I suspect that as wireless internet becomes more ubiquitous, we will see a rise in the incidence of students who forgo the college network altogether, and pay for their own separate, less regulated access to the internet at large. It seems that using college networks for file sharing is becoming a high-visibility, risky thing to do even without stricter regulations, because of RIAA crackdowns. So for security and access, students will come to feel they have no choice but to look for alternate methods of accessing the internet.
This brings to mind a story I recently heard on NPR's On The Media. It was about how public webpostings made at age 19 can linger and retain the power to embarass years later. (Transcript of story http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/05/25/0 4here). In her heady youth, Ms. Rafsanjani (now a producer for OTM) wrote a letter to an Iranian newspaper defending America and attacking Iranian policies, and in the typical style of a teenager, her letter was idealistic, impassioned and over-the-top. It mortifies her to this day.
What was interesting to me about this piece was how, despite wishing she could supress the letter, Ms. Rafsanjani eventually became resigned to having this information out there, and although it embarassed her, she welcomed the opportunity to discuss it further on NPR, because it gave her a way to control the story. She wanted people who found that previous piece to know that her thinking had evolved, and that she no longer feels that way. I think that something similar is happening in the article you linked. Although she was unable to get her name off of that one blog, by participating in an article about using "reputation defenders," the first woman in the article is able to get the message out that SHE has changed, that she regrets the incident from her past, and that she wants people to know she is not bigoted. Whatever one thinks of the content of her claims (I don't know enough to say), I think that brings up an important point. The best way to handle certain potentially damaging bits of information in one's past, especially online, is not always to supress it. Sometimes the ideal situation is to go out there and use one's own name to defend oneself, to clarify one's point of view, and give one's own side of the story.
It seems to me that the ISPs have forgotten who their customers are. Asking people who pay at least $20 a month for internet access (and associated email accounts) to accept unblockable emails into their inbox is a lot like asking moviegoers to drop $9 on a ticket, and then having them sit through 15-20 minutes of advertisements before the movie starts.... oh, wait.
Slate recently (June 30) had an article on how Mozilla's Firefox "trumps" Internet Explorer, which was enough to convince me to switch browsers.
It's an interesting read... the real selling point to me, frankly, wasn't the increased security (which I can get through a good firewall), but the TAB feature. The ability to open links as a tab within the current page is a true browser innovation for which there is no IE equivalent or patch.
It's my impression from reading the article that peer-to-peer software is not going to be made illegal, per se, but that is will be okay to sue the creators of any P2P 'wares that can be used for the illegal sharing of copyrighted material.
A fine point, you say? Perhaps, but I'm sure that the legislators would argue that as long as the software creators are being conscientious (read: being good little lapdogs of the RIAA) and including some kind of blocking scripts that scout for some kind of watermark on any potentially shared file, then they would become immune from suit. It would be wrong to read this legislation as an attempt to destroy P@P technology; more likely, this is a concerted attempt by the RIAA and its backers to bring all P@P software under a certain standard.
I think you'd be surprised by the appeal that radio retains in the United States these days. Talk radio attracts millions of listeners daily, and this includes everyone from borderline luddites to the most bleeding edge technophiles.
Why is this? Radio's excellent feature is that it does not require visual attention. Thus, even as I'm browsing Slashdot right now, I'm listening to NPR's Car Talk show. Earlier today, I was cleaning my apartment and listening to This American Life. Although it's true I could listen to my own CDs or MP3s, there's something nice about not having my entire experience mediated by my own predetermined desires. Radio allows me to learn new things I wouldn't otherwise know and listen to music I haven't heard before, all while I attend to other tasks.
No, it's not. Doctors are not valued simply for their ability to "report immediately": residents and in-house physicians on call exist for that. There is such a thing as requiring an emergency opinion, one that is more valuable then the eventual presence of the doctor himself.
Example: I know of a hematologist who takes care of a few patients with rare blood-factor deficiency disorders. Occasionally, these patients are involved in traumatic injuries or begin to bleed spontaneously. It becomes necessary to contact the hematolgist instantly, who can order a course of treatment over the phone, which can be started even before he arrives.
If you have life-and-death notification requirements, you shouldn't be relying on a cell anyway. It's not like coverage is perfect. As somsone else pointed out, a pager is a much better choice.
Unless you want to be wedded to a landline, however, carrying a cell along with a pager is often necessary. Otherwise, what are you going to do about your supposedly life-or-death page if you can't immediately contact the person who needs you?
Instead of going crazy with the broadband, why not create a system of free dial-in connections that is administrated by the local library system? Imagine: when applying for a library card, your average American might be given a list of phone numbers to a local dial-in server, along with a unique user ID and password. Along with this service, library patrons might be allowed to check out various free software, such as internet browsers or a program that helps walk people through the basics of establishing a dial-up connection as well as teaching them how to browse the internet.
GWB is being so shortsighted here. The kind of people who could conceivable really =need= Broadband can afford to it on their own... nationwide availabilty will slowly evolve as demand increases. The most important thing is not to make sure that the most privileged people can have the highest tech internet access available, it is to make sure that as many Americans as humanly possible have the most essential, entry-level internet access.
Let me get this straight. Person A orders voice mail. Said person:
1. never changes his password
2. never changes his voice message
3. never =listens= to his voice message
4. never gets told by his family/friends that he has an odd message, probably because he...
5. never receives calls
May I ask why these people are ordering voice mail service in the first place?!
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect that as wireless internet becomes more ubiquitous, we will see a rise in the incidence of students who forgo the college network altogether, and pay for their own separate, less regulated access to the internet at large. It seems that using college networks for file sharing is becoming a high-visibility, risky thing to do even without stricter regulations, because of RIAA crackdowns. So for security and access, students will come to feel they have no choice but to look for alternate methods of accessing the internet.
This brings to mind a story I recently heard on NPR's On The Media. It was about how public webpostings made at age 19 can linger and retain the power to embarass years later. (Transcript of story http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/05/25/0 4here). In her heady youth, Ms. Rafsanjani (now a producer for OTM) wrote a letter to an Iranian newspaper defending America and attacking Iranian policies, and in the typical style of a teenager, her letter was idealistic, impassioned and over-the-top. It mortifies her to this day.
What was interesting to me about this piece was how, despite wishing she could supress the letter, Ms. Rafsanjani eventually became resigned to having this information out there, and although it embarassed her, she welcomed the opportunity to discuss it further on NPR, because it gave her a way to control the story. She wanted people who found that previous piece to know that her thinking had evolved, and that she no longer feels that way. I think that something similar is happening in the article you linked. Although she was unable to get her name off of that one blog, by participating in an article about using "reputation defenders," the first woman in the article is able to get the message out that SHE has changed, that she regrets the incident from her past, and that she wants people to know she is not bigoted. Whatever one thinks of the content of her claims (I don't know enough to say), I think that brings up an important point. The best way to handle certain potentially damaging bits of information in one's past, especially online, is not always to supress it. Sometimes the ideal situation is to go out there and use one's own name to defend oneself, to clarify one's point of view, and give one's own side of the story.
It seems to me that the ISPs have forgotten who their customers are. Asking people who pay at least $20 a month for internet access (and associated email accounts) to accept unblockable emails into their inbox is a lot like asking moviegoers to drop $9 on a ticket, and then having them sit through 15-20 minutes of advertisements before the movie starts. ... oh, wait.
"Let?"
I think the word you should be searching for there is "encourage."
Slate recently (June 30) had an article on how Mozilla's Firefox "trumps" Internet Explorer, which was enough to convince me to switch browsers.
It's an interesting read... the real selling point to me, frankly, wasn't the increased security (which I can get through a good firewall), but the TAB feature. The ability to open links as a tab within the current page is a true browser innovation for which there is no IE equivalent or patch.
It's my impression from reading the article that peer-to-peer software is not going to be made illegal, per se, but that is will be okay to sue the creators of any P2P 'wares that can be used for the illegal sharing of copyrighted material.
A fine point, you say? Perhaps, but I'm sure that the legislators would argue that as long as the software creators are being conscientious (read: being good little lapdogs of the RIAA) and including some kind of blocking scripts that scout for some kind of watermark on any potentially shared file, then they would become immune from suit. It would be wrong to read this legislation as an attempt to destroy P@P technology; more likely, this is a concerted attempt by the RIAA and its backers to bring all P@P software under a certain standard.
I think you'd be surprised by the appeal that radio retains in the United States these days. Talk radio attracts millions of listeners daily, and this includes everyone from borderline luddites to the most bleeding edge technophiles.
Why is this? Radio's excellent feature is that it does not require visual attention. Thus, even as I'm browsing Slashdot right now, I'm listening to NPR's Car Talk show. Earlier today, I was cleaning my apartment and listening to This American Life. Although it's true I could listen to my own CDs or MP3s, there's something nice about not having my entire experience mediated by my own predetermined desires. Radio allows me to learn new things I wouldn't otherwise know and listen to music I haven't heard before, all while I attend to other tasks.
No, it's not. Doctors are not valued simply for their ability to "report immediately": residents and in-house physicians on call exist for that. There is such a thing as requiring an emergency opinion, one that is more valuable then the eventual presence of the doctor himself.
Example: I know of a hematologist who takes care of a few patients with rare blood-factor deficiency disorders. Occasionally, these patients are involved in traumatic injuries or begin to bleed spontaneously. It becomes necessary to contact the hematolgist instantly, who can order a course of treatment over the phone, which can be started even before he arrives.
If you have life-and-death notification requirements, you shouldn't be relying on a cell anyway. It's not like coverage is perfect. As somsone else pointed out, a pager is a much better choice.
Unless you want to be wedded to a landline, however, carrying a cell along with a pager is often necessary. Otherwise, what are you going to do about your supposedly life-or-death page if you can't immediately contact the person who needs you?
Instead of going crazy with the broadband, why not create a system of free dial-in connections that is administrated by the local library system? Imagine: when applying for a library card, your average American might be given a list of phone numbers to a local dial-in server, along with a unique user ID and password. Along with this service, library patrons might be allowed to check out various free software, such as internet browsers or a program that helps walk people through the basics of establishing a dial-up connection as well as teaching them how to browse the internet.
GWB is being so shortsighted here. The kind of people who could conceivable really =need= Broadband can afford to it on their own... nationwide availabilty will slowly evolve as demand increases. The most important thing is not to make sure that the most privileged people can have the highest tech internet access available, it is to make sure that as many Americans as humanly possible have the most essential, entry-level internet access.
Let me get this straight. Person A orders voice mail. Said person: 1. never changes his password 2. never changes his voice message 3. never =listens= to his voice message 4. never gets told by his family/friends that he has an odd message, probably because he... 5. never receives calls May I ask why these people are ordering voice mail service in the first place?!