American Independence = Motivated by high taxes on tea Indian Independence = Motivated by high taxes on salt Black civil rights = Motivated by limited seating on buses
These were all business transactions, weren't they? Are these civil rights movements, commercial rights movements or something else?
As it turns out, oppression often takes the form of economic activity. Saying you can't call it civil rights doesn't take away from the fact that people are trying to keep from being oppressed. Note that Rosa Parks paid for her bus ride. She much preferred riding the bus to walking. That doesn't mean forcing her to the back was simply a kind of commercial rights issue.
Sorry, you're wrong. The fact is that "The Geek Movement" and "The Civil Rights Movement" have become almost synonymous in our modern world. I was starting to get it when I saw the "your rights online" section of Slashdot, but it didn't really sink in until I noticed the community was continually debating laws like the DMCA, cases being reviewed in the supreme court and what kind of public surveillance should be allowed.
Though it's true that this case, on the surface, is just software, there are rights related to it that many people consider a matter of freedom. Are you allowed to modify things you own? If you do anyway, can you go to jail? Do you have the right to use software to make two things you own interoperable? Do you really own at all or has this all become a giant licensing scheme were you can be compelled to follow rules you've never even seen?
Sure, some of these amount to contract disputes, but if you could go to jail for "hacking" a hardware code in order to load third-party software then all of a sudden it becomes a case of freedom.
One of Gandhi's great acts of civil disobedience was showing Indians they could make their own salt. Salt could only be legally acquired from sources that paid a huge British tax, even though anyone could make their own salt with just a little bit of effort. I see a metaphor in this. Modern technologists are saying that we have rights to use the software we've made with our own hands. Keeping that from landing us in jail is very much a Civil Rights Movement.
This is Popular Science. The translation of that title is "Stuff we think is cool because the press release told us it is.... and pretty pictures too."
I'm being a little cruel, I know. They're not really so horrible. They helped get me interested in technology when I was a teenager. But after I got out of highschool I graduated to mags that were much more in depth and took the time to actually reasearch and even use the products in question. I'd take anything on this list with a grain of salt.
Boycotts usually happen to achieve a goal. What is your goal? If your goal is to get Sony to pull the CDs and send a patch then Bravo! your work is done. If it's something else then I'd start with what that goal is and work your way back.
Possible goals:
- Better patch - Pledge to never do it again - Give money to spyware erradication groups - Give money to the EFF
Note that Sony alread seems pretty willing to whatever it takes to make this go away, so I'd stick to the important stuff. If you feel you can make them do something like give $100 to everyone who bought a CD then a) you'll never win and b) you, the protestor, will look like the asshole.
Remember, boycotts should happen only in extreme circumstances. If they fix the extreme stuff then all you'll have left is the trivial, and thats no reason to go boycotting.
Sports games appeal to the masses of casual gamers, and therefore are a good choice if you wanna sell a console.
I think you unintentionally hit upon an area where PC games are going to be able to claim supperiority for quite some time. PC gamers are always gaming on a "mature" platform with excellent availability of equipment and cutting edge graphics.
Consoles have to "launch." Launches have to have mass market apeal. Prior to the launch, the previous generation is going to look long in the tooth (otherwise, why would the public upgrade?). After the launch, the next generation will have limited availability and limited game selection. By the time the game selection becomes excellent, the console will look only average compared to PCs.
Don't get me wrong. I'm mighty impressed with many aspects of the XBOX 360, but if I can't buy the console 'til April and a wide selection of games won't be available 'til this time next year, what good does being impressed do me?
Sure, redundant if you think that a directional pad and 8 buttons is a better input device than a touchscreen.
Actually, in many cases it might be.
Look at the form factor of the Nokia tablet. Much like the PSP it uses a horizontal form factor designed to be held by two hands. However, in order to use the touch screen you'll need to let go with one hand and press with the stylus. I'm not well convinced this will be comfortable for more than short browsing session.
By contrast, the PSP has your hands well placed next to all the relevant buttons, joypad, etc. It's actually quite easy to use, especially because the buttons move you directly to the next hyperlink available so you don't have to mess around with the analog movement if you don't want to. I've used similar setups on cell phones as well (except vertically) and the "jump to the next link" works quite well.
I think the reason you might value the touch screen might have something to do with using a Pocket PC, Palm device or other vertical touch screen device. These work extremely well for web browsing, but I'm convinced the reason for this is the vertical form factor which allows you to have a firm grasp on the device while using the stylus.
Full disclosure: I've used all of the devices listed above for web browsing except the one I'm saying won't work well. It's just a guess on my part, but I think it's a good one that the horizontal handheld form factor will work better with buttons.
As an aside, I didn't care for the comparison of the Nokia as the "modern computer" with the PSP as the "Atari 2600." In many ways the PSP kind of kicks the Nokia's ass both in hardware specs and currently available software. I'd recommend you use one before cracking on it like this. It's a great device.
Not everyone can afford the $3,000 markup that hybrids carry......And I'm sure those people won't be buying one... yet.
Fuel injection, multiple intake valves, airbags and antilock brakes were all prohibitively expensive when first introduced. The little guy could never afford stuff like that. Except eventually the little guy could afford them because the prices kept dropping and they became standard equipment on just about every car made.
The beauty in hybrids has less to do with their (nonexistent) economic superiority than their popularity. The fact that there are a lot of these things being sold means manufacturers are busy improving the technology so they'll have an advantage, either in cost, efficiency, or better features, in the next business cycle.
Internal combustion engines have had close to a century to get as efficient as they are now. Because of the dramatic improvements in R&D and manufacturing technologies, hybrids wont take anywhere near that long to see dramatic improvements. The richer folk partaking right now will ensure that this is technology everyone can take advantage of within a decade or so.
I'm one of those generally honest people you speak of. I buy CDs regularly and I avoid "file sharing." I have hundreds of albums worth of MP3s that came straight from the CDs I bought.
I'd like to buy music online, but I'm faced with some problems. I prefer higher quality music than iTunes offers. They don't have a choice of spending a bit more for better quality; it's just one size fits all. Then there's the fact that I have to use their media players to play my music. My cell phone and PSP will all of a sudden become useless as music players unless I go through the cumbersome burn/re-rip process that will give me even lower quality than I started with.
Even though I'd love the convenience of downloading, I still have good ol' CDs. I can get universally playable MP3s at any quality I want. I'm happy. Except now they're putting DRM on those too. I can no longer assume that the CDs I buy will ever be playable on my PSP without jumping through a whole grab-bag of hoops. I have to explain to my teen-age daughter that the reason daddy's computer is chock full of hacking software is just so I can listen to the music I legally bought in the store.
And the worst part is that if I really was a "file sharer" the music companies have not stopped me from sharing their music with my favorite P2P client. All they've done is made an honest guy's music listening experience an exercise in frustration.
At least the department store removes the tag after you buy it.
Lets take this a little bit further.
A department store decides to leaves the anti-theft tag on it's clothes permanently to prevent people from copying it's designs. You go to the store and buy a baseball cap. You take the cap home and your wife thinks it's cool too, but the tag jumps in the way and refused to let her put it on her head. Your daughter finds a hack to let her wear the cap, but the damn thing is watermarked so the store can tell it's "stolen". The store sees her wearing the cap and sues you.
You deal with the lawsuit and throw away the hacked cap, but you liked the cap so much you buy a second copy. You wear it regularly for a while then put it in a drawer and only wear it occasionally. When you decide to buy a new house and move, the cap refuses to let the movers take it out of the old house. It also refuses to let the new owners of the old house use it. It sits in the garage and is useless to anyone.
You still are pretty charmed by the cap so you buy a third copy. Since you've been going bald for a few years, it's nice to have your head covered up on summer days. After watching infomercials late at night, you decide the Hair Club for Men is the thing for you. You're really happy with your new "hair" but you still want some cover so you go to put on the cap. It refuses to go on your head.
You are PISSED! You've bought three copies of that F**KING cap and now you can't even use it, just cause you have new "hair". You swear to never buy another cap from that GOD D**NED company. But the cap really has a lot of sentimental value so you end up buying a fourth copy anyway.
Coincidently, it saved me from the same misspelling of speech earlier today.
That's funny. I just downloaded it based on another Slashdotter's advice and I'm very pleased with it. It's one more reason to not click on the big, blue e. Anyway, I wanted to take the time to tell you THANKS for helping a bad speller out.
I am NOT defending my spelling or grammar. I AM pointing out that when I bang out a quick reply on a real-time forum without any spelling or grammar checker that I will almost always make mistakes. And I'd like you to cut me some slack, or, alternately, suggest some kind of technology (isn't this "News for Nerds"?) that may assist me.
And finally: I fucked up my spelling. I'm really, really, sorry. Now could you please attack the substance (or lack thereof) of my post so we can have one of those healthy, on-topic debates I keep hearing about.
um, sure. You're right. Except the article pretty clearly states that the assertion by the school board was that Dwyer was responsible for the speech in question and Dwyer's defense was that the school had no right to govern his speach.
From the article:
The settlement of the lawsuit brought nearly two years ago follows a decision by a federal judge ruling that Oceanport school administrators violated Ryan Dwyer's free speech rights.
and
"While my parents and I are happy the case is resolved, most importantly, I'm hopeful this will help ensure that free speech rights of students aren't trampled on again in the future," said Dwyer, who is now in 11th grade.
Clearly everyone in the case saw this as a case of Dwyer's right, or lack thereof, to say whatever he wants outside of school grouds, not a matter of whether Dwyer or his guestbook poster should be held responsible. I was merely pointing out that if Dwyer had said something truly threatening, the police, and not his school, should be the government agency taking action.
That's really so nice of you to point out my error. Have you considered posting on "Colon: News for Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Nerds"?
Or maybe instead of your friendly spelling advice, you could give me advice on the best spell check for my web browser? Remember, make fun of a man's spelling and you feel superior for day, but teach man to spell and you can feel superior for a lifetime.
Possibly if takedown request to the individual messages that contained threatening speach were ignored only then would there be a case against the forum owner.
Threatening speach should be handled by police. If it was truly threatening and the boy were arrested, I'm sure no one would be supporting him right now, much less the ACLU. In this case, however, the school decided that it's own more stringent rules trumped law and they metered punishement without so much as a trial.
If it weren't a state-run institution, if our young citizens weren't compelled to attend school by law and if the offense had actually occured on school grounds then these punishments may have been acceptable. But when a citizen is compelled by law to be a member of an institution and then that instutution can institute rules that extend to all other aspects of the citizen's life and then when those rule can supercede state and federal law, well, then you have a problem.
It's arguable (though I don't necessarily agree) that DVRs make it too easy to bypass commercials so the networks don't really make any money off of them. The reason I don't agree is because I routinely stop fast-forwarding and watch a commercial if something catches my eye. in my scenario the networks may make $0.10 rather than $0.39
But I don't agree at all that advertising _should_ pay for content. I much prefer my content to be ad-free. I'd much rather buy HBO or DVDs than watch mind-numbing, repetitive ads. A lot of people agree with me on this too.
The thing I like the least is when people try to double-dip you. Ads in a $50.00 video game? Ads in my ISP (still don't know why people stood for this with AOL)? Ads when I go to the movie theater? I don't mind paying for ad-free content, but when I get "charged" twice, well, that pisses me off.
If you have a working MythTV box, couldn't you just record the episode when it airs instead of paying $1 the next day to rent it?
For now. That's the danger of the broadcast flag. It's currently defeated, but stay tuned, more to come after these messages.
NBC makes $0.00 if you record with MythTV NBC makes $0.99 if you buy/rent/beg for it the next day
They probably understand these numbers very well, and will make no bones about describing MythTV, Tivo, et al. as "theft" devices to your local congressman. The way to prevent such "theft" is with a broadcast flag.
Remember boys and girls, anything that doesn't make money for media companies is stealing. People who steal media will damage the American economy. Terrorists want to damage the American economy. Therefore if you have MythTV you are clearly a terrorist.
If the Jewish people weren't smart enough to see Jesus as the messiah, how on earth could they be counted on to produce a proper interpretation of Genesis? And Catholics clearly don't know how to interpret Genesis because they're not snappy dressers. They wear dresses for God's sake! And those Jehovah's Witness are way too literal, unlike ourselves who are "just literal enough (tm)." Don't even get me started on those cultists in Utah. Do you know they actually try to save the souls of non-Americans?
I'm sick of this callus disregard for "the truth(tm)." The sooner you all accept that American Christian fundamentalists are the only Judaism-derived faith with a full understanding of "God's plan (tm)," the better off everyone will be.
I can honestly say that if I want to get my employer to switch to OpenOffice, or any other software program, it's going to have to be BETTER, not cheaper. I do what I can to promote using open source software within our organization, but it's rare that cost is even brought up when trying to convince the powers that be.
"Better" is a great selling point, but don't underestimate cost. My company went with JawsPDF because we just couldn't swallow the cost of Acrobat on 700 desks.
We're not going to switch to OO.o any time soon because we've already paid for MS Office and there's no end-user demand for OO.o at this point. But we strongly evaluate the cost of every project and we do sometimes pick "good enough" products based solely on a favorable price. I doubt we're the only company that makes their decisions this way either.
Then there's the old standby, "there's no such thing as bad publicity."
I know a lot of people who'd prefer bloated, slow and free(as in beer) to less bloated, faster, but $379.95 at newegg.com. Many of those people don't even know there's an alternative to MS Office. I hope they read C/Net.
It's actually one of the things I really like about DNS. Your name really is unique. Yeah, I know, you can't get the name you really, really want and, yeah, there are squatters, but when you finally got one it's very uniquely yours.
When a friend of mine was interested in starting her own brick and mortar business I was helping her pick a name. I refused to consider any name that already had the domain taken just to make sure it would be unique. Unique names matter and domain names are one of the few places in the world you can get them.
Maybe what we need it some enterprising individual to set up a nickname registration system. They could get games or blogs to agree to only allow registered names. If a few big names caught on (WoWII?) then it could become a big deal. I sure would have prefered that to being forced to use Total_W in BF2.
You got half of it right. Watching what you want to watch is a huge piece of the puzzle. The other biggest piece is watching when you want to watch and as long as you want to watch.
Tell me, if you have a portable broadcast TV are you going to pop it out in the waiting room of your doctors office? Is your favorite show on at that time? When the doctor is ready, will you be able to pause whatever show you're watching and then resume it later? You can do these things with the video iPod, PSP or any of the other devices that let you take digital video with you and you can't do it with broadcast TV.
Although I agree that for-pay-download TV has a bright future I sure wish guys like you would stop giving the providers the idea that this level of quality is acceptable. Why were folks like you telling Apple that its dowloadable music sounds "just as good as CD"? Why are you insinuating something similar for this?
I understand what you're trying to say, it's "watchable". Fine. Big Macs are edible too. But at the dawn of HDTV, why are we settling for Big Macs when you can buy a Porterhouse at your local Best Buy?
If you like this stuff, by all means tell Apple they're going down the right track. Just don't try and ruin it for those of us who appreciate high quality but telling Apple that QVGA is "as good as" broadcast TV. It's not.
Because no matter how much we pay lip service to the idea that our values are for us and their values are for them, we don't really believe it. Deep down inside, we believe that everyone should agree with us, unless they're stupid or evil.
Dude, I laughed out loud. Such lucid thought is rare, on Slashdot or anywhere else.:-)
Are you saying that you'd be OK with full color billboards depicting the Nicolas Berg beheading? What about live sex shows outside, on private ground, across from an elementry school? Kiddy porn?
I'm not saying that at all. I'm fine with banning some forms of speech, especially where kids are involved. I'm just smart enough to call it what it is: Banned Speech.
Banning something something that is deemed by the community to be improper is fine, so long as it isn't done to opress a minority, prevent political/social change, or have literary or artistic value.
See, now you've called it what it is too, it's Banning. You've also set some guidelines that you feel are fair. All I'm trying to say is that other countries do the exact same thing, it's just that they have a different viewpoint of what forms of speech are fair to ban.
I don't believe it's fair for our country to force our views of censorship on the rest of the world. If they want to censor all pornography, opposing political views, opposing religious views, etc. then that's their issue, provided they only do it within their own borders. I don't like how Iran, Isreal or China run their countries, but on subjects that are non-violent like censorchip, I dont' really think it's my call.
Slashdot Mirror
American Independence = Motivated by high taxes on tea
Indian Independence = Motivated by high taxes on salt
Black civil rights = Motivated by limited seating on buses
These were all business transactions, weren't they? Are these civil rights movements, commercial rights movements or something else?
As it turns out, oppression often takes the form of economic activity. Saying you can't call it civil rights doesn't take away from the fact that people are trying to keep from being oppressed. Note that Rosa Parks paid for her bus ride. She much preferred riding the bus to walking. That doesn't mean forcing her to the back was simply a kind of commercial rights issue.
TW
Sorry, you're wrong. The fact is that "The Geek Movement" and "The Civil Rights Movement" have become almost synonymous in our modern world. I was starting to get it when I saw the "your rights online" section of Slashdot, but it didn't really sink in until I noticed the community was continually debating laws like the DMCA, cases being reviewed in the supreme court and what kind of public surveillance should be allowed.
Though it's true that this case, on the surface, is just software, there are rights related to it that many people consider a matter of freedom. Are you allowed to modify things you own? If you do anyway, can you go to jail? Do you have the right to use software to make two things you own interoperable? Do you really own at all or has this all become a giant licensing scheme were you can be compelled to follow rules you've never even seen?
Sure, some of these amount to contract disputes, but if you could go to jail for "hacking" a hardware code in order to load third-party software then all of a sudden it becomes a case of freedom.
One of Gandhi's great acts of civil disobedience was showing Indians they could make their own salt. Salt could only be legally acquired from sources that paid a huge British tax, even though anyone could make their own salt with just a little bit of effort. I see a metaphor in this. Modern technologists are saying that we have rights to use the software we've made with our own hands. Keeping that from landing us in jail is very much a Civil Rights Movement.
TW
This is Popular Science. The translation of that title is "Stuff we think is cool because the press release told us it is.... and pretty pictures too."
I'm being a little cruel, I know. They're not really so horrible. They helped get me interested in technology when I was a teenager. But after I got out of highschool I graduated to mags that were much more in depth and took the time to actually reasearch and even use the products in question. I'd take anything on this list with a grain of salt.
TW
Boycotts usually happen to achieve a goal. What is your goal? If your goal is to get Sony to pull the CDs and send a patch then Bravo! your work is done. If it's something else then I'd start with what that goal is and work your way back.
Possible goals:
- Better patch
- Pledge to never do it again
- Give money to spyware erradication groups
- Give money to the EFF
Note that Sony alread seems pretty willing to whatever it takes to make this go away, so I'd stick to the important stuff. If you feel you can make them do something like give $100 to everyone who bought a CD then a) you'll never win and b) you, the protestor, will look like the asshole.
Remember, boycotts should happen only in extreme circumstances. If they fix the extreme stuff then all you'll have left is the trivial, and thats no reason to go boycotting.
TW
Sports games appeal to the masses of casual gamers, and therefore are a good choice if you wanna sell a console.
I think you unintentionally hit upon an area where PC games are going to be able to claim supperiority for quite some time. PC gamers are always gaming on a "mature" platform with excellent availability of equipment and cutting edge graphics.
Consoles have to "launch." Launches have to have mass market apeal. Prior to the launch, the previous generation is going to look long in the tooth (otherwise, why would the public upgrade?). After the launch, the next generation will have limited availability and limited game selection. By the time the game selection becomes excellent, the console will look only average compared to PCs.
Don't get me wrong. I'm mighty impressed with many aspects of the XBOX 360, but if I can't buy the console 'til April and a wide selection of games won't be available 'til this time next year, what good does being impressed do me?
TW
Sure, redundant if you think that a directional pad and 8 buttons is a better input device than a touchscreen.
Actually, in many cases it might be.
Look at the form factor of the Nokia tablet. Much like the PSP it uses a horizontal form factor designed to be held by two hands. However, in order to use the touch screen you'll need to let go with one hand and press with the stylus. I'm not well convinced this will be comfortable for more than short browsing session.
By contrast, the PSP has your hands well placed next to all the relevant buttons, joypad, etc. It's actually quite easy to use, especially because the buttons move you directly to the next hyperlink available so you don't have to mess around with the analog movement if you don't want to. I've used similar setups on cell phones as well (except vertically) and the "jump to the next link" works quite well.
I think the reason you might value the touch screen might have something to do with using a Pocket PC, Palm device or other vertical touch screen device. These work extremely well for web browsing, but I'm convinced the reason for this is the vertical form factor which allows you to have a firm grasp on the device while using the stylus.
Full disclosure: I've used all of the devices listed above for web browsing except the one I'm saying won't work well. It's just a guess on my part, but I think it's a good one that the horizontal handheld form factor will work better with buttons.
As an aside, I didn't care for the comparison of the Nokia as the "modern computer" with the PSP as the "Atari 2600." In many ways the PSP kind of kicks the Nokia's ass both in hardware specs and currently available software. I'd recommend you use one before cracking on it like this. It's a great device.
TW
Not everyone can afford the $3,000 markup that hybrids carry... ...And I'm sure those people won't be buying one... yet.
Fuel injection, multiple intake valves, airbags and antilock brakes were all prohibitively expensive when first introduced. The little guy could never afford stuff like that. Except eventually the little guy could afford them because the prices kept dropping and they became standard equipment on just about every car made.
The beauty in hybrids has less to do with their (nonexistent) economic superiority than their popularity. The fact that there are a lot of these things being sold means manufacturers are busy improving the technology so they'll have an advantage, either in cost, efficiency, or better features, in the next business cycle.
Internal combustion engines have had close to a century to get as efficient as they are now. Because of the dramatic improvements in R&D and manufacturing technologies, hybrids wont take anywhere near that long to see dramatic improvements. The richer folk partaking right now will ensure that this is technology everyone can take advantage of within a decade or so.
TW
I'm one of those generally honest people you speak of. I buy CDs regularly and I avoid "file sharing." I have hundreds of albums worth of MP3s that came straight from the CDs I bought.
I'd like to buy music online, but I'm faced with some problems. I prefer higher quality music than iTunes offers. They don't have a choice of spending a bit more for better quality; it's just one size fits all. Then there's the fact that I have to use their media players to play my music. My cell phone and PSP will all of a sudden become useless as music players unless I go through the cumbersome burn/re-rip process that will give me even lower quality than I started with.
Even though I'd love the convenience of downloading, I still have good ol' CDs. I can get universally playable MP3s at any quality I want. I'm happy. Except now they're putting DRM on those too. I can no longer assume that the CDs I buy will ever be playable on my PSP without jumping through a whole grab-bag of hoops. I have to explain to my teen-age daughter that the reason daddy's computer is chock full of hacking software is just so I can listen to the music I legally bought in the store.
And the worst part is that if I really was a "file sharer" the music companies have not stopped me from sharing their music with my favorite P2P client. All they've done is made an honest guy's music listening experience an exercise in frustration.
Thanks.
TW
At least the department store removes the tag after you buy it.
Lets take this a little bit further.
A department store decides to leaves the anti-theft tag on it's clothes permanently to prevent people from copying it's designs. You go to the store and buy a baseball cap. You take the cap home and your wife thinks it's cool too, but the tag jumps in the way and refused to let her put it on her head. Your daughter finds a hack to let her wear the cap, but the damn thing is watermarked so the store can tell it's "stolen". The store sees her wearing the cap and sues you.
You deal with the lawsuit and throw away the hacked cap, but you liked the cap so much you buy a second copy. You wear it regularly for a while then put it in a drawer and only wear it occasionally. When you decide to buy a new house and move, the cap refuses to let the movers take it out of the old house. It also refuses to let the new owners of the old house use it. It sits in the garage and is useless to anyone.
You still are pretty charmed by the cap so you buy a third copy. Since you've been going bald for a few years, it's nice to have your head covered up on summer days. After watching infomercials late at night, you decide the Hair Club for Men is the thing for you. You're really happy with your new "hair" but you still want some cover so you go to put on the cap. It refuses to go on your head.
You are PISSED! You've bought three copies of that F**KING cap and now you can't even use it, just cause you have new "hair". You swear to never buy another cap from that GOD D**NED company. But the cap really has a lot of sentimental value so you end up buying a fourth copy anyway.
Yep, DRM is just like those little tags
TW
Coincidently, it saved me from the same misspelling of speech earlier today.
That's funny. I just downloaded it based on another Slashdotter's advice and I'm very pleased with it. It's one more reason to not click on the big, blue e. Anyway, I wanted to take the time to tell you THANKS for helping a bad speller out.
TW
Actually, I was. I really appreciate you taking the time to recommend this. I just downloaded it an the damned thing works. THANKS!
It would be cool if one of the browser makers thought of adding this in as a default. Might even be bigger than tabbed browsing.
TW
I am NOT defending my spelling or grammar. I AM pointing out that when I bang out a quick reply on a real-time forum without any spelling or grammar checker that I will almost always make mistakes. And I'd like you to cut me some slack, or, alternately, suggest some kind of technology (isn't this "News for Nerds"?) that may assist me.
And finally: I fucked up my spelling. I'm really, really, sorry. Now could you please attack the substance (or lack thereof) of my post so we can have one of those healthy, on-topic debates I keep hearing about.
TW
From the article:
and
Clearly everyone in the case saw this as a case of Dwyer's right, or lack thereof, to say whatever he wants outside of school grouds, not a matter of whether Dwyer or his guestbook poster should be held responsible. I was merely pointing out that if Dwyer had said something truly threatening, the police, and not his school, should be the government agency taking action.
TW
That's really so nice of you to point out my error. Have you considered posting on "Colon: News for Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation Nerds"?
Or maybe instead of your friendly spelling advice, you could give me advice on the best spell check for my web browser? Remember, make fun of a man's spelling and you feel superior for day, but teach man to spell and you can feel superior for a lifetime.
TW
Possibly if takedown request to the individual messages that contained threatening speach were ignored only then would there be a case against the forum owner.
Threatening speach should be handled by police. If it was truly threatening and the boy were arrested, I'm sure no one would be supporting him right now, much less the ACLU. In this case, however, the school decided that it's own more stringent rules trumped law and they metered punishement without so much as a trial.
If it weren't a state-run institution, if our young citizens weren't compelled to attend school by law and if the offense had actually occured on school grounds then these punishments may have been acceptable. But when a citizen is compelled by law to be a member of an institution and then that instutution can institute rules that extend to all other aspects of the citizen's life and then when those rule can supercede state and federal law, well, then you have a problem.
TW
It's arguable (though I don't necessarily agree) that DVRs make it too easy to bypass commercials so the networks don't really make any money off of them. The reason I don't agree is because I routinely stop fast-forwarding and watch a commercial if something catches my eye. in my scenario the networks may make $0.10 rather than $0.39
But I don't agree at all that advertising _should_ pay for content. I much prefer my content to be ad-free. I'd much rather buy HBO or DVDs than watch mind-numbing, repetitive ads. A lot of people agree with me on this too.
The thing I like the least is when people try to double-dip you. Ads in a $50.00 video game? Ads in my ISP (still don't know why people stood for this with AOL)? Ads when I go to the movie theater? I don't mind paying for ad-free content, but when I get "charged" twice, well, that pisses me off.
TW
If you have a working MythTV box, couldn't you just record the episode when it airs instead of paying $1 the next day to rent it?
For now. That's the danger of the broadcast flag. It's currently defeated, but stay tuned, more to come after these messages.
NBC makes $0.00 if you record with MythTV
NBC makes $0.99 if you buy/rent/beg for it the next day
They probably understand these numbers very well, and will make no bones about describing MythTV, Tivo, et al. as "theft" devices to your local congressman. The way to prevent such "theft" is with a broadcast flag.
Remember boys and girls, anything that doesn't make money for media companies is stealing. People who steal media will damage the American economy. Terrorists want to damage the American economy. Therefore if you have MythTV you are clearly a terrorist.
TW
If the Jewish people weren't smart enough to see Jesus as the messiah, how on earth could they be counted on to produce a proper interpretation of Genesis? And Catholics clearly don't know how to interpret Genesis because they're not snappy dressers. They wear dresses for God's sake! And those Jehovah's Witness are way too literal, unlike ourselves who are "just literal enough (tm)." Don't even get me started on those cultists in Utah. Do you know they actually try to save the souls of non-Americans?
I'm sick of this callus disregard for "the truth(tm)." The sooner you all accept that American Christian fundamentalists are the only Judaism-derived faith with a full understanding of "God's plan (tm)," the better off everyone will be.
TW
I can honestly say that if I want to get my employer to switch to OpenOffice, or any other software program, it's going to have to be BETTER, not cheaper. I do what I can to promote using open source software within our organization, but it's rare that cost is even brought up when trying to convince the powers that be.
"Better" is a great selling point, but don't underestimate cost. My company went with JawsPDF because we just couldn't swallow the cost of Acrobat on 700 desks.
We're not going to switch to OO.o any time soon because we've already paid for MS Office and there's no end-user demand for OO.o at this point. But we strongly evaluate the cost of every project and we do sometimes pick "good enough" products based solely on a favorable price. I doubt we're the only company that makes their decisions this way either.
TW
Then there's the old standby, "there's no such thing as bad publicity."
I know a lot of people who'd prefer bloated, slow and free(as in beer) to less bloated, faster, but $379.95 at newegg.com. Many of those people don't even know there's an alternative to MS Office. I hope they read C/Net.
TW
It's actually one of the things I really like about DNS. Your name really is unique. Yeah, I know, you can't get the name you really, really want and, yeah, there are squatters, but when you finally got one it's very uniquely yours.
When a friend of mine was interested in starting her own brick and mortar business I was helping her pick a name. I refused to consider any name that already had the domain taken just to make sure it would be unique. Unique names matter and domain names are one of the few places in the world you can get them.
Maybe what we need it some enterprising individual to set up a nickname registration system. They could get games or blogs to agree to only allow registered names. If a few big names caught on (WoWII?) then it could become a big deal. I sure would have prefered that to being forced to use Total_W in BF2.
TW
You got half of it right. Watching what you want to watch is a huge piece of the puzzle. The other biggest piece is watching when you want to watch and as long as you want to watch.
Tell me, if you have a portable broadcast TV are you going to pop it out in the waiting room of your doctors office? Is your favorite show on at that time? When the doctor is ready, will you be able to pause whatever show you're watching and then resume it later? You can do these things with the video iPod, PSP or any of the other devices that let you take digital video with you and you can't do it with broadcast TV.
TW
Although I agree that for-pay-download TV has a bright future I sure wish guys like you would stop giving the providers the idea that this level of quality is acceptable. Why were folks like you telling Apple that its dowloadable music sounds "just as good as CD"? Why are you insinuating something similar for this?
I understand what you're trying to say, it's "watchable". Fine. Big Macs are edible too. But at the dawn of HDTV, why are we settling for Big Macs when you can buy a Porterhouse at your local Best Buy?
If you like this stuff, by all means tell Apple they're going down the right track. Just don't try and ruin it for those of us who appreciate high quality but telling Apple that QVGA is "as good as" broadcast TV. It's not.
TW
Because no matter how much we pay lip service to the idea that our values are for us and their values are for them, we don't really believe it. Deep down inside, we believe that everyone should agree with us, unless they're stupid or evil.
:-)
Dude, I laughed out loud. Such lucid thought is rare, on Slashdot or anywhere else.
TW
Are you saying that you'd be OK with full color billboards depicting the Nicolas Berg beheading? What about live sex shows outside, on private ground, across from an elementry school? Kiddy porn?
I'm not saying that at all. I'm fine with banning some forms of speech, especially where kids are involved. I'm just smart enough to call it what it is: Banned Speech.
Banning something something that is deemed by the community to be improper is fine, so long as it isn't done to opress a minority, prevent political/social change, or have literary or artistic value.
See, now you've called it what it is too, it's Banning. You've also set some guidelines that you feel are fair. All I'm trying to say is that other countries do the exact same thing, it's just that they have a different viewpoint of what forms of speech are fair to ban.
I don't believe it's fair for our country to force our views of censorship on the rest of the world. If they want to censor all pornography, opposing political views, opposing religious views, etc. then that's their issue, provided they only do it within their own borders. I don't like how Iran, Isreal or China run their countries, but on subjects that are non-violent like censorchip, I dont' really think it's my call.
TW