All of that being said, I agree 3D is a bit gimmicky at times. I think it is an evolution of things that will probably stick around and continue to evolve (LG is now making 3D TV's with polarization instead of shutter glasses), but it's a technology in its infancy. I don't think the companies are pushing it too hard anymore, they were. I think it's going to be like color and LCD's were. At one time a lot of people thought of those as gimmicks, especially before the color standard was finalized (hint there were competing standards), not to mention remote controls, especially the wired ones (like we had for the BetaMax) or the actual audible clickers. Try to buy a brand new black and white TV without a remote control today. Certain gimmicks have a way to becoming permanent. This is one of them even if the current incarnation dies off.
This strikes me as the real issue underlying the debate over 3D; when is something a gimmick? Gimmicks tend to be of limited use. They're either one-trick ponies only useful for niche issues. Or their ability to perform the given task is limited and, while it may manage in some form, the overall success of the gimmick is suspect. Technology is full of both kinds of gimmicks. However, I would note that color and remote control would have been in "gimmick" territory mostly because earlier implementations were immature and sub-par. That technology is around today not because it's a permanent gimmick but rather because the underlying technology matured to the point that it stopped being a gimmick.
Accepting that 3D TV / movies is a gimmick (on which I agree), the question then is whether it is a niche technology or an immature one.
You listed color and remotes as common examples today. However, I wouldn't portray those as gimmicks. But then, we're seeing mature versions of the technology no
Anyways, I think it's an interesting phenomenon that generally "techy" people seem to sometimes get really bent out of shape about new tech. We saw the same thing with HD TVs. We used to see it more with new versions of OS's and software.
In my completely subjective opinion, it's an aversion to marketing. A lot of the population see the world of technology as filled with magic black boxes. Techies see objects with an innate desire to understand at least the basics of how they work. When their understanding of how things work, and consequently the implications of that functionality existing in the real world, doesn't match with the marketing it is perceived as bullshit. A negative opinion is formed. The stronger the marketing effort and the more that marketing deviates from perceived reality, the more strongly the resistance and desire to communicate that negative opinion.
Which isn't to say techies' perceptions are always on par with everyone else or even in agreement with other techies. But I think it goes a long way towards explaining various flame wars, pseudo-religious product followings / anti-followings, and long-running arguments that are the stuff of techie communities / forums / blogs.
However, it seems to be the cornerstone to a lot of marketing campaigns; especially for high-profit markets.
Anecdotal story time. Back when I was a kid, my Dad owned a store where he sold products that were crafted by him and Mom in the workshop out back. Dad came across a great deal on a particular raw material. He ended up having to buy a lot of it to get the price - but it was a great deal. So he figured he'd put out a special in the store to sell off the inventory. Customers would get a really nice price cut and the store would turn a good profit. The product sat for several weeks with rarely a sale. Dad jacked up the price double and sold out of the special run in a week.
Say! It's your lucky day. I've got a rock here to sell to you for $100. Why? Because it's a fantastic rock; you're paying $100 for it so it must be. After all, you get what you pay for.
Well - except for that guy who bought a bridge from me last week for $100. Boy is he going to be pissed when he finds out who really owns it.
You want RHEL support? It's coming from RedHat. Want to ditch RedHat? You could theoretically find someone else. After all, the code is available and anyone can build RPMs. If you really, really want to do it that way. Probably not. So now you need to move off RHEL. Pick another Linux distro. The transition won't be without issues. But moving from one Linux distro to another is a heck of a lot easier than moving between, say, Windows and Unix.
In this specific case, you can basically painlessly migrate from RHEL to CentOS with minimal differences (except lack of second-party commercial support). CentOS is specifically made to be compatible with RHEL.
Sure - but I would expect if you didn't want support, one would likely be using CentOS to begin with. I don't think there's really much of an alternative to support a deployment of RHEL systems that doesn't come from RedHat. Granted - I've never toyed with Oracle's distro and I seem to remember it's RHEL based (though my bias would suggest that going from RedHat to Oracle is getting out of the fire and in to a bigger fire). Maybe there are easier migrations to be had?
None the less, going from RHEL to Ubuntu or SUSE would involve some level of pain. But it would be much less painful than many other platform migrations - mainly because you're not making much of a platform shift.
Both your statements are equally true of commercial software.
First - we're talking commercial Linux here. So yes - of course it's true for commercial software.
Secondly - let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. You want Windows support? It's coming from Microsoft. One way or another. Want to find someone else to support Windows? If Microsoft isn't going to do it, you're going to be pretty limited. But you can move to a different platform, right? The transition is going to be painful.
You want RHEL support? It's coming from RedHat. Want to ditch RedHat? You could theoretically find someone else. After all, the code is available and anyone can build RPMs. If you really, really want to do it that way. Probably not. So now you need to move off RHEL. Pick another Linux distro. The transition won't be without issues. But moving from one Linux distro to another is a heck of a lot easier than moving between, say, Windows and Unix.
And its fine to have little care for a subculture or to think some plants may be dangerous. I am perfectly happy to have all manner of academic discussion over the usefulness and or dangerous of any plant. However, as soon as that crosses the line from discussion about how you or I think and into putting people in shackles and removing them from normal society, I have a huge problem with that. Its not something for which I will ever personally forgive the organizations which engage in the practice.
I would only argue that putting people in shackles is necessary at times. If someone is doing something truly dangerous with said plant, then removing them from society may be the only choice. But it should always be viewed as the extreme action that it is. And it certainly shouldn't be applied towards people just because they belong to a subculture one doesn't like. I expect we both feel that's been done far too often.
This is pretty much just what government's do. Shit, I have a friend in jail because he used to sell a plant that grew out of the ground. Moral justification for atrocity is the bread and butter of any government. As long as people continue to accept the output of some byzantine system as "us", they can pretty much always get away with doing these things.
My point, if anything is, that its ALWAYS little more than a word game. Its just a matter of defining who is "us" and who is "them". That's what they do, and combine that with a consistent flow of pay checks, and you can get anything done, whether that is wholesale execution and extermination, or simply its more palatable cousin, locking people away for 5,10,20 years at a time.
I'd be more inclined to warn against people playing word games; things are more than that. For example - you noted your friend sold "a plant that grew out of the ground," which I assume implies a harmless act. While the reality is that there are plenty of plants out there that are pretty hazardous. The specifics are important even though one can play word games to make the situation seem harmless or dire (I suspect you're referring to marajuana which I support legalizing even though I don't consume or have much favor towards the subculture that obsesses on it).
As soon as you break off a group of people and say "these people are harmful to 'us'", then whatever "we" have to do to them is... self defense. The key is always to take away the person's status as "us", since "we" are always the good guys.
And this is really where the word games kick in. Indeed - watch for when the rhetoric is more about "us" and "them" than the specifics of why one would care about the distinction.
But its true, I always point out to people when they talk of wikileaks possibly outing people who worked with the US troops.... those people are the ones that, if we were in the same situation as Afghanistan or Iraq, would be the ones we are calling enemy collaborators. Would a german troop cry over outing of french resistance? Its all relative, but, the person working against his own people to help foreign invaders deserves what he gets.
Of course, situations are rarely as simple as a pithy comment makes them. As long as an oppressive government can paint a malcontent as "working against his own people to help foreign invaders", then they have a moral justification for atrocity. Right?
It will become valuable once countries regulate that any port sites can only operate with a.xxx domain. They'll move, we can all update our spam links and be happy that the majority of the problem just becomes blocking.xxx from kids.
Right. Because the spammers are upstanding members of society who are careful to follow all laws and unspoken rules.
Adult entertainment is one of the largest, if not the largest legal use of Internet.
I'm sure you have something to back that up.
So I'd say it's pretty high on the list for getting new resources. And since it's somewhat controversial, doing something to (perhaps, eventually, partly) separate it from less controversial stuff sounds like a good idea, too. And just because something else deserving didn't get it's own TLD, is no argument against this, because you have to start somewhere.
On this point, I completely disagree. This is simply pandering to the slippery slope argument. Next thing, we need to segregate security research. We need to segregate religion. We need to segregate politics. We'll follow a list according to usage until everything is pigeonholed.
Which will do nothing to stop the bad actors since they're going against rules anyway. Nevermind that ICANN is not in the content regulation business.
The whole point of tld expansion was to create new resources and to prevent regulation of extant resources; that is, life doesn't end at.com. Opposition with vested interests not withstanding.
I'm a little skeptical of creating new resources solely for adult entertainment. I'm sure there are vested interests involved. But before we stress opposing vested interests too much, let's not forget the business interest in being the sole source of this tld - namely ICM.
Thanks for the link! I agree - he's certainly interesting. He's got an interesting idea and I see what he's trying to get at.... I think. But as he rails against the traditional and the techies who implement it, I think he's missing a really important point. Sequential representation is important.
In the video, Mr. Nelson talks about parallel structures and specifically notes history as being an example. Nelson notes that historical events are a series of parallel events that occasionally intersect. He claims that placing events side-by-side so you can see where they touch would make them "easier to write and easier to read." But I don't believe everyone would agree.
My Significant Other often points out to me that I have a really bad habit. They claim that I'll be describing something and then go off on tangents. The thing is, they're not tangents to me. In my mind, fully understanding the point that I'm trying to make involves understanding these additional points. But to others, it seems that I lose them by diverting from an entirely sequential delivery of information. I do this most often when talking about history.
We don't communicate in parallel. We don't process in parallel. Even when a subject is complex enough to warrent a complete understanding, we have to deal with the information in a sequential manner. And in that sense, the "prison" of paper exists because that's how we need it to exist.
Having said that - there are times when one is simply seeking information without the need to fully understand it. Or, at least, what we need to understand is a subset of the information being presented. I can see value in some of the concepts Mr. Nelson is presenting. That is, the presentation method allows one to quickly skim through documents to hunt down related information, quickly discarding large portions of additional information not specifically required at the moment.
As a niche tool, I think the Xanadu concept would be valuable. But I'm not sure it really is delivering something everybody needs or could even use.
Apparently not a lot since despite many people saying how they'd only buy more games if they had no DRM that is mostly bullshit. Hence why, for example, 2D Boy had to file for bankruptcy. Apparently despite doing all you can to please these pirates with making your game cheap, making it DRM-free, etc they will still download it for free and screw you over.
From your link:
Winner of the IGF award for Design Innovation and Technical Excellence, World of Goo recently made NPD Top 10 sales list for the week ending January 17. The NPD listing was a surprise, considering World of Goo designer Ron Carmel revealed the game to have staggering 90% piracy rate in November.
Yeah - damn those bastards buying the DRM-free game and generating sales that put it on a short list with the likes of World of Warcraft, Left 4 Dead, Spore, and The Sims. Way to screw them over.
This just in - the world is not black and white. News at 11.
Don't get me wrong. I often boggle at flag-waving done in the name of actions which fundamentally undermine our very basic tenants of our Constitution. I completely agree that the US struggles over these higher ideals on a regular basis. But it is a mistake as dismissing that struggle as hypocrisy. We struggle because interpretations of these ideals vary, not because we don't believe in those ideals. And we continue to struggle because that struggle is encoded within US law and, perhaps to a lesser extend, our society. The fact that it continues is a healthy sign. The day that struggle ends is the day the law is undermined or we stop being human (or humanity reaches enlightenment if you want a less cynical view).
If you have a clearance though, it means that VIEWING the publicly available wikileaks papers is a security breach and you could:
1) Lose your classification (and therefore job in most cases)
2) End up in Leavenworth.
I call that a fairly chilling effect.
I'd like a reference. If I remember right - this was an interpretation from a single individual emailing others that was not backed up by anything nearing an official channel.
Again - some digging would be helpful. The closest I can find is as follows:
(d) Information that has not previously been disclosed to the public under
proper authority may be classified or reclassified after an agency has received
a request for it under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552), the
Presidential Records Act, 44 U.S.C. 2204(c)(1), the Privacy Act of 1974
(5 U.S.C. 552a), or the mandatory review provisions of section 3.5 of this
order only if such classification meets the requirements of this order and
is accomplished on a document-by-document basis with the personal participation
or under the direction of the agency head, the deputy agency head,
or the senior agency official designated under section 5.4 of this order.
The requirements in this paragraph also apply to those situations in which
information has been declassified in accordance with a specific date or
event determined by an original classification authority in accordance with
section 1.5 of this order.
And even that doesn't really back up what you're claiming.
China isn't claiming that they dont censor, just that the US does it too.
At least they do it in an effort (however wrong and immoral) to protect their citizens.
The US does it over greed.
This is one of those cases where the devil is in the details. The DOJ / ICE would claim that seizing those sites protect US business, economics, workers, etc. It's easy to toss around those generalities to fit any situation.
It would seem that the site isn't going away but rather winding down the process of updating. They will complete their backlog of documents, publish, and then call it good. Book done; send it to print.
I see value in that. PJ did her thing by putting Groklaw together. It served its purpose and made its place in history. And as long as it stays online, people can come back to it as a reference. Passing on the reigns of the site to someone else would risk Groklaw becoming something different than what PJ had created. It could lead to obscuring that reference; damaging a view in history.
Such a risk is worthwhile when the organization itself offers value in the consolidation of resources. But on the Internet, the next Groklaw is a blog site away. It doesn't take Groklaw to do what Groklaw did.
It's not about a "disdain for all things PJ". The problem is that Groklaw has constantly tried to capitalize on many people's desire for simple fairy-tale-like black-and-white views. Groklaw has, partly in its articles and partly in discussions, engaged in character assassination. The net effect of that big brainwashing effort is that some of the more credulous and less informed people now distrust a very smart analyst like Rob Enderle, very smart journalists like Maureen O'Gara and Dan Lyons, or a very smart author like Ed Bott, only because they comment on certain issues with greater sanity than Groklaw.
I personally believe that Mr. Mueller gives far too much credit to PJ and Groklaw. I'm pretty sure the listing of esteemed individuals had more than a slight amount to do with damaging their own credibility without any help from PJ and Groklaw. And if Mr. Mueller wishes to hold these individuals up to such heights, it only speaks further of his own credibility.
Slashdot Mirror
All of that being said, I agree 3D is a bit gimmicky at times. I think it is an evolution of things that will probably stick around and continue to evolve (LG is now making 3D TV's with polarization instead of shutter glasses), but it's a technology in its infancy. I don't think the companies are pushing it too hard anymore, they were. I think it's going to be like color and LCD's were. At one time a lot of people thought of those as gimmicks, especially before the color standard was finalized (hint there were competing standards), not to mention remote controls, especially the wired ones (like we had for the BetaMax) or the actual audible clickers. Try to buy a brand new black and white TV without a remote control today. Certain gimmicks have a way to becoming permanent. This is one of them even if the current incarnation dies off.
This strikes me as the real issue underlying the debate over 3D; when is something a gimmick? Gimmicks tend to be of limited use. They're either one-trick ponies only useful for niche issues. Or their ability to perform the given task is limited and, while it may manage in some form, the overall success of the gimmick is suspect. Technology is full of both kinds of gimmicks. However, I would note that color and remote control would have been in "gimmick" territory mostly because earlier implementations were immature and sub-par. That technology is around today not because it's a permanent gimmick but rather because the underlying technology matured to the point that it stopped being a gimmick.
Accepting that 3D TV / movies is a gimmick (on which I agree), the question then is whether it is a niche technology or an immature one. You listed color and remotes as common examples today. However, I wouldn't portray those as gimmicks. But then, we're seeing mature versions of the technology no
Anyways, I think it's an interesting phenomenon that generally "techy" people seem to sometimes get really bent out of shape about new tech. We saw the same thing with HD TVs. We used to see it more with new versions of OS's and software.
In my completely subjective opinion, it's an aversion to marketing. A lot of the population see the world of technology as filled with magic black boxes. Techies see objects with an innate desire to understand at least the basics of how they work. When their understanding of how things work, and consequently the implications of that functionality existing in the real world, doesn't match with the marketing it is perceived as bullshit. A negative opinion is formed. The stronger the marketing effort and the more that marketing deviates from perceived reality, the more strongly the resistance and desire to communicate that negative opinion.
Which isn't to say techies' perceptions are always on par with everyone else or even in agreement with other techies. But I think it goes a long way towards explaining various flame wars, pseudo-religious product followings / anti-followings, and long-running arguments that are the stuff of techie communities / forums / blogs.
However, it seems to be the cornerstone to a lot of marketing campaigns; especially for high-profit markets.
Anecdotal story time. Back when I was a kid, my Dad owned a store where he sold products that were crafted by him and Mom in the workshop out back. Dad came across a great deal on a particular raw material. He ended up having to buy a lot of it to get the price - but it was a great deal. So he figured he'd put out a special in the store to sell off the inventory. Customers would get a really nice price cut and the store would turn a good profit. The product sat for several weeks with rarely a sale. Dad jacked up the price double and sold out of the special run in a week.
You get what you pay for.
Say! It's your lucky day. I've got a rock here to sell to you for $100. Why? Because it's a fantastic rock; you're paying $100 for it so it must be. After all, you get what you pay for.
Well - except for that guy who bought a bridge from me last week for $100. Boy is he going to be pissed when he finds out who really owns it.
You want RHEL support? It's coming from RedHat. Want to ditch RedHat? You could theoretically find someone else. After all, the code is available and anyone can build RPMs. If you really, really want to do it that way. Probably not. So now you need to move off RHEL. Pick another Linux distro. The transition won't be without issues. But moving from one Linux distro to another is a heck of a lot easier than moving between, say, Windows and Unix.
In this specific case, you can basically painlessly migrate from RHEL to CentOS with minimal differences (except lack of second-party commercial support). CentOS is specifically made to be compatible with RHEL.
Sure - but I would expect if you didn't want support, one would likely be using CentOS to begin with. I don't think there's really much of an alternative to support a deployment of RHEL systems that doesn't come from RedHat. Granted - I've never toyed with Oracle's distro and I seem to remember it's RHEL based (though my bias would suggest that going from RedHat to Oracle is getting out of the fire and in to a bigger fire). Maybe there are easier migrations to be had?
None the less, going from RHEL to Ubuntu or SUSE would involve some level of pain. But it would be much less painful than many other platform migrations - mainly because you're not making much of a platform shift.
Which will cost a lot more than buying a newer version of Windows. (And won't get you something better than before for your money.)
Which makes the big assumption that the newer version of Windows provides what is needed.
Both your statements are equally true of commercial software.
First - we're talking commercial Linux here. So yes - of course it's true for commercial software. Secondly - let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. You want Windows support? It's coming from Microsoft. One way or another. Want to find someone else to support Windows? If Microsoft isn't going to do it, you're going to be pretty limited. But you can move to a different platform, right? The transition is going to be painful. You want RHEL support? It's coming from RedHat. Want to ditch RedHat? You could theoretically find someone else. After all, the code is available and anyone can build RPMs. If you really, really want to do it that way. Probably not. So now you need to move off RHEL. Pick another Linux distro. The transition won't be without issues. But moving from one Linux distro to another is a heck of a lot easier than moving between, say, Windows and Unix.
And its fine to have little care for a subculture or to think some plants may be dangerous. I am perfectly happy to have all manner of academic discussion over the usefulness and or dangerous of any plant. However, as soon as that crosses the line from discussion about how you or I think and into putting people in shackles and removing them from normal society, I have a huge problem with that. Its not something for which I will ever personally forgive the organizations which engage in the practice.
I would only argue that putting people in shackles is necessary at times. If someone is doing something truly dangerous with said plant, then removing them from society may be the only choice. But it should always be viewed as the extreme action that it is. And it certainly shouldn't be applied towards people just because they belong to a subculture one doesn't like. I expect we both feel that's been done far too often.
He is the first one to link the dangers of equal amounts of dihydrogen monoxide and sugar.
I say. Are ya'll talkin' about noo-tritious kawn shugga?
This is pretty much just what government's do. Shit, I have a friend in jail because he used to sell a plant that grew out of the ground. Moral justification for atrocity is the bread and butter of any government. As long as people continue to accept the output of some byzantine system as "us", they can pretty much always get away with doing these things.
My point, if anything is, that its ALWAYS little more than a word game. Its just a matter of defining who is "us" and who is "them". That's what they do, and combine that with a consistent flow of pay checks, and you can get anything done, whether that is wholesale execution and extermination, or simply its more palatable cousin, locking people away for 5,10,20 years at a time.
I'd be more inclined to warn against people playing word games; things are more than that. For example - you noted your friend sold "a plant that grew out of the ground," which I assume implies a harmless act. While the reality is that there are plenty of plants out there that are pretty hazardous. The specifics are important even though one can play word games to make the situation seem harmless or dire (I suspect you're referring to marajuana which I support legalizing even though I don't consume or have much favor towards the subculture that obsesses on it).
As soon as you break off a group of people and say "these people are harmful to 'us'", then whatever "we" have to do to them is... self defense. The key is always to take away the person's status as "us", since "we" are always the good guys.
And this is really where the word games kick in. Indeed - watch for when the rhetoric is more about "us" and "them" than the specifics of why one would care about the distinction.
But its true, I always point out to people when they talk of wikileaks possibly outing people who worked with the US troops.... those people are the ones that, if we were in the same situation as Afghanistan or Iraq, would be the ones we are calling enemy collaborators. Would a german troop cry over outing of french resistance? Its all relative, but, the person working against his own people to help foreign invaders deserves what he gets.
Of course, situations are rarely as simple as a pithy comment makes them. As long as an oppressive government can paint a malcontent as "working against his own people to help foreign invaders", then they have a moral justification for atrocity. Right?
It will become valuable once countries regulate that any port sites can only operate with a .xxx domain. They'll move, we can all update our spam links and be happy that the majority of the problem just becomes blocking .xxx from kids.
Right. Because the spammers are upstanding members of society who are careful to follow all laws and unspoken rules.
Adult entertainment is one of the largest, if not the largest legal use of Internet.
I'm sure you have something to back that up.
So I'd say it's pretty high on the list for getting new resources. And since it's somewhat controversial, doing something to (perhaps, eventually, partly) separate it from less controversial stuff sounds like a good idea, too. And just because something else deserving didn't get it's own TLD, is no argument against this, because you have to start somewhere.
On this point, I completely disagree. This is simply pandering to the slippery slope argument. Next thing, we need to segregate security research. We need to segregate religion. We need to segregate politics. We'll follow a list according to usage until everything is pigeonholed.
Which will do nothing to stop the bad actors since they're going against rules anyway. Nevermind that ICANN is not in the content regulation business.
The whole point of tld expansion was to create new resources and to prevent regulation of extant resources; that is, life doesn't end at .com. Opposition with vested interests not withstanding.
I'm a little skeptical of creating new resources solely for adult entertainment. I'm sure there are vested interests involved. But before we stress opposing vested interests too much, let's not forget the business interest in being the sole source of this tld - namely ICM.
Thanks for the link! I agree - he's certainly interesting. He's got an interesting idea and I see what he's trying to get at.... I think. But as he rails against the traditional and the techies who implement it, I think he's missing a really important point. Sequential representation is important.
In the video, Mr. Nelson talks about parallel structures and specifically notes history as being an example. Nelson notes that historical events are a series of parallel events that occasionally intersect. He claims that placing events side-by-side so you can see where they touch would make them "easier to write and easier to read." But I don't believe everyone would agree.
My Significant Other often points out to me that I have a really bad habit. They claim that I'll be describing something and then go off on tangents. The thing is, they're not tangents to me. In my mind, fully understanding the point that I'm trying to make involves understanding these additional points. But to others, it seems that I lose them by diverting from an entirely sequential delivery of information. I do this most often when talking about history.
We don't communicate in parallel. We don't process in parallel. Even when a subject is complex enough to warrent a complete understanding, we have to deal with the information in a sequential manner. And in that sense, the "prison" of paper exists because that's how we need it to exist.
Having said that - there are times when one is simply seeking information without the need to fully understand it. Or, at least, what we need to understand is a subset of the information being presented. I can see value in some of the concepts Mr. Nelson is presenting. That is, the presentation method allows one to quickly skim through documents to hunt down related information, quickly discarding large portions of additional information not specifically required at the moment.
As a niche tool, I think the Xanadu concept would be valuable. But I'm not sure it really is delivering something everybody needs or could even use.
Crap. I lost track of the pea again. Can we start over?
Reading the article (RTFA jokes follow here) made feel like I was watching a shell game.
Apparently not a lot since despite many people saying how they'd only buy more games if they had no DRM that is mostly bullshit. Hence why, for example, 2D Boy had to file for bankruptcy. Apparently despite doing all you can to please these pirates with making your game cheap, making it DRM-free, etc they will still download it for free and screw you over.
From your link:
Yeah - damn those bastards buying the DRM-free game and generating sales that put it on a short list with the likes of World of Warcraft, Left 4 Dead, Spore, and The Sims. Way to screw them over.
This just in - the world is not black and white. News at 11.
Don't get me wrong. I often boggle at flag-waving done in the name of actions which fundamentally undermine our very basic tenants of our Constitution. I completely agree that the US struggles over these higher ideals on a regular basis. But it is a mistake as dismissing that struggle as hypocrisy. We struggle because interpretations of these ideals vary, not because we don't believe in those ideals. And we continue to struggle because that struggle is encoded within US law and, perhaps to a lesser extend, our society. The fact that it continues is a healthy sign. The day that struggle ends is the day the law is undermined or we stop being human (or humanity reaches enlightenment if you want a less cynical view).
If you have a clearance though, it means that VIEWING the publicly available wikileaks papers is a security breach and you could:
1) Lose your classification (and therefore job in most cases) 2) End up in Leavenworth.
I call that a fairly chilling effect.
I'd like a reference. If I remember right - this was an interpretation from a single individual emailing others that was not backed up by anything nearing an official channel.
I think it was this e.o. http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/E9-31418.pdf Something about improperly declassified data may remain classified even in the face of FOIA requests.
Again - some digging would be helpful. The closest I can find is as follows:
And even that doesn't really back up what you're claiming.
China isn't claiming that they dont censor, just that the US does it too.
At least they do it in an effort (however wrong and immoral) to protect their citizens. The US does it over greed.
This is one of those cases where the devil is in the details. The DOJ / ICE would claim that seizing those sites protect US business, economics, workers, etc. It's easy to toss around those generalities to fit any situation.
It would seem that the site isn't going away but rather winding down the process of updating. They will complete their backlog of documents, publish, and then call it good. Book done; send it to print.
I see value in that. PJ did her thing by putting Groklaw together. It served its purpose and made its place in history. And as long as it stays online, people can come back to it as a reference. Passing on the reigns of the site to someone else would risk Groklaw becoming something different than what PJ had created. It could lead to obscuring that reference; damaging a view in history.
Such a risk is worthwhile when the organization itself offers value in the consolidation of resources. But on the Internet, the next Groklaw is a blog site away. It doesn't take Groklaw to do what Groklaw did.
I personally believe that Mr. Mueller gives far too much credit to PJ and Groklaw. I'm pretty sure the listing of esteemed individuals had more than a slight amount to do with damaging their own credibility without any help from PJ and Groklaw. And if Mr. Mueller wishes to hold these individuals up to such heights, it only speaks further of his own credibility.