I have nothing against patriotism or anything but after a point the sheer quantity of stars and stripes I see around tends to get a little annoying.
You know, I am an American living in Canada and *I* was going to say the same thing about *your* Maple leaf. I'm not knocking it or anything, but you Canadians put that leaf on EVERYTHING. It's in the middle of the McDonald's "Golden arches" up here, and finds it's way onto every single logo, it seems.
I guess what it really boils down to is BOTH our countries utilize the flag as a symbol of patriotism, and as citizens of our respective countries who are "desensitized" to some degree to our own insignia, we will notice the other's use of said insignia much more.
The word processor component of MS Works *is* MS Word. You don't get the rest of the Office Suite with Works (you get a crappy spreadsheet, crappy organizer, etc), but the word processor is a full-featured standalone copy of MS Word.
You're analogy is completely wrong, and therefore so is your conclusion.
Actually, my analogy is spot on. Throwing the soda bottle into the garbage uses a portion of the space that is there (that we paid for), yet we would never (unless "we" were a really anal bastard) call the cops becasue someone used a little of our garbage can space.
At no point did i say this is "okay" or "right". I said it was not "theft" Maybe it's "illegal access", or maybe its "trespassing", but it's not theft.
Furthermore, if you consider using someones garbage can, using up a space to be theft, then fine, have your opinion, but it dosen't change whether my analogy works or not.
So, i think what you meant to say was, "I don't agree with your conclusion, so I am going to discredit your analogy." Don't twist it around.
\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See {Thief}.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious
taking and removing of personal property, with an intent
to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the
owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed,
however slightly, from its former position; and it must
be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of
the thief (Emphasis mine). See {Larceny}, and the Note under {Robbery}.
2. The thing stolen. [R.]
If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive,.
. . he shall restore double. --Ex. xxii. 4.
1 soda bottle in trash = 1 miniscule blog post (100k, tops)
-and-
Dumping bags and bags of garbage = Downloading tons of pron from some guys AP (MBs or GBs)
A cop will most likely say something to you if you were dumping tons of garbage into some unknowing companies garbage can. But they would (most likely) not even flinch if you were simply throwing away the bottle. Same should apply for the WiFi AP.
had the problem with other companies dumping trash in their dumpster
THAT, is an entirely different story. If i am sitting outside of someone's house, using their bandwidth to download tons of pron, yes, that is a problem. But i was referring to one bottle (just like the priest's 20-50 kiloyte (if that) blog post).
My analogy stands. *You* may consider someone throwing 1 coke bottle into your trash "theft", but i dont think most people would.
if you want to call throwing a bottle in someone's garbage can "theft", then go ahead, that's fine, but a cop would most likely not say anything to you for doing it, like i said in another post within this thread...
I stand by my initial "garbage can" analogy. Keep in mind, if someone was sitting outside my house downloading GBs of data via my WiFi, I would be upset (just like if someone was filling all of my garbage cans to the brim with junk). But if someone is making a posting to their blog, and that was it (akin to my "throwing a bottle in analogy"), I probably wouldnt care.
And if it was going to be a problem, like if I pay for trash service by the pound, then I would most certainly put a lid on my garbage can (enable WEP/WPA).
So you may be technically more correct by saying that "theft" is a bad analogy. So how does trespassing grab you then?
"Trespassing" is MUCH more accurate than "theft", but it is still not entirely accurate. It's close, but there is still something a bit more serious about a physical human being physically TRESPASSING on my pysical property than some guy posting to his blog using my WIFI. Perhaps laws will evolve, and I am not saying that there needs to be some sort of legal rules for this stuff, I am merely pointing out that the analogies being used leave A LOT to be desired and do not fairly apply to the cirsumstnaces being described. (especially coming from a law enforcement officer, in the case of this occurance).
I stand by my initial "garbage can" analogy. Keep in mind, if someone was sitting outside my house downloading GBs of data via my WiFi, I would be upset (just like if someone was filling all of my garbage cans to the brim with junk). But if someone is making a posting to their blog, and that was it (akin to my "throwing a bottle in analogy"), I probably wouldnt care.
And if it was going to be a problem, like if I pay for trash service by the pound, then I would most certainly put a lid on my garbage can (enable WEP/WPA).
I am NOT one of those "if you leave the front door open you deserve to be robbed people", but I'm not on the other extreme either. Yes, unauthorized access to WiFi IS an issue, but it certainly shouldn't be categorized as theft.
I'm really getting tired of these "it's like stealing..." analogies. Between the MPAA and The Airwave NAZIs, I'm beginning to wonder if people REALLY understand technology at all...
The Airwave Nazis will say something similar to the cop in blog posting listed in the article above. Something along the lines of "It's like stealing somebodies cable or walking up and plugging in your hairdryer to the electrical outlet on the outside of their home"
NO, it's NOT.
The priest in the article likened it to reading off their porchlight,which is a pretty good analogy. I prefer to say that it is more along the lines of tossing your empty bottle into someones trashcan they have set to the curb without a lid (it may not be "polite" and *some* people might not appreciate it too much....but you're not "stealing" their trash service by doing so). If someone gets so upset at the idea that someone passing by might throw their empty coke bottle into their beloved garbage can, they can simply put a lid on it (which would discourage most would be bottle-throwers) or, in the analogy, the WiFi AP owner could simply turn on WEP (which would discourage most would be bandwidth users).
Regardless of the analogy, it simply is not "stealing", no matter what some judge decided.
Google has now taken it one step further and created a word-identification script filter as part of the login process.
This is true, if you consider mis-typing your password 5 times part of your normal "login process", otherwise, it still works like it always did, as the word identification script does not kick in until after you have mis-typed your password 5 times (seriously! go try!)
Personally, I find Google's gmail notifier annoying since it sits in my taskbar and doesn't have popup notification
Thats great and all except it DOES have pop up notification (not only does it popup, but you can right click the google icon on your tray and have it "tell you again")
Shouldn't I be free to use whatever third party software to check my email?
YES, you should be free to use whatever third party software to check YOUR (POP3/hosted/payed for) email. However, Google is also free to NOT allow you to do so with your free gmail account. There's nothing to argue about, if you don't like it, dont use it.
Will we be seeing controls on browsers that can view gmail next?
Why was this article even posted to slashdot? There werent even links to outside sources (besides Gmail itself). This is just one guy writing up some stupid (wrong) comments, and it's on the freekin/. homepage.
I hate to chime in with "me too", but it is rare that my favorite beer is mentioned on slashdot. La Fin du Monde is so amazing. I moved to Vancouver, BC, Canada from the San Francisco Bay Area, and spent a month or two missing my Lagunitas IPA (and even Sierra-Nevada for that matter).
I have had a few of the others from Unibroue, (Maudite is another good one, but not *quite* as good as LFDM, IMHO).
"Run As" is fine for most applications. You right click on the executable or shorcut and select "run as" from the context menu. But commonly used functions (like control panels, defrag, etc) do not offer this option without first creating a shortcut to apply the "run as" switch to. Many users I have encountered get frustrated with running as a restricted user because it is not obvious how to work around these limitations. An experienced user knows how to get around these things, but it is not clear to inexperienced users.
So to answer your question, it could be a lot easier than "run as". If permissions are not high enough for a given action the system could prompt the user to enter a password (this happens for certain applications, but the behavior is not consistent). Easier access to control panel functions could be given via an "admin control panel". In short, there are a LOT of things that could be done, UI-wise, to make inexperienced users more comfortable running as a limited user without sacrificing security.
First of all, if the user using the machine is running as an admin, there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO PREVENT THE FIREWALL FROM BEING DISABLED BY A 3RD PARTY PIECE OF SOFTWARE. Period. Guess what! Zonealarm and Symantec's stuff has the same 'fault'. If I have admin privs, and I run a piece of software (unless it's managed like.NET code), it can do ANYTHING I can do. That includes turning off firewalls.
Yep. Exactly. Maybe someday it will become standard practice to have Windows set up users at install time as restricted users. I run as restricted at all times, and with the exception of a few items, I simply use "run as" to do any admin chores that are necessary. I don't see why MS couldn't just provide an easier way to "suroot" from a restricted account and be done with 1/2 of the crap that afflicts Windows users who don't know better than to not run as Admin (give it a flash tutorial and a colorful GUI and I think MANY folks out there would get it).
Second, outgoing protection just makes stupid people feel better.
Stated harshly (hopefully that won't earn poster a "flamebait", because even though it's harsh, it's true). If you are running a firewall for incoming connections (and yes, Windows Firewall does this job WELL), use A/V and AntiSpyware software, and are reasonably intelligent about installing programs, you don't NEED outgoing protection.
As far as I'm concerned, why should I waste system resources on outgoing protection that I DON'T NEED? That's why I use the Windows Firewall (and have since it became standard on XP)....and surprise! My machine is spyware,trojan and virus free.
It should be noted the issue with SP2's presenting users with that "turn on automatic updates" screen was a legal issue, not a technical one. MS originally wanted to just turn auto updates on, and then present the user with the option of turning them off (via Security Center) at the time of the first admin login. However, turning them on in this manner violated laws "in several countries" where SP2 is being distributed, therefore MS chose to do it this way. I'm not defending MS per se, as it would have made more sense to leave them off and then present the first admin login with the Security Center and a blurb similar to the screen, but I just wanted to point out that a legal issue is at the root of the SP2 install weirdness.
While I agree with the gist of your post, what you fail to acknowledge is that blogs of the nature you are referring to simply aren't bookmarked/linked to/visited again.
While there are many good blogs out there with unique, original content, there are also many blogs that are creative in the way that they cross-reference and explore a given topic by linking to several external sources and providing insight into how those sources are connected philosphically/intellectualy/topically/whatever. On a good day, I would say Slashdot is a good example of that concept.
The beauty of a well-crafted blog is that it can elaborate and further external articles so that the "whole is greater than the sum of it's parts"
I agree that there are MANY blogs out there like you illustrate in your post, but these blogs are avoided by those who appreciate what a good blog (original content or not) have to offer.
I think the result would be similar to the P2P situation: There are simply so many individuals out there that it makes litigation far too cumbersome to be comprehensive. Entities that believe their "rights" are infringed by linking would either have to go after the "worst offernders", a la the MPAA/RIAA vs. P2P clients, or just freekin' get over it and realize that the internet has spawned new ways of disseminating information and that they must evolve or be subject to de-evolution.
I would *hope* that modern industry is capable of the latter, but sometimes I wonder.
Who is to say another life form even has a physical body
Exactamundo Erick! IMHO this is one possibility that has been overlooked in the very short time we have been "searching" for intelligent life in the universe.
We, human beings that is, have evolved as entities with a certain set of abilities in the physical universe. We have physical bodies that from the moment of our birth act as a machine of sorts for our essence (our mind, our consciousness, our soul, whatever you want to call it... IE: the "part of us that is not our physical bodies") to interact with our environment. These organic machines that we function within have components to observe and process particular wavelengths of energy. Our eyes are tuned to process what we refer to as the "visual wavelength" of light, our ears are tuned to process the "audio wavelength" of sound, etc...
We have examples of other entities, right here on this planet that are both more and less sensitive to said wavelengths (dogs have a greater range in the audio bandwidth, sharks have greater range in the olfactory (smell) bandwidth, etc...). There are plenty of examples right here on earth of intelligent life forms who's experience of the universe greatly differs from ours simply due to the fact that they are tuned to receive sensory data from a different set of frequencies.
It would seem logical that life elsewhere in the universe, be it planetary-based or otherwise may simply reflect this condition. I would even go as far to say that it should be expected to encounter this phenomena, as nature has a way of repeating certain themes/concepts throughout itself.
That being said, it would seem that intelligent life could be communicating on a multitude of levels that we are not tuned to, be they higher or lower levels of known frequncies (ultra low/high frequency sound/light/etc..., OR even on bandwidths that we are not aware of existing AT ALL.
This makes the whole Gaia theory idea much more plausible (the idea that everything in the universe is "alive" including the planet itself).
This would also explain a lot of the metaphysical phenomena that has been documented since, well, the dawn of history. We tend to think (collectively) that the ancient peoples of this planet must have been a little "off their rocker" to believe that the sun was a "God", but when you look at it from the above illustrated point of view, the idea that the big nuclear furnace in the center of our solar system could be an intelligent entity is quite plausible.
Maybe it's not so far off the mark to entertain the idea that intelligent life, of some sort or another is not only "out there", but quite possibly "right here".
Just as I expected HUNDREDS of posts dated today were coming in from Slashdot members giving the book a "one star" review, and for the most part, airing legitimate concerens with the marketing and books publisher. Some of these reviews were well written and not just angry flames toward the publisher (so many negative reviews were writeen that the books overall rating went down to 2 stars).
I just went back a few minutes ago and saw that Amazon has DELETED all the posts from the past few days (the newest review, a positive one, is dated August 2, 2004).
I'm not sure how to feel about this...part of me says: "Maybe the way Amazon is looking at it is: These comments are about the publisher, not the book itself, so we are going to delete them.", but ANOTHER part of me says "I smell a rat here, I bet that Penguin is pressuring Amazon to censor reviews to protect their allmighty bottom line".
When I was first getting into taking PCs apart and installing upgrade components, I took apart a machine completely and put it back together...but...there seemed to be one little cable that was not "hooked up to anything"....hmmmm....so I did the thing that any dumbass who didn't know what he was doing would do and plugged the power supplys extra power cable directly to the jumpers on the motherboard.
Needless to say, upon hitting the power switch, the room filled with the lovely aroma of burning cable casing as smoke poured from the box.
I was devistated at the time, but luckily, the machine still booted and actually ran well for many years after that. I can't even express the sheer terror that I felt as the smoke started pouring out of the vents, though.
Slashdot Mirror
I have nothing against patriotism or anything but after a point the sheer quantity of stars and stripes I see around tends to get a little annoying.
You know, I am an American living in Canada and *I* was going to say the same thing about *your* Maple leaf. I'm not knocking it or anything, but you Canadians put that leaf on EVERYTHING. It's in the middle of the McDonald's "Golden arches" up here, and finds it's way onto every single logo, it seems.
I guess what it really boils down to is BOTH our countries utilize the flag as a symbol of patriotism, and as citizens of our respective countries who are "desensitized" to some degree to our own insignia, we will notice the other's use of said insignia much more.
The word processor component of MS Works *is* MS Word. You don't get the rest of the Office Suite with Works (you get a crappy spreadsheet, crappy organizer, etc), but the word processor is a full-featured standalone copy of MS Word.
So, you think it's ok to steal
I didn't say that it was okay to steal.
I'll be sure to run an extension cord over to your house and steal, well, just a little tiny amount of electricity a day from you.
That WOULD be stealing.
You're analogy is completely wrong, and therefore so is your conclusion.
Actually, my analogy is spot on. Throwing the soda bottle into the garbage uses a portion of the space that is there (that we paid for), yet we would never (unless "we" were a really anal bastard) call the cops becasue someone used a little of our garbage can space.
At no point did i say this is "okay" or "right". I said it was not "theft" Maybe it's "illegal access", or maybe its "trespassing", but it's not theft.
Furthermore, if you consider using someones garbage can, using up a space to be theft, then fine, have your opinion, but it dosen't change whether my analogy works or not.
So, i think what you meant to say was, "I don't agree with your conclusion, so I am going to discredit your analogy." Don't twist it around.
Nazi is a powerful word
Would it have been less offensive to say "Fascist"?
I'm not saying it's NICE, but it's not THEFT.
.
From Webster's Dictionary:
\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e,
[thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See {Thief}.]
1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious
taking and removing of personal property, with an intent
to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the
owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious;
every part of the property stolen must be removed,
however slightly, from its former position; and it must
be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of
the thief (Emphasis mine). See {Larceny}, and the Note under {Robbery}.
2. The thing stolen. [R.]
If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive,
. . he shall restore double. --Ex. xxii. 4.
Totally, but my point is:
1 soda bottle in trash = 1 miniscule blog post (100k, tops)
-and-
Dumping bags and bags of garbage = Downloading tons of pron from some guys AP (MBs or GBs)
A cop will most likely say something to you if you were dumping tons of garbage into some unknowing companies garbage can. But they would (most likely) not even flinch if you were simply throwing away the bottle. Same should apply for the WiFi AP.
had the problem with other companies dumping trash in their dumpster
THAT, is an entirely different story. If i am sitting outside of someone's house, using their bandwidth to download tons of pron, yes, that is a problem. But i was referring to one bottle (just like the priest's 20-50 kiloyte (if that) blog post).
My analogy stands. *You* may consider someone throwing 1 coke bottle into your trash "theft", but i dont think most people would.
if you want to call throwing a bottle in someone's garbage can "theft", then go ahead, that's fine, but a cop would most likely not say anything to you for doing it, like i said in another post within this thread...
I stand by my initial "garbage can" analogy. Keep in mind, if someone was sitting outside my house downloading GBs of data via my WiFi, I would be upset (just like if someone was filling all of my garbage cans to the brim with junk). But if someone is making a posting to their blog, and that was it (akin to my "throwing a bottle in analogy"), I probably wouldnt care.
And if it was going to be a problem, like if I pay for trash service by the pound, then I would most certainly put a lid on my garbage can (enable WEP/WPA).
So you may be technically more correct by saying that "theft" is a bad analogy. So how does trespassing grab you then?
"Trespassing" is MUCH more accurate than "theft", but it is still not entirely accurate. It's close, but there is still something a bit more serious about a physical human being physically TRESPASSING on my pysical property than some guy posting to his blog using my WIFI. Perhaps laws will evolve, and I am not saying that there needs to be some sort of legal rules for this stuff, I am merely pointing out that the analogies being used leave A LOT to be desired and do not fairly apply to the cirsumstnaces being described. (especially coming from a law enforcement officer, in the case of this occurance).
I stand by my initial "garbage can" analogy. Keep in mind, if someone was sitting outside my house downloading GBs of data via my WiFi, I would be upset (just like if someone was filling all of my garbage cans to the brim with junk). But if someone is making a posting to their blog, and that was it (akin to my "throwing a bottle in analogy"), I probably wouldnt care.
And if it was going to be a problem, like if I pay for trash service by the pound, then I would most certainly put a lid on my garbage can (enable WEP/WPA).
I am NOT one of those "if you leave the front door open you deserve to be robbed people", but I'm not on the other extreme either. Yes, unauthorized access to WiFi IS an issue, but it certainly shouldn't be categorized as theft.
I'm really getting tired of these "it's like stealing..." analogies. Between the MPAA and The Airwave NAZIs, I'm beginning to wonder if people REALLY understand technology at all...
The Airwave Nazis will say something similar to the cop in blog posting listed in the article above. Something along the lines of "It's like stealing somebodies cable or walking up and plugging in your hairdryer to the electrical outlet on the outside of their home"
NO, it's NOT.
The priest in the article likened it to reading off their porchlight,which is a pretty good analogy. I prefer to say that it is more along the lines of tossing your empty bottle into someones trashcan they have set to the curb without a lid (it may not be "polite" and *some* people might not appreciate it too much....but you're not "stealing" their trash service by doing so). If someone gets so upset at the idea that someone passing by might throw their empty coke bottle into their beloved garbage can, they can simply put a lid on it (which would discourage most would be bottle-throwers) or, in the analogy, the WiFi AP owner could simply turn on WEP (which would discourage most would be bandwidth users).
Regardless of the analogy, it simply is not "stealing", no matter what some judge decided.
Theft of service, my ass.
can't find a link, anyone?
Maybe here?
I'm canceling my XM account.
And um... It had nothing to do with this, or any other screw-ups with XM programming.
ok, so what did it have to do with then? what's the deciding factor to your cancelling your account?
Google has now taken it one step further and created a word-identification script filter as part of the login process.
/. homepage.
This is true, if you consider mis-typing your password 5 times part of your normal "login process", otherwise, it still works like it always did, as the word identification script does not kick in until after you have mis-typed your password 5 times (seriously! go try!)
Personally, I find Google's gmail notifier annoying since it sits in my taskbar and doesn't have popup notification
Thats great and all except it DOES have pop up notification (not only does it popup, but you can right click the google icon on your tray and have it "tell you again")
Shouldn't I be free to use whatever third party software to check my email?
YES, you should be free to use whatever third party software to check YOUR (POP3/hosted/payed for) email. However, Google is also free to NOT allow you to do so with your free gmail account. There's nothing to argue about, if you don't like it, dont use it.
Will we be seeing controls on browsers that can view gmail next?
yes
Why was this article even posted to slashdot? There werent even links to outside sources (besides Gmail itself). This is just one guy writing up some stupid (wrong) comments, and it's on the freekin
I hate to chime in with "me too", but it is rare that my favorite beer is mentioned on slashdot. La Fin du Monde is so amazing. I moved to Vancouver, BC, Canada from the San Francisco Bay Area, and spent a month or two missing my Lagunitas IPA (and even Sierra-Nevada for that matter).
I have had a few of the others from Unibroue, (Maudite is another good one, but not *quite* as good as LFDM, IMHO).
Dammit. They covered it in Apple and Games and IT as well. That sure is a lot of dupes. I'm still trying to figure out what this has to do with Linux.
"Run As" is fine for most applications. You right click on the executable or shorcut and select "run as" from the context menu. But commonly used functions (like control panels, defrag, etc) do not offer this option without first creating a shortcut to apply the "run as" switch to. Many users I have encountered get frustrated with running as a restricted user because it is not obvious how to work around these limitations. An experienced user knows how to get around these things, but it is not clear to inexperienced users.
So to answer your question, it could be a lot easier than "run as". If permissions are not high enough for a given action the system could prompt the user to enter a password (this happens for certain applications, but the behavior is not consistent). Easier access to control panel functions could be given via an "admin control panel". In short, there are a LOT of things that could be done, UI-wise, to make inexperienced users more comfortable running as a limited user without sacrificing security.
Parent sums it up well.
.NET code), it can do ANYTHING I can do. That includes turning off firewalls.
First of all, if the user using the machine is running as an admin, there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO PREVENT THE FIREWALL FROM BEING DISABLED BY A 3RD PARTY PIECE OF SOFTWARE. Period. Guess what! Zonealarm and Symantec's stuff has the same 'fault'. If I have admin privs, and I run a piece of software (unless it's managed like
Yep. Exactly. Maybe someday it will become standard practice to have Windows set up users at install time as restricted users. I run as restricted at all times, and with the exception of a few items, I simply use "run as" to do any admin chores that are necessary. I don't see why MS couldn't just provide an easier way to "suroot" from a restricted account and be done with 1/2 of the crap that afflicts Windows users who don't know better than to not run as Admin (give it a flash tutorial and a colorful GUI and I think MANY folks out there would get it).
Second, outgoing protection just makes stupid people feel better.
Stated harshly (hopefully that won't earn poster a "flamebait", because even though it's harsh, it's true). If you are running a firewall for incoming connections (and yes, Windows Firewall does this job WELL), use A/V and AntiSpyware software, and are reasonably intelligent about installing programs, you don't NEED outgoing protection.
As far as I'm concerned, why should I waste system resources on outgoing protection that I DON'T NEED? That's why I use the Windows Firewall (and have since it became standard on XP)....and surprise! My machine is spyware,trojan and virus free.
It should be noted the issue with SP2's presenting users with that "turn on automatic updates" screen was a legal issue, not a technical one. MS originally wanted to just turn auto updates on, and then present the user with the option of turning them off (via Security Center) at the time of the first admin login. However, turning them on in this manner violated laws "in several countries" where SP2 is being distributed, therefore MS chose to do it this way. I'm not defending MS per se, as it would have made more sense to leave them off and then present the first admin login with the Security Center and a blurb similar to the screen, but I just wanted to point out that a legal issue is at the root of the SP2 install weirdness.
While I agree with the gist of your post, what you fail to acknowledge is that blogs of the nature you are referring to simply aren't bookmarked/linked to/visited again.
While there are many good blogs out there with unique, original content, there are also many blogs that are creative in the way that they cross-reference and explore a given topic by linking to several external sources and providing insight into how those sources are connected philosphically/intellectualy/topically/whatever. On a good day, I would say Slashdot is a good example of that concept.
The beauty of a well-crafted blog is that it can elaborate and further external articles so that the "whole is greater than the sum of it's parts"
I agree that there are MANY blogs out there like you illustrate in your post, but these blogs are avoided by those who appreciate what a good blog (original content or not) have to offer.
I think the result would be similar to the P2P situation: There are simply so many individuals out there that it makes litigation far too cumbersome to be comprehensive. Entities that believe their "rights" are infringed by linking would either have to go after the "worst offernders", a la the MPAA/RIAA vs. P2P clients, or just freekin' get over it and realize that the internet has spawned new ways of disseminating information and that they must evolve or be subject to de-evolution.
I would *hope* that modern industry is capable of the latter, but sometimes I wonder.
Who is to say another life form even has a physical body
Exactamundo Erick! IMHO this is one possibility that has been overlooked in the very short time we have been "searching" for intelligent life in the universe.
We, human beings that is, have evolved as entities with a certain set of abilities in the physical universe. We have physical bodies that from the moment of our birth act as a machine of sorts for our essence (our mind, our consciousness, our soul, whatever you want to call it... IE: the "part of us that is not our physical bodies") to interact with our environment. These organic machines that we function within have components to observe and process particular wavelengths of energy. Our eyes are tuned to process what we refer to as the "visual wavelength" of light, our ears are tuned to process the "audio wavelength" of sound, etc...
We have examples of other entities, right here on this planet that are both more and less sensitive to said wavelengths (dogs have a greater range in the audio bandwidth, sharks have greater range in the olfactory (smell) bandwidth, etc...). There are plenty of examples right here on earth of intelligent life forms who's experience of the universe greatly differs from ours simply due to the fact that they are tuned to receive sensory data from a different set of frequencies.
It would seem logical that life elsewhere in the universe, be it planetary-based or otherwise may simply reflect this condition. I would even go as far to say that it should be expected to encounter this phenomena, as nature has a way of repeating certain themes/concepts throughout itself.
That being said, it would seem that intelligent life could be communicating on a multitude of levels that we are not tuned to, be they higher or lower levels of known frequncies (ultra low/high frequency sound/light/etc..., OR even on bandwidths that we are not aware of existing AT ALL.
This makes the whole Gaia theory idea much more plausible (the idea that everything in the universe is "alive" including the planet itself).
This would also explain a lot of the metaphysical phenomena that has been documented since, well, the dawn of history. We tend to think (collectively) that the ancient peoples of this planet must have been a little "off their rocker" to believe that the sun was a "God", but when you look at it from the above illustrated point of view, the idea that the big nuclear furnace in the center of our solar system could be an intelligent entity is quite plausible.
Maybe it's not so far off the mark to entertain the idea that intelligent life, of some sort or another is not only "out there", but quite possibly "right here".
I went to the Amzon.com page for this book about an hour ago to chime in on the books marketing strategy.
Just as I expected HUNDREDS of posts dated today were coming in from Slashdot members giving the book a "one star" review, and for the most part, airing legitimate concerens with the marketing and books publisher. Some of these reviews were well written and not just angry flames toward the publisher (so many negative reviews were writeen that the books overall rating went down to 2 stars).
I just went back a few minutes ago and saw that Amazon has DELETED all the posts from the past few days (the newest review, a positive one, is dated August 2, 2004).
I'm not sure how to feel about this...part of me says: "Maybe the way Amazon is looking at it is: These comments are about the publisher, not the book itself, so we are going to delete them.", but ANOTHER part of me says "I smell a rat here, I bet that Penguin is pressuring Amazon to censor reviews to protect their allmighty bottom line".
Either way....this is going to be messy.
With VOIP over WiFi still in it's infancy, that's highly unlikely at the moment, but the potential is there.
The question is: Will the Telcos allow such a thing to happen?
When I was first getting into taking PCs apart and installing upgrade components, I took apart a machine completely and put it back together...but...there seemed to be one little cable that was not "hooked up to anything"....hmmmm....so I did the thing that any dumbass who didn't know what he was doing would do and plugged the power supplys extra power cable directly to the jumpers on the motherboard.
Needless to say, upon hitting the power switch, the room filled with the lovely aroma of burning cable casing as smoke poured from the box.
I was devistated at the time, but luckily, the machine still booted and actually ran well for many years after that. I can't even express the sheer terror that I felt as the smoke started pouring out of the vents, though.