I'm seeing some readers ask why the statistics presented are not all available for every year.
The reason is not that I'm leaving out numbers to make my argument stronger. That'd be a pretty lousy thing to do! The missing numbers are just not available.
The one crime figure that did increase, 1993-4, as you can see, I left in.
There are many, many sources to pick from but I was mainly looking for figures specifically about teenagers and violent crime. The categories I included are the ones I thought were most appropriate, but unfortunately they aren't all available over the entire Doom/Quake time period.
If you have questions about the numbers, please just click on them; they'll take you to the source (though you might have to search in those PDF files a bit).
And if you find additional numbers of interest, please post them. From what I saw, all violent crime in our country has been decreasing pretty consistently since Clinton took office. The news is all good; picking which figures to use is just a matter of finding your favorite dishes at the buffet.
Jamie is being just as slippery as either one if he's claiming these numbers prove anything.
First of all, how did the word "nonfatal" get in there in 1996? Are we still measuring the same thing with different terms or are they apples and oranges?
Oops, my mistake. The word "nonfatal" should have been in the 1993-5 statistics as well, and I'll correct that in a moment.
Second, I notice that student information from 1998/1999 is not given. Why not?
It wasn't available. (I'm pulling numbers from a variety of sources.)
Third, why did you start in 1993? Why not start way back BEFORE violent video games made an appearance to get a baseline? If there was a big jump when gaming started, then recent fluctuations are moot.
There's no real "baseline." But if I'd included those numbers it would have bolstered my case. Violent crime slightly increased until 1993 and rapidly decreased thereafter. Ergo, Doom reduces crime, Q.E.D.:)
The best numbers IMHO are the counts of under-18 murderers, and those don't go back even that far. That's the precise category that politicans want to tie to violent imagery, namely, kids who kill. And for the years that data is available, the numbers just keep falling.
If you want long-term statistics, please note that I linked to three long-term graphs at the end of the article; there is more data available at the other end of those links if you just click around. In fact the answers to all your questions are at the other end of all those links. If you want to know my source for a number, click on the number!
All in all, poorly presented--especially since this is a technical forum, you damned idiot, not a pulpit for you to expound your personal political views.
You call that a flame?:)
Personal views about censorship and the demonization of the internet are welcome - mine and yours.
"Backward compatibility? Well, you can split your
hard disk into two volumes and dual boot, or you can run Mac OS 9 in
'classic' (i.e. emulation) mode and watch your existing Mac apps run
slower. Mac OS 8.6 and earlier are not even supported in emulation,
leading me to wonder how compatible the 'classic' mode even is. Apple
just doesn't GET IT!
Which, translated, means:
"Apple has worked some incredible engineering magic to get programs
written for a completely different operating system and toolbox to run
under unix.
"Holy shit! Unix!! Apps written for the Mac run in frickin' UNIX!
"Apple's compatibility is nothing short of miraculous and it's only
a few percent slower. But then, we'd expect that from the company that
migrated its entire userbase from one CPU family to another eight
years ago with barely a hiccup. Anyway, well-written programs from the
last five years will surely work, and in fact almost any program will
work if the programmer was properly careful and followed Apple's
guidelines.
"The only drawback is that programs will run a few percent slower."
Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.
I suspect what this fellow is upset about is that Apple is
providing a kick-ass OS early next year that, at a single stroke,
makes every Mac bought in the last few years much more valuable.
That must really kill his bottom line. Betting against Apple's
engineers is risky business.
That iMac you picked up two long years ago? Buy the new OS and
cram it full of RAM. Total cost: maybe a little over $100. Effect:
you're running a much slicker, more powerful, memory-protected OS that
still runs all your old programs (and new ones) with the beauty and
elegance of the Macintosh.
I realize Apple's continually raising the bar makes it hard for
people like this guy to try to make money off disgruntled Mac owners
(of which there are very few). I sympathize and I have huge respect
for his programming skills.
But he's in the wrong business. Go make some money, dude. Stop
assuming that Apple's going to throw you a freebie by screwing up.
"Our philosophy is to develop products that as many
people can use as inexpensively as possible. That's why every emulator
we've released in the past few years still has to pass the '486 test.'
Does it run on Darek's old 33 MHz Dell 486? Does it run on Windows 95?
Does it run at a reasonable speed?"
These criteria are irrelevant. Nobody cares if a modern
desktop OS runs on 8-year-old hardware. By definition, a desktop
machine is something you spend money on to make it work well, because you interact with it eight hours a day.
I have a 486 too. It's a Linux network gateway. Duh.
(Disclaimer: I bought Apple stock when the press collectively
decided Apple Just Doesn't GET IT, which then doubled in value when
everyone regained their sanity and realized Apple makes the best
fucking desktop OS in the known universe. My MacOSX
beta arrives Monday.)
A quick Google search on
Giuliani DNA
turns up a lot of hits. The comment seems to have been reported in the
New York Times in December 1998, for which no free online record
exists, but, the
New York Civil Liberties Union
mentions it in a very dry paper about DNA, if that's reputable enough for you:
"The rounding up of a whole class of people, the
collection of physical samples, and the extraction of DNA information
from those samples are illegal in the United States of America. Or so
we had thought.
"New York Governor George Pataki wants to expand the state DNA databank
from violent felons to all felons. New York City Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani wants to include all newborn children. Meanwhile, the New
York City Police Department has been collecting DNA samples from
suspects without their consent or their knowledge, and without the
benefit of court orders."
And this message-board post
gives a specific date in the NYT, which is as close as I could get in five minutes:
"When asked whether all children should have DNA tests at birth, the Mayor said: "...I would have no problem with that, or fingerprinting all children...There is absolutely no reason why people should be afraid of being identified..." It's not invasive," the Mayor said. "It doesn't invade any right of privacy. You don't have a right not to be identified. I don't remember a constitutional amendment that gives you the right not to be identified."-N.Y. Times 12/17/98 "Giuliani Backs DNA Testing of Newborns for Identification"
Finally, check out more of
Robert Lederman's comments. As someone who's been falsely arrested over 40 times for painting unflattering portraits of Giuliani, he has a special interest in DNA fingerprinting.
tealover, I don't see an email address for you in your user info. Because you're misquoting Hemos and saying some pretty outlandish stuff, I suppose you're just trolling. But if you'd like to talk seriously about this, please just
email me
and I can clear up any questions you might have.
I don't think trying to allay your fears in posts here is going to be very fruitful. I'm not trying to silence you here, though; it goes without saying that any email discussion we'd have about this, you could feel free to post.
The judge finds it acceptable to ban linking to DeCSS, as long as the
"desire" is present to disseminate the illegal source code:
"The other concern -- that a liability based on a link
to another site simply because the other site happened to contain
DeCSS or some other circumvention technology in the midst of other
perfectly appropriate content could be overkill -- also is readily
dealt with. The offense under the DMCA is offering, providing or
otherwise trafficking in circumvention technology. An essential
ingredient, as explained above, is a desire to bring about the
dissemination. Hence, a strong requirement of that forbidden purpose
is an essential prerequisite to any liability for
linking."
He explains that this is OK by analogy of defamation law: if you
say something bad about a public figure, part of what they have to
prove to convict you is that you knew it was false when you said it.
So, your state of mind at the time of the alleged crime becomes
legally significant.
The judge is looking for a way to uphold the DMCA without creating
a chilling effect that will prevent webmasters everywhere from having
to worry "am I going to get in trouble for linking to the wrong
thing?" But the act of deliberately linking to a URL cannot be
distinguished from desiring to disseminate the information at that
URL. That is the whole point of linking: disseminating
the information at the other end.
Do you think the judge has noticed that the New York Times -- the
same newspaper he frequently references in the titles of
precedent-setting legal decisions -- has linked to the DeCSS links
on at least three occasions --
April 28,
June 16,
and
July 14?
Most reasonable people would conclude that the Times had "a desire
to bring about the dissemination" [of DeCSS] in so doing. What else could it have had in mind?
The Times obviously has a vested interest in keeping it legal to
link. In the
June 16
article, titled "Is Linking Illegal?", the opening sentence is: "A
crucial aspect of online journalism is the ability to garnish articles
with hyperlinks that instantly refer readers to Web sites related to
newsworthy issues."
Do you think the Times will get more involved in this issue? How
about if 2600 replaces its links with meta-links (links to links) -- exactly as the Times did -- and gets re-sued?
"Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that
information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer
systems or data storage media in which it is located."
The First Amendment in this country includes freedom of association. That is, we cannot apply laws differently to people depending on which organizations (or "movements") they belong to.
And we have freedom of the press, which means that we do not have a different set of laws to convict people who express unpopular opinions about hacking.
The judge states in his conclusion that "the dispute...is simply put" and that the defendants belong to a "movement" whose "beliefs" the judge proceeded to find untenable. His entire conclusion references the ideas and beliefs of the plaintiffs and defendants -- except for just two sentences which speak about the law.
"Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that..."
It is bizarre that a judge would include in his conclusion statements about the beliefs of plaintiffs and defendants. Isn't the whole point of blind justice that decision is made based on actions, not the personal beliefs of those who act?
In First Amendment cases in particular, it is very important to distinguish beliefs from the content in question.
If I post a photo on the internet which is not obscene, for example, the judge cannot throw me in jail because of my beliefs.
And if I make a statement about someone which is not libelous, to pick another example, the judge is not allowed to decide based on which movements I belong to. Freedom of association is another freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment; it is unconstitutional in this country to use one set of laws for people in organizations we like, and another set for those we don't.
"cannot you and Rob make your own decisions on who's banner ad service your system runs?"
We Slashdot authors have total editorial freedom.
Note the penultimate word in the previous sentence.
That means we can (and
do)
publish articles exposing DoubleClick or anyone else we feel needs to be looked at. But "editorial freedom" doesn't extend to sales and marketing decisions. We write the content, and VA/Andover sells it however they want. Welcome to capitalism, this is how it works. In fact, this is one of the best examples of capitalism's intersection with speech that you will ever see, and I say that as someone whose job largely includes criticizing the intersection of capitalism and speech. Rob and Jeff were lucky (and smart) to guarantee all us writers this much latitude.
Most people consider this "Chinese firewall" between content and advertising to be a good thing. And it's the way I like it. The folks who sell ads have never contacted me to complain that my anti-DoubleClick editorializing makes their job harder (though I imagine it might well have). I don't even know those folks' names.
I recognize that some slashdotters, for whatever reason, are going to nag us as long as DC ads appear on some Slashdot pages. I don't know what else to tell them. I'm not in a position to do anything about it -- and that doesn't bother me, because if things change so that I can influence advertising, things might also change so that advertising could influence me. Better to just have a total disconnect there, as far as I'm concerned. While I'm not ecstatic about the DC ads, I am thrilled with the current system.
If I ever bump into one of the ad-sellers at a company meeting (assuming they're wearing a descriptive nametag so I recognize them as such:) I'll probably mention my concerns. That's about the most I can do.
But basically, this is as good as it gets. Oh, and don't forget to
opt out. In fact, go to
CDT's opt-out page
and opt out of every damn thing. And nobody can stop me from telling you that! Woohoo!
I knew someone would bring this up (trolls have been spamming our comments with it). I'll just post the same info I posted to another thread yesterday:
Please note that all these images come from slashdot's own servers. They're pagecounter images. I'll just forward along the email I got from Richard M. Smith, the guy who
coined the term "web bug",
when I asked him about it:
Date: 7/2/00 3:00 PM
Received: 7/2/00 11:59 AM
From: rms2000@bellatlantic.net (Richard M. Smith)
To: jamie@mccarthy.org (Jamie McCarthy)
Yep, to really be a Web Bug, the IMG tag must come from
another domain. I'll need to make this clearer in the
next revision of the FAQ. Now, if I can just find the time to
keep my Web site up to date......;-)
Please note that all these images come from slashdot's own servers. They're pagecounter images. I'll just forward along the email I got from Richard M. Smith, the guy who coined the term "web bug", when I asked him about it:
Date: 7/2/00 3:00 PM Received: 7/2/00 11:59 AM From: rms2000@bellatlantic.net (Richard M. Smith) To: jamie@mccarthy.org (Jamie McCarthy)
Yep, to really be a Web Bug, the IMG tag must come from another domain. I'll need to make this clearer in the next revision of the FAQ. Now, if I can just find the time to keep my Web site up to date......;-)
"I hold you responsible for linking directly to the pdf file without first mentioning that by clicking on this link users would be held morally responsible for paying Stephen King one US dollar."
If you honestly believe you're "morally responsible" for a clickwrap agreement you never read and didn't even know existed, your ethics dial must be turned to 11. Wow.
As for the link you're talking about, I did mive it to the bottom of the story and added explanation. Still, as originally phrased, the sentence you're talking about read:
"He - not his publisher - is putting the first installment of a novel online today, and then waiting to see how many people will pay a dollar for the download."
The link you clicked on was attached to the two words immediately following "pay a dollar for." Sorry for the mixup, but I'm not reimbursing your dang dollar. It's a cruel, uncaring net. Click carefully out there.
"If people are going to be vegetarians they definitely need to consult a book or nutritionist first, and I think that the vegetarians here would agree with me on that."
Ah... nope.
Like I said above - just try to eat something other than Coke and chips. Eat a decent variety and you can hardly go wrong. And it's practically impossible to eat a vegetarian diet that's less healthy than Big Macs and hot dogs.
(Or, if you just meant that athletes should read before changing their diet... I think most serious athletes learn the basics of nutrition anyway, eh?)
"Declan McCullagh (the site which hosts the photo implying ill-behavior on Goldstein's part) has never been a friend of DeCSS or open source DVD. That he enjoys a rapport with slashdot is IMHO one reason to seriously question the ethics of those who run this forum.
"While this doesn't necessarilly exhonorate Golstein, I would suggest we all consider the source and be appropriately wary of assuming the truth is being told (or shown) here."
OK, I suspect you're trolling but I'm going to reply anyway...
1. The photo is of Goldstein expressing shock and dismay at how easy it is to find pirated VHS tapes. He's not selling them or doing anything else that could be defined as "ill-behavior."
2. Posting a link to a photo of Declan's in a comment means that he "enjoys a rapport with slashdot"?!
3. I'm the one who posted the photo, because I thought it was funny. If you think mentioning a link is an ethical violation, blame me, not my fellow/. authors.
If you want to talk, on or off the record, drop me a line.
Jamie McCarthy
Conspiracies everywhere...
on
MAPS vs. ORBS
·
· Score: 1
"Now for a real conspiracy, ask why slashdot hasn't posted this story. It has beeen submitted several times by myself and others..."
I saw it once and deleted it - Michael says he hasn't seen it at all - which means that if it really has been submitted multiple times, there are multiple other Slashdot editors, each of whom thinks this story is not worth posting.
(Any slashdot editor can delete a story for any reason. If something gets submitted multiple times and doesn't get posted, odds are very good that none of us thinks it's newsworthy.)
This story isn't a very interesting one. "Dog Bites Man." As far as I can tell, this guy ran a warez haven from his home, and the FBI very politely came and confiscated his computers. That's really not going to be surprising to anybody; it didn't seem like news to me.
Jamie McCarthy
Re:I posted the /. "bashing" comment(s) on K5
on
MAPS vs. ORBS
·
· Score: 3
I love how, if we post cutting-edge information that hasn't totally been verified, we get flamed for being "just a rumor site."
But if we wait a few days to try to see if the truth congeals from the flood of questionable facts, we get flamed for being, as you say, "a lot less timely... News breaks elsewhere now, and/. picks up the pieces."
I'm guessing both, in the case of this story (it's starting to look like MAPS wasn't blacklisting ORBS, as ORBS' accusation and rampant speculation on a lot of other forums would have it). We'll get flamed both for running this stupid story at all, and for not running it sooner. Grrrrrrr.
Personally I'm getting a little sick of this. I got flamed up and down for running the story about Ryan Meader's leaked plans for the Apple Cube; I saw a dozen "proofs" that he faked the whole thing right down to the letter from Apple. And what did Apple announce today? The Cube. Please send your lengthy apologies complete with $50 checks or money orders to: jamie@mccarthy.org. Thank you.
More seriously - your rude remark about "book-content fodder" is bunk. You know, or should know, that Slashdot has already decided not to run a book of readers' comments without getting permission from those who posted them (which basically means not running the book at all, because 100% of the readers will never respond).
It's easy for you to whine about how unfair it all is that Slashdot is delivering ad banners, but when it came down to brass tacks, we yanked an entire book and probably lost a lot of money, because it was the right thing to do. Of course, acknowledging that would just distract people from your point, which was, obviously, to bash us.
"About a week ago I was reading at -1. There's some troll at that level who keeps cut 'n' pasting various texts (porn stories, howto's, etc). In one story I found he had posted an entire MSDN 'Q article'. When I refreshed the page, that post was GONE.
Horseshit. You're either lying or mistaken. I'm betting the latter (because, to be fair, it isn't always obvious how the moderation system works together with nesting/threading).
Slashdot is not removing such comments.
You're spreading unsubstantiated rumors and that sucks. Stop it.
"Why are we interviewing some kid who found a really lame hole in security software?"
Because the really lame hole (1) allowed kids to get around attempted parental censorship, and (2) was in place for three years before anyone in an authority position knew about it.
Parents think technological solutions will keep their kids "safe" (for varying definitions of "safe") on the internet. Reality is otherwise, and they need to learn so. Maybe getting the perspective of someone who added an extra dot when he was 11 will help.
This isn't a story about a 1337 hax0r crack, it's a story about censorware and its failed promises.
I'm staying out of the meat-is-good/meat-is-bad flamewars because that wasn't the main point I was trying to make. But...
"In order to get the correct protein, iron, zinc, and everything else that we normally get in meat products you need to consume many different types of vegetables or you need to take vitamin supplements, but that isn't as healthy as getting the proper sustenance from eating [meat-based] food."
Any competent nutritionist will tell you, that's just not true.
I haven't eaten meat in ten years and I'm not an especially careful eater. I just eat what looks good to me. And I'm healthy.
As long as you're not a "Coke-and-potato-chips" vegetarian, you don't have much to worry about. If you go completely vegan, read a bit about it, there's the B12 thing, but again, not a huge concern.
"it is easier to have a proper diet eating meat because you don't have to look far and wide for the non animal alternatives that will have what you need, and it is cheaper..."
Pay attention to the cost of groceries, and cut meat and cheese. You'll save a lot of money. I lived in a co-op once as the only veg. They gave me kickbacks from the grocery dues because my food was so much cheaper.
Slashdot Mirror
Other factors are very significant. See: Homicide Rates, 1900-1998
Killings fell throughout the Great Depression.
Jamie McCarthy
The reason is not that I'm leaving out numbers to make my argument stronger. That'd be a pretty lousy thing to do! The missing numbers are just not available.
The one crime figure that did increase, 1993-4, as you can see, I left in.
There are many, many sources to pick from but I was mainly looking for figures specifically about teenagers and violent crime. The categories I included are the ones I thought were most appropriate, but unfortunately they aren't all available over the entire Doom/Quake time period.
If you have questions about the numbers, please just click on them; they'll take you to the source (though you might have to search in those PDF files a bit).
And if you find additional numbers of interest, please post them. From what I saw, all violent crime in our country has been decreasing pretty consistently since Clinton took office. The news is all good; picking which figures to use is just a matter of finding your favorite dishes at the buffet.
P.S. Satire. It's a word. Look it up.
Jamie McCarthy
Oops, my mistake. The word "nonfatal" should have been in the 1993-5 statistics as well, and I'll correct that in a moment.
It wasn't available. (I'm pulling numbers from a variety of sources.)
There's no real "baseline." But if I'd included those numbers it would have bolstered my case. Violent crime slightly increased until 1993 and rapidly decreased thereafter. Ergo, Doom reduces crime, Q.E.D. :)
The best numbers IMHO are the counts of under-18 murderers, and those don't go back even that far. That's the precise category that politicans want to tie to violent imagery, namely, kids who kill. And for the years that data is available, the numbers just keep falling.
If you want long-term statistics, please note that I linked to three long-term graphs at the end of the article; there is more data available at the other end of those links if you just click around. In fact the answers to all your questions are at the other end of all those links. If you want to know my source for a number, click on the number!
You call that a flame? :)
Personal views about censorship and the demonization of the internet are welcome - mine and yours.
Jamie McCarthy
I particularly enjoyed this part of the rant:
Which, translated, means:
"Apple has worked some incredible engineering magic to get programs written for a completely different operating system and toolbox to run under unix.
"Holy shit! Unix!! Apps written for the Mac run in frickin' UNIX!
"Apple's compatibility is nothing short of miraculous and it's only a few percent slower. But then, we'd expect that from the company that migrated its entire userbase from one CPU family to another eight years ago with barely a hiccup. Anyway, well-written programs from the last five years will surely work, and in fact almost any program will work if the programmer was properly careful and followed Apple's guidelines.
"The only drawback is that programs will run a few percent slower."
Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.
I suspect what this fellow is upset about is that Apple is providing a kick-ass OS early next year that, at a single stroke, makes every Mac bought in the last few years much more valuable. That must really kill his bottom line. Betting against Apple's engineers is risky business.
That iMac you picked up two long years ago? Buy the new OS and cram it full of RAM. Total cost: maybe a little over $100. Effect: you're running a much slicker, more powerful, memory-protected OS that still runs all your old programs (and new ones) with the beauty and elegance of the Macintosh.
I realize Apple's continually raising the bar makes it hard for people like this guy to try to make money off disgruntled Mac owners (of which there are very few). I sympathize and I have huge respect for his programming skills.
But he's in the wrong business. Go make some money, dude. Stop assuming that Apple's going to throw you a freebie by screwing up.
These criteria are irrelevant. Nobody cares if a modern desktop OS runs on 8-year-old hardware. By definition, a desktop machine is something you spend money on to make it work well, because you interact with it eight hours a day.
I have a 486 too. It's a Linux network gateway. Duh.
(Disclaimer: I bought Apple stock when the press collectively decided Apple Just Doesn't GET IT, which then doubled in value when everyone regained their sanity and realized Apple makes the best fucking desktop OS in the known universe. My MacOSX beta arrives Monday.)
Jamie McCarthy
We do.
Jamie McCarthy
A quick Google search on Giuliani DNA turns up a lot of hits. The comment seems to have been reported in the New York Times in December 1998, for which no free online record exists, but, the New York Civil Liberties Union mentions it in a very dry paper about DNA, if that's reputable enough for you:
This news report references thi s 404 NYT page.
And this message-board post gives a specific date in the NYT, which is as close as I could get in five minutes:
Finally, check out more of Robert Lederman's comments. As someone who's been falsely arrested over 40 times for painting unflattering portraits of Giuliani, he has a special interest in DNA fingerprinting.
Jamie McCarthy
tealover, I don't see an email address for you in your user info. Because you're misquoting Hemos and saying some pretty outlandish stuff, I suppose you're just trolling. But if you'd like to talk seriously about this, please just email me and I can clear up any questions you might have.
I don't think trying to allay your fears in posts here is going to be very fruitful. I'm not trying to silence you here, though; it goes without saying that any email discussion we'd have about this, you could feel free to post.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
He explains that this is OK by analogy of defamation law: if you say something bad about a public figure, part of what they have to prove to convict you is that you knew it was false when you said it. So, your state of mind at the time of the alleged crime becomes legally significant.
The judge is looking for a way to uphold the DMCA without creating a chilling effect that will prevent webmasters everywhere from having to worry "am I going to get in trouble for linking to the wrong thing?" But the act of deliberately linking to a URL cannot be distinguished from desiring to disseminate the information at that URL. That is the whole point of linking: disseminating the information at the other end.
Do you think the judge has noticed that the New York Times -- the same newspaper he frequently references in the titles of precedent-setting legal decisions -- has linked to the DeCSS links on at least three occasions -- April 28, June 16, and July 14? Most reasonable people would conclude that the Times had "a desire to bring about the dissemination" [of DeCSS] in so doing. What else could it have had in mind?
The Times obviously has a vested interest in keeping it legal to link. In the June 16 article, titled "Is Linking Illegal?", the opening sentence is: "A crucial aspect of online journalism is the ability to garnish articles with hyperlinks that instantly refer readers to Web sites related to newsworthy issues."
Do you think the Times will get more involved in this issue? How about if 2600 replaces its links with meta-links (links to links) -- exactly as the Times did -- and gets re-sued?
Jamie McCarthy
"Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located."
The First Amendment in this country includes freedom of association. That is, we cannot apply laws differently to people depending on which organizations (or "movements") they belong to.
And we have freedom of the press, which means that we do not have a different set of laws to convict people who express unpopular opinions about hacking.
The judge states in his conclusion that "the dispute...is simply put" and that the defendants belong to a "movement" whose "beliefs" the judge proceeded to find untenable. His entire conclusion references the ideas and beliefs of the plaintiffs and defendants -- except for just two sentences which speak about the law.
Does this send chills down your spine?
Jamie McCarthy
It is bizarre that a judge would include in his conclusion statements about the beliefs of plaintiffs and defendants. Isn't the whole point of blind justice that decision is made based on actions, not the personal beliefs of those who act?
In First Amendment cases in particular, it is very important to distinguish beliefs from the content in question.
If I post a photo on the internet which is not obscene, for example, the judge cannot throw me in jail because of my beliefs.
And if I make a statement about someone which is not libelous, to pick another example, the judge is not allowed to decide based on which movements I belong to. Freedom of association is another freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment; it is unconstitutional in this country to use one set of laws for people in organizations we like, and another set for those we don't.
Jamie McCarthy
We Slashdot authors have total editorial freedom.
Note the penultimate word in the previous sentence.
That means we can (and do) publish articles exposing DoubleClick or anyone else we feel needs to be looked at. But "editorial freedom" doesn't extend to sales and marketing decisions. We write the content, and VA/Andover sells it however they want. Welcome to capitalism, this is how it works. In fact, this is one of the best examples of capitalism's intersection with speech that you will ever see, and I say that as someone whose job largely includes criticizing the intersection of capitalism and speech. Rob and Jeff were lucky (and smart) to guarantee all us writers this much latitude.
Most people consider this "Chinese firewall" between content and advertising to be a good thing. And it's the way I like it. The folks who sell ads have never contacted me to complain that my anti-DoubleClick editorializing makes their job harder (though I imagine it might well have). I don't even know those folks' names.
I recognize that some slashdotters, for whatever reason, are going to nag us as long as DC ads appear on some Slashdot pages. I don't know what else to tell them. I'm not in a position to do anything about it -- and that doesn't bother me, because if things change so that I can influence advertising, things might also change so that advertising could influence me. Better to just have a total disconnect there, as far as I'm concerned. While I'm not ecstatic about the DC ads, I am thrilled with the current system.
If I ever bump into one of the ad-sellers at a company meeting (assuming they're wearing a descriptive nametag so I recognize them as such :) I'll probably mention my concerns. That's about the most I can do.
But basically, this is as good as it gets. Oh, and don't forget to opt out. In fact, go to CDT's opt-out page and opt out of every damn thing. And nobody can stop me from telling you that! Woohoo!
Jamie McCarthy
Please note that all these images come from slashdot's own servers. They're pagecounter images. I'll just forward along the email I got from Richard M. Smith, the guy who coined the term "web bug", when I asked him about it:
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
If you honestly believe you're "morally responsible" for a clickwrap agreement you never read and didn't even know existed, your ethics dial must be turned to 11. Wow.
As for the link you're talking about, I did mive it to the bottom of the story and added explanation. Still, as originally phrased, the sentence you're talking about read:
"He - not his publisher - is putting the first installment of a novel online today, and then waiting to see how many people will pay a dollar for the download."
The link you clicked on was attached to the two words immediately following "pay a dollar for." Sorry for the mixup, but I'm not reimbursing your dang dollar. It's a cruel, uncaring net. Click carefully out there.
Jamie McCarthy
Ah ... nope.
Like I said above - just try to eat something other than Coke and chips. Eat a decent variety and you can hardly go wrong. And it's practically impossible to eat a vegetarian diet that's less healthy than Big Macs and hot dogs.
(Or, if you just meant that athletes should read before changing their diet ... I think most serious athletes learn the basics of nutrition anyway, eh?)
Jamie McCarthy
OK, I suspect you're trolling but I'm going to reply anyway...
1. The photo is of Goldstein expressing shock and dismay at how easy it is to find pirated VHS tapes. He's not selling them or doing anything else that could be defined as "ill-behavior."
2. Posting a link to a photo of Declan's in a comment means that he "enjoys a rapport with slashdot"?!
3. I'm the one who posted the photo, because I thought it was funny. If you think mentioning a link is an ethical violation, blame me, not my fellow /. authors.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
I saw it once and deleted it - Michael says he hasn't seen it at all - which means that if it really has been submitted multiple times, there are multiple other Slashdot editors, each of whom thinks this story is not worth posting.
(Any slashdot editor can delete a story for any reason. If something gets submitted multiple times and doesn't get posted, odds are very good that none of us thinks it's newsworthy.)
This story isn't a very interesting one. "Dog Bites Man." As far as I can tell, this guy ran a warez haven from his home, and the FBI very politely came and confiscated his computers. That's really not going to be surprising to anybody; it didn't seem like news to me.
Jamie McCarthy
But if we wait a few days to try to see if the truth congeals from the flood of questionable facts, we get flamed for being, as you say, "a lot less timely ... News breaks elsewhere now, and /. picks up the pieces."
I'm guessing both, in the case of this story (it's starting to look like MAPS wasn't blacklisting ORBS, as ORBS' accusation and rampant speculation on a lot of other forums would have it). We'll get flamed both for running this stupid story at all, and for not running it sooner. Grrrrrrr.
Personally I'm getting a little sick of this. I got flamed up and down for running the story about Ryan Meader's leaked plans for the Apple Cube; I saw a dozen "proofs" that he faked the whole thing right down to the letter from Apple. And what did Apple announce today? The Cube. Please send your lengthy apologies complete with $50 checks or money orders to: jamie@mccarthy.org. Thank you.
More seriously - your rude remark about "book-content fodder" is bunk. You know, or should know, that Slashdot has already decided not to run a book of readers' comments without getting permission from those who posted them (which basically means not running the book at all, because 100% of the readers will never respond).
It's easy for you to whine about how unfair it all is that Slashdot is delivering ad banners, but when it came down to brass tacks, we yanked an entire book and probably lost a lot of money, because it was the right thing to do. Of course, acknowledging that would just distract people from your point, which was, obviously, to bash us.
Jamie McCarthy
Horseshit. You're either lying or mistaken. I'm betting the latter (because, to be fair, it isn't always obvious how the moderation system works together with nesting/threading).
Slashdot is not removing such comments.
You're spreading unsubstantiated rumors and that sucks. Stop it.
Jamie McCarthy
Because the really lame hole (1) allowed kids to get around attempted parental censorship, and (2) was in place for three years before anyone in an authority position knew about it.
Parents think technological solutions will keep their kids "safe" (for varying definitions of "safe") on the internet. Reality is otherwise, and they need to learn so. Maybe getting the perspective of someone who added an extra dot when he was 11 will help.
This isn't a story about a 1337 hax0r crack, it's a story about censorware and its failed promises.
Jamie McCarthy
I'm staying out of the meat-is-good/meat-is-bad flamewars because that wasn't the main point I was trying to make. But...
Any competent nutritionist will tell you, that's just not true.
I haven't eaten meat in ten years and I'm not an especially careful eater. I just eat what looks good to me. And I'm healthy.
As long as you're not a "Coke-and-potato-chips" vegetarian, you don't have much to worry about. If you go completely vegan, read a bit about it, there's the B12 thing, but again, not a huge concern.
Pay attention to the cost of groceries, and cut meat and cheese. You'll save a lot of money. I lived in a co-op once as the only veg. They gave me kickbacks from the grocery dues because my food was so much cheaper.
Jamie McCarthy
Irony, of course.
Jamie McCarthy