Can anyone find an email address to contact these people at? I can't seem to find one on their web site.
Not that I'm deluded enough to think that they'll actually care about what I have to say, but the anime geeks at my college were the ones largely responsible for having the campus subscribe to CN, and I have a funny feeling that then the next channel survey comes up, I'm guessing they're going to be rated rather lowly.
And yeah, American cartoons are so much better: Filled with ego-maniacs, stuttering pigs, slurring cats, gender-ambiguous birds, etc., etc. I'm really not a wannabe asian, and saying that anime is a gateway to pedophilia is a little like saying drinking mountain dew is a gateway to cocaine; I do however appreciate a good story ark, and producing shows that are more than degenerate collections of insipid one-liners is something that Americans absolutely suck at.
So anyway, does anyone actually have a contact email address for these guys?
Has anyone seen the "freedom... cherish ads" that have been going around lately? I delight in the irnoy of the one where the kid is led away by men in black suites for trying to check out a book in a library that is "inapropriate." I wonder how many people out there realize that the same administration who is beind these ads is trying to go down that particular path?
Yes, the FBI is just able to get the list of the books you've been reading, and I don't honestly forsee any books being banned in this country any time in the near future, but I still don't buy Ashcroft saying he welcomes debate on this issue. More likely, he welcomes a token debate that really won't go anywhere.
And as much as this keeps getting bantered about, I don't think that the American people actually care about forking over their civil liberties in the name of national security. Maybe when they realize that their private information can be used/abused for other purposes, we'll be able to have a real national debate on this issue, but until then, as long as Bush takes a cue from Mousallini and keeps the trains running on time, the number of people who would like to see USA PATRIOT re-examined is definitely in the minority.
We all know that laws like the DMCA are there to protect the big corporations who pay for the politicians to get those laws on the books. We can't have those same laws being used AGAINST these corporations now can we?
One of those there X-wing fighters... I wonder if the US Navy would be kind enough to donate an F-16 so I could do a simmilar conversion. Maybe not... but I bet I could pick up a surplus Mig for a bargain.
Coffee double strength + 1 shot of sky rocket for each page of code/essay I have to write before dawn. Drink, sit back, chill until you feel the buzz, take a little walk to get rid of the initial shock, then get back to computer and pound some keys. All this, of course, done with a tin of penguin mints handy (take 3 every 1/2 hour), and a bottle of bawls in case of severe sleepiness. This gets me so wired that I can't sleep until at least the early afternoon of the following day.
Just don't blame me if it kills you, shortens your life span, or completely nullifies your sex drive. You've been warned.
Does anyone remember Keanu Reeves use of net/phone in Johnny Pnemonic? Seriously, take an old virtual boy as your 3D goggles, hook this thing up, and start hacking.
Well, probably not, but it would be pretty damned cool to dial a phone call using virtual buttoms instead of real buttons. It would be just like pushing real buttons only virtual!
Hey... wait a minute... no, I guess playing Mike Tyson's Punchout and Rad Racer are still the only things the Power Gloves is useful for.
If you think diamonds are forever, you're going to love the new One Ring model at Sauron's Jewelers (with 1 convenient locataion in the Barad-dur shopping mall, located right in the shadow of Mount Doom).
This ring is guaranteed to last for all eternity, and will grant countless powers as well as being a pledge of your ever lasting and eternal love. When my grandfather first forged this ring in ages past, he made it to last, and it has certainly stood the test of time. What better way of telling that special someone "This is going to last forever?"
Supplies are EXTREMELY limited, so hurry on in, or email DarkLord@mordor.org for this and other wonderful items.
Even still, you need to factor in the time it takes to get a new virus definition, install a firewall, etc. And all things considered, most windows users don't do this. The question is plenty fair, but for average joe-I-got-windows-preloaded-user, the install is never really done, it has been half-done by the distributer, and the user doesn't realize that anything has been left undone.
The problem, as you say, is that they spend no time installing their OS, and so their OS is never properly installed.
One of the reasons for this bust is that people were spending money on IT stupidly. I'm sure we all know a few people who have insisted that they need a new computer because their old pentium is "impairing their productivity" when all they really do is word process. And let us not forget this sub-moronic idea that just because M$ comes out with a new version of office, you need to have it in order to keep up. The result is that companies have way more features in house than they can typically use, which translates into wated money.
Now tell me who out there is naive enough to think that the people running the show are sdmart enough to learn that IT is a worthwhile investment as long as it is well thought out and carefully implimented? Reactionary attitudes tends to be the norm in just about everything everywhere. Right now the pendulum is in the process of swinging back towards a cut corners mentality, which is good to a certain degree.
"We can't install the latest release of Windows/Office on our old k6-2? Why can't we just use the old version?" That's intelligent thought, and as techs, it should be up to us to answer that question. I truly believe there will come a time when we are no longer in a recssion, and invester confidence has returned, and when that time comes, the people who approve budgets might be willing to listen to and consider your answers.
Until that time comes, you're just going to have to accentuate the negative. If you need to develop some app, but there is no budget, then make sure you accurately predict how, in the long run, not devbeloping it will actually cost your company money. When enough techs are proved right often enough, then the pendulum will start to swing back the other way, of course this gives us all an even mightier responsibility; to learn from the lessons of the past 6 years and NOT try to solve every problem with something newer and "better."
Imagine this place where you go and sit down, and REAL people in a REAL space RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES put on a show. And imagine, if you will, that the show people, call them "actors" actually respond to the feedback of those watching IN REAL TIME. What a concept, eh?
In my limited experience, television shows tend to be trite and plastic, with more emphasis placed on pleasing a target audience then anything else. There is a theatrical equivalent of this, it's called Broadway, but artistic theatre types tend to try and insert something intelligent into their shows ; they have this silly notion about actually being creative. The result is that, when done well, even something written to be trite and plastic has a shot at actually being halfway decent.
There is more money and availability to be made in television and film, I'll grant that, but to actually choose to go into something so emphemeral as costume or set design, you actually have to like and want to do it. I dare say you have to try very hard, and I think the result of this will simply be that a lot of these folks wind up working for regional theatres.
Even then, I still see a need for lighting designer, set designers, and costume designers on the "set" of a computer generated show. These people actually study things like texture and color, and shadowing, etc., which are things that most high tech people (again, in my limited experience) want nothing to do with. Just because you're not cutting it out of cloth doesn't mean you no longer need a costume designer, it just means that they are designing with a different medium. Hell, most set and light designer make computer models of their designs these days anyway; this just means that they have to be a bit more detailed.
It amuses me a great deal to think of all the computer illiterate back stage types doing their internships behind keyboards and leaving the old screw gun at home.
"I bet if we offered a packaged, free, easy to install Safe Browsing computer or Anonymous Checkout program, libraries across the U.S. would enthusiastically embrace it."
The fundamental problem with this is that an anonymous checkout system would mean that the library would have no way of getting their books back. Not that a lot of people are out to steal books from public libraries, but I know that if there weren't a fine for returning it late, I would probably put my borrowed books down some place and forget that they were borrowed and not mine. After two weeks of this, they usually give me a call reminding me that the books actually belong to them.
Now picture a world where they can't call me, and when I check out a book, they have no idea that I have quite a few sitting in my apartment waiting to be brought back. Multiply that by the number of people checking out books, and the nations libraries would soon be depleted.
Another thing, I know quite a few people who work in libraries, and they tend not to enthusiastically embrace anything. Especially anything that even sounds like it might require having to re-enter every book in their collection to a new database, and unfortunately they equate the people I know equate "new software" with "new database:. Of course this view is probably a little bit skewed because I'm used to pivcking around small libraries in sleepy towns in the sticks.
Never said it wouldn't have it's problems, and I never said it would be free. Besides, since I know we're all legal users, why is verification of software liscences such a big deal? Remember that there is a fine line between trumped up IP infringement and warez. What it sounds to me like you're getting at is that you don't want to have to pay for your copy of Windows. There's this fun thing called Linux which is a nice alternative.
And I honestly don't see private ISP control as an impediment to the government spying on you. Ultimately, they can obtain (through due process) the right to inspect your underwear drawer. Having a similar measure in place for internet traffic is good, it just needs to be handled responsibly and with a cool head, not the post 9/11 USA PATRIOT act reactionary bulls**t that we have now.
There is no such thing as a perfect system, and the wonderful thing about federal government is that it acknowledges that. Try to think a little more objectively... what freedoms would you lose that you (supposedly) have now?
This one is porbably going to get way moded down, but has anytone stopped to consider what the benefits of a federally owned and operated internet/email system might be? We always gripe about how are rights online are rapidly vanishing, but stop to consider that since the Internet is (at least in the US) owned by private institutions, you really have no rights. Think of it this way; your ISP's EULA generally lets them disconnect you for just about any reason under the sun, which allows them to exercise whatever "discretion" they wish in removing you for doing something that they consider bad. What one isp allows, another forbids. One of the chief benefits of a government internet is that such a system would necessitate granting the user clearly documented rights and restrictions. The wonderful world of "due process" might even be within our grasp.
As it stands, unless you do something that violates some law, anything relating specifically to Internet and ISPs is a civil matter. Think about it; what part of the EULA says that the sysadmin won't decide to read your email? Who says that they won't be watching your traffic?
The difference between the real world and the net is that in the real world, there is a buffer between the common citizen and exploitation by corporations. It is sad that that buffer thins every day, it really is, but the Internet is a world where industry dominates. This has allowed it to grow extremely fast, and also unchecked. Consider the negatives of a Federal Internet, and I don't think you'll find they would require anything of you that law doesn't allow them to do now.
Frightening as it may be, federalizing the Internet may be the first step to securing our rights online. Then again, the beauty of voting for Nader knowing that he is not going to win is that you don't have to consider that he might not be the best person for the job.
A few months back my laptop bit the big one, and because I didn't have an easy way of getting the data off my system, I backed it up like once every 6 months (bad idea on my part). So what do I do? Simple, I pop the HD in an older machine using a cheap adapter, and boot off of a FLOPPY DISK LINUX DISTRO. I then proceed to accss the drive and copy the contents of my source code and documents to ANOTHER FLOPPY DISK. Thanks to the miracle of FLOPPY DISKS, I managed to save everything that needed saving, and have been able to (relatively painlessly) continue working on data that would have been lost forever were it not for our friend the FLOPPY DRIVE.
10$ extra for a floppy drive on a computer; it would be a bargain at twice the price!
Besides, chicks dig a guy who carries floppy disks with them at all times ("Hey geek boy, is that a floppy disk in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?").
If there is one essential drive I insist upon being in any computer that I buy, it's the floppy drive; true when the imac came ou, true when they stripped it off the G4, true now, and until they come up with something that is just as universal, cheap, portable, standard, and easy to use, true forever!
Actually I tend to think it would still go a little like this:
Soldier #1 and Soldier #2 die because they were hit on a carpet bombing run, because they were spotted by a sattelite orbitting the earth. When we can actually get the sattelites to shoot the bullets and just send people up to reload once every few months, then THAT will be scary.
No, it's not even then. The key words you're looking for are "unreasonable search and seisure," and while we may consider this unreasonable, in the eyes of the law, it's perfectly legit as long as no law enforcement body put them up to it. Now whether it would stand in CIVIL court is another matter, but if you try to go that route, the MPAA would be able to, and would be within their rights if they did, to seek to CRIMINALLY prosecute you. Getting a lawyer is probably a good idea if they have falsely accused you and no one is listening to your side of the story, but if you have actually posted the movie, the smart thing to do would be to take it down when your ISP comes knocking.
I don't get it, isn't Road Runner rate limited? If so, then I'm paying for bandwidth that I'm sure doesn't get used every month. Why should they care what I do with my spare bandwidth; it's not exactly if we're talking about pirated bandwidth here. Besides, who's to say that I'm not trying to set up wireless w/ DHCP for my own purposes? Whether they put this in some AUP or not, I think they might be on some shaky legal ground.
I remember one of my history profs saying something about how in Elizabethan England (that's Shakespeare's time for those who want a frame of refference) the audience would pay for the shows after they were leaving, and if they thought it was worth the money. Now I say, what exactly is the problem here? There are plenty of good artists out there who churn out an excellent album once every few years, and for those, I am willing to pay. Then there are the okay musicians who churn out a good song or two once every few years, and for those songs, I am wiling to pay. Then there are the crappy artists who churn out a good song once in their lifetime, and I am willing to pay for that song. Since you can't usually listen to the entire CD before you buy it, I just go to P2P when I'm interested and check out the merchandise.
Why is the RIAA scared of this? Simple, it forces them to be more selective. So far, the marketing trends place quantity over quality, that way you can sell more records. P2P allows me to make sure I want to buy the album in the first place, and if I don't, I keep the songs I like, and will pay for them when there is a sane and stable system in lpace for doing so. Here, I excercise my ultimate power as a consumer, the ability to refuse to pay $20 for 3 or 4 minutes of audio, and P2P allows me to be able to make that informed choice. RIAA is corporate, so they naturally want the consumer to have as little freedom as possible. If these recording industry types just made sure that they were churning out a quality product each time, there would be no need for P2P, as far as I'm concerned.
What I'm kind of curious about is how they are ever going to prove that the web page WAS in fact published. It would be really easy to download the front page of any web site, put in some defamatory comments, and then claim that it was published on such and such date. Don't get me wrong, I actually think this is one of the few YRO that strikes me as a step in the right direction, but I fail to see what the definitive criteria for establishing publication is. For someplace with lots of readers (like slashdot), it's easy, as there are plenty of witnesses, but something tells me not too many people visit or could vouch for my website on a regular basis. Any ideas on what you can do to protect yourself?
I just graduated from college with a liberal arts degree. If they want massive amounts of money from me, they're just going to have to get in line and wait their turn.
I know NPR hasn't been the most popular group here lately, but this is one of the reasons why I think they had a good point about their linking policy. NPR is, by and large, funded by public grants and donations, and not by traditional advertising. And to those wondering where the dissenting stories questioning US policy in the War on Freedom can be found, I think it's fairly safe to say you'll hear it on NPR before you hear it anywhere else.
Up above, Katz mentioned blogs and small community news organizations, and the problem that they tend to have small and fragmented user bases. I would also dare to say that most of these indie news sources are also very narrowly focussed. Slashdot certainly didn't report on the recent US bombing of civilians in Afganistan; we have better things to talk about here, like turning a microwave oven into a foundry. Is this bad? No, of course not, we all come here to hear these sorts of things that we wouldn't hear anywhere else, and I know that Slashdot certainly doesn't have any foreign correspondants (and probably lacks an AP wire), so we trust to the mainstream news organizations to get mainstream news.
And thus the innevitable conflict. You could turn to your local college newspaper (many of them have AP wires, and a few even have halfway decent writing), but most of what you see in there has to do with school politics. You local weekly newspaper (most communities have one these days) is anothe rpossible source, but they tend to deal strictly with local issues, and let mainstream news be handled by bigger orginizations.
The solution, in my mind, remains NPR. Maybe I'm being short sighted on this one, but NPR is a well established, independent news source. I know this is going to sound like a sponsorship drive, but if you want a news source free from commercial influence, you're going to have to support it. Publishing/boradcasting is very expensive, and without advertisements, you need an alternative source of funding. Now we're back to grants and independent donations. Just think of it like this, you eithe rpay with dollars, or you pay with incomplete and self-censored journalism.
That I am all that surprised by any of this.
Face it folks, this is kind of like what the world would be like if M$ were sued by.gov, but then allowed to appoint the judge and defense counsel. And I quite agree that these people need to go away, but the fact is that even if the current administration was actually interested in shutting down proto-fascist organizations like ICANN, re-centering the power they have would take a massive effort on the part of citizens to lobby their congressman/representatives to do so, and very few of the non-tech crowd have ever even heard of ICANN.
I'm sorry to say that we will probably have to put up with this until the system totally fails, then it will take over a year or so to make a new one. I am, of course, basing this on the 9/11 (non)response.
But I suppose there is always hope. The votes haven't actually happened yet, have they?
Slashdot Mirror
Can anyone find an email address to contact these people at? I can't seem to find one on their web site.
Not that I'm deluded enough to think that they'll actually care about what I have to say, but the anime geeks at my college were the ones largely responsible for having the campus subscribe to CN, and I have a funny feeling that then the next channel survey comes up, I'm guessing they're going to be rated rather lowly.
And yeah, American cartoons are so much better: Filled with ego-maniacs, stuttering pigs, slurring cats, gender-ambiguous birds, etc., etc. I'm really not a wannabe asian, and saying that anime is a gateway to pedophilia is a little like saying drinking mountain dew is a gateway to cocaine; I do however appreciate a good story ark, and producing shows that are more than degenerate collections of insipid one-liners is something that Americans absolutely suck at.
So anyway, does anyone actually have a contact email address for these guys?
Has anyone seen the "freedom... cherish ads" that have been going around lately? I delight in the irnoy of the one where the kid is led away by men in black suites for trying to check out a book in a library that is "inapropriate." I wonder how many people out there realize that the same administration who is beind these ads is trying to go down that particular path?
Yes, the FBI is just able to get the list of the books you've been reading, and I don't honestly forsee any books being banned in this country any time in the near future, but I still don't buy Ashcroft saying he welcomes debate on this issue. More likely, he welcomes a token debate that really won't go anywhere.
And as much as this keeps getting bantered about, I don't think that the American people actually care about forking over their civil liberties in the name of national security. Maybe when they realize that their private information can be used/abused for other purposes, we'll be able to have a real national debate on this issue, but until then, as long as Bush takes a cue from Mousallini and keeps the trains running on time, the number of people who would like to see USA PATRIOT re-examined is definitely in the minority.
We all know that laws like the DMCA are there to protect the big corporations who pay for the politicians to get those laws on the books. We can't have those same laws being used AGAINST these corporations now can we?
One of those there X-wing fighters... I wonder if the US Navy would be kind enough to donate an F-16 so I could do a simmilar conversion. Maybe not... but I bet I could pick up a surplus Mig for a bargain.
Coffee double strength + 1 shot of sky rocket for each page of code/essay I have to write before dawn. Drink, sit back, chill until you feel the buzz, take a little walk to get rid of the initial shock, then get back to computer and pound some keys. All this, of course, done with a tin of penguin mints handy (take 3 every 1/2 hour), and a bottle of bawls in case of severe sleepiness. This gets me so wired that I can't sleep until at least the early afternoon of the following day.
Just don't blame me if it kills you, shortens your life span, or completely nullifies your sex drive. You've been warned.
Does anyone remember Keanu Reeves use of net/phone in Johnny Pnemonic? Seriously, take an old virtual boy as your 3D goggles, hook this thing up, and start hacking.
Well, probably not, but it would be pretty damned cool to dial a phone call using virtual buttoms instead of real buttons. It would be just like pushing real buttons only virtual!
Hey... wait a minute... no, I guess playing Mike Tyson's Punchout and Rad Racer are still the only things the Power Gloves is useful for.
If you think diamonds are forever, you're going to love the new One Ring model at Sauron's Jewelers (with 1 convenient locataion in the Barad-dur shopping mall, located right in the shadow of Mount Doom).
This ring is guaranteed to last for all eternity, and will grant countless powers as well as being a pledge of your ever lasting and eternal love. When my grandfather first forged this ring in ages past, he made it to last, and it has certainly stood the test of time. What better way of telling that special someone "This is going to last forever?"
Supplies are EXTREMELY limited, so hurry on in, or email DarkLord@mordor.org for this and other wonderful items.
Even still, you need to factor in the time it takes to get a new virus definition, install a firewall, etc. And all things considered, most windows users don't do this. The question is plenty fair, but for average joe-I-got-windows-preloaded-user, the install is never really done, it has been half-done by the distributer, and the user doesn't realize that anything has been left undone.
The problem, as you say, is that they spend no time installing their OS, and so their OS is never properly installed.
One of the reasons for this bust is that people were spending money on IT stupidly. I'm sure we all know a few people who have insisted that they need a new computer because their old pentium is "impairing their productivity" when all they really do is word process. And let us not forget this sub-moronic idea that just because M$ comes out with a new version of office, you need to have it in order to keep up. The result is that companies have way more features in house than they can typically use, which translates into wated money.
Now tell me who out there is naive enough to think that the people running the show are sdmart enough to learn that IT is a worthwhile investment as long as it is well thought out and carefully implimented? Reactionary attitudes tends to be the norm in just about everything everywhere. Right now the pendulum is in the process of swinging back towards a cut corners mentality, which is good to a certain degree.
"We can't install the latest release of Windows/Office on our old k6-2? Why can't we just use the old version?" That's intelligent thought, and as techs, it should be up to us to answer that question. I truly believe there will come a time when we are no longer in a recssion, and invester confidence has returned, and when that time comes, the people who approve budgets might be willing to listen to and consider your answers.
Until that time comes, you're just going to have to accentuate the negative. If you need to develop some app, but there is no budget, then make sure you accurately predict how, in the long run, not devbeloping it will actually cost your company money. When enough techs are proved right often enough, then the pendulum will start to swing back the other way, of course this gives us all an even mightier responsibility; to learn from the lessons of the past 6 years and NOT try to solve every problem with something newer and "better."
Imagine this place where you go and sit down, and REAL people in a REAL space RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES put on a show. And imagine, if you will, that the show people, call them "actors" actually respond to the feedback of those watching IN REAL TIME. What a concept, eh?
In my limited experience, television shows tend to be trite and plastic, with more emphasis placed on pleasing a target audience then anything else. There is a theatrical equivalent of this, it's called Broadway, but artistic theatre types tend to try and insert something intelligent into their shows ; they have this silly notion about actually being creative. The result is that, when done well, even something written to be trite and plastic has a shot at actually being halfway decent.
There is more money and availability to be made in television and film, I'll grant that, but to actually choose to go into something so emphemeral as costume or set design, you actually have to like and want to do it. I dare say you have to try very hard, and I think the result of this will simply be that a lot of these folks wind up working for regional theatres.
Even then, I still see a need for lighting designer, set designers, and costume designers on the "set" of a computer generated show. These people actually study things like texture and color, and shadowing, etc., which are things that most high tech people (again, in my limited experience) want nothing to do with. Just because you're not cutting it out of cloth doesn't mean you no longer need a costume designer, it just means that they are designing with a different medium. Hell, most set and light designer make computer models of their designs these days anyway; this just means that they have to be a bit more detailed.
It amuses me a great deal to think of all the computer illiterate back stage types doing their internships behind keyboards and leaving the old screw gun at home.
"I bet if we offered a packaged, free, easy to install Safe Browsing computer or Anonymous Checkout program, libraries across the U.S. would enthusiastically embrace it."
The fundamental problem with this is that an anonymous checkout system would mean that the library would have no way of getting their books back. Not that a lot of people are out to steal books from public libraries, but I know that if there weren't a fine for returning it late, I would probably put my borrowed books down some place and forget that they were borrowed and not mine. After two weeks of this, they usually give me a call reminding me that the books actually belong to them.
Now picture a world where they can't call me, and when I check out a book, they have no idea that I have quite a few sitting in my apartment waiting to be brought back. Multiply that by the number of people checking out books, and the nations libraries would soon be depleted.
Another thing, I know quite a few people who work in libraries, and they tend not to enthusiastically embrace anything. Especially anything that even sounds like it might require having to re-enter every book in their collection to a new database, and unfortunately they equate the people I know equate "new software" with "new database:. Of course this view is probably a little bit skewed because I'm used to pivcking around small libraries in sleepy towns in the sticks.
Never said it wouldn't have it's problems, and I never said it would be free. Besides, since I know we're all legal users, why is verification of software liscences such a big deal? Remember that there is a fine line between trumped up IP infringement and warez. What it sounds to me like you're getting at is that you don't want to have to pay for your copy of Windows. There's this fun thing called Linux which is a nice alternative.
And I honestly don't see private ISP control as an impediment to the government spying on you. Ultimately, they can obtain (through due process) the right to inspect your underwear drawer. Having a similar measure in place for internet traffic is good, it just needs to be handled responsibly and with a cool head, not the post 9/11 USA PATRIOT act reactionary bulls**t that we have now.
There is no such thing as a perfect system, and the wonderful thing about federal government is that it acknowledges that. Try to think a little more objectively... what freedoms would you lose that you (supposedly) have now?
This one is porbably going to get way moded down, but has anytone stopped to consider what the benefits of a federally owned and operated internet/email system might be? We always gripe about how are rights online are rapidly vanishing, but stop to consider that since the Internet is (at least in the US) owned by private institutions, you really have no rights. Think of it this way; your ISP's EULA generally lets them disconnect you for just about any reason under the sun, which allows them to exercise whatever "discretion" they wish in removing you for doing something that they consider bad. What one isp allows, another forbids. One of the chief benefits of a government internet is that such a system would necessitate granting the user clearly documented rights and restrictions. The wonderful world of "due process" might even be within our grasp.
As it stands, unless you do something that violates some law, anything relating specifically to Internet and ISPs is a civil matter. Think about it; what part of the EULA says that the sysadmin won't decide to read your email? Who says that they won't be watching your traffic?
The difference between the real world and the net is that in the real world, there is a buffer between the common citizen and exploitation by corporations. It is sad that that buffer thins every day, it really is, but the Internet is a world where industry dominates. This has allowed it to grow extremely fast, and also unchecked.
Consider the negatives of a Federal Internet, and I don't think you'll find they would require anything of you that law doesn't allow them to do now.
Frightening as it may be, federalizing the Internet may be the first step to securing our rights online. Then again, the beauty of voting for Nader knowing that he is not going to win is that you don't have to consider that he might not be the best person for the job.
A few months back my laptop bit the big one, and because I didn't have an easy way of getting the data off my system, I backed it up like once every 6 months (bad idea on my part). So what do I do? Simple, I pop the HD in an older machine using a cheap adapter, and boot off of a FLOPPY DISK LINUX DISTRO. I then proceed to accss the drive and copy the contents of my source code and documents to ANOTHER FLOPPY DISK. Thanks to the miracle of FLOPPY DISKS, I managed to save everything that needed saving, and have been able to (relatively painlessly) continue working on data that would have been lost forever were it not for our friend the FLOPPY DRIVE.
10$ extra for a floppy drive on a computer; it would be a bargain at twice the price!
Besides, chicks dig a guy who carries floppy disks with them at all times ("Hey geek boy, is that a floppy disk in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?").
If there is one essential drive I insist upon being in any computer that I buy, it's the floppy drive; true when the imac came ou, true when they stripped it off the G4, true now, and until they come up with something that is just as universal, cheap, portable, standard, and easy to use, true forever!
And the best part is that you're not even damaging your ears.
Actually I tend to think it would still go a little like this:
Soldier #1 and Soldier #2 die because they were hit on a carpet bombing run, because they were spotted by a sattelite orbitting the earth. When we can actually get the sattelites to shoot the bullets and just send people up to reload once every few months, then THAT will be scary.
Now when I tell the doctors that the ogvernment is beaming the voices into my head, maybe they'll actually believe me!
No, it's not even then. The key words you're looking for are "unreasonable search and seisure," and while we may consider this unreasonable, in the eyes of the law, it's perfectly legit as long as no law enforcement body put them up to it. Now whether it would stand in CIVIL court is another matter, but if you try to go that route, the MPAA would be able to, and would be within their rights if they did, to seek to CRIMINALLY prosecute you. Getting a lawyer is probably a good idea if they have falsely accused you and no one is listening to your side of the story, but if you have actually posted the movie, the smart thing to do would be to take it down when your ISP comes knocking.
I don't get it, isn't Road Runner rate limited? If so, then I'm paying for bandwidth that I'm sure doesn't get used every month. Why should they care what I do with my spare bandwidth; it's not exactly if we're talking about pirated bandwidth here. Besides, who's to say that I'm not trying to set up wireless w/ DHCP for my own purposes? Whether they put this in some AUP or not, I think they might be on some shaky legal ground.
So how does one become a citizen there again?
I remember one of my history profs saying something about how in Elizabethan England (that's Shakespeare's time for those who want a frame of refference) the audience would pay for the shows after they were leaving, and if they thought it was worth the money. Now I say, what exactly is the problem here? There are plenty of good artists out there who churn out an excellent album once every few years, and for those, I am willing to pay. Then there are the okay musicians who churn out a good song or two once every few years, and for those songs, I am wiling to pay. Then there are the crappy artists who churn out a good song once in their lifetime, and I am willing to pay for that song. Since you can't usually listen to the entire CD before you buy it, I just go to P2P when I'm interested and check out the merchandise.
Why is the RIAA scared of this? Simple, it forces them to be more selective. So far, the marketing trends place quantity over quality, that way you can sell more records. P2P allows me to make sure I want to buy the album in the first place, and if I don't, I keep the songs I like, and will pay for them when there is a sane and stable system in lpace for doing so. Here, I excercise my ultimate power as a consumer, the ability to refuse to pay $20 for 3 or 4 minutes of audio, and P2P allows me to be able to make that informed choice. RIAA is corporate, so they naturally want the consumer to have as little freedom as possible. If these recording industry types just made sure that they were churning out a quality product each time, there would be no need for P2P, as far as I'm concerned.
Then again, if wishes were horses and all that.
What I'm kind of curious about is how they are ever going to prove that the web page WAS in fact published. It would be really easy to download the front page of any web site, put in some defamatory comments, and then claim that it was published on such and such date. Don't get me wrong, I actually think this is one of the few YRO that strikes me as a step in the right direction, but I fail to see what the definitive criteria for establishing publication is. For someplace with lots of readers (like slashdot), it's easy, as there are plenty of witnesses, but something tells me not too many people visit or could vouch for my website on a regular basis. Any ideas on what you can do to protect yourself?
I just graduated from college with a liberal arts degree. If they want massive amounts of money from me, they're just going to have to get in line and wait their turn.
I know NPR hasn't been the most popular group here lately, but this is one of the reasons why I think they had a good point about their linking policy. NPR is, by and large, funded by public grants and donations, and not by traditional advertising. And to those wondering where the dissenting stories questioning US policy in the War on Freedom can be found, I think it's fairly safe to say you'll hear it on NPR before you hear it anywhere else.
Up above, Katz mentioned blogs and small community news organizations, and the problem that they tend to have small and fragmented user bases. I would also dare to say that most of these indie news sources are also very narrowly focussed. Slashdot certainly didn't report on the recent US bombing of civilians in Afganistan; we have better things to talk about here, like turning a microwave oven into a foundry. Is this bad? No, of course not, we all come here to hear these sorts of things that we wouldn't hear anywhere else, and I know that Slashdot certainly doesn't have any foreign correspondants (and probably lacks an AP wire), so we trust to the mainstream news organizations to get mainstream news.
And thus the innevitable conflict. You could turn to your local college newspaper (many of them have AP wires, and a few even have halfway decent writing), but most of what you see in there has to do with school politics. You local weekly newspaper (most communities have one these days) is anothe rpossible source, but they tend to deal strictly with local issues, and let mainstream news be handled by bigger orginizations.
The solution, in my mind, remains NPR. Maybe I'm being short sighted on this one, but NPR is a well established, independent news source. I know this is going to sound like a sponsorship drive, but if you want a news source free from commercial influence, you're going to have to support it. Publishing/boradcasting is very expensive, and without advertisements, you need an alternative source of funding. Now we're back to grants and independent donations. Just think of it like this, you eithe rpay with dollars, or you pay with incomplete and self-censored journalism.
That I am all that surprised by any of this. Face it folks, this is kind of like what the world would be like if M$ were sued by .gov, but then allowed to appoint the judge and defense counsel. And I quite agree that these people need to go away, but the fact is that even if the current administration was actually interested in shutting down proto-fascist organizations like ICANN, re-centering the power they have would take a massive effort on the part of citizens to lobby their congressman/representatives to do so, and very few of the non-tech crowd have ever even heard of ICANN.
I'm sorry to say that we will probably have to put up with this until the system totally fails, then it will take over a year or so to make a new one. I am, of course, basing this on the 9/11 (non)response.
But I suppose there is always hope. The votes haven't actually happened yet, have they?