Seems like they have clear-cut statements about what each category filters, but they also have a disclaimer about non-responsibility for errors and omissions. For example, the Violence/Profanity category (listed below) sure doesn't seem like it should block a program unless you routinely use "unsigned int fuck" or something.
From the CyberPatrol criteria site: =============================================== The Learning Company has used what we believe to be reasonable means to identify and categorize CyberNOTs, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of our screens and we assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Please report errors and omissions using the Site Investigation Report.
Category Definitions - 1/20/99 Any on-line content that contains more than 3 instances in 100 messages. Any easily accessible pages with graphics, text or audio which fall within the definition of the categories below will be considered sufficient to place the source in the category.
Violence/Profanity: Violence: pictures exposing, text or audio describing extreme cruelty, physical or emotional acts against any animal or person which are primarily intended to hurt or inflict pain. Profanity: is definded as obscene words or phrases either audio, text or pictures. ===============================================
I have to agree with the AC here. I don't think they're so concerned about you who got the album/song you wouldn't have bought in the first place. They're more concerned with the consumer who was excited to buy the new Mariah Carey CD, but then found it on the net for free and obtained it that way instead. In that case, the record company is worse off - they've lost a sale.
Keep in mind that I'm no fan of the major record labels - I think nowadays you can find more real talent and interesting music on indie labels and MP3.com than you can on the major labels. On the other hand, if the majors have a product that they intend people to pay money for, then the consumer should have two choices: pay money for it and have it or don't pay money for it and don't have it. Like them or not, the record companies have the right to expect each person who wants a particular piece of music they are selling to pay for that piece.
But at the risk of going offtopic, I encourage checking out indie labels and artists. If you find music you like, buy it even if you can get the MP3s for free. You can feel better knowing that the artists are seeing more from your purchase than any major label artist ever would and that you have personally contributed to making music you enjoy stick around a little longer:).
I think the point isn't so much what's happening in Holland, Michigan for the sake of what's happening in Holland, Michigan as it is to warn about something that could be coming to any town, nationwide. If you are against filtering software in public libraries, you now have a decent idea of how such a plan was fought and defeated. If you are for filtering software in public libraries, you now know which arguments were less effective for one town so you can try different arguments where you live.
On the surface, this wouldn't seem to affect/. users outside the US, but isn't it possible that a non-US site gets erroneously filtered by filtering software? People who are concerned about having part of their web audience taken away by a third party ought to be aware of what's happening in this case. Even if they can't vote in the US to pass or defeat an initiative, they can support whichever side they choose in other ways.
My concern is that having a wife (which I will in October) and kids (not yet) often seems incompatible with having a tech job. I'm interested in hearing how people who pull 60+ hour weeks and have families manage to get in enough family time.
But the second piece of the puzzle is hardware and/or software to take the data from the physical media and display video and play audio for the movie. That's the piece that you lack
Thus, Mr. Johansen created the software necessary to play back DVDs under Linux. Now that we have all the pieces, are we still not entitled to view DVDs we paid for and have both the hardware and software components needed to play?
But is there any reason that a tight, high-performance system can't be easy to use too? I think the article is just pointing out that RedHat would get more attention and adoption from the corporate world if the GUI admin tools were better. Whether or not the more experienced user would ever use these tools over the command line is really not an issue, nor is how experienced with the inner workings of the OS a sysadmin should be - the fact is novice sysadmins do get hired, and having easy to use GUI tools for them is something they and their bosses are going to want. The more accessible or "easy to use" Linux is, the higher the adoption rate will be. Doesn't mean the rest of us have to ever start an X session to administer our servers if we don't want to. It just gives the new guys and NT converts an opportunity to get things up and running quickly. Have a little faith that they will bother to learn the internals, but the bottom line is that corporations take ease of setup and configuration into account, because every minute a server is not running or is improperly configured is a few greenbacks from some rich guy's pocket, and they don't like that one little bit.
That said, I think W2K should have lost points for not having enough command line administration utilities. Just as the article tends to imply that RedHat does not cater to the novice admin, so too does W2K not cater to the guru.
If I were an advocate of censorware in libraries, I would point out that smart cards are fine, but the public library is still public - you step up to your terminal, use your smart card to apply your own set of filters, and begin to seek out some top notch porn. Meanwhile, little Timmy and Suzy scamper by on their way to some top notch Dr. Seuss and glance up at your terminal where nakedcoedjellowrestling.com is maximized on screen. So they stop and check it out for awhile, which is just as bad as them having logged into the terminal and brought it up themselves.
I think what's happening here is that library censorware advocates have a problem with the "publicness" of library terminals. Politicians then take this issue and further generalize it to "protecting families and children" by calling for the demolishing of Internet "porn" (which really means anything of dubious nature according to Christian tenet or pop psychology moralistic blather). The easy solution of "block it for everyone" has been presented precisely because it is quick and easy, it parallels the sweeping generalizations of political family protection platforms, and because no one has come up with a better solution. Clearly, as adults, we want to be able to view what we want when we want. But I don't think most of us have a problem with not showing children sexually explicit content. The question then becomes how to decide what children should and should not be seeing in public facilities, who should decide, and how to ensure that the decision protects the rights of both adults and children. Obviously, this is not a question that's going to be answered in a one-night forum or with a one size fits all software solution.
I've heard this gullible tax thing before, and I have to protest somewhat. I don't consider myself gullible, but I do play the lottery. Why? Because it's fun! It's fun to get that little ticket and think, no matter how poor the odds, that there might be a nice little prize under those little silver rub-off squares. I've certainly paid out more than I've won on the lottery, I have no illusions about that. But it's entertained me, and I don't really think paying for this form of entertainment makes me any more gullible than the guy who goes out and buys the latest wearable prototype computer that eventually joins the hardware stockpile on the basement floor with the TRS-80. It's all about having fun - the fun just takes different forms.
If an prospective employee states that he must be allowed to work from home, and the prospective employer agrees to this condition and hires the prospective employee, then yes, the employer should be responsible for the working conditions of the employee's "office".
But I'm not so sure this should be the case for an employee who spends one day or even a few hours at home working. Say someone works at home for a couple hours once in a several year stint with a company and his chair collapses - the same chair he's had for years and uses every night to check his personal e-mail or stock quotes on his own time - and he becomes somehow disabled (use your imagination). Can the company be fined for providing unsafe working conditions? This decision seemingly says "yes". I just can't find the rationale behind this one. Had the chair collapsed during a non-working period, could the employer be found liable then? And what would stop an unscrupulous disgruntled employee from stating that he was "dialing in to check the servers" at 10 PM when the chair collapsed, even if he was job hunting at the time? This doesn't seem very well thought out to me.
I don't understand why I should have to pay $18 per CD at all, much less if I'm only going to like a song or two.
Well, because that's the price. Your options are buy it or don't. So if you don't like the price, don't buy it. You really don't have to pay $18 for a CD. You can choose to do so, but CDs are not a life necessity.
Napster makes it easier for you to not pay the $18 because you can get the CD for free if you can find it. So use Napster while you can. But if Napster gets shut down or starts charging for downloads, you'll be in the same boat. Suppose Napster charges $2 per song and you think that's too much. Again, you can either pay the price or not. But saying that CDs cost too much and then buying them anyway does nothing to alleviate the problem. If the market prices a CD at $18 and enough consumers put down the $18, then either $18 is a fair price, or we are so overrun with runaway consumerism that we have lost any input into controlling market conditions that we may have once had.
I can't see any reason why we shouldn't, but I see a big reason we don't - economics. Milk comes in gallons. All those milk containers using American measure are made in factories set up to make gallon milk jugs, not liter milk jugs. To change the equipment to mold gallon jugs to mold liter jugs instead is probably not a small or inexpensive undertaking, so there's not much incentive for manufacturers to want to change.
Someday, some brilliant marketing type is going to start a company called 'i', and that person is going to be rich beyond his wildest dreams.
Then, 'i' can branch out a few days after it goes online, when it starts pulling multi-million dollar losses, and form a sister company - 'e'. Perhaps a personalized web page service as well - 'u'. These three buzz-companies will then generate so much red ink, their stocks are sure to shoot up to $500/share when they go public 3 weeks later.
I should shoot this on over to Zig Ziegler and get some royalties out of the deal. Or better yet, go register i.com right now:).
Chuck "This is my theme music - every good hero should have some."
Slashdot Mirror
Seems like they have clear-cut statements about what each category filters, but they also have a disclaimer about non-responsibility for errors and omissions. For example, the Violence/Profanity category (listed below) sure doesn't seem like it should block a program unless you routinely use "unsigned int fuck" or something.
From the CyberPatrol criteria site:
===============================================
The Learning Company has used what we believe to be reasonable means to identify and categorize CyberNOTs, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of our screens and we assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Please report errors and omissions using the Site Investigation Report.
Category Definitions - 1/20/99
Any on-line content that contains more than 3 instances in 100 messages. Any easily accessible pages with graphics, text or audio which fall within the definition of the categories below will be considered sufficient to place the source in the category.
Violence/Profanity:
Violence: pictures exposing, text or audio describing extreme cruelty, physical or emotional acts against any animal or person which are primarily intended to hurt or inflict pain. Profanity: is definded as obscene words or phrases either audio, text or pictures.
===============================================
Keep in mind that I'm no fan of the major record labels - I think nowadays you can find more real talent and interesting music on indie labels and MP3.com than you can on the major labels. On the other hand, if the majors have a product that they intend people to pay money for, then the consumer should have two choices: pay money for it and have it or don't pay money for it and don't have it. Like them or not, the record companies have the right to expect each person who wants a particular piece of music they are selling to pay for that piece.
But at the risk of going offtopic, I encourage checking out indie labels and artists. If you find music you like, buy it even if you can get the MP3s for free. You can feel better knowing that the artists are seeing more from your purchase than any major label artist ever would and that you have personally contributed to making music you enjoy stick around a little longer :).
Oh, I dunno, there might be some use for:
:)
soylent.isnotgreen
tom.isnotgreen
red.isnotgreen
themile.isnotgreen
thepropercolortoweartoafuneral.isnotgreen
goodkeylimepie.isnotgreen
and so on
Chuck.
I think the point isn't so much what's happening in Holland, Michigan for the sake of what's happening in Holland, Michigan as it is to warn about something that could be coming to any town, nationwide. If you are against filtering software in public libraries, you now have a decent idea of how such a plan was fought and defeated. If you are for filtering software in public libraries, you now know which arguments were less effective for one town so you can try different arguments where you live.
/. users outside the US, but isn't it possible that a non-US site gets erroneously filtered by filtering software? People who are concerned about having part of their web audience taken away by a third party ought to be aware of what's happening in this case. Even if they can't vote in the US to pass or defeat an initiative, they can support whichever side they choose in other ways.
On the surface, this wouldn't seem to affect
My concern is that having a wife (which I will in October) and kids (not yet) often seems incompatible with having a tech job. I'm interested in hearing how people who pull 60+ hour weeks and have families manage to get in enough family time.
This is the game I've been waiting for. I don't care if it comes out for Linux or Windows first, so long as it gets released soon :).
Thus, Mr. Johansen created the software necessary to play back DVDs under Linux. Now that we have all the pieces, are we still not entitled to view DVDs we paid for and have both the hardware and software components needed to play?
Chuck.
But is there any reason that a tight, high-performance system can't be easy to use too? I think the article is just pointing out that RedHat would get more attention and adoption from the corporate world if the GUI admin tools were better. Whether or not the more experienced user would ever use these tools over the command line is really not an issue, nor is how experienced with the inner workings of the OS a sysadmin should be - the fact is novice sysadmins do get hired, and having easy to use GUI tools for them is something they and their bosses are going to want. The more accessible or "easy to use" Linux is, the higher the adoption rate will be. Doesn't mean the rest of us have to ever start an X session to administer our servers if we don't want to. It just gives the new guys and NT converts an opportunity to get things up and running quickly. Have a little faith that they will bother to learn the internals, but the bottom line is that corporations take ease of setup and configuration into account, because every minute a server is not running or is improperly configured is a few greenbacks from some rich guy's pocket, and they don't like that one little bit.
That said, I think W2K should have lost points for not having enough command line administration utilities. Just as the article tends to imply that RedHat does not cater to the novice admin, so too does W2K not cater to the guru.
Chuck.
If I were an advocate of censorware in libraries, I would point out that smart cards are fine, but the public library is still public - you step up to your terminal, use your smart card to apply your own set of filters, and begin to seek out some top notch porn. Meanwhile, little Timmy and Suzy scamper by on their way to some top notch Dr. Seuss and glance up at your terminal where nakedcoedjellowrestling.com is maximized on screen. So they stop and check it out for awhile, which is just as bad as them having logged into the terminal and brought it up themselves.
I think what's happening here is that library censorware advocates have a problem with the "publicness" of library terminals. Politicians then take this issue and further generalize it to "protecting families and children" by calling for the demolishing of Internet "porn" (which really means anything of dubious nature according to Christian tenet or pop psychology moralistic blather). The easy solution of "block it for everyone" has been presented precisely because it is quick and easy, it parallels the sweeping generalizations of political family protection platforms, and because no one has come up with a better solution. Clearly, as adults, we want to be able to view what we want when we want. But I don't think most of us have a problem with not showing children sexually explicit content. The question then becomes how to decide what children should and should not be seeing in public facilities, who should decide, and how to ensure that the decision protects the rights of both adults and children. Obviously, this is not a question that's going to be answered in a one-night forum or with a one size fits all software solution.
Chuck.
I've heard this gullible tax thing before, and I have to protest somewhat. I don't consider myself gullible, but I do play the lottery. Why? Because it's fun! It's fun to get that little ticket and think, no matter how poor the odds, that there might be a nice little prize under those little silver rub-off squares. I've certainly paid out more than I've won on the lottery, I have no illusions about that. But it's entertained me, and I don't really think paying for this form of entertainment makes me any more gullible than the guy who goes out and buys the latest wearable prototype computer that eventually joins the hardware stockpile on the basement floor with the TRS-80. It's all about having fun - the fun just takes different forms.
Chuck.
If an prospective employee states that he must be allowed to work from home, and the prospective employer agrees to this condition and hires the prospective employee, then yes, the employer should be responsible for the working conditions of the employee's "office".
But I'm not so sure this should be the case for an employee who spends one day or even a few hours at home working. Say someone works at home for a couple hours once in a several year stint with a company and his chair collapses - the same chair he's had for years and uses every night to check his personal e-mail or stock quotes on his own time - and he becomes somehow disabled (use your imagination). Can the company be fined for providing unsafe working conditions? This decision seemingly says "yes". I just can't find the rationale behind this one. Had the chair collapsed during a non-working period, could the employer be found liable then? And what would stop an unscrupulous disgruntled employee from stating that he was "dialing in to check the servers" at 10 PM when the chair collapsed, even if he was job hunting at the time? This doesn't seem very well thought out to me.
Well, because that's the price. Your options are buy it or don't. So if you don't like the price, don't buy it. You really don't have to pay $18 for a CD. You can choose to do so, but CDs are not a life necessity.
Napster makes it easier for you to not pay the $18 because you can get the CD for free if you can find it. So use Napster while you can. But if Napster gets shut down or starts charging for downloads, you'll be in the same boat. Suppose Napster charges $2 per song and you think that's too much. Again, you can either pay the price or not. But saying that CDs cost too much and then buying them anyway does nothing to alleviate the problem. If the market prices a CD at $18 and enough consumers put down the $18, then either $18 is a fair price, or we are so overrun with runaway consumerism that we have lost any input into controlling market conditions that we may have once had.
If the gun manufacturers were smart, they'd have renamed this thing the "Y2K47" a long time ago :).
Chuck.
Maybe we could scare them more if we pumped in the sound from "Biodome" with Pauly Shore. :)
I can't see any reason why we shouldn't, but I see a big reason we don't - economics. Milk comes in gallons. All those milk containers using American measure are made in factories set up to make gallon milk jugs, not liter milk jugs. To change the equipment to mold gallon jugs to mold liter jugs instead is probably not a small or inexpensive undertaking, so there's not much incentive for manufacturers to want to change.
Someday, some brilliant marketing type is going to start a company called 'i', and that person is going to be rich beyond his wildest dreams.
:).
Then, 'i' can branch out a few days after it goes online, when it starts pulling multi-million dollar losses, and form a sister company - 'e'. Perhaps a personalized web page service as well - 'u'. These three buzz-companies will then generate so much red ink, their stocks are sure to shoot up to $500/share when they go public 3 weeks later.
I should shoot this on over to Zig Ziegler and get some royalties out of the deal. Or better yet, go register i.com right now
Chuck
"This is my theme music - every good hero should have some."