Porn surfing is one thing. Hands in the pants is another, and would probobly fall under the category of indecent behavior not allowed under the board policy of most public libraries.
Therefore, no library employee should feel at all afraid of kicking a kid out who is discovered enjoying his/her own charms. In fact, they should consider such an occasion to be cathartic. After all, theer are SO few things you can get away with kicking a kid outta the library for these days!
"I don't feel that I should have a right to go to my local library and look up porn."
Actually, some pornography IS, indeed, protected under the first amendment. Therefore, you SHOULD have a right to access that literature (Fanny Hill, the Story of 'O', the transcripts of Bill Clinton's impeachment proceedings, etc.). The laws defining obscenity, etc., provide a framework for determining what is not protected (generally anything depicting wanton penetration of one body with the protuberance(s) of another body).
OK, there is incest in the Bible. Daughters get their daddy drunk and then have sex with him. Sounds like porn to me!
The argument that tax money is being used to buy pornography via the Internet is a fallacious one--money pays for the connection, not the content. By following the same argument in favor of filtering the Internet, one could also argue in favor of physically weakening the individual shelf units on which questionable books are kept, in the hopes that it will keep people from checking out those books. After all, tax money buys that shelf, and there is a bad book on that shelf, so let's take the shelf away or otherwise weaken its ability to serve as a shelf.
Sheesh.
The most problematic part of this whole equation is that the USF funds go to both school AND public libraries. Schools CERTAINLY have a legal right and/or responsibility to limit access for minors. Public libraries are a different beast altogether. Unfortunately, instead of arguing in favor of treating them separately, which would do far more to strengthen their argument, pro-censor groups attack the whole kit-n-kaboodle, which, since it then impacts on adult rights, invariably dooms the censors' mission to failure.
Of course, any reference to fflibraries.org ('Family Friendly' libraries), should come with a footnote explaining that the site is created and maintained by and for people who have an axe to grind with libraries to begin with. They are less concerned with how and why libraries operate/function as they do, and more concerned with imposing a boilerplate set of 'values' (actually, civil rights limitations) across the whole of American society. Related groups are the American Family Association and Citizens for Community Values.
To let such groups (which really are just very well-funded extremist groups with few members and negligible claim to represent any representative swath of values) apply their standards to American libraries would be criminal, and in the end, all you'd have left to read are the Bible, Veggie Tales, and 'Go Dog, Go!'
For standing up for First Amendment rights, a member of such a group gave up arguing over the core issues and took to personal attacks, which, of course, I wore proudly.
I find *nix commands easy to remember, and had no trouble when I was also a nOOb. In fact, I find ls far easier to remember and type than dir, and rm and chmod both make perfect, unobfuscated sense to me as well.
As for the time cusion, M$ has had nearly 20 years to clean up their act (and their code). They are sitting on a cubic BUTTLOAD of ca$h. In my opinion, it is time they were called to account for the mess they are inflicting on us through their monopolistic actions, and therefore I see any time cushion as just an opportunity for them to flex their high-paid legal muscle to avoid growing up with the rest of the computer world.
At gov't speeds, migrating from M$ to anything else would require about 32,000 pages of justifying documentation, committees devoted to the migration in every gov't department (yes, high duplication across departments and agencies), and the labor of an overworked, underpaid, and likely illegally immigrated temporary tech workforce.
The problem here is that M$ is proprietary, and won't release their code. Therefore, government agencies cannot verify such claims of bad code. Also, one must agree not to disclose bugs in M$ software or face prosecution. In the end, the governmetn shuld do what the gov't of Chile has done, and require the use of free (...of proprietary code, etc.) software in all gov't operations.
But, I agree... I'd love to see the gov't return MS stuff and REQUIRE working code. Watch M$ reply with a RedHat CD.
"...It seems that the code in question was actually being used by SoftImage before it was bought out by MS. (although under license). This just seems like a red herring to shovel dirt on MS over an inherited problem from buying out SoftImage. Seems like the/. crowd is getting desperate for MS dirt to me..." Have you never heard of receiving stolen property? It gets people into hot water all the time. Are we to understand that M$ is excused from diligence in following up on the legality of the products it purchases for sale to third parties?
Since the blurb calls it a legal requirement, rather than 'The Law' I would have to guess that what they REALLY are saying is "We have required this in the past, and it has held up in court thus far, which means that our monopolistic requirement is deemed LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE." In the which case, I would suspect that, given our litigious society (which is slowly awakening to the fact that they are not M$'s bitches), it is only a matter of time until some granny gets jailed for breaking her EULA, and tugs at a nation's heartstrings in an ABC Sunday Night Movie, severing Bill Gates' umbilical connection to the world's wallet (and pulling down huge ratings).
Personally, I think we should all get the email addies of Mr. Hussein and his cohorts, and simply forward to them all the goddamned "add 2 inches to your penis" emails we get every week.
I mean, even if it doesn't crash their server, at least it might take care of their collective Napolean complex.
As much as I don't normally like to criticise the editors selection of articles on the site I fail to see how this trilogy is in any way relevant to anything any of us are interested in.
Speak for yourself. I work in a library and have read the trilogy, and found it very enjoyable.
The plot is cliche to say the least and has been done better in several other novels available at your local library
So is negatively critiquing a book without reading it, but I digress. It doesn't take a brainiac to realize that there are only a finite number of plots. Two ingredients that make a 'cliche' plot bearable are character development and narrative style. Certainly LOTR has a well-worn plot, but Tolkein developed believeable characters and swathed them in pretty good narrative (although I had to try more than once to get through the plodding narrative in the House of Tom Bombadil...)
One of the best has some spectacular cover art involving a girl looking through a floor length mirror and seeing another world.
And, as we all know, 99% of the time you can judge a book by it's cover art. (then again, was the cover done by Boris Vallejo? LOL)
This trilogy is just plain not worth the attention of Slashdot.
Nor is a kneejerk, unenlightened/unenlightening review.
Speaking for myself, I found Pullman's trilogy a nice diversion from the standard fantasy/alternate reality sci-fi fare. Sure, it isn't Beowulf or Tale of Two Cities, but it sure as hell beats a lot of crap I've tried to muck my way through (some of which may simply not be my cup of tea, so I won't trash them by name here).
I heartilly recommend Pullman's trilogy, and I am a regular/. reader.
AOL *presently* exists for Mac OSX, a Unix-based OS (and cousin to RedHat). I know, because I use it, and it is pretty much indistinguishable from classic Mac OS AOL.
Now, if AOL were to get it's mitts on a mature OS distributor (RedHat) with a substantial reputation, market share, and existing customer base, they wouldn't have to pour $$ into OS development.
Then they could mate their OSX software to the new OS, with but a few adjustments, and there you have it: AOLinux OS. Furthermore, say what you will about AOL (and I have likely said as much and more), I think they could finally do what has escaped most Linux distros so far: turn out a foolproof, bought-it-at-Kmart, easy-as-making-toast, consumer-oriented OS installation.
And, in case you didn't already think the AOL brand was pervasive enough...
Prepare ye unbelievers, for the AOLinux OS, available for PC, PDA, cell phone, web pad, Smart Refrigerator, toaster, etc...
A much better idea would be to harness energy from the sea itself in order to crack hydrogen from sea water.
I once read a very interesting book called the Millennial Project, which, in it's first section, describes the construction, through mineral accretion, of sea colonies which exploit the temperature difference between levels of sea water, thus generating the power needed to derive hydrogen from the sea water itself.
Why go into space when the sea gives it up for [almost] free?
Why is it that, whenever a "leaked" email appears from Microsoft, and is hailed by slashdotters as another example of M$ stupidity/arrogance/terminal jerkosity, suddenly a croaking chorus of Microsofties rears their collective head and cries "O! But for this incessent M$ bashing on Slashdot, the world would see M$ is pure as the driven snow."
But now that an authoritative source shows that, indeed, M$ is deceitful and ready for their basement suite in Hell, the chorus changes to apologetic cries of "People can learn to adapt to crashes, bugs, worms..." and moans of "There's no evidence that anyone was paid, or that there was any concerted effort, or that their was any conspiracy."
Sigh... I'm only asking....
Oh, and by the way, give them a chance, and M$ will make it illegal to say "Pure as the driven Snow," as it will undoubtably be an infringement on some Hailstorm-related vapor ("Upgrade to MS SnowXP for a.NET XPerience as pure as, well, you get the picture!") BLECHH!
It's like breaking into car lots and test-driving cars in the middle of the night because you want to get a feel for the car before you make the purchase. I don't think the cops are going to buy that one.
This isn't really a good analogy. A more accurate analogy would be "It's like finding an unlocked Jaguar on the side of a country road in BFE, with the keys still in the ignition, and taking it for a test drive. You can't afford to buy one now, but based on that drive, maybe you will once you have the $$." Of course, the cops still prolly won't buy the argument all the same!
As far as MP3s go, there are several artists whose CDs I would gladly purchase, based on my own mp3 d/ling. The trouble is I can never find their stuff in the stores without digging through sixty-thousand boy band rip-offs and thirty-five million Cristina Agui-Spearsa knock-offs, which is something I am incapable of doing when I am way baked and on a late-night spending spree.
The software companies have a legit beef (in my eyes) when people are selling their pirated software. Otherwise, they are punishing 'sharing', which, as most of us were taught as children, is a good and upright thing to do with our toys.
They don't seem to realize that the real value isn't in the actual software, but the support that comes with buying the real deal, complete with manuals, manufacturer CDs, and advertising inserts. Of course, I could be wrong....
Don't totally blame the UPS employees. Management has, for years, been trying to get more blood out of the employee turnip, and failing with great success. Rather than staff discontent, such damages are more likely the result of UPS employees trying to achieve some impossibly high rate of package processing, per management orders.
Yes, I actually had a similar situation a few weeks ago, when a monitor was delivered with a bashed-in side vent panel. What was the return method the company uses? They sent me a UPS return label to slap on the box for return shipping.
Slashdot Mirror
Porn surfing is one thing. Hands in the pants is another, and would probobly fall under the category of indecent behavior not allowed under the board policy of most public libraries.
Therefore, no library employee should feel at all afraid of kicking a kid out who is discovered enjoying his/her own charms. In fact, they should consider such an occasion to be cathartic. After all, theer are SO few things you can get away with kicking a kid outta the library for these days!
"I don't feel that I should have a right to go to my local library and look up porn."
Actually, some pornography IS, indeed, protected under the first amendment. Therefore, you SHOULD have a right to access that literature (Fanny Hill, the Story of 'O', the transcripts of Bill Clinton's impeachment proceedings, etc.). The laws defining obscenity, etc., provide a framework for determining what is not protected (generally anything depicting wanton penetration of one body with the protuberance(s) of another body).
I grow weary of some arguments.
OK, there is incest in the Bible. Daughters get their daddy drunk and then have sex with him. Sounds like porn to me!
The argument that tax money is being used to buy pornography via the Internet is a fallacious one--money pays for the connection, not the content. By following the same argument in favor of filtering the Internet, one could also argue in favor of physically weakening the individual shelf units on which questionable books are kept, in the hopes that it will keep people from checking out those books. After all, tax money buys that shelf, and there is a bad book on that shelf, so let's take the shelf away or otherwise weaken its ability to serve as a shelf.
Sheesh.
The most problematic part of this whole equation is that the USF funds go to both school AND public libraries. Schools CERTAINLY have a legal right and/or responsibility to limit access for minors. Public libraries are a different beast altogether. Unfortunately, instead of arguing in favor of treating them separately, which would do far more to strengthen their argument, pro-censor groups attack the whole kit-n-kaboodle, which, since it then impacts on adult rights, invariably dooms the censors' mission to failure.
Of course, any reference to fflibraries.org ('Family Friendly' libraries), should come with a footnote explaining that the site is created and maintained by and for people who have an axe to grind with libraries to begin with. They are less concerned with how and why libraries operate/function as they do, and more concerned with imposing a boilerplate set of 'values' (actually, civil rights limitations) across the whole of American society. Related groups are the American Family Association and Citizens for Community Values.
To let such groups (which really are just very well-funded extremist groups with few members and negligible claim to represent any representative swath of values) apply their standards to American libraries would be criminal, and in the end, all you'd have left to read are the Bible, Veggie Tales, and 'Go Dog, Go!'
For standing up for First Amendment rights, a member of such a group gave up arguing over the core issues and took to personal attacks, which, of course, I wore proudly.
Go on... TRY to convince me it'll be free of spyware!
And another thing: shouldn't the Defense Department be working on more pressing matters at this time??
ARGH!
"A Moon colony - however technically difficult that is won't grab the public as much as a misson to Mars"
It will when people are offered pricey tourist junkets to the Sea of Tranquility.
1. Take 1bn Chinamen
2. Make a human pyramid
3. Pass a shovel to the guy on top and start a bucket brigade.
EASY!
I find *nix commands easy to remember, and had no trouble when I was also a nOOb. In fact, I find ls far easier to remember and type than dir, and rm and chmod both make perfect, unobfuscated sense to me as well.
As for the time cusion, M$ has had nearly 20 years to clean up their act (and their code). They are sitting on a cubic BUTTLOAD of ca$h. In my opinion, it is time they were called to account for the mess they are inflicting on us through their monopolistic actions, and therefore I see any time cushion as just an opportunity for them to flex their high-paid legal muscle to avoid growing up with the rest of the computer world.
At gov't speeds, migrating from M$ to anything else would require about 32,000 pages of justifying documentation, committees devoted to the migration in every gov't department (yes, high duplication across departments and agencies), and the labor of an overworked, underpaid, and likely illegally immigrated temporary tech workforce.
But then, I could be wrong.
The problem here is that M$ is proprietary, and won't release their code. Therefore, government agencies cannot verify such claims of bad code. Also, one must agree not to disclose bugs in M$ software or face prosecution. In the end, the governmetn shuld do what the gov't of Chile has done, and require the use of free (...of proprietary code, etc.) software in all gov't operations.
But, I agree... I'd love to see the gov't return MS stuff and REQUIRE working code. Watch M$ reply with a RedHat CD.
"...It seems that the code in question was actually being used by SoftImage before it was bought out by MS. (although under license). This just seems like a red herring to shovel dirt on MS over an inherited problem from buying out SoftImage. Seems like the /. crowd is getting desperate for MS dirt to me..."
Have you never heard of receiving stolen property? It gets people into hot water all the time. Are we to understand that M$ is excused from diligence in following up on the legality of the products it purchases for sale to third parties?
Since the blurb calls it a legal requirement, rather than 'The Law' I would have to guess that what they REALLY are saying is "We have required this in the past, and it has held up in court thus far, which means that our monopolistic requirement is deemed LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE." In the which case, I would suspect that, given our litigious society (which is slowly awakening to the fact that they are not M$'s bitches), it is only a matter of time until some granny gets jailed for breaking her EULA, and tugs at a nation's heartstrings in an ABC Sunday Night Movie, severing Bill Gates' umbilical connection to the world's wallet (and pulling down huge ratings).
Well... I can dream, can't I?
Makes you wonder what the government has that its /not/ telling us about... heh
1. the Roswell Saucer
2. the Aurora project
3. Jimmy Hoffa
4. secret moonbase on the far side of Luna
5. the 2000 Presidential election results
Personally, I think we should all get the email addies of Mr. Hussein and his cohorts, and simply forward to them all the goddamned "add 2 inches to your penis" emails we get every week.
I mean, even if it doesn't crash their server, at least it might take care of their collective Napolean complex.
Speak for yourself. I work in a library and have read the trilogy, and found it very enjoyable.
The plot is cliche to say the least and has been done better in several other novels available at your local library
So is negatively critiquing a book without reading it, but I digress. It doesn't take a brainiac to realize that there are only a finite number of plots. Two ingredients that make a 'cliche' plot bearable are character development and narrative style. Certainly LOTR has a well-worn plot, but Tolkein developed believeable characters and swathed them in pretty good narrative (although I had to try more than once to get through the plodding narrative in the House of Tom Bombadil...)
One of the best has some spectacular cover art involving a girl looking through a floor length mirror and seeing another world.
And, as we all know, 99% of the time you can judge a book by it's cover art. (then again, was the cover done by Boris Vallejo? LOL)
This trilogy is just plain not worth the attention of Slashdot.
Nor is a kneejerk, unenlightened/unenlightening review.
Speaking for myself, I found Pullman's trilogy a nice diversion from the standard fantasy/alternate reality sci-fi fare. Sure, it isn't Beowulf or Tale of Two Cities, but it sure as hell beats a lot of crap I've tried to muck my way through (some of which may simply not be my cup of tea, so I won't trash them by name here).
I heartilly recommend Pullman's trilogy, and I am a regular
Unfortunately, with the new inviso-suit you have to de-cloak in order to fire your weapon, so there are still a few kinks to be worked out.
Oh, and does it run Linux?
I was really pulling for Linux for a while, but then OSX came out, and now I think that Apple is leading the charge of *nix on the desktop.
Flame away. I can take it. But as eccentric as he is, Steve Jobs (and Apple) has once again seen the future and saved us from it.
The easiest fix here is to take that PC you got, see, and unplug it, see, and replace it, see, you know, like, with a Mac running OSX.
Hope that answers everyone's questions!
Open the Flame Pit doors, HAL! Someone questioned the Intel paradigm!
AOL *presently* exists for Mac OSX, a Unix-based OS (and cousin to RedHat). I know, because I use it, and it is pretty much indistinguishable from classic Mac OS AOL.
Now, if AOL were to get it's mitts on a mature OS distributor (RedHat) with a substantial reputation, market share, and existing customer base, they wouldn't have to pour $$ into OS development.
Then they could mate their OSX software to the new OS, with but a few adjustments, and there you have it: AOLinux OS. Furthermore, say what you will about AOL (and I have likely said as much and more), I think they could finally do what has escaped most Linux distros so far: turn out a foolproof, bought-it-at-Kmart, easy-as-making-toast, consumer-oriented OS installation.
And, in case you didn't already think the AOL brand was pervasive enough...
Prepare ye unbelievers, for the AOLinux OS, available for PC, PDA, cell phone, web pad, Smart Refrigerator, toaster, etc...
Easy as falling off a log.
...so to speak.
A much better idea would be to harness energy from the sea itself in order to crack hydrogen from sea water.
I once read a very interesting book called the Millennial Project, which, in it's first section, describes the construction, through mineral accretion, of sea colonies which exploit the temperature difference between levels of sea water, thus generating the power needed to derive hydrogen from the sea water itself.
Why go into space when the sea gives it up for [almost] free?
http://www.luf.org/bin/view/TMP/ClassicAquarius
Why is it that, whenever a "leaked" email appears from Microsoft, and is hailed by slashdotters as another example of M$ stupidity/arrogance/terminal jerkosity, suddenly a croaking chorus of Microsofties rears their collective head and cries "O! But for this incessent M$ bashing on Slashdot, the world would see M$ is pure as the driven snow."
.NET XPerience as pure as, well, you get the picture!") BLECHH!
But now that an authoritative source shows that, indeed, M$ is deceitful and ready for their basement suite in Hell, the chorus changes to apologetic cries of "People can learn to adapt to crashes, bugs, worms..." and moans of "There's no evidence that anyone was paid, or that there was any concerted effort, or that their was any conspiracy."
Sigh... I'm only asking....
Oh, and by the way, give them a chance, and M$ will make it illegal to say "Pure as the driven Snow," as it will undoubtably be an infringement on some Hailstorm-related vapor ("Upgrade to MS SnowXP for a
"Are we ready for immorality?"
;-)
I am... Where do I sign up?
This isn't really a good analogy. A more accurate analogy would be "It's like finding an unlocked Jaguar on the side of a country road in BFE, with the keys still in the ignition, and taking it for a test drive. You can't afford to buy one now, but based on that drive, maybe you will once you have the $$." Of course, the cops still prolly won't buy the argument all the same!
As far as MP3s go, there are several artists whose CDs I would gladly purchase, based on my own mp3 d/ling. The trouble is I can never find their stuff in the stores without digging through sixty-thousand boy band rip-offs and thirty-five million Cristina Agui-Spearsa knock-offs, which is something I am incapable of doing when I am way baked and on a late-night spending spree.
The software companies have a legit beef (in my eyes) when people are selling their pirated software. Otherwise, they are punishing 'sharing', which, as most of us were taught as children, is a good and upright thing to do with our toys.
They don't seem to realize that the real value isn't in the actual software, but the support that comes with buying the real deal, complete with manuals, manufacturer CDs, and advertising inserts. Of course, I could be wrong....
...Does this mean future laptops will have a tailpipe? ;-)
Don't totally blame the UPS employees. Management has, for years, been trying to get more blood out of the employee turnip, and failing with great success. Rather than staff discontent, such damages are more likely the result of UPS employees trying to achieve some impossibly high rate of package processing, per management orders.
Yes, I actually had a similar situation a few weeks ago, when a monitor was delivered with a bashed-in side vent panel. What was the return method the company uses? They sent me a UPS return label to slap on the box for return shipping.
Go figure.