Tyrants everywhere LOVE the idea that fundamental human rights don't apply to THEIR people -- especially free speech.
Scientists have found nothing in the genetic makeup of Asians (or black slaves in 19th century America, or Christian slaves in today's Africa) or any subgroup a particular dictatorship happens to own, that justifies denying them of fundamental human rights. It is NOT relevant that the objects of an oppressive government assert they don't care about free speech; torture and execution are powerful incentives.
But we have experimental data on the subject of how people feel when they are free to speak their minds: in historical times, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have moved from dictatorships (justified on the basis of Asain cultural identity) to democracies... and guess what... they like free speech & other fundamental accoutrements of democracy just as much as Europeans and Americans did, once we were free to express our opinions.
2. Equating the supression of kiddie porn to the supression of truthful reporting of government-sponsored massacres is simply fatuuous. There is no fundamental right to have sex with people who cannot give consent, which is a necessary component of the production of kiddie porn. OTOH there is a fundamental right not to be summarily massacred. Do you see the difference?
3. Evoking America's failure to live up to our human rights responsibilities is likewise foolish. No-one is perfect; fundmental rights do not depend on the existence of perfect people to advocate them. And, as the Irish said when the Brits justified their massacres of the Irish on the basis of Irish crimes: "I think it is a poor whitewash of men's reputation, that others have committed crimes" Memoirs of William Sampson (1817 edition)
The brain stops working when the temp goes outside a certain range; most other organs in warm-blooded critters are less temperature-sensitive. Isolating the "special needs" organ is good design.
Are you saying that your government is ineffectual at censorship?
You may or may not be correct, but that is neither Slashdot's fault nor a reason not to seek to repair the corruption that is censorship, and its defenders.
Deliberate data corruption, such as censorship, can give users the illusion that they are well informed when the data permitted through appears authoritative. Ponder, for example, the confidence one felt upon reading cherry-picked information about Iraq; Judy Miller may well have thought she was better informed when in fact she was less informed.
How, then, can the data corruption be exposed, and who is motivated to do it?
One approach is maximizing the number of links to censored pages, to alert the censored individual that their data is corrupt. However there must be more effective techniques.
Perhaps more important, there must be a way to motivate individuals to fix this data corruption; forgive me for being cynical, but if there were a way to profit from the repair, that would be a powerful motivator.
To make the internet work on a physical level requires really good understanding of theoretical physics, because when you pipe huge amounts of information around the planet, or bounce it off satellites, you need to account for relativistic effects.
And I think we can agree that the internet is extremely helpful in making the world a better place: distributing free information, reducing the energy spent communicating, and even promoting recycling through eBay, Freecycle et cetera.
While there may be something to the concept of addictive personality or genetic predispositions, other important issues are easy access to the drug and the engineering of the drug to the individual.
Most work environments don't allow drug dealers to visit your workstation, but screening out gaming is hard. More alarmingly, it is only a matter of time before games modify the individual user experience to maximize time spent playing them.
If ODF can help a taxpayer-funded government save $$$ in the long run, it sounds like a good thing.
I totally agree with the security & privacy reasons for ODF, but cutting costs may be more important to some gov'ts (read: voters!) This is not an anti-vendor, just pro-taxpayer.
Like everything else, a domain name's WEIGHT depends on the gravity well it's in at any particular moment. The formula "worth its weight in gold" means a domain would be worth LESS on the ISS than on earth, but MORE on Jupiter. This is implausible (...although not impossible, if Jovians are fond of earth pron... it may be why Jovian flying saucers buzz about implanting wireless connections in secret locations. But I digress....)
It is patently obvious that domain names are worth their MASS in gold, mass being a measure of the degree to which the domain name warps space-time about it. Massive (and therefore valuable) domain names attract web traffic effortlessly; it has been observed that some massive domains absorb apparantly endless amounts of energy, grossly increasing their value in gold.
I think there is, but the resolution is not (currently) in favor of the consumer. For some reason, the companies that have the big bucks had a bigger voice in the Telecommuncations Bills than the consumers. Why is that?
> if it was in a corporations economic best interest, they would have already done it
Don't confuse the behavior of an individual corporation, or even a market, with an entire economy.
Corporations that have sunk massive wealth into burning carbon would be economically irrational to waste that investment by converting to other energy sources... even if those other energy sources would be profitable. They might tinker around the edges, but basically they are in the position of Amdahl and Honeywell (mainframe manufacturers) pondering the PC... it just didn't make sense to make the switch.
> if the West reduces its consumption of fossil fuels, it will reduce the price of them, encouraging China/India to use MORE
So the most environmentally smart thing to do is to burn all the oil now! so that China/India can't afford it!
Really, your oil price analysis is just wrongheaded. Some drop in oil prices may be expected if the USA cuts back but that is insignificant compared to the other forces driving the growth in China/India's demand for energy.
>I've never subscribed to the "better than nothing" theory.
So offer a superior alternative, or cut the faux environmentalist crap. Politics is the art of the possible, and Kyoto is the first small, possible step.
>the hidden nuggets of scientific goodness in there.
Life is short.
It is more efficient to learn science from scientists than from novelists. One might as well read Harlequin Romances for the nuggets of historical information.
Crichton's novel postulates that (a)the driving force behind Global Climate Change is: grant money and (b) if you are smart enough to build technology that can cause catastrophies, you'll use it to get more grant money instead of selling it to the Pentagon
Now I'll concede that scientists are just as greedy as anyone else, but if Mr. Crichton is not smart enough to see that Big Oil plus The Pentagon have a little more grant money than Big Academia... I would not recommend his book for anything but comedy.
MySpace is an apparently successful implementation of the concept that "anyone can have a useful web site without much work."
TruGeeks may prefer to buy (actually "rent") a domain name, rent space somewhere, AND maintaine the site using the technology du jour, but for a great many people, myspace does what they need without their having to think too hard about it, or to pay for it.
The question I still have is whether myspace URLs connote poorly, relative to unique-domain URLs, in the same way that AOL or hotmail addresses connote poorly, compared to unique-domain URLs do. In case this is unclear, let me offer an example. I think most people will agree that zzxyz@aol.com connotes something a little less classy than zzxyz@zzxyz.com. The question is, will myspace have sufficient acceptance that a URL such as http://www.myspace.com/rewinn will be an acceptable substitute for something like http://rewinn.com?
>...using science's own philosophical underpinnings to promote some metaphysical belief or belief system, then there needs to be serious investigation
You are making a fine argument for not teaching ID in a science class. Science is not about promoting metaphysical beliefs, no matter how many claptrap popularizations of metaphysics (Wu Li Masters, What The Bleep) try to square the circle.
For the purpose of learning what science is, Flat Earth Theory (or, if you want to be broad-minded, Velikhovsky's astrophysics)has all the virtues of ID and none of the negatives.
For the purpose of teaching metaphysics... stay out of science class.
Slashdot Mirror
... that is cannot be implemented badly.
Fiddlesticks!
Tyrants everywhere LOVE the idea that fundamental human rights don't apply to THEIR people -- especially free speech.
Scientists have found nothing in the genetic makeup of Asians (or black slaves in 19th century America, or Christian slaves in today's Africa) or any subgroup a particular dictatorship happens to own, that justifies denying them of fundamental human rights. It is NOT relevant that the objects of an oppressive government assert they don't care about free speech; torture and execution are powerful incentives.
But we have experimental data on the subject of how people feel when they are free to speak their minds: in historical times, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have moved from dictatorships (justified on the basis of Asain cultural identity) to democracies ... and guess what ... they like free speech & other fundamental accoutrements of democracy just as much as Europeans and Americans did, once we were free to express our opinions.
2. Equating the supression of kiddie porn to the supression of truthful reporting of government-sponsored massacres is simply fatuuous. There is no fundamental right to have sex with people who cannot give consent, which is a necessary component of the production of kiddie porn. OTOH there is a fundamental right not to be summarily massacred. Do you see the difference?
3. Evoking America's failure to live up to our human rights responsibilities is likewise foolish. No-one is perfect; fundmental rights do not depend on the existence of perfect people to advocate them.
And, as the Irish said when the Brits justified their massacres of the Irish on the basis of Irish crimes:
"I think it is a poor whitewash of men's reputation, that others have committed crimes"
Memoirs of William Sampson (1817 edition)
When I was a kid, we didn't have hats. We used rocks ... and we LIKED it!
Your statements appears to equate censorship of the Tianamen Square massacre to attacking kiddie porn sites.
Is a fair characterization of your position?
The brain stops working when the temp goes outside a certain range; most other organs in warm-blooded critters are less temperature-sensitive. Isolating the "special needs" organ is good design.
Are you saying that your government is ineffectual at censorship?
You may or may not be correct, but that is neither Slashdot's fault nor a reason not to seek to repair the corruption that is censorship, and its defenders.
Deliberate data corruption, such as censorship, can give users the illusion that they are well informed when the data permitted through appears authoritative. Ponder, for example, the confidence one felt upon reading cherry-picked information about Iraq; Judy Miller may well have thought she was better informed when in fact she was less informed.
How, then, can the data corruption be exposed, and who is motivated to do it?
One approach is maximizing the number of links to censored pages, to alert the censored individual that their data is corrupt. However there must be more effective techniques.
Perhaps more important, there must be a way to motivate individuals to fix this data corruption; forgive me for being cynical, but if there were a way to profit from the repair, that would be a powerful motivator.
To make the internet work on a physical level requires really good understanding of theoretical physics, because when you pipe huge amounts of information around the planet, or bounce it off satellites, you need to account for relativistic effects.
And I think we can agree that the internet is extremely helpful in making the world a better place: distributing free information, reducing the energy spent communicating, and even promoting recycling through eBay, Freecycle et cetera.
While there may be something to the concept of addictive personality or genetic predispositions, other important issues are easy access to the drug and the engineering of the drug to the individual.
Most work environments don't allow drug dealers to visit your workstation, but screening out gaming is hard. More alarmingly, it is only a matter of time before games modify the individual user experience to maximize time spent playing them.
...would he have developed General Relativity sooner, or just played WarCraft?
If ODF can help a taxpayer-funded government save $$$ in the long run, it sounds like a good thing.
I totally agree with the security & privacy reasons for ODF, but cutting costs may be more important to some gov'ts (read: voters!) This is not an anti-vendor, just pro-taxpayer.
Scientists long ago ran out of names for "Big Meat-Eating Mofo".
Actually, bullet points are not a bad idea in contracts. An agreement that is hard to understand is hard to agree to.
If we demand clarity in user interfaces and in coding, why not in contracts?
I'd love to see some eye-camera studies of people reading EULAs ... Paging Jakob Nielsen >
... to keep track of the TLDs:
http://www.com.tld lists all .com domains ... et cetera
It is patently obvious that domain names are worth their MASS in gold, mass being a measure of the degree to which the domain name warps space-time about it. Massive (and therefore valuable) domain names attract web traffic effortlessly; it has been observed that some massive domains absorb apparantly endless amounts of energy, grossly increasing their value in gold.
Although earlier views held that this energy or effort, once absorbed, was gone forever, some very massive domains now appear to retain information in recoverable formats, with the attendant risk of uncontrolled release of dangerous amounts of information or its conversion into anti-information... but I digress...
1. Invent some form of encrypting flash memory 2. Make it in India at $10 per unit 3. Sell to Army for $25,000 a unit 4. ??? 5. Profit !!!!
Pardon my innocence, but shouldn't our professional military encrypt its storage devices?
> is there any "common carrier" issue here?
I think there is, but the resolution is not (currently) in favor of the consumer. For some reason, the companies that have the big bucks had a bigger voice in the Telecommuncations Bills than the consumers. Why is that?
Lessig had some typically apt comments.
>I do not read Crichton to get smarter and "learn." That is absurd
I think we are in agreement then. Whoever suggesting mining Crichton for facts was being absurd.
> if it was in a corporations economic best interest, they would have already done it
Don't confuse the behavior of an individual corporation, or even a market, with an entire economy.
Corporations that have sunk massive wealth into burning carbon would be economically irrational to waste that investment by converting to other energy sources ... even if those other energy sources would be profitable. They might tinker around the edges, but basically they are in the position of Amdahl and Honeywell (mainframe manufacturers) pondering the PC ... it just didn't make sense to make the switch.
> if the West reduces its consumption of fossil fuels, it will reduce the price of them, encouraging China/India to use MORE
So the most environmentally smart thing to do is to burn all the oil now! so that China/India can't afford it!
Really, your oil price analysis is just wrongheaded. Some drop in oil prices may be expected if the USA cuts back but that is insignificant compared to the other forces driving the growth in China/India's demand for energy.
>I've never subscribed to the "better than nothing" theory.
So offer a superior alternative, or cut the faux environmentalist crap. Politics is the art of the possible, and Kyoto is the first small, possible step.
>the hidden nuggets of scientific goodness in there.
Life is short.
It is more efficient to learn science from scientists than from novelists. One might as well read Harlequin Romances for the nuggets of historical information.
Crichton's novel postulates that (a)the driving force behind Global Climate Change is: grant money and (b) if you are smart enough to build technology that can cause catastrophies, you'll use it to get more grant money instead of selling it to the Pentagon
Now I'll concede that scientists are just as greedy as anyone else, but if Mr. Crichton is not smart enough to see that Big Oil plus The Pentagon have a little more grant money than Big Academia ... I would not recommend his book for anything but comedy.
MySpace is an apparently successful implementation of the concept that "anyone can have a useful web site without much work."
TruGeeks may prefer to buy (actually "rent") a domain name, rent space somewhere, AND maintaine the site using the technology du jour, but for a great many people, myspace does what they need without their having to think too hard about it, or to pay for it.
The question I still have is whether myspace URLs connote poorly, relative to unique-domain URLs, in the same way that AOL or hotmail addresses connote poorly, compared to unique-domain URLs do. In case this is unclear, let me offer an example. I think most people will agree that zzxyz@aol.com connotes something a little less classy than zzxyz@zzxyz.com. The question is, will myspace have sufficient acceptance that a URL such as http://www.myspace.com/rewinn will be an acceptable substitute for something like http://rewinn.com?
>...using science's own philosophical underpinnings to promote some metaphysical belief or belief system, then there needs to be serious investigation
You are making a fine argument for not teaching ID in a science class. Science is not about promoting metaphysical beliefs, no matter how many claptrap popularizations of metaphysics (Wu Li Masters, What The Bleep) try to square the circle.
For the purpose of learning what science is, Flat Earth Theory (or, if you want to be broad-minded, Velikhovsky's astrophysics)has all the virtues of ID and none of the negatives.
For the purpose of teaching metaphysics ... stay out of science class.