the first place. I know he is critizing Jane for asking us/.er's to help verify the research. But why since his article was originally about Bad News - aren't reporters supposed to research their work before writing. Which according to the publisher of Jane and us was not good enough. But we didn't censor the story just filled in the facts - the correct facts.
I guess Cringley has a lot to cringe about then. The story seems to be more about his fear! That if the research on tech issues isn't good enough then why should anyone print the material which of course means the reporter doesn't get paid. And why should the reporter get paid for doing a lousy job. If I did that I would be out of job.
So, the real message should be - watch out because if our voices are being heard about Bad News then the new should not be printed in the first place. And the journalist shouldn't be paid for bad reporting just because it's always been that way doesn't make it right.
I thought that Katz was talking about too much tech and should we depend on something that is at the mercy of power concerns?
Anyways, do we really need or want a program that filters for us. Even on a rating scale if I had rated topics about politics and topics about cloning at a 1 and then told Clotho anything under a 3 I don't want to see what would happen if I did want to know if the goverment was going to allow cloning? Something that would be of interest. How much detail would we have to give Clotho to get information on subjects that crossover two or more topics that are not rated as high?
I don't understand why people can't filter their own information and why a AI program would have to do it for me. Yes there is a ton of information and yes we are just now learning how much has been hidden from us by the corporate news structure but aren't we flocking to the web for more information on very specific topics?
I think the answer would lie in how information is searched. Consider how the search engines look at searches. If I were to enter the Keywords "Microsoft Computers" and goverment I always end up with pages for all three keywords. The summary usually tells me nn,nnn,nnn pages on Microsoft, nn,nnn,nnn,nnn on Computers and nn,nnn on goverment - Not taking into account that I wanted the US goverment because for some reason the search engine has no idea where I am. And all I truly wanted was two keywords searched and the web page has to contain information about both keywords.
We need smarter search engines that can do those types of searches and then give the highest rated pages first. I've yet to see something of that order and I have tried them all. None of them truly do that. If that was in place I can see that we were not headed towards information overload.
Also, why not have the search engine include only pages with ads based upon what is searched and not what advertisements are bought. That would also mean more companies would have to spread their dollars around to get ads on as many websites as possible to get their message out.
We don't need an AI that we would have to constantly update what are current point of view is so that it could filter for us. That just reminds me of new corps deeming what is newsworthy and what is not.
Well, I've heard this view from a few Luddites. What I don't understand is why are the Luddites railing against the technology but not doing a damn thing about the manufactering of the technology? Which is more harmful to the enviroment than a computer.
I don't think we have too much information to use nor the time to utilize it. A problem does stem from the fact that more than half the information that is pushed out is media hype and has nothing to do with world around us. If you have to continually filter out the hype that is what becomes too time consuming. I often feel that I don't have enough information because I have to go thru a ton of hype! Most news reports on TV that I see aren't even what I consider news because the reporter didn't answer a question but created more with his/her opinion of the matter.
I also can't take this apolyptic view of the world - which man has plauged himself with because something new was in the wind. If all the machines went out I necessarily wouldn't cry because I think the outage would be short lived. We have an uncanny ability to survive and re-create. Usually, when man has to build something again he has the knowledge of his mistakes to correct them and does. Look at how safe vehicles on the road have become - unfortunately what makes them unsafe now is the driver no paying attention. Because there is too much information or because they couldn't be bothered with who else is on the road. I take the latter.
Will we fall in cyberclysm? Has amaggedon already started? or will it begin in the 21st century - which is still two years away.
I think the reality is that we won't know anything until it's already past. We will have power outages from time to time - which has always occured and everyone in the modern age has just dealt with it. We have had hurricanes that have knocked are technology to the ground and we have dealt with it. We have had too much information and we have dealt with it.
And these pointless predictions have been around for centuries and we have dealt with it because the majority couldn't be bothered and dealt with what the future truly has become - even though are ancestors have never seen it I'm sure they would say we live in a Utopia or a Hell?
I don't think Linux is kicking M$ butt or that this is a way for M$ to get into alt OS. But does seem that they want you to pay for that software again and again and again and...you know what I mean. This could be an excellent source of income for M$ --"Hey you don't need to buy that software once - we'll sell it to you every month! For as long as you desire to connect to the internet! $50.00 a month for the rest of you life. Keep our Boss Mr. Gates in the money!"
That is the one thing that I don't understand. I get the newest version of Red Hat everytime there is a new distribution. But I've always paid about $7.00 ($2.95+S&H) from Linux Central. True not everyone knows about Linux Central and the Installation book is a little more (yeah like I ever bought that). And there is no 30-day support with the GPL'd version of RH6 - gee maybe that is why they sell it for $70 bucks. If anything this IPO helps Red Hat continue to add more support to their distribution by allowing them to expand they can add more people for support. And spend more on R&D on their distribution (which there is source for). This isn't going to stop the community spirit unless the community decides that people making money for selling support is bad. Which I don't understand - first the community wants Big Business to start looking at OSS, which BB doesn't want to do because there is no support, now companies start offering support through an OSS distribution, then BB started taking Linux seriously. So now these distribution companies need to expand their support models to handle BB so they go public and everyone in the community is screaming foul! They going to steal Linux! Why didn't the community express this when IBM started offering Linux support - their a for profit public company and they are (in the way of support and they are bigger to handle BB support) competitors to RH. People thought they were going to hijack Apache and not give to the community but they didn't and they have helped to give back to the community. Let's open up are minds a bit and remember that every distributor has given back to the community and helped keep Linux GPL'd and open sourced. This is their payback to become a public company like IBM and still help the community. It's in their best interests to do so. And the more companies go Public the stronger the community becomes and these companies become to take M$ down. Don't freak out. Be a community and support all these companies going public.
I've stopped using E*Trade because of these type of things. I decided to open my account with Charles Schwab and I have had no problems with getting in on the IPO. I don't believe the SEC cares as much but since I'm not a finance person I couldn't figure out. But Schwab did it for me with out a hitch nor problem.
I'm a bit confused. I've never really used AOL's Instant Message App because I've been using TALK from unix. Isn't that the same as all this stuff between MS and AOL. Why can't they both agree to extend TALK and keep it open?
I have to disagree, why is that other book stores have been making money off their websites and Amazon.com can't seem to make a dime. Simple, they have been to busy trying to undercut everyone that they now have to sell other products. Is there a discount to those products - considering some the electronics I've seen I can get cheaper at DOW, or Good Guys, etc.
Amazon has been always about hype and I wouldn't be surprised that if they don't make money within another 2 years there will be no Amazon.com. And I think the lesson is less about the company practices and more about the initial hype and how the company sold it's hippness - now they have to try and recoup via other products (which are now the hype not the books).
Personally, it doesn't matter what they do but I can't stand to get on their site because of all the other products. It's easier to just walk into Barnes and Noble find the book I want - check BarnesandNoble.com to see if it's priced cheaper than the store and order it there.
At least I can then get a decent latte to go and it only took 15 minutes. Not the 35 minutes on Amazon.com!
Well, if ESR disappears after the dinner than we know how M$ will act upon open source! But in reality it seems that M$ wants to appear to be open to the idea of Open Source - it could be their way of embrace and extend - extend - extend. Isn't that what there try to do with Perl and it seems that with Kaffe they have succeeded it making it closed source.
Well, I can see a whole new market from this. Helping all those poor MS suckers (oops I mean developers) to code their scripts without using MS extensions. Already, I've made extra money working wih NT admins cleaning up their PERL scripts because they can't get these scripts to glue anything outside of Win32 enviroment. So come on MS I need a Ferrari for next year!!
I have just one question: what software company has the name BackOffice trademarked? So why is that this interesting lil' magazine of the same trademarked name is trying some FUD for Microsoft? Okay that was two questions and I honestly don't know about trademark issues but I didn't think that two companies can have the same trademarked name.
I've found that after I updated all the RPM's from their website that I had everything already in place for 2.2. The only thing that needed to be updated was modutils and the kernel (I believe the modutils package should be 2.1.121 but check with LinuxHQ to be sure) I then grabbed the full source for kernel 2.2.1 and the modutils full source extracted them and then compiled them. It worked for me.
Is Jon Katz uncool, a poser, a wannabe? Possibly, but he also is more mainstream than most of us. Have you, an AC, been discriminated so much by the mainstream that you now feel it's your turn? I admit that Mr. Katz is probably not the most techiest guy around but he does represent the majority in regards to tech - THEY HAVEN'T A CLUE - but since I braves coming out here with the rest of us to find out; to question the culture of geeks; to try and make some mainstream sense.
So his writing isn't what you like but considering he does make a living at writing then he's obviously doing something right and it's probably the mainstream people that enjoy more than you do.
Arrogant?!? Maybe but he doesn't at least sound half as arrogant then you do. You have an opinion and I respect that but why is it some geeks can't respect others opinions and take a holier than thou attitude...so you've been programming and tinkering since birth - BIG DEAL! What are you doing to educate the masses?
If anything if we could teach Mr. Katz what tech-culture is all about than possibly he'd be able to write better and more factual and maybe more mainstream people will understand as well and have the same take on tech-culture that you do.
Or like the bigots of yester-year do you actually crave segregation - just in doing so remember we geeks are not the majority anymore on the net.
Well, I'm working as a programmer with only a High School Education but unfortunately it's not too easy getting another job with out that BS degree so I've decided to go back and get it.
I don't think that anyone necessarily needs it but Upper Management seems to like everyone have as much BS as possible.
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Finally, true freedom of speech. What I find interesting is all the people that "supposedly" like freedom of speech until they begin thinking that anything can be said and then they become very Politically Correct about what should be free and what shouldn't be. Interestingly, this is mirroring American Politics and the attempts of Federal, State, and City goverments trying to limit this type of speech or that type of speech. Everyone is becoming a victim of someone else's freedom of speech.
What's funny is here is America Free Speech is a RIGHT!!! Whether that speech is hateful towards a group or is critical of the/a goverment at least our forefathers knew that and they accepted it because they felt that all speech has to be free in order for a society is to consider itself free. People have arguements whether that is correct or not but the reality is that free speech has been under attack for over a century in one form or another.
FreeNet is to give complete freedom over what you say. Whether you own it or are anonymous with it you still have the complete freedom to say it without retribution. That is what Freedom of Speech is all about. And is also one of the primary reasons that not even the Supreme Court wants to limit that kind of freedom on the internet. Anyone can say anything and no one institution has control over it. But does it stop the goverment from trying to limit it, even with two dead CDA bills, no, they now are trying to force issues with the ISP. The FBI is trying to get more generalized, rather then specific, rights to commandiere any computer with information that they suspect might be on a computer because of, oh my, terrorists or child pornographers.
When did American's want the goverment to keep a close eye on them? For over two hundred years people have flocked to America because thought control, and other basic freedoms, were considered of paramount importance. Now when technology begins to aid in securing those rights to freedom people begin to worry about the "criminals" and this is wrong because I don't like this speech it hurts me - because I'm a victim.
Is that the biggest conspiracy the goverment has created. Without creating it. Proproganda is still proproganda and anyone who believes that a goverment cares about freedom of speech but within reason, is a person blind to censorship.
Of course the really superb thing about FreeNet is that it is completly non-American and is truly about complete freedom!!
Long live FreeNet - finally true Freedom can exist!
Yeah but freenet is more of a server that needs a client. Rather than a network that you log into that is anonymous.
Slowly the freedom to do anything is being taken away by the AOLPolice!! As well as the rest of the lobbyists, goverment, MPAA, RIAA! The internet is slowly turning into a police state. This is just the first!!
I guess it's time to start rethinking the Net in general. Is it possible to build an alternate network of computers using just non-commerical computers via a VPN. Redistribute an alternate web run by and for private citizens via that private network. Where anonynimity is truly key. Considering in someways that is what these product do. And if no one knows who you are and they can't necessarily find out what is on who's system wouldn't it become harder to sue the entire network since there would be no single person with control?
Yes it is!! And Jon makes an interesting point about how corporations our dispensing culture to us. We are the ones that buy into this censored culture by listening to the radio, loving a song, and paying for the CD. When something is new on that radio we, in some ways, believe that we found a hot new band. Usually, the band is not new it's just they finally got a distribution deal with a big label that can control what is heard on the radio because that band was able to show a following that was a good cross-section of society that the music label wanted to exploit. Slowly, these bands are pressured for more number 1 songs so that they will continue to be played on the radio and sell more albums. Usually, the sound of the band has changed and fans leave and call this same band a group of sell outs. The reality is the fans turned them into sell outs.
It's also interesting that the artists that are taking the side of the music industry are high dollar/high profile artists that sell a ton of cd's but have a deal in which they own most of their own music.
But what of the smaller bands that have a hold of the underground (ie: no label, or small label with no clout with the radio stations) do they want us to download their music. YES!!! The more people freely exchange their music the more of a fan base they build up. The question for them is - do they stay true to their fans and their own music or are they trying to get that big record deal to become rich?? And do we want to love them only to hate them when they reach the top for that almighty dollar??
The reason why I don't read newspapers is the same reason I don't watch TV news, or listen to the radio, or read news magazines. They all are very biased reports. Rather than reporting just facts too many reporters add their opinion. That's fine for an op ed piece but not when I'm reading the news. Also, they all follow trends that are duplicated over and over and over with really no value to what is being reported. A lil Monica anyone.
I stick to reading the AP wire. It seems to have less opinion and more fact and I'm able to discern more clearly the facts of a story. But even that is skewed in the sense of what is being reported. Each news item I look at I ask myself a few questions: 1. What are the facts of the story? 2. Did the story tell me how something occurred based on facts or are those blanks just being filled by supposition? 3. Did the title of the article really capture what the article is about or was it just something flashy do get me to read the article? 4. Is the article giving an opinion of the editor, reporter, publisher? 5. Is the story just plan sensationalistic and more to provoke an emotional reaction?
For you newspapers guys look at Columbine. Rather than reporting the facts or verifying eyewitnesses facts (since no two people perceive the samething) or even truly just reporting - you go into areas of discussion. See those kids that shot up a school were dangerous because they play violent video games. Or we have to save our children from goths because they are different.
To me stories like lose credibility for the simple fact that the reports are trying to place blame or figure out why something happened when in reality there is no why did this happen. Blame can be placed on anyone and reporters seem to love to place blame but to me it just echoes the days of yellow journalism and Randolph Hearst. So why believe them?
Isn't that what microsoft did. In fact isn't Reverse Engineering what a ton of software companies have been doing for years. Or is it going to be that if your a company that will sell the technology and keep properitary than that's okay. But GOD forbid that some hacker is going give the source away. Now it becomes lost revenue and everyone knows that in a time where the goverment is just waiting for more control we'll have the companies just hand it over to them.
Obiviously, I'm reading more into this whole thing. But it seems very plausible that if you reverse engineer and don't release the source code but build a better product than that's competition and if you just give away the source code it's now lost revenue.
Hadn't someone stated this last year. I distinctly remember an article where M$ was stating that they were going to port their media player and in fact there was a port on their website. Unfortunately, I've never known anyone who could get it to work.
I concur. Now most of the information is controlled from one source on or off the net. That is not a good thing. Look at what Hearst was able to do with all the newspapers he once owned. His opinion had infected most of the world and people believed what his papers said. Now we have AOL and Time/Warner. Controlling a ton of information. It's bad enough that there are editors in the media that sensastionalize everything. I never liked time because rather than reporting they editorialize the news to their beliefs. CNN was once a media station that just spat out as much news as possible since they became apart of Time/Warner they too no longer report all the news just what Time/Warner believes. Think about how poorly the news sensationalized Columbine. Soon after almost every school targeted geeks and anyone who played doom. There is now a software that can profile potential subversives because we all know being subversive is being someone who wants to kill. Most of us agreed it was the media's fault. Alot that was reported took a long time until mistakes in original reports we caught and then the media took no responsibility to report the corrections.
Another case is Men chasing underage girls/boys over the net. I have never seen one report explain how many times this has happened. We you find crime statistics it's mind boggling that not that many incidents truly took place but the percentages that were expounded made it seem that 3 out of 5 kids were being harrassed by these people. Because the media has never had the ethics to truly report the numbers.
Time/Warner has constantly expounded the evils of being on the net and how dark and dangerous. And then with the other mouth expounded the good of technology (but look for this piece could become evil next month). Well, they now have taken care of what is evil by commandeering a good cross section of the people on the net via this AOL merger.
AOL I have always hated. Personal experience as well as those of others on the net show that if they deem your e-mail too sexually explicit then GOOD-BYE your no longer apart of that community. Remember AOL is Big Brother in the sense that they do actively monitor your communications via keywords and they will look at that nude Pamela Anderson Lee file that you have attached and if they decide that you have just been trading too much smut or offended someone else than good-bye.
So now is the time that your media will be controlled via Time/Warner and you personal info being watched by AOL. Welcome to the 21st century and say Hello to Big Brother. He's sixteen years late but we all knew he would show up.
I agree that here in the US eveyone would have a problem and any politician that tried that here would soon be out of a job. But in the UK this is something that would happen and the politician would still have a job. Here driving is considered almost a right rather than a privilage but in the UK driving is probably considered more of a privilage than a right. And there are less drivers in the UK than those have nots would be pushing for this more than the haves.
It's funny that this kid can talk about getting high on Freon and waiting for a friend that went out to get drugs and not one official really looked at that or questioned that...it was the violence that scared them. 15 years ago if a student wrote about drugs and was a displinary problem then the school would talk to the parents and figure out if the kid was doing drugs and considering statistics about when kids start experimenting with substance abuse it's really funny that that was not considered or even considered a problem.
I think the answer to how schools are dealing with certain issues is definately generational. Administrators today were teenagers in the 60's and 70's so they didn't really have to deal with violence in school (barring the occisional fist fight) when they were teenagers but drugs - they thought that schools were using draconian measures when the schools were looking for kids doing drugs. No these teenagers are the administrators and their view on drugs seem to be very relax. But if there is potential for violence then it's time to haul the kids off to jail and re-educate them.
So I guess when the next generation comes to be the administrator maybe then there well be a relaxation in regards to violence and maybe this generation will listen to kids rather then trying to turn them into shiny happy people!
That's what I don't understand. Everytime that I have thought I was going to read something that was interesting I get a ton of BS that supposedly has something to do with his rant then the true rant and a unsupported conclusion. Case in point - he starts off with Bad News Popularity vs Good New Popularity. Okay, fine. He talks about the mistake the Sunday Times has done with RSA 512, okay I can keep up - this is Bad News at it's best. Then he critizes us because Jane wants to double check the research the journalist did - which obiviously wasn't up to par. Then his conclusion is that the paper's should run with the story because censorship is still censorship even if the story is wrong and the paper's still can print the corrections at a later date. (And someplace where no one really reads)
/.er's to help verify the research. But why since his article was originally about Bad News - aren't reporters supposed to research their work before writing. Which according to the publisher of Jane and us was not good enough. But we didn't censor the story just filled in the facts - the correct facts.
Well, why is he ranting about Bad News in the first place. I know he is critizing Jane for asking us
I guess Cringley has a lot to cringe about then. The story seems to be more about his fear! That if the research on tech issues isn't good enough then why should anyone print the material which of course means the reporter doesn't get paid. And why should the reporter get paid for doing a lousy job. If I did that I would be out of job.
So, the real message should be - watch out because if our voices are being heard about Bad News then the new should not be printed in the first place. And the journalist shouldn't be paid for bad reporting just because it's always been that way doesn't make it right.
I thought that Katz was talking about too much tech and should we depend on something that is at the mercy of power concerns?
Anyways, do we really need or want a program that filters for us. Even on a rating scale if I had rated topics about politics and topics about cloning at a 1 and then told Clotho anything under a 3 I don't want to see what would happen if I did want to know if the goverment was going to allow cloning? Something that would be of interest. How much detail would we have to give Clotho to get information on subjects that crossover two or more topics that are not rated as high?
I don't understand why people can't filter their own information and why a AI program would have to do it for me. Yes there is a ton of information and yes we are just now learning how much has been hidden from us by the corporate news structure but aren't we flocking to the web for more information on very specific topics?
I think the answer would lie in how information is searched. Consider how the search engines look at searches. If I were to enter the Keywords "Microsoft Computers" and goverment I always end up with pages for all three keywords. The summary usually tells me nn,nnn,nnn pages on Microsoft, nn,nnn,nnn,nnn on Computers and nn,nnn on goverment - Not taking into account that I wanted the US goverment because for some reason the search engine has no idea where I am. And all I truly wanted was two keywords searched and the web page has to contain information about both keywords.
We need smarter search engines that can do those types of searches and then give the highest rated pages first. I've yet to see something of that order and I have tried them all. None of them truly do that. If that was in place I can see that we were not headed towards information overload.
Also, why not have the search engine include only pages with ads based upon what is searched and not what advertisements are bought. That would also mean more companies would have to spread their dollars around to get ads on as many websites as possible to get their message out.
We don't need an AI that we would have to constantly update what are current point of view is so that it could filter for us. That just reminds me of new corps deeming what is newsworthy and what is not.
Well, I've heard this view from a few Luddites. What I don't understand is why are the Luddites railing against the technology but not doing a damn thing about the manufactering of the technology? Which is more harmful to the enviroment than a computer.
I don't think we have too much information to use nor the time to utilize it. A problem does stem from the fact that more than half the information that is pushed out is media hype and has nothing to do with world around us. If you have to continually filter out the hype that is what becomes too time consuming. I often feel that I don't have enough information because I have to go thru a ton of hype! Most news reports on TV that I see aren't even what I consider news because the reporter didn't answer a question but created more with his/her opinion of the matter.
I also can't take this apolyptic view of the world - which man has plauged himself with because something new was in the wind. If all the machines went out I necessarily wouldn't cry because I think the outage would be short lived. We have an uncanny ability to survive and re-create. Usually, when man has to build something again he has the knowledge of his mistakes to correct them and does. Look at how safe vehicles on the road have become - unfortunately what makes them unsafe now is the driver no paying attention. Because there is too much information or because they couldn't be bothered with who else is on the road. I take the latter.
Will we fall in cyberclysm? Has amaggedon already started? or will it begin in the 21st century - which is still two years away.
I think the reality is that we won't know anything until it's already past. We will have power outages from time to time - which has always occured and everyone in the modern age has just dealt with it. We have had hurricanes that have knocked are technology to the ground and we have dealt with it. We have had too much information and we have dealt with it.
And these pointless predictions have been around for centuries and we have dealt with it because the majority couldn't be bothered and dealt with what the future truly has become - even though are ancestors have never seen it I'm sure they would say we live in a Utopia or a Hell?
I don't think Linux is kicking M$ butt or that this is a way for M$ to get into alt OS. But does seem that they want you to pay for that software again and again and again and...you know what I mean. This could be an excellent source of income for M$ --"Hey you don't need to buy that software once - we'll sell it to you every month! For as long as you desire to connect to the internet! $50.00 a month for the rest of you life. Keep our Boss Mr. Gates in the money!"
That is the one thing that I don't understand. I get the newest version of Red Hat everytime there is a new distribution. But I've always paid about $7.00 ($2.95+S&H) from Linux Central. True not everyone knows about Linux Central and the Installation book is a little more (yeah like I ever bought that). And there is no 30-day support with the GPL'd version of RH6 - gee maybe that is why they sell it for $70 bucks. If anything this IPO helps Red Hat continue to add more support to their distribution by allowing them to expand they can add more people for support. And spend more on R&D on their distribution (which there is source for). This isn't going to stop the community spirit unless the community decides that people making money for selling support is bad. Which I don't understand - first the community wants Big Business to start looking at OSS, which BB doesn't want to do because there is no support, now companies start offering support through an OSS distribution, then BB started taking Linux seriously. So now these distribution companies need to expand their support models to handle BB so they go public and everyone in the community is screaming foul! They going to steal Linux! Why didn't the community express this when IBM started offering Linux support - their a for profit public company and they are (in the way of support and they are bigger to handle BB support) competitors to RH. People thought they were going to hijack Apache and not give to the community but they didn't and they have helped to give back to the community. Let's open up are minds a bit and remember that every distributor has given back to the community and helped keep Linux GPL'd and open sourced. This is their payback to become a public company like IBM and still help the community. It's in their best interests to do so. And the more companies go Public the stronger the community becomes and these companies become to take M$ down. Don't freak out. Be a community and support all these companies going public.
I've stopped using E*Trade because of these type of things. I decided to open my account with Charles Schwab and I have had no problems with getting in on the IPO. I don't believe the SEC cares as much but since I'm not a finance person I couldn't figure out. But Schwab did it for me with out a hitch nor problem.
I'm a bit confused. I've never really used AOL's Instant Message App because I've been using TALK from unix. Isn't that the same as all this stuff between MS and AOL. Why can't they both agree to extend TALK and keep it open?
I have to disagree, why is that other book stores have been making money off their websites and Amazon.com can't seem to make a dime. Simple, they have been to busy trying to undercut everyone that they now have to sell other products. Is there a discount to those products - considering some the electronics I've seen I can get cheaper at DOW, or Good Guys, etc.
Amazon has been always about hype and I wouldn't be surprised that if they don't make money within another 2 years there will be no Amazon.com. And I think the lesson is less about the company practices and more about the initial hype and how the company sold it's hippness - now they have to try and recoup via other products (which are now the hype not the books).
Personally, it doesn't matter what they do but I can't stand to get on their site because of all the other products. It's easier to just walk into Barnes and Noble find the book I want - check BarnesandNoble.com to see if it's priced cheaper than the store and order it there.
At least I can then get a decent latte to go and it only took 15 minutes. Not the 35 minutes on Amazon.com!
Well, if ESR disappears after the dinner than we know how M$ will act upon open source! But in reality it seems that M$ wants to appear to be open to the idea of Open Source - it could be their way of embrace and extend - extend - extend. Isn't that what there try to do with Perl and it seems that with Kaffe they have succeeded it making it closed source.
Well, I can see a whole new market from this. Helping all those poor MS suckers (oops I mean developers) to code their scripts without using MS extensions. Already, I've made extra money working wih NT admins cleaning up their PERL scripts because they can't get these scripts to glue anything outside of Win32 enviroment. So come on MS I need a Ferrari for next year!!
I have just one question: what software company has the name BackOffice trademarked? So why is that this interesting lil' magazine of the same trademarked name is trying some FUD for Microsoft? Okay that was two questions and I honestly don't know about trademark issues but I didn't think that two companies can have the same trademarked name.
Something to at least think about.
I've found that after I updated all the RPM's from their website that I had everything already in place for 2.2. The only thing that needed to be updated was modutils and the kernel (I believe the modutils package should be 2.1.121 but check with LinuxHQ to be sure) I then grabbed the full source for kernel 2.2.1 and the modutils full source extracted them and then compiled them. It worked for me.
Nullhero
Is Jon Katz uncool, a poser, a wannabe? Possibly, but he also is more mainstream than most of us. Have you, an AC, been discriminated so much by the mainstream that you now feel it's your turn? I admit that Mr. Katz is probably not the most techiest guy around but he does represent the majority in regards to tech - THEY HAVEN'T A CLUE - but since I braves coming out here with the rest of us to find out; to question the culture of geeks; to try and make some mainstream sense.
So his writing isn't what you like but considering he does make a living at writing then he's obviously doing something right and it's probably the mainstream people that enjoy more than you do.
Arrogant?!? Maybe but he doesn't at least sound half as arrogant then you do. You have an opinion and I respect that but why is it some geeks can't respect others opinions and take a holier than thou attitude...so you've been programming and tinkering since birth - BIG DEAL! What are you doing to educate the masses?
If anything if we could teach Mr. Katz what tech-culture is all about than possibly he'd be able to write better and more factual and maybe more mainstream people will understand as well and have the same take on tech-culture that you do.
Or like the bigots of yester-year do you actually crave segregation - just in doing so remember we geeks are not the majority anymore on the net.
Well, I'm working as a programmer with only a High School Education but unfortunately it's not too easy getting another job with out that BS degree so I've decided to go back and get it.
I don't think that anyone necessarily needs it but Upper Management seems to like everyone have as much BS as possible.