I disagree strongly with the IETF's assumption that the creation of a TLD leads automatically to censorship and mandates about what is and is not porn. Regulation and existence of TLDs are different matters. The IETF's document even notes that many conservative groups are opposed to the extension because they think they will have a better chance of getting antiporn laws passed without the extension.
The extensions could be added without mandates that porn sites move to the extension. If they existed without regulations, what you would see is web site owners using the TLDs to target their audience.
I agree that the creation of the TLDs would create a temptation to impose mandates and censorship. This is a correlation between ideas and not a necessity and the IETF suggests.
I do understand the point of view of the IETF. There are popular dialectics that holds that our society is created by the linguists who define the terms of the debate. People holding this philosophical view would see the introduction of TLDs as new terms in the debate that lead immediately to censorship.
Personally, I think that view is whacked. Yes, the introduction of.kids and.xxx would lead to debates about what is apropriate for kids and what is porn. I do not see them leading necessarily to mandates.
If the TLDs were created without mandates, the main thing you would see is marketers using the domains specifically for items targetting either the kids or porn market. Web designers would end up using the.kids and.xxx domains to define their market.
This thing where marketers define a market is akin to commissars defining content. However the game of marketers defining markets is not censorship.
I disagree with the belief that the creation of the TLDs would lead immediately to censorship. The creation of the TLDs would probably lead to a great deal of discussion about what is porn and with is apropriate for kids. My experience is that the conclusions to such debates is that these are important issues that we as individuals need to decide, but that we should not be quick to force our judgments on others. I think such debates are healthy and that the creation of the TLDs would expand the vocubulary used in the debate. I reject the idea that they new TLDs lead to mandates and censorship.
My second reading of the RFC has me a bit worried that the primary concern of the authors of the document is to stifle the debate that would occur if we expanded our vocabulary with the TLDs.
Nah, it would just be bonanza day for the.xxx registrars as hustler.com now has to buy hustler.xxx etc.etc.
The.xxx registration and annual renewal bonanza would transfer wealth from the makers of pron to domain registrars. Not that the domain registrars are a higher class of people, there would still be a little bit of wealth transfer. Even if the.com porn sites don't move, segments of the porn loving public are likely to view the new TLD...undermining the profit of the.com sites.
I did not say I supported this bill. I said I think there is merit in making a.xxx top level domain. If there was a.xxx TLD, I think a lot of pornography would migrate from.com to the new TLD on its own. I agree that, when the government starts trying to regulate or mandate porn, they usually make things worse. For example, the demand that porn be taxed would probably follow by making more ways to bill for porn... which will feed more money into the industry. Once the porn tax is an accepted revenue stream for the government, we will probably see a tax hungry government becoming a supporter of the pornographers.
The very wording in the article shows that the bill will be misused. Rather than regulating porn, the Bill says it will regulate anything that "has as its principal or primary business the making available of material that is harmful to minors". Pornographers are not in the business of making material that is harmful to minors. They are in the business of making sexually arousing images.
I would be supportive of making a TLD. I suspect, however, that most of the ideas that the morality police have to regulate porn will end up feeding into the pornographer's hands. As I stated, I think the best way to undermine pornography is to let free sites undermine pay sites. Creating mechanisms that can help people identify porn will help the people who want to avoid porn filter it out. There are some very good filters that individuals can purchase.
You can make the.xxx TLD without mandating people move to it. I think that making a.xxx TLD might help undermine the money side of the porn market without having to resort to mandates.
Personally, I don't mind the idea of moving porn to a.xxx extension. IMHO, the one thing we need to avoid is tossing up barriers to porn that people have to pay to get around. If porn is free, then the pornographers don't make money. Throwing up artificial barriers to porn creates income opportunities for the pornographers.
For example, a few years back, there was the stupid suggestiong that giving a credit card numbers for age verification would prove a person was old enough to view porn. Getting the credit card number is the hardest part of making an online sale. This idea taught a generation of teenage boys how to steal credit card numbers. It also put a lot of money in the hands of pornographers.
The.xxx extension might be good in that it would help people who want to avoid porn to filter it out. It might help those looking for porn to find free porn. It seems to me that if a.xxx extension created a path to free porn, it might undermine the income source for pornographers.
That happened the first time one of our grandmothers got a computer
I thought it happened the first time a business major looked into the engineering department to see the flashing lights on that computer thingy that everyone was talking about.
Of course, if we looked into history, we probably would find tricked out abacuses in ancient China.
The interesting thing here is that US computer knowledge has evolved along with the evolution of computer threats. Many people in India are getting their introduction of computers with the garbage running full throttle. It will be interesting to see if this baptism by fire makes a more sophosticated computer user. The American view is that with each innovation, the slimebags of the world would come up with a new way to violate privacy and trust. The view in India might be that the whole thing is a large landmine field with a hundred tricks and pitfalls at every turn.
I am probably making a mistake with my assumption that Buttars is a reasonable creature. However, I don't think attacking another's motive is the best way of going about any debate. Just because one group engages in underhanded means does not mean the rest of us need to play by their rules. So, I will continue with my assumption that Buttars is a rational being and that this Utah bill was a rational debate.
BTW I have not met Buttars. I have met a few Utah State Senators. The Utah Senator's I've met seem to hold the illusion that they are miniature Socrates put on this planet to wow the world with their wisdom. Even if they are not open minded, they put on a great show of open mindness.
When they do summarily dismiss the opinions of others, their actions stand out louder than any insult I could sling in their direction.
For that matter, I wasn't that upset with the last version of the Utah Bill. The bill had rhetoric about how students should apply critical thinking toward evolution. Science is the product of critical thinking. You are not going to destroy the product of critical thinking by aiming critical thinking at it.
Quite frankly, the totalitarian minds misunderstands critical thinking. The totalitarian mind wants to apply critical thinking toward their opponents while receiving unqualified admiration for themself. The truth of the matter is that, once you open the Pandora's box of critical thinking, you can't control the direction that it takes.
If the state wants students to apply critical thinking toward evolution, then I say bring it on. Critical minds can't be stopped. Afterall, a Mormon who learns the art of critical thinking is called an "exmormon."
Joe Public was able to create some rather complex database applications with the Paint Feature in Advanced Revelation. It seems to me that many of the DOS based 4GLs were starting to live up to their promise. The hype of 4GL was only a little bit beyond its reach.
The advent of OOP was accompanied with a large number of business articles about how OOP would re-engineer the whole world. There were quite a few books like Taylor's Business Engineering with Object Technology that were promising a complete transformation of the business world. I had attended several presentations that suggested business leaders would learn to speak UML and out would pop full robust applications.
While the techology itself was not overpromising. There was a substantial amount of pie in the sky hype in the business community.
I seem to remember in the early hype about OOP that OOP would end the role of the programmer. OOP was supposed to lead to a utopia where the end user would be grabbing and assembling objects to customize their environment and that the distinction between programmer and Joe Public would blur.
It seems to me that the actual effect of OOP was to raise the bar. Joe Public seemed to have a much better inuitive idea of procedural programs.
BTW, I've always seen the distinction between programmer and public as blurry. Every company I've worked with has had people engaged at different levels in the process.
The blog Evolution in Utah follows the bill from conception to extinction.
It is sad that we have to commend people for thinking these days.
At first I was upset that the Utah Legislature wanted to debate the issue. While I dislike Buttars and his Bill. I really can't fault people for wanting to debate an interesting issues. The debate about evolution seemed to encourage many people to talk about the foundations of logic and the nature of scientific theory.
The fact that people are engaged in debate is good. Personally I think the implication of this post (i.e., that people who do not adhere to one's beliefs are somehow "not thinking") is worse than the fact that some people enaged in a silly debate. The theory of evolution is the product of open inquiry. The theory should never be used as bludgeon to stop open inquiry.
It is the nature of the scientific method that people need to be actively engaged in different levels of the process. Good science engages people in the process.
The problem is not that people wanted to engage in this debate. The problem is that the State Legislature is not the place where such debates should occur. Debates in Congress end with authorative legislation; Such legislation will always have a negative impact on education.
I started writing everything in objects. My idea at the time was to prototype in PHP, then rewrite in Java. After a lot of system testing, I found that I was getting better performance by using straight procedures.
It is the nature of logic that you can do everything either with classes or with procedures. The difference between the OOP and procedural programming gets down to questions of speed, supportability and style. The first thing I realized was that rendering a full object model for a standard web application was a little bit too slow (because you end up having to load the full model with each action). Realizing that I was not running a full object model, the next question was whether or not I really gained anything with the overhead of rending everything using a class structure. I decided that it was not. I love the ego points I score writing in an object like style. But, it really comes down to speed and supportability. My experience is that procedural design has a lower profile that you want in a scripting environment. That low profile matters more than my self image.
It seems to me that the main drive for OOP is that teachers want something compelling to say in the classroom. The lecture where you way that OOP transcended procedural languages, then patterns transcended OOP is very compelling.
Unfortunately, the compelling classroom lecture leads people to the assumption that code written using classes is superior to code written using procedures.
In the scripting world, I don't think classes are always the best option. A script, by its nature, is something designed to be executed quickly in a single action. The whole idea of an object is that the object controls the data from start to finish. In a scripting language, like PHP, each script is short lived. The classes in a standard PHP implementation get created and destroyed with each execution of the script. The object isn't conrolling the data, the database is controlling the data.
A PHP object is simply a holder of data during a short execution of one method of a script. The fact that I have to reload the object with each execution of the script tells me that I am really not living in an object world.
Take something simply like a Session object. Think about this for a moment. Your/. session starts when you write slashdot.com in the address bar. You read a few messages, and drop a few pithy comments. Your session ends when you go off to do something else or close your browser. If I were thinking of this in object terms, the constructor should be accessed when you first write slashdot.com. The destructor should fire when you close your brower.
When I look at the PHP code for a user forum like/., I might see that each execution of the script includes the line "$session = new Session()".
In my object model, the session begins only once. The fact that I am initializing the Session object multiple times during a session tells me I am not in Object heaven. The data that controls the session is living in a cookie or living in a database. The object that I create with my Session class is just an illusion. It is simply an objectlike structure.
Accepting that I am not in an object environment, I next find myself wondering if using the class structure is really the best way to implement objectlike programmingIt seems to me that the main drive for OOP is that teachers want something compelling to say in the classroom. Presenting a model where OOP transcends procedural languages, then patterns transcends OOP makes for a compelling class.
Unfortunately, the compelling classroom lecture leads people to the assumption that something written using classes is better than something written using procedures.
In the scripting world, I don't think classes are always the best option. The whole idea of an object is that the object controls the data from start to finish. In a scripting language like PHP, each script is short lived. The classes in a standard PHP implementation get created and destroyed with each execution of the script. The object isn't conrolling the data, the database is controlling the data.
A PHP object is simply a holder of data during a short execution of one method of a script. The fact that I have to reload the object with each execution of the script tells me that I am really not living in an object world.
Take something simply like a Session object. Think about this for a moment. Your/. session starts when you write slashdot.com in the address bar. You read a few messages, and drop a few pithy comments. Your session ends when you go off to do something else or close your browser. If I were thinking of this in object terms, I might say an object starts when you access slashdot.com, and finishes when you close your browser.
When I look at the PHP code for a user forum like/., I might see that each execution of the script includes the line "$session = new Session()".
In my object model, the session begins only once. The fact that I am initial
OOP is transcendant. OO programmers are on a higher level of existence than procedural programmers. When I OOP, I am charged revolutionary spirit. It feels great! I love thinking in objects and discussing patterns while smoking a pipe in an easy chair.
Sadly, the main use for PHP is to jam out a script to get a job done. Much as I love objects. I can't help but notice that my primary use of PHP is to grab a string of data from MySQL, pack some HTML around it and present the string to a web server. Writing code to translate a string from a database into HTML is not substantially enhanced by OOP.
When I want a full object model... I really don't want to use a scripting language.
As much as I love the revolutionary spirit of OOP, I worry that maybe there's a part of me that is still just petty bourgeoisie. Even with PHP 5, I find that my PHP code comes out in the form of procedures. The game of wrapping a string from a database in HTML code is easier with procedures.
It makes me feel shamed, but, I still keep writing procedures.
It seems to me that the primary goal of watermarking system is simply to identify pirated content. Even if a pirate changes or removes a watermark, you can show that the mark was pirated or removed.
So, let's say you gave each legally sold copy of a song a unique randomly generated 64bit ID (that you record). The pirate could remove that ID. They might even put their own random ids in place of your id. The deal is, their IDs will not match those that you recorded, and you could make the the case that this is pirated music.
The thing that needs to happen is that publishers need to fight against the professional content copyright violators.
If done right, watermark technology would be sufficient to track and counter the extremely abusive copyright violations while allowing the use of open formats.
For that matter, I think "hidden" watermark technology is going in the wrong direction. The mark does not need to be hidden in the file. If you put a unique identifier on each thing downloaded. When you go to make the case that group A is pirating music you can either prove that there is a bunch of files with the same ID or with the wrong id. You don't even need to track back to the original buyer.
Would you still call it a bad ruling if he clearly did intend to distribute and profit from it?
That would be a very interesting way to structure and administer the law. Let's say you structured things so that if you found a person had something (and knowingly had something**) then you could charge someone with posssession.
Let's say you had proof that the person had or was going to distribute it, then you can get them for distribution. Lets say you had proof that the person was going to sell it. Then you can escalate the charge.
What would be bad, though, is if we made rulings on vague inklings. If you just have a feeling that someone was going to distribute it is not the same thing has being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they were going to distribute it. If you are asking about going with gut feelings opposed to going with proof... then you have one of those nasty conflicts with the Constitution.
The answer to your question would depend on the meaning of your word clearly. If that means you can prove beyond a benefit of a doubt, then, "yes". If not then I think the Constitution says "no."
**I think the knowlingly is kind of important. Imagine if someone put an image of kiddie porn sized at width=1 and height=1 and stuck it in a forum. Well, our browsers would download it. Everyone who visited the forum would now be in possession of the kiddie porn, even though they only saw a dot.
The point is not whether the lone pedophile is a more or less despicable person than anyone else in the chain
I agree that this was an extremely bad ruling. Basically, because we don't like the defendent the court is willing to twist important legal definitions to get a harsher sentence. This is a prime example of the legal activism that Repuplicans are supposed to be against.
The difference between distribution and possession sits at the heart of the IP debates on Slashdot. Where is the line between our personal use of data and distribution? In a system of rule of law, we need a cleaner definition that not only suits porn cases but other activities.
We may hate the defendent in this case with all of our might. However the activist prosecutor with activist judges bending the distinction between distribution and possession does a great deal of harm to the integrity of the legal system.
BTW, if we feel that 4 years is too short of a time for the possession of child pornography, then we should change the law. This thing of bending meaning out of definitions ultimately has the effect of destroying the rule of law.
Unfortunately, I fear that the Republican defense of legal activism will end up only including liberal activism and will ignore conservative activism.
Personally, I think this particular statement of the RIAA would do well as a rule of thumb. It is nice having rules of thumbs by which we can judge our actions.
As a rule of thumb it seems fair to state that putting things in a shared directory is a form of publishing that data. It seems like common sense to me that you don't want to put things in a shared folder that you don't intend to share or that you don't have the rights to share. I may be completely off base here, but it kind of seems to me that I should not store files that I don't want other people to access in a place where other people have access.
The RIAA statement makes good sense as a rule of thumb. Now then, whether of not a person should be prosecuted for putting copyrighted material in a shared folder is a different question. Such questions would involve the scope of the sharing. Putting something in a folder shared through a P2P program that indexes and broadcasts the availability of the file seems to be of a somewhat broader scope than having a shared folder on a Microsoft network behind a firewall.
Back to the RIAA statement. I wonder if the RIAA would respect the converse. If my music collection is in a private directory, would they take that as a sign that I respect the copyright of the copyright holders?
BTW, when something is illegal, it is pretty much by definition a crime. It does not me that the action was wrong. Nor does it really mean a person should be prosecuted for the action. For example, there may be a process that uploads data to a share directory then pushes it to private directory. Clearly the act of transferring data through a shared area is not a form of republishing the data.
The point of my original post was that it is not genius alone which draws us to certain people. It is usually genius within context of a conversation. We learn of the genius through their interactions with others.
In the case of Adams and Jefferson: There were many people involved in the founding of the United States. Part of the reason that Jefferson and Adams seem to stand so far above the fray is that they were engaged in quality conversations.
Here, personality and intellect help.
Genius alone isn't much. It is not until people are engaged in an issue that they stand out. Even here, we find that it may not be the IQ that makes a conversation stand out, but the personality (as your post seemed to imply).
I think what really captures the academic imagination is not genius, but compelling conversations. It is not really a matter of geniuses some how orbiting eachother, as the article seems to imply. What happens is that, on occasion, a compelling conversative takes place that really draws in the imagination of the academic crowd.
People learn learn the names of the actors in a conversation. I think this is the primary reason why we end up seeing genius of ages coming at us in groups.
The best conversations, of course, really do take place between thinkers of genius quality. Regardless, the intrigue of a conversation spreads on the merits of the conversation... and not necessarily on the qualities of the people engaged in the conversation.
BTW, the/. formula of x number of articles a day generating several hundred unedited comments does not really create any one truly compelling conversation. Even if there were Newton quality thinkers hitting the board, their insights get bulled over in the rush of folk like me who simply like to drop pithy little comments here and about for entertainment.
While pointing out half arguments, I think the article has this conflict wrong. I would think that the digital broadcasters would be united with the recording artists in their desire not to have their broadcasts recorded and remixed by music enthusiasts. The broadcast model depends on a regular audience that tunes in and gets the current commercials along with the tunes.
People recording the broadcasts undermine the broadcasters as well as the recording artists. There really is not a conflict between recording artists and broadcasters. Piracy of broadcasts undermine both business models.
The real conflict here, is with people who want to take digital broadcasts and republish cuts from the digital broadcasts in whatever form.
Likewise, I think the fair use issue falls gets into the question of if the recorder is just making a recording to listen to later, or if the person recording the broadcast is planning on publishing the music (ie give copies to friends).
Let's see you just made a jabs about death camps in a criticism of someone using the same dark humor to point out that we don't want our feul supply to compete with our food supply.
Watching all of the destruction of our consumer lifestyle kind of turns my stomach at times. The thought that Americans, if given the choice between parking the SUV or famine in Somalia, might end up choosing the famine scares me. For that matter, quite a few of today's problems seem to trace back to shortcuts taken in our rush to get cheap oil.
BTW, at this point biodeisel is feeding on waste product. I am a big supporter of the current technology. The problem occurs when the technology tries to go mainstream. There's a ton of plusses with the current state of biodeisel, it helps reduce farmer's cost and even provides an extra source of income for some farms. The challenge of all of these technologies to develop them in ways that minimize the destructive impact. The destructive impact of each technology when overdone is gut turning.
Odd response. My post says that we can't see any technology as a magic bullet. I think windmills are great... until you get into questions of millions of windmills covering hundreds of thousands of acres. At this point we are creating macro changes in the environment. Just the large number of dirt roads constructed to service all the windmills will have major environmental impact. Likewise all the materials mined, fuels consumed, fences built to protect the mills, etc.. I hate the idea of all the no-trespassing signs. By a time we've built enough windmill farms to make a truly significant impact in our energy needs, we will have a major environmental problem.
The post said neither biodeisel nor biomass is a silver bullet. The most obvious problem is that biodeisel competes for the agricultural resources needed to feed the world. I am a fan of biodeisel to the point that it makes use of waste products, but it fails as the magic bullet test.
I am glad that, in your fog of reason, you seemed to figure out the depopulation jab. You really should congratulate yourself on your astute ability to indentify sarcasm. Two solid pats on back.
The really funny thing is that the post you rant against even says nuclear energy is the best long term answer. One of the reason that I don't want to see massive windmill farms is that I worry that they will be made obsolete by nuclear energy in 50 to 100 years. In this case, the unmaintained, abandonned windmill farms will be a major problem.
While I favor increasing our nuclear capacity. The technology is rife with environmental costs from the mining of heavy metals to the disposal of hazardouse waste.
I admit, most of my fears about nuclear energy are not driven by the technology or science but by my experience with human nature. In any widespread roleout of nuclear technology, we will see the people who really understand the technology pushed to the side while the political drones, apologists and starry-eyed fools surface to the top. Doing nuclear right takes decades of slow careful work.
There is a chance that people are thinking about ugly broken unmaintained windmills fifty or so years into the future. Personally, I fear the day when the windmill and solar power industry begins its conquest of the remaining wildnerness in the US.
Yes, nuclear energy doesn't pollute like coal or gas. It pollutes in its own unique radiant style that will keep an area aglow for millennia.
Personally, I favor switching everything to biodeisel. Once our cars are competing directly for the agricultural resources needed to feed humans, we will see the population drop to a sustainable level.
Someday we might realize that there isn't a magic bullet. Each alternative engery source has draw backs and we need to be developing them all. PS, I agree nuclear will be the long term solution. This solution has to be developed slowly and more thought than other alternatives.
The industry doesn't need a bullet proof DRM. There simply needs to be enough DRM to create a threshold that people have to cross to pirate works.
The first wave of P2P created a big gap in trust. Once the market gets back on track, and people no longer think that distributing free copies of someone else's work is part of a great social movement, the market might normalize... and publishers would become less intrusive in their DRM efforts. (yes, this is called wishful thinking).
Right now, I think it is sufficient to establish a threshold... even if it is possible to break the mechanisms, most people would not cross the the threshold feeling that they are doing something wrong.
PS: I think the primary goal of DRM should be to put enough identification on digital media to identify organized media pirating organizations. Such efforts really don't need to be high tech. If you insert a unique id into each copy of Monk, and you notice a bootlegger selling CDs with duplicate IDs*, then there is a good chance that you just caught yourself a bad guy. You wouldn't even need to trace the ID back to the original purchaser.
*You would probably want to use randomly generated ids to thwart bootleggers who increment an id to make an appearance that their copys are kosher.
Unfortunately, the "information must be free" crowd kind of ruined our first shot at having widespread downloadable content where the copyright was simply enforced by trust.
IHMO, The people who wanted to distribute the creative works of others without even giving the creative artists the benefit of a few years control over their work were doing their own form of evil. Of course, P2Pers considered themselves as Gods... robbing from Peter to give to Paul.
DRM is evil, but, at this point, the market necessitates that companies must use DRM. I suspect that, if a true market evolves to the point where the public becomes accustomed to paying for works, then publishers will gradually ease up on the intrusiveness of their DRM.
The thing I really dislike about the present day market is the need to use a software based DRM has raised the cost of entry. Only giant companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google really have the infrastructure to test and deliver DRM media. The result of this little chain of evils feeding on other evils is that there really is not a good entry point (at this time) for smaller media firms to come into the market and thrive.
Rather than getting media from Apple or Google, I would prefer to get the media straight from the studio and pay the artists a little bit more directly.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice link.
.kids and .xxx would lead to debates about what is apropriate for kids and what is porn. I do not see them leading necessarily to mandates.
.kids and .xxx domains to define their market.
I disagree strongly with the IETF's assumption that the creation of a TLD leads automatically to censorship and mandates about what is and is not porn. Regulation and existence of TLDs are different matters. The IETF's document even notes that many conservative groups are opposed to the extension because they think they will have a better chance of getting antiporn laws passed without the extension.
The extensions could be added without mandates that porn sites move to the extension. If they existed without regulations, what you would see is web site owners using the TLDs to target their audience.
I agree that the creation of the TLDs would create a temptation to impose mandates and censorship. This is a correlation between ideas and not a necessity and the IETF suggests.
I do understand the point of view of the IETF. There are popular dialectics that holds that our society is created by the linguists who define the terms of the debate. People holding this philosophical view would see the introduction of TLDs as new terms in the debate that lead immediately to censorship.
Personally, I think that view is whacked. Yes, the introduction of
If the TLDs were created without mandates, the main thing you would see is marketers using the domains specifically for items targetting either the kids or porn market. Web designers would end up using the
This thing where marketers define a market is akin to commissars defining content. However the game of marketers defining markets is not censorship.
I disagree with the belief that the creation of the TLDs would lead immediately to censorship. The creation of the TLDs would probably lead to a great deal of discussion about what is porn and with is apropriate for kids. My experience is that the conclusions to such debates is that these are important issues that we as individuals need to decide, but that we should not be quick to force our judgments on others. I think such debates are healthy and that the creation of the TLDs would expand the vocubulary used in the debate. I reject the idea that they new TLDs lead to mandates and censorship.
My second reading of the RFC has me a bit worried that the primary concern of the authors of the document is to stifle the debate that would occur if we expanded our vocabulary with the TLDs.
The .xxx registration and annual renewal bonanza would transfer wealth from the makers of pron to domain registrars. Not that the domain registrars are a higher class of people, there would still be a little bit of wealth transfer. Even if the .com porn sites don't move, segments of the porn loving public are likely to view the new TLD...undermining the profit of the .com sites.
I did not say I supported this bill. I said I think there is merit in making a .xxx top level domain. If there was a .xxx TLD, I think a lot of pornography would migrate from .com to the new TLD on its own. I agree that, when the government starts trying to regulate or mandate porn, they usually make things worse. For example, the demand that porn be taxed would probably follow by making more ways to bill for porn ... which will feed more money into the industry. Once the porn tax is an accepted revenue stream for the government, we will probably see a tax hungry government becoming a supporter of the pornographers.
.xxx TLD without mandating people move to it. I think that making a .xxx TLD might help undermine the money side of the porn market without having to resort to mandates.
The very wording in the article shows that the bill will be misused. Rather than regulating porn, the Bill says it will regulate anything that "has as its principal or primary business the making available of material that is harmful to minors". Pornographers are not in the business of making material that is harmful to minors. They are in the business of making sexually arousing images.
I would be supportive of making a TLD. I suspect, however, that most of the ideas that the morality police have to regulate porn will end up feeding into the pornographer's hands. As I stated, I think the best way to undermine pornography is to let free sites undermine pay sites. Creating mechanisms that can help people identify porn will help the people who want to avoid porn filter it out. There are some very good filters that individuals can purchase.
You can make the
Personally, I don't mind the idea of moving porn to a .xxx extension. IMHO, the one thing we need to avoid is tossing up barriers to porn that people have to pay to get around. If porn is free, then the pornographers don't make money. Throwing up artificial barriers to porn creates income opportunities for the pornographers.
.xxx extension might be good in that it would help people who want to avoid porn to filter it out. It might help those looking for porn to find free porn. It seems to me that if a .xxx extension created a path to free porn, it might undermine the income source for pornographers.
For example, a few years back, there was the stupid suggestiong that giving a credit card numbers for age verification would prove a person was old enough to view porn. Getting the credit card number is the hardest part of making an online sale. This idea taught a generation of teenage boys how to steal credit card numbers. It also put a lot of money in the hands of pornographers.
The
I thought it happened the first time a business major looked into the engineering department to see the flashing lights on that computer thingy that everyone was talking about.
Of course, if we looked into history, we probably would find tricked out abacuses in ancient China.
The interesting thing here is that US computer knowledge has evolved along with the evolution of computer threats. Many people in India are getting their introduction of computers with the garbage running full throttle. It will be interesting to see if this baptism by fire makes a more sophosticated computer user. The American view is that with each innovation, the slimebags of the world would come up with a new way to violate privacy and trust. The view in India might be that the whole thing is a large landmine field with a hundred tricks and pitfalls at every turn.
I am probably making a mistake with my assumption that Buttars is a reasonable creature. However, I don't think attacking another's motive is the best way of going about any debate. Just because one group engages in underhanded means does not mean the rest of us need to play by their rules. So, I will continue with my assumption that Buttars is a rational being and that this Utah bill was a rational debate.
BTW I have not met Buttars. I have met a few Utah State Senators. The Utah Senator's I've met seem to hold the illusion that they are miniature Socrates put on this planet to wow the world with their wisdom. Even if they are not open minded, they put on a great show of open mindness.
When they do summarily dismiss the opinions of others, their actions stand out louder than any insult I could sling in their direction.
For that matter, I wasn't that upset with the last version of the Utah Bill. The bill had rhetoric about how students should apply critical thinking toward evolution. Science is the product of critical thinking. You are not going to destroy the product of critical thinking by aiming critical thinking at it.
Quite frankly, the totalitarian minds misunderstands critical thinking. The totalitarian mind wants to apply critical thinking toward their opponents while receiving unqualified admiration for themself. The truth of the matter is that, once you open the Pandora's box of critical thinking, you can't control the direction that it takes.
If the state wants students to apply critical thinking toward evolution, then I say bring it on. Critical minds can't be stopped. Afterall, a Mormon who learns the art of critical thinking is called an "exmormon."
Joe Public was able to create some rather complex database applications with the Paint Feature in Advanced Revelation. It seems to me that many of the DOS based 4GLs were starting to live up to their promise. The hype of 4GL was only a little bit beyond its reach.
The advent of OOP was accompanied with a large number of business articles about how OOP would re-engineer the whole world. There were quite a few books like Taylor's Business Engineering with Object Technology that were promising a complete transformation of the business world. I had attended several presentations that suggested business leaders would learn to speak UML and out would pop full robust applications.
While the techology itself was not overpromising. There was a substantial amount of pie in the sky hype in the business community.
I seem to remember in the early hype about OOP that OOP would end the role of the programmer. OOP was supposed to lead to a utopia where the end user would be grabbing and assembling objects to customize their environment and that the distinction between programmer and Joe Public would blur.
It seems to me that the actual effect of OOP was to raise the bar. Joe Public seemed to have a much better inuitive idea of procedural programs.
BTW, I've always seen the distinction between programmer and public as blurry. Every company I've worked with has had people engaged at different levels in the process.
At first I was upset that the Utah Legislature wanted to debate the issue. While I dislike Buttars and his Bill. I really can't fault people for wanting to debate an interesting issues. The debate about evolution seemed to encourage many people to talk about the foundations of logic and the nature of scientific theory.
The fact that people are engaged in debate is good. Personally I think the implication of this post (i.e., that people who do not adhere to one's beliefs are somehow "not thinking") is worse than the fact that some people enaged in a silly debate. The theory of evolution is the product of open inquiry. The theory should never be used as bludgeon to stop open inquiry.
It is the nature of the scientific method that people need to be actively engaged in different levels of the process. Good science engages people in the process.
The problem is not that people wanted to engage in this debate. The problem is that the State Legislature is not the place where such debates should occur. Debates in Congress end with authorative legislation; Such legislation will always have a negative impact on education.
I started writing everything in objects. My idea at the time was to prototype in PHP, then rewrite in Java. After a lot of system testing, I found that I was getting better performance by using straight procedures.
It is the nature of logic that you can do everything either with classes or with procedures. The difference between the OOP and procedural programming gets down to questions of speed, supportability and style. The first thing I realized was that rendering a full object model for a standard web application was a little bit too slow (because you end up having to load the full model with each action). Realizing that I was not running a full object model, the next question was whether or not I really gained anything with the overhead of rending everything using a class structure. I decided that it was not. I love the ego points I score writing in an object like style. But, it really comes down to speed and supportability. My experience is that procedural design has a lower profile that you want in a scripting environment. That low profile matters more than my self image.
It seems to me that the main drive for OOP is that teachers want something compelling to say in the classroom. The lecture where you way that OOP transcended procedural languages, then patterns transcended OOP is very compelling.
/. session starts when you write slashdot.com in the address bar. You read a few messages, and drop a few pithy comments. Your session ends when you go off to do something else or close your browser. If I were thinking of this in object terms, the constructor should be accessed when you first write slashdot.com. The destructor should fire when you close your brower.
/., I might see that each execution of the script includes the line "$session = new Session()".
/. session starts when you write slashdot.com in the address bar. You read a few messages, and drop a few pithy comments. Your session ends when you go off to do something else or close your browser. If I were thinking of this in object terms, I might say an object starts when you access slashdot.com, and finishes when you close your browser.
/., I might see that each execution of the script includes the line "$session = new Session()".
Unfortunately, the compelling classroom lecture leads people to the assumption that code written using classes is superior to code written using procedures.
In the scripting world, I don't think classes are always the best option. A script, by its nature, is something designed to be executed quickly in a single action. The whole idea of an object is that the object controls the data from start to finish. In a scripting language, like PHP, each script is short lived. The classes in a standard PHP implementation get created and destroyed with each execution of the script. The object isn't conrolling the data, the database is controlling the data.
A PHP object is simply a holder of data during a short execution of one method of a script. The fact that I have to reload the object with each execution of the script tells me that I am really not living in an object world.
Take something simply like a Session object. Think about this for a moment. Your
When I look at the PHP code for a user forum like
In my object model, the session begins only once. The fact that I am initializing the Session object multiple times during a session tells me I am not in Object heaven. The data that controls the session is living in a cookie or living in a database. The object that I create with my Session class is just an illusion. It is simply an objectlike structure.
Accepting that I am not in an object environment, I next find myself wondering if using the class structure is really the best way to implement objectlike programmingIt seems to me that the main drive for OOP is that teachers want something compelling to say in the classroom. Presenting a model where OOP transcends procedural languages, then patterns transcends OOP makes for a compelling class.
Unfortunately, the compelling classroom lecture leads people to the assumption that something written using classes is better than something written using procedures.
In the scripting world, I don't think classes are always the best option. The whole idea of an object is that the object controls the data from start to finish. In a scripting language like PHP, each script is short lived. The classes in a standard PHP implementation get created and destroyed with each execution of the script. The object isn't conrolling the data, the database is controlling the data.
A PHP object is simply a holder of data during a short execution of one method of a script. The fact that I have to reload the object with each execution of the script tells me that I am really not living in an object world.
Take something simply like a Session object. Think about this for a moment. Your
When I look at the PHP code for a user forum like
In my object model, the session begins only once. The fact that I am initial
OOP is transcendant. OO programmers are on a higher level of existence than procedural programmers. When I OOP, I am charged revolutionary spirit. It feels great! I love thinking in objects and discussing patterns while smoking a pipe in an easy chair.
... I really don't want to use a scripting language.
Sadly, the main use for PHP is to jam out a script to get a job done. Much as I love objects. I can't help but notice that my primary use of PHP is to grab a string of data from MySQL, pack some HTML around it and present the string to a web server. Writing code to translate a string from a database into HTML is not substantially enhanced by OOP.
When I want a full object model
As much as I love the revolutionary spirit of OOP, I worry that maybe there's a part of me that is still just petty bourgeoisie. Even with PHP 5, I find that my PHP code comes out in the form of procedures. The game of wrapping a string from a database in HTML code is easier with procedures.
It makes me feel shamed, but, I still keep writing procedures.
It seems to me that the primary goal of watermarking system is simply to identify pirated content. Even if a pirate changes or removes a watermark, you can show that the mark was pirated or removed.
So, let's say you gave each legally sold copy of a song a unique randomly generated 64bit ID (that you record). The pirate could remove that ID. They might even put their own random ids in place of your id. The deal is, their IDs will not match those that you recorded, and you could make the the case that this is pirated music.
The thing that needs to happen is that publishers need to fight against the professional content copyright violators.
If done right, watermark technology would be sufficient to track and counter the extremely abusive copyright violations while allowing the use of open formats.
For that matter, I think "hidden" watermark technology is going in the wrong direction. The mark does not need to be hidden in the file. If you put a unique identifier on each thing downloaded. When you go to make the case that group A is pirating music you can either prove that there is a bunch of files with the same ID or with the wrong id. You don't even need to track back to the original buyer.
That would be a very interesting way to structure and administer the law. Let's say you structured things so that if you found a person had something (and knowingly had something**) then you could charge someone with posssession.
Let's say you had proof that the person had or was going to distribute it, then you can get them for distribution. Lets say you had proof that the person was going to sell it. Then you can escalate the charge.
What would be bad, though, is if we made rulings on vague inklings. If you just have a feeling that someone was going to distribute it is not the same thing has being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they were going to distribute it. If you are asking about going with gut feelings opposed to going with proof ... then you have one of those nasty conflicts with the Constitution.
The answer to your question would depend on the meaning of your word clearly. If that means you can prove beyond a benefit of a doubt, then, "yes". If not then I think the Constitution says "no."
**I think the knowlingly is kind of important. Imagine if someone put an image of kiddie porn sized at width=1 and height=1 and stuck it in a forum. Well, our browsers would download it. Everyone who visited the forum would now be in possession of the kiddie porn, even though they only saw a dot.
I agree that this was an extremely bad ruling. Basically, because we don't like the defendent the court is willing to twist important legal definitions to get a harsher sentence. This is a prime example of the legal activism that Repuplicans are supposed to be against.
The difference between distribution and possession sits at the heart of the IP debates on Slashdot. Where is the line between our personal use of data and distribution? In a system of rule of law, we need a cleaner definition that not only suits porn cases but other activities.
We may hate the defendent in this case with all of our might. However the activist prosecutor with activist judges bending the distinction between distribution and possession does a great deal of harm to the integrity of the legal system.
BTW, if we feel that 4 years is too short of a time for the possession of child pornography, then we should change the law. This thing of bending meaning out of definitions ultimately has the effect of destroying the rule of law.
Unfortunately, I fear that the Republican defense of legal activism will end up only including liberal activism and will ignore conservative activism.
Personally, I think this particular statement of the RIAA would do well as a rule of thumb. It is nice having rules of thumbs by which we can judge our actions.
As a rule of thumb it seems fair to state that putting things in a shared directory is a form of publishing that data. It seems like common sense to me that you don't want to put things in a shared folder that you don't intend to share or that you don't have the rights to share. I may be completely off base here, but it kind of seems to me that I should not store files that I don't want other people to access in a place where other people have access.
The RIAA statement makes good sense as a rule of thumb. Now then, whether of not a person should be prosecuted for putting copyrighted material in a shared folder is a different question. Such questions would involve the scope of the sharing. Putting something in a folder shared through a P2P program that indexes and broadcasts the availability of the file seems to be of a somewhat broader scope than having a shared folder on a Microsoft network behind a firewall.
Back to the RIAA statement. I wonder if the RIAA would respect the converse. If my music collection is in a private directory, would they take that as a sign that I respect the copyright of the copyright holders?
BTW, when something is illegal, it is pretty much by definition a crime. It does not me that the action was wrong. Nor does it really mean a person should be prosecuted for the action. For example, there may be a process that uploads data to a share directory then pushes it to private directory. Clearly the act of transferring data through a shared area is not a form of republishing the data.
The point of my original post was that it is not genius alone which draws us to certain people. It is usually genius within context of a conversation. We learn of the genius through their interactions with others.
In the case of Adams and Jefferson: There were many people involved in the founding of the United States. Part of the reason that Jefferson and Adams seem to stand so far above the fray is that they were engaged in quality conversations.
Here, personality and intellect help.
Genius alone isn't much. It is not until people are engaged in an issue that they stand out. Even here, we find that it may not be the IQ that makes a conversation stand out, but the personality (as your post seemed to imply).
I think what really captures the academic imagination is not genius, but compelling conversations. It is not really a matter of geniuses some how orbiting eachother, as the article seems to imply. What happens is that, on occasion, a compelling conversative takes place that really draws in the imagination of the academic crowd.
... and not necessarily on the qualities of the people engaged in the conversation.
/. formula of x number of articles a day generating several hundred unedited comments does not really create any one truly compelling conversation. Even if there were Newton quality thinkers hitting the board, their insights get bulled over in the rush of folk like me who simply like to drop pithy little comments here and about for entertainment.
People learn learn the names of the actors in a conversation. I think this is the primary reason why we end up seeing genius of ages coming at us in groups.
The best conversations, of course, really do take place between thinkers of genius quality. Regardless, the intrigue of a conversation spreads on the merits of the conversation
BTW, the
While pointing out half arguments, I think the article has this conflict wrong. I would think that the digital broadcasters would be united with the recording artists in their desire not to have their broadcasts recorded and remixed by music enthusiasts. The broadcast model depends on a regular audience that tunes in and gets the current commercials along with the tunes.
People recording the broadcasts undermine the broadcasters as well as the recording artists. There really is not a conflict between recording artists and broadcasters. Piracy of broadcasts undermine both business models.
The real conflict here, is with people who want to take digital broadcasts and republish cuts from the digital broadcasts in whatever form.
Likewise, I think the fair use issue falls gets into the question of if the recorder is just making a recording to listen to later, or if the person recording the broadcast is planning on publishing the music (ie give copies to friends).
Let's see you just made a jabs about death camps in a criticism of someone using the same dark humor to point out that we don't want our feul supply to compete with our food supply.
Watching all of the destruction of our consumer lifestyle kind of turns my stomach at times. The thought that Americans, if given the choice between parking the SUV or famine in Somalia, might end up choosing the famine scares me. For that matter, quite a few of today's problems seem to trace back to shortcuts taken in our rush to get cheap oil.
BTW, at this point biodeisel is feeding on waste product. I am a big supporter of the current technology. The problem occurs when the technology tries to go mainstream. There's a ton of plusses with the current state of biodeisel, it helps reduce farmer's cost and even provides an extra source of income for some farms. The challenge of all of these technologies to develop them in ways that minimize the destructive impact. The destructive impact of each technology when overdone is gut turning.
Odd response. My post says that we can't see any technology as a magic bullet. I think windmills are great ... until you get into questions of millions of windmills covering hundreds of thousands of acres. At this point we are creating macro changes in the environment. Just the large number of dirt roads constructed to service all the windmills will have major environmental impact. Likewise all the materials mined, fuels consumed, fences built to protect the mills, etc.. I hate the idea of all the no-trespassing signs. By a time we've built enough windmill farms to make a truly significant impact in our energy needs, we will have a major environmental problem.
The post said neither biodeisel nor biomass is a silver bullet. The most obvious problem is that biodeisel competes for the agricultural resources needed to feed the world. I am a fan of biodeisel to the point that it makes use of waste products, but it fails as the magic bullet test.
I am glad that, in your fog of reason, you seemed to figure out the depopulation jab. You really should congratulate yourself on your astute ability to indentify sarcasm. Two solid pats on back.
The really funny thing is that the post you rant against even says nuclear energy is the best long term answer. One of the reason that I don't want to see massive windmill farms is that I worry that they will be made obsolete by nuclear energy in 50 to 100 years. In this case, the unmaintained, abandonned windmill farms will be a major problem.
While I favor increasing our nuclear capacity. The technology is rife with environmental costs from the mining of heavy metals to the disposal of hazardouse waste.
I admit, most of my fears about nuclear energy are not driven by the technology or science but by my experience with human nature. In any widespread roleout of nuclear technology, we will see the people who really understand the technology pushed to the side while the political drones, apologists and starry-eyed fools surface to the top. Doing nuclear right takes decades of slow careful work.
There is a chance that people are thinking about ugly broken unmaintained windmills fifty or so years into the future. Personally, I fear the day when the windmill and solar power industry begins its conquest of the remaining wildnerness in the US.
Yes, nuclear energy doesn't pollute like coal or gas. It pollutes in its own unique radiant style that will keep an area aglow for millennia.
Personally, I favor switching everything to biodeisel. Once our cars are competing directly for the agricultural resources needed to feed humans, we will see the population drop to a sustainable level.
Someday we might realize that there isn't a magic bullet. Each alternative engery source has draw backs and we need to be developing them all. PS, I agree nuclear will be the long term solution. This solution has to be developed slowly and more thought than other alternatives.
The industry doesn't need a bullet proof DRM. There simply needs to be enough DRM to create a threshold that people have to cross to pirate works.
... and publishers would become less intrusive in their DRM efforts. (yes, this is called wishful thinking).
... even if it is possible to break the mechanisms, most people would not cross the the threshold feeling that they are doing something wrong.
The first wave of P2P created a big gap in trust. Once the market gets back on track, and people no longer think that distributing free copies of someone else's work is part of a great social movement, the market might normalize
Right now, I think it is sufficient to establish a threshold
PS: I think the primary goal of DRM should be to put enough identification on digital media to identify organized media pirating organizations. Such efforts really don't need to be high tech. If you insert a unique id into each copy of Monk, and you notice a bootlegger selling CDs with duplicate IDs*, then there is a good chance that you just caught yourself a bad guy. You wouldn't even need to trace the ID back to the original purchaser.
*You would probably want to use randomly generated ids to thwart bootleggers who increment an id to make an appearance that their copys are kosher.
IHMO, The people who wanted to distribute the creative works of others without even giving the creative artists the benefit of a few years control over their work were doing their own form of evil. Of course, P2Pers considered themselves as Gods
DRM is evil, but, at this point, the market necessitates that companies must use DRM. I suspect that, if a true market evolves to the point where the public becomes accustomed to paying for works, then publishers will gradually ease up on the intrusiveness of their DRM.
The thing I really dislike about the present day market is the need to use a software based DRM has raised the cost of entry. Only giant companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google really have the infrastructure to test and deliver DRM media. The result of this little chain of evils feeding on other evils is that there really is not a good entry point (at this time) for smaller media firms to come into the market and thrive.
Rather than getting media from Apple or Google, I would prefer to get the media straight from the studio and pay the artists a little bit more directly.