Katz dismisses out of hand people that complain about the lack of morality in the movies, tv and on the Internet. Yes, people in political positions that are attempting to use the "back to values" battle cry in their political campaigns are usually the least interested in a true check on our morality. However just because people have genuine beliefs about the moral decay of American civilization doesn't make them anti-technology. I think the proliferation of moral relativism is apalling. For those of you who many not be familiar with the term, moral relativism is the mode of thought that whatever anyone wants to do is fine becuase it's what they beleieve is right. This is going to cause the ultimate downfall of our society because eventually one of two things will happen: anarchy will come to pass or a zealot movement will get power and clamp down on all GENUINE freedoms. There HAS to be standards of conduct. Programmers follow standards in code. The Intnet is based on standards and those that don't follow the standards are shunned. Yet in our REAL lives there are NO standards of behavior? That's ludicrious.
After reading the Fox news article a little more closely, it's not Kent State (as stated in the original post) but Chicago-Ken Law School. I'm just so used to seeing Kent this, Kent that around here the brain just fills in the blanks.... Anyway, ignore the Kent State portion of my post, but the first part stands. Why THIS institution (other than the fact others turned it down) and what qualifications does it have to evaluate it.
Not to knock these institutions, but are these quailty institutions that we can trust to present a detailed and thorough overview of this software? I don't know anything about Illinois Tech. Also, I live right by Kent State (Main) and I didn't even know that HAD a law department. Like I said, not to badmouth these institutions but I'd like more information on their credentials and why they were chosen to review the software.
(Note: This is not a anti-Clinton flame piece, this is a true concern)
People should go back and read the Executive Orders that Clinton has signed while in office. Basically if any sort of "Nation Emergency" occurrs, the US military will be brought in to occupy all major cities and the president is given near-dictitorial rights in a martial law situtation.
Still don't believe me? Go find out how many national parks are still owned by the US and how many Clinton has signed away to the UN's enviornment arm......
The so-called popularity of Sen. McCain was a complete fabrication of the media to deflect attention away from more serious candidates like Steve Forbes and Alan Keyes during the primary phase. McCain had only one theme and that was campaign finance refrom. Why that is a laudable goal, you can't build a successful Presidential run on one plank of a platform. It's the same thing that happened with Gary Bauer who only espoused pro-life stances with distrgard for the rest of the issues. However McCain would be a whipping boy for the media by appearing on every talk show and contracticting himself, disputing his fellow republicans and allowing the media outets to get that one juicy soundbite. In this way, he "appeared" more popular to people who judge popularity based on thier media outlets.
The apathy in politics from the younger generation stems from the lack venue to "Get involved". Many people WANT to get involved but it's increasingly difficult to do so because of the nature of how politics is presented by the media. Watching any mainstream media outlet or even the Internet-based extentions of some of them (e.g. CNN) all you get is the station's/paper's spin based on the political stance of the publication. If these media outlets think that their readers and viewers don't pick up on these blatant biases they are blind. Take a recent CNN article (I only offer this example as the latest I've seen. This not an anti-Gore flame or anything -- just a recent example I recall). CNN has taken an incredibly pro-Gore stance in this campaign. As a result, Gore's continued tired rhetoric about "Saving Medicare" takes up 3/4 of the article and most of the "meat" while Bush's (euqally tired) discussions about education in America are glossed over in 2 paragraphs. Shouldn't an un-baised news source either give more equal coverage or make it two separate articles? Speaking as a voice of the 18-24 deomgraphic, I'm tired of the media attempting to slant my thinking towards their viewpoint. I recoginze that every writer's work is going to be at least somewhat colored by their own experiences and beliefs, but lately most media outlets don't even try. The younger Americans would be MUCH more likely to get involved in they had a more direct avenue of reaching and understanding the candidates.
...because they don't have complete closed control over the source. Sure I think they could become a highly customized Linux version. But is that necessarily bad? People who don't want all the specialized RedHat customizations can use Debian, SuSE, Slackware and many more. The key to the Linux world is that no one company can control kernel or most of the supporting applications, which are mostly built on GNU and GPL.
I welcome a direct competitor to Microsoft on the desktop. I think it would either get Microsoft moving fast on a lot of issues or else replace a buggy OS with a much more stable one.
You've gotta be kidding me. First off, a lot of people do not want to move to California. Secondaly, 60-70K wouldn't cover cost-of-living out there. Move your operations to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virgina, New York and you'd probably be saturated with applicants to accept. Places like Pittsburgh and Cleveland are doing a terrific job of re-inventing themselves from a blue-collar steel-town images to a high-tech center, and let me tell you they're doing a terrific job. I'd rather make less here (in Ohio) and have a nice commute, reasonable housing, clean air and a much more relaxed environment. You can run T1 and T3 lines anywhere? Why pick the city that people are least likely to move to?
Re:Not to sound like "chicken little"...
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Me-Commerce
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This means that those of us with bachelors will be able to keep our job as we could be utalized in more than one way.
I was courted by several firms to leave college early becuase I was pretty good with TCP/IP, LANs and WANs. However I'm glad that I didn't becuase in the course of my 4-year college career, I got two degrees in Computers and Business. So even if IT takes a downturn, I have my business background to fall back on. But I think that a lot of people my age (20-26) who left college to work at a high-paying.com or other tech ventures are really going to get hung out to dry if and when the IT boom ends. Econonmics is a cycle and for every boom, there's a recession whether it's sooner or later. People need to not be so concerned with making all their money now and realize that their career is going to be a 30-40 year thing, not 5-10. Preparation for the future is key.
Ever heard of IRC? Not quite the IM-stle of today, but A LOT more useful and functional. TALK was a part of UNIX back in the 70's and 80's. I say let AOLers rot. I've been converting my friends to the benefits of IRC, even those who aren't computer literate. All it takes is a little initiative and more than 2 brain cells to understand it. I'm hoping to leave the whole modern IM world behind and get back to real discussions.
While I would agree with many of the statistics posted in the Jon Katz's article, I would strongly disagree that we need some sort of populist outcry for regulation. I agree that it is prudent and necessary to get corporations to work towards being responsible citizens on their respective country(s) but a mass of governmental regulation based on populist outcry is not the solution. If you ask the average person on the street they'll answer in one of two ways (in order):
1) Whatever benefits their wallets
2) Whatever makes them feel warm and fuzzy
I whole-heartedly agree with people holding the 1st opinion. Everyone wants to get ahead in life and everyone should be free to work towards making a better living for themselves and their family. However the second point is where many of our problems will stem from. To put it bluntly no one wants to be the "bad guy". "Everyone should win, everything should be fair" they cry? Oh yeah? Do a text search on the Constitution of the United States or the Magna Charta or the Federalist Papers for the word "fair". Nowhere in those documents will they guarantee you that it's the role of government to make things fair. Widespead regulation is only going to replace one juggernaut with another. And I'd much rather have a free business there than a liberal government drunk on its own power given by an ignorant populace. Before we ask the biggest bully on the block to use its huge judicial and legislative arms to beat down the smaller bully, remember who the larger bully is and try and get the smaller bully on our side first.
I've read a couple of sources on languages that claim that English is the most descriptive language and also have the largest vocabulary while having the simplest syntax and one of the easier phonetic sets. Has anyone else heard this? No flames, this is a serious question. I think it would make sense that the more powerful language would become the dominant technology language. If think that given English's prowress in the Internet community, it'd be like claiming COBOL was better than C++ just because there's more of it out there (at one point, not now obviously).
Also, I think it's unfair to pick on Americans for not learning another language. The VAST majority of Americans have no need to learn another language. In Europe you've got a bunch of smaller countires each with their own language. So to be German, you have to learn at least French and English to even do business in Europe. In America, everyone speaks English and our largest neighbor (Canada) speaks English also (sorry Quebec you're not a country). Mexico is coming along there was Spanish, but most of the business people in Mexico speak English . Why? Becuase to do business with NAFTA you have to speak English. I know many people from college who were excellent at multiple languages. I had one friend who probably spoke French better than many native French speakers. But the point is most Americans have no cultural need for a second language due to geographic size and location but many Europeans (And other countries) do. I don't know one person I've ever met in my professional career that English wasn't their primary language OR spoke it excellently. If I had to interact with a huge amount of Germans or Russians, you'd better believe I'd be learning those languages quick, if for not other reason than a good business practice. I'd like to find out how many Mandarin speakers know a second language given China is such a geographically large area. I'll bet it's only a small percentage.
I think the corinthians.com example should have woken people up to the problems domains face. I own a domain. I use it to host e-mail for me and my friends and also to provide them with a DNS record if they want to publish a website. I use a CORE partner, Joker, to register my domain for $12 / year. Now I think my domain is somewhat catchy and I could see where someone out with a web startup thinking my domain name would be great for their site. So they go trademark and then sue me for rights to it?? Heck, I'd probably sell them the domain name for next to nothing if they'd just ask! But what I wonder is are these arbitration sites going to consider my small usage of the domain on par with a startup company or does the fact that the startup would generate revenue and I don't make them give it to the startup that wants it? I'm just curious here. I'm not that attached to my domain, but I certainly don't want it ripped from my possession simply because someone else wants it and I have it.
Thank you! You posted almost verbatim what I was going to! I think a lot of people here on/. and on the Internet in general need to go back and READ the Constitution of the United States and the Federalist Papers. I think many people here only know what they're fed by media sound bites about the way our goverment used to and still should work. People who decry our goverment are obviously uneducated about the governmental and political process and also didn't pay attention past their 5th grade history class. The US is running headlong to disaster becuase people are not educated about how our government should work and therefore have no initiative to do anything about it. I think that the Internet "subculture" would actually be very pleased at what they would read in the writings of our Founding Fathers. Even if you're not a citizen of the US, I think these documents are worth the read for a perspective on a truly free government.
Also, not everyone here on/. is a raving libertarian. I'm very proud to be a conservative.
What's wrong with a.co.us or.com.us? Just because there's already a geographic structure in place doesn't mean we can't expand on.us. I'd rather have.com.us than.com.usa. All the other countries are two-letters.
Just becuase you don't believe in a certain religion, doesn't give you license to bash Christianity or any other religion. I think it's sad and despicable that there seems to be a fair proportion of/. readers that are so vehemently anti-Christian. Just because you don't believe, doesn't meant you have to bash. There are those of us who are religious for very good reasons, and those ideas and beliefs fit perfectly in a modern world of technology and information. Like I said, just becuase you don't believe, you don't have to flame those of us who do.
*Soapbox put away*
If you check the regs on domain names, there's nothing that says any person can't register a.com for personal use. If a person wants Corinthians.com then they should get Corinthians.com. And the saddest thing, if it was some special interest domain like a minority site or native American domain, the government would be falling all over itself to protect this "hate" lawsuit. This is pathetic. I wish I had money to fight on behalf of this guy.
I haven't checked out the full spec yet, but this article makes it sound like it's going to require a separate directory service? This is going authenticate against its own database? This sounds like a database merging nightmare. And how is this going to make a "write once" driver? Every OS is going to have to have it's own routines to convert data from Word, Star Office, Netscape, etc... into this IPP format. So you're right back to multiple drivers, just not maybe in the same complexity. Personally I thought LPR spooling over TCP/IP was great. Simple, effective, and the security worked right off your platform of choice.
Now this HAS to tell people something? Does Intel think that its end users are going to remain dumb forever. I think Intel needs to come clean as to why exactly it's still pushing Rambus memory so hard. I've seen so many benchmarks that show PC-133 on top that why a company that claims to be the processor leader would choose an inferior product.
This situation highlights the need for users to be more aware of personal privacy, encryption, etc... I'm perfectly fine having the government attempting to eavesdrop on the Internet. Most of the stuff I do online would never in a million years interest the FBI/CIA/NSA. Anything that I do want to keep private (note this is not synonymous with illegal) I use PGP for. If people think we're going to get the government to drop their surveillance of the general populace, they need to put their head back in the sand. I can see the both sides of the issue -- privacy vs. government protection/national security. The govt ought to just slap a stipulation on the sale and be done with it. End user awareness and education is the key to this situation, not moaning and anger over the government's eavesdropping.
I don't think the issue on this subject is whether or not computers are good for kids. Anything kids spend way too much time doing is not going to benefit them in the long run. However many schools, teachers and parents think that computers are a substitute for learning instead of a companion. My father is a teacher (5th grade) and only lets the kids use the computer after their daily classroom work is complete and verified as correct by him. In this case, the computer time becomes a motivational tool for the kids to get their work done instead of daydream. But the caveat is that it has to be done correctly! However there are a great many teachers who'll take their kids to the lab and plop them in front of the machine, run Muesum Madness (or some other worthless "educational" program purchased by your tax dollars), and congratulate themselves on bringing technology into the classroom. I think the writers of this study need to go back and analize their results a little further. Is it the computer that's causing the problem or is it how the computer is utilized? To quote Taiichi Ohno (father of modern manufacturing) -- "You must ask Why? at least 5 times to get to the root cause." Any teacher could get kids to write better, more literate compositions if they actually force them to! So use the Internet to research their compositions, let them type it and print it out. What's the difference between that and going to the encyclopedia (which in elementary schools are usually older than the kids) and then handwriting the composition? Use the latest primary sources while letting kids get research skills that'll help them in the future.
I just finished college in May. The last class I took for the computer part of my major was called "Business Information Systems". At one point, we discussed the concept of a "knowledge worker" pioneered by a professor at the Univeristy of Pittsburgh (sorry, I forget name/reference). His contention is that in the future, companies & government will have people who's job is soley to gather information on a subject so that other people can make decisions on it. However my question to the professor and class, which was never adequately answered but heatedly discussed, was "Who makes this person a god and decides what is relevant or not?" What if you have a leader of a country who said "go out and research nuclear warfare so I can decide if I can nuke my neighbor." So this worker goes out an researches, comes back to his boss, presents him with information saying that nuclear warfare is good and doesn't harm the environment, and the boss nukes his neighbor. But what isn't know here, is that the person has a personal bias against the neighbor. How do we avoid personal bias, whether conscious or unconscious, if we have people doing our gathering and filtering for us? EVERY STUDENT needs to be given good teaching and instruction on filtering the data that is out there so they themselves can understand information presented and make sound, rational decisions based on it. Over abundance of data is good. It means the information is out there, you just have to fint it.
Re:This could be the most important net developmen
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I don't know that I stated it a little strongly (NOT TRYING TO START A FLAME WAR HERE). I agree, it's not dire or anything -- yet. However I'm just concerned that if people don't take an interest now before inertia of the organization really takes off, we're going to have a big mess to clean up 5 years down the road. Who would have thought that the InterNIC of yester-year would turn into Network Solutions and all the associated problems we have today with domain registration? It's the same problem I see with American government today -- people write it off as "politics" and don't want to get involved, but that's the same attitude that got us stuck where we are today.
This could be the most important net development
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This could be one of the most important net developments in the last few years. Whether net users want to admit it or not, ICANN has sweeping powers that could make life a lot more complicated and annoying for us. It's easy for people to spout off the "Oh! It's all about big business and it's a sham..." but it DOES have a mandate and control. This is not an issue to be taken lightly. EVERY SINGLE/. MEMBER needs to sign up for the At-Large program and make their voices heard. Big business ultimately won't bite the hand the makes it profitable -- the individual users.
I don't usually agree with JK, but....
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I don't usually agree with Jon on his position of social issues, but for once I have to admit that I do. As a believer in capitalism and a market-driven economy, I forsee great benefits of the genome project.
However, not to sound too techno-geeky, I'm reminded vivdly (from out of the blue) of a Star Trek: TNG episode I saw years ago. The basic premise is a scientist creates faster-than-light travel. There's of course, the 1 hour conflict-resolution cycle, but the ending is one that throws the US into sharp relief. The ruler of the world said that the project would be put on hold until they better educate the population and bring their consciousness up to a level that could deal with inter-tellar alien contact. I think that's exactly that the US needs. I DO NOT advocate a federal education program - in fact, I'm completely opposed to the Department of Education. However, I think we need a return to the educational goals/values/ethics/methods of past generations where students learned and understood instead of being programmed and cranked off the "perfect student" assembly line. The populace needs to be educated in all moral and ethical facets of the genome project before they can make rational decisions (i.e. voting for congressmen, laws, etc..) about how to treat such groundbreaking knowledge.
Slashdot Mirror
Katz dismisses out of hand people that complain about the lack of morality in the movies, tv and on the Internet. Yes, people in political positions that are attempting to use the "back to values" battle cry in their political campaigns are usually the least interested in a true check on our morality. However just because people have genuine beliefs about the moral decay of American civilization doesn't make them anti-technology. I think the proliferation of moral relativism is apalling. For those of you who many not be familiar with the term, moral relativism is the mode of thought that whatever anyone wants to do is fine becuase it's what they beleieve is right. This is going to cause the ultimate downfall of our society because eventually one of two things will happen: anarchy will come to pass or a zealot movement will get power and clamp down on all GENUINE freedoms. There HAS to be standards of conduct. Programmers follow standards in code. The Intnet is based on standards and those that don't follow the standards are shunned. Yet in our REAL lives there are NO standards of behavior? That's ludicrious.
After reading the Fox news article a little more closely, it's not Kent State (as stated in the original post) but Chicago-Ken Law School. I'm just so used to seeing Kent this, Kent that around here the brain just fills in the blanks.... Anyway, ignore the Kent State portion of my post, but the first part stands. Why THIS institution (other than the fact others turned it down) and what qualifications does it have to evaluate it.
Not to knock these institutions, but are these quailty institutions that we can trust to present a detailed and thorough overview of this software? I don't know anything about Illinois Tech. Also, I live right by Kent State (Main) and I didn't even know that HAD a law department. Like I said, not to badmouth these institutions but I'd like more information on their credentials and why they were chosen to review the software.
(Note: This is not a anti-Clinton flame piece, this is a true concern)
People should go back and read the Executive Orders that Clinton has signed while in office. Basically if any sort of "Nation Emergency" occurrs, the US military will be brought in to occupy all major cities and the president is given near-dictitorial rights in a martial law situtation.
Still don't believe me? Go find out how many national parks are still owned by the US and how many Clinton has signed away to the UN's enviornment arm......
The so-called popularity of Sen. McCain was a complete fabrication of the media to deflect attention away from more serious candidates like Steve Forbes and Alan Keyes during the primary phase. McCain had only one theme and that was campaign finance refrom. Why that is a laudable goal, you can't build a successful Presidential run on one plank of a platform. It's the same thing that happened with Gary Bauer who only espoused pro-life stances with distrgard for the rest of the issues. However McCain would be a whipping boy for the media by appearing on every talk show and contracticting himself, disputing his fellow republicans and allowing the media outets to get that one juicy soundbite. In this way, he "appeared" more popular to people who judge popularity based on thier media outlets.
The apathy in politics from the younger generation stems from the lack venue to "Get involved". Many people WANT to get involved but it's increasingly difficult to do so because of the nature of how politics is presented by the media. Watching any mainstream media outlet or even the Internet-based extentions of some of them (e.g. CNN) all you get is the station's/paper's spin based on the political stance of the publication. If these media outlets think that their readers and viewers don't pick up on these blatant biases they are blind. Take a recent CNN article (I only offer this example as the latest I've seen. This not an anti-Gore flame or anything -- just a recent example I recall). CNN has taken an incredibly pro-Gore stance in this campaign. As a result, Gore's continued tired rhetoric about "Saving Medicare" takes up 3/4 of the article and most of the "meat" while Bush's (euqally tired) discussions about education in America are glossed over in 2 paragraphs. Shouldn't an un-baised news source either give more equal coverage or make it two separate articles? Speaking as a voice of the 18-24 deomgraphic, I'm tired of the media attempting to slant my thinking towards their viewpoint. I recoginze that every writer's work is going to be at least somewhat colored by their own experiences and beliefs, but lately most media outlets don't even try. The younger Americans would be MUCH more likely to get involved in they had a more direct avenue of reaching and understanding the candidates.
I welcome a direct competitor to Microsoft on the desktop. I think it would either get Microsoft moving fast on a lot of issues or else replace a buggy OS with a much more stable one.
You've gotta be kidding me. First off, a lot of people do not want to move to California. Secondaly, 60-70K wouldn't cover cost-of-living out there. Move your operations to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virgina, New York and you'd probably be saturated with applicants to accept. Places like Pittsburgh and Cleveland are doing a terrific job of re-inventing themselves from a blue-collar steel-town images to a high-tech center, and let me tell you they're doing a terrific job. I'd rather make less here (in Ohio) and have a nice commute, reasonable housing, clean air and a much more relaxed environment. You can run T1 and T3 lines anywhere? Why pick the city that people are least likely to move to?
This means that those of us with bachelors will be able to keep our job as we could be utalized in more than one way. .com or other tech ventures are really going to get hung out to dry if and when the IT boom ends. Econonmics is a cycle and for every boom, there's a recession whether it's sooner or later. People need to not be so concerned with making all their money now and realize that their career is going to be a 30-40 year thing, not 5-10. Preparation for the future is key.
I was courted by several firms to leave college early becuase I was pretty good with TCP/IP, LANs and WANs. However I'm glad that I didn't becuase in the course of my 4-year college career, I got two degrees in Computers and Business. So even if IT takes a downturn, I have my business background to fall back on. But I think that a lot of people my age (20-26) who left college to work at a high-paying
Ever heard of IRC? Not quite the IM-stle of today, but A LOT more useful and functional. TALK was a part of UNIX back in the 70's and 80's. I say let AOLers rot. I've been converting my friends to the benefits of IRC, even those who aren't computer literate. All it takes is a little initiative and more than 2 brain cells to understand it. I'm hoping to leave the whole modern IM world behind and get back to real discussions.
While I would agree with many of the statistics posted in the Jon Katz's article, I would strongly disagree that we need some sort of populist outcry for regulation. I agree that it is prudent and necessary to get corporations to work towards being responsible citizens on their respective country(s) but a mass of governmental regulation based on populist outcry is not the solution. If you ask the average person on the street they'll answer in one of two ways (in order):
1) Whatever benefits their wallets
2) Whatever makes them feel warm and fuzzy
I whole-heartedly agree with people holding the 1st opinion. Everyone wants to get ahead in life and everyone should be free to work towards making a better living for themselves and their family. However the second point is where many of our problems will stem from. To put it bluntly no one wants to be the "bad guy". "Everyone should win, everything should be fair" they cry? Oh yeah? Do a text search on the Constitution of the United States or the Magna Charta or the Federalist Papers for the word "fair". Nowhere in those documents will they guarantee you that it's the role of government to make things fair. Widespead regulation is only going to replace one juggernaut with another. And I'd much rather have a free business there than a liberal government drunk on its own power given by an ignorant populace. Before we ask the biggest bully on the block to use its huge judicial and legislative arms to beat down the smaller bully, remember who the larger bully is and try and get the smaller bully on our side first.
I've read a couple of sources on languages that claim that English is the most descriptive language and also have the largest vocabulary while having the simplest syntax and one of the easier phonetic sets. Has anyone else heard this? No flames, this is a serious question. I think it would make sense that the more powerful language would become the dominant technology language. If think that given English's prowress in the Internet community, it'd be like claiming COBOL was better than C++ just because there's more of it out there (at one point, not now obviously).
Also, I think it's unfair to pick on Americans for not learning another language. The VAST majority of Americans have no need to learn another language. In Europe you've got a bunch of smaller countires each with their own language. So to be German, you have to learn at least French and English to even do business in Europe. In America, everyone speaks English and our largest neighbor (Canada) speaks English also (sorry Quebec you're not a country). Mexico is coming along there was Spanish, but most of the business people in Mexico speak English . Why? Becuase to do business with NAFTA you have to speak English. I know many people from college who were excellent at multiple languages. I had one friend who probably spoke French better than many native French speakers. But the point is most Americans have no cultural need for a second language due to geographic size and location but many Europeans (And other countries) do. I don't know one person I've ever met in my professional career that English wasn't their primary language OR spoke it excellently. If I had to interact with a huge amount of Germans or Russians, you'd better believe I'd be learning those languages quick, if for not other reason than a good business practice. I'd like to find out how many Mandarin speakers know a second language given China is such a geographically large area. I'll bet it's only a small percentage.
I think the corinthians.com example should have woken people up to the problems domains face. I own a domain. I use it to host e-mail for me and my friends and also to provide them with a DNS record if they want to publish a website. I use a CORE partner, Joker, to register my domain for $12 / year. Now I think my domain is somewhat catchy and I could see where someone out with a web startup thinking my domain name would be great for their site. So they go trademark and then sue me for rights to it?? Heck, I'd probably sell them the domain name for next to nothing if they'd just ask! But what I wonder is are these arbitration sites going to consider my small usage of the domain on par with a startup company or does the fact that the startup would generate revenue and I don't make them give it to the startup that wants it? I'm just curious here. I'm not that attached to my domain, but I certainly don't want it ripped from my possession simply because someone else wants it and I have it.
Thank you! You posted almost verbatim what I was going to! I think a lot of people here on /. and on the Internet in general need to go back and READ the Constitution of the United States and the Federalist Papers. I think many people here only know what they're fed by media sound bites about the way our goverment used to and still should work. People who decry our goverment are obviously uneducated about the governmental and political process and also didn't pay attention past their 5th grade history class. The US is running headlong to disaster becuase people are not educated about how our government should work and therefore have no initiative to do anything about it. I think that the Internet "subculture" would actually be very pleased at what they would read in the writings of our Founding Fathers. Even if you're not a citizen of the US, I think these documents are worth the read for a perspective on a truly free government.
/. is a raving libertarian. I'm very proud to be a conservative.
Also, not everyone here on
What's wrong with a .co.us or .com.us? Just because there's already a geographic structure in place doesn't mean we can't expand on .us. I'd rather have .com.us than .com.usa. All the other countries are two-letters.
*Soapbox out*
/. readers that are so vehemently anti-Christian. Just because you don't believe, doesn't meant you have to bash. There are those of us who are religious for very good reasons, and those ideas and beliefs fit perfectly in a modern world of technology and information. Like I said, just becuase you don't believe, you don't have to flame those of us who do.
.com for personal use. If a person wants Corinthians.com then they should get Corinthians.com. And the saddest thing, if it was some special interest domain like a minority site or native American domain, the government would be falling all over itself to protect this "hate" lawsuit. This is pathetic. I wish I had money to fight on behalf of this guy.
Just becuase you don't believe in a certain religion, doesn't give you license to bash Christianity or any other religion. I think it's sad and despicable that there seems to be a fair proportion of
*Soapbox put away*
If you check the regs on domain names, there's nothing that says any person can't register a
Try scrolling farther down the page. The four scanned images don't appear at all.
I haven't checked out the full spec yet, but this article makes it sound like it's going to require a separate directory service? This is going authenticate against its own database? This sounds like a database merging nightmare. And how is this going to make a "write once" driver? Every OS is going to have to have it's own routines to convert data from Word, Star Office, Netscape, etc... into this IPP format. So you're right back to multiple drivers, just not maybe in the same complexity. Personally I thought LPR spooling over TCP/IP was great. Simple, effective, and the security worked right off your platform of choice.
Now this HAS to tell people something? Does Intel think that its end users are going to remain dumb forever. I think Intel needs to come clean as to why exactly it's still pushing Rambus memory so hard. I've seen so many benchmarks that show PC-133 on top that why a company that claims to be the processor leader would choose an inferior product.
This situation highlights the need for users to be more aware of personal privacy, encryption, etc... I'm perfectly fine having the government attempting to eavesdrop on the Internet. Most of the stuff I do online would never in a million years interest the FBI/CIA/NSA. Anything that I do want to keep private (note this is not synonymous with illegal) I use PGP for. If people think we're going to get the government to drop their surveillance of the general populace, they need to put their head back in the sand. I can see the both sides of the issue -- privacy vs. government protection/national security. The govt ought to just slap a stipulation on the sale and be done with it. End user awareness and education is the key to this situation, not moaning and anger over the government's eavesdropping.
You're right, my mistake. Thanks.
I don't think the issue on this subject is whether or not computers are good for kids. Anything kids spend way too much time doing is not going to benefit them in the long run. However many schools, teachers and parents think that computers are a substitute for learning instead of a companion. My father is a teacher (5th grade) and only lets the kids use the computer after their daily classroom work is complete and verified as correct by him. In this case, the computer time becomes a motivational tool for the kids to get their work done instead of daydream. But the caveat is that it has to be done correctly! However there are a great many teachers who'll take their kids to the lab and plop them in front of the machine, run Muesum Madness (or some other worthless "educational" program purchased by your tax dollars), and congratulate themselves on bringing technology into the classroom. I think the writers of this study need to go back and analize their results a little further. Is it the computer that's causing the problem or is it how the computer is utilized? To quote Taiichi Ohno (father of modern manufacturing) -- "You must ask Why? at least 5 times to get to the root cause." Any teacher could get kids to write better, more literate compositions if they actually force them to! So use the Internet to research their compositions, let them type it and print it out. What's the difference between that and going to the encyclopedia (which in elementary schools are usually older than the kids) and then handwriting the composition? Use the latest primary sources while letting kids get research skills that'll help them in the future.
I just finished college in May. The last class I took for the computer part of my major was called "Business Information Systems". At one point, we discussed the concept of a "knowledge worker" pioneered by a professor at the Univeristy of Pittsburgh (sorry, I forget name/reference). His contention is that in the future, companies & government will have people who's job is soley to gather information on a subject so that other people can make decisions on it. However my question to the professor and class, which was never adequately answered but heatedly discussed, was "Who makes this person a god and decides what is relevant or not?" What if you have a leader of a country who said "go out and research nuclear warfare so I can decide if I can nuke my neighbor." So this worker goes out an researches, comes back to his boss, presents him with information saying that nuclear warfare is good and doesn't harm the environment, and the boss nukes his neighbor. But what isn't know here, is that the person has a personal bias against the neighbor. How do we avoid personal bias, whether conscious or unconscious, if we have people doing our gathering and filtering for us? EVERY STUDENT needs to be given good teaching and instruction on filtering the data that is out there so they themselves can understand information presented and make sound, rational decisions based on it. Over abundance of data is good. It means the information is out there, you just have to fint it.
I don't know that I stated it a little strongly (NOT TRYING TO START A FLAME WAR HERE). I agree, it's not dire or anything -- yet. However I'm just concerned that if people don't take an interest now before inertia of the organization really takes off, we're going to have a big mess to clean up 5 years down the road. Who would have thought that the InterNIC of yester-year would turn into Network Solutions and all the associated problems we have today with domain registration? It's the same problem I see with American government today -- people write it off as "politics" and don't want to get involved, but that's the same attitude that got us stuck where we are today.
This could be one of the most important net developments in the last few years. Whether net users want to admit it or not, ICANN has sweeping powers that could make life a lot more complicated and annoying for us. It's easy for people to spout off the "Oh! It's all about big business and it's a sham..." but it DOES have a mandate and control. This is not an issue to be taken lightly. EVERY SINGLE /. MEMBER needs to sign up for the At-Large program and make their voices heard. Big business ultimately won't bite the hand the makes it profitable -- the individual users.
I don't usually agree with Jon on his position of social issues, but for once I have to admit that I do. As a believer in capitalism and a market-driven economy, I forsee great benefits of the genome project.
However, not to sound too techno-geeky, I'm reminded vivdly (from out of the blue) of a Star Trek: TNG episode I saw years ago. The basic premise is a scientist creates faster-than-light travel. There's of course, the 1 hour conflict-resolution cycle, but the ending is one that throws the US into sharp relief. The ruler of the world said that the project would be put on hold until they better educate the population and bring their consciousness up to a level that could deal with inter-tellar alien contact. I think that's exactly that the US needs. I DO NOT advocate a federal education program - in fact, I'm completely opposed to the Department of Education. However, I think we need a return to the educational goals/values/ethics/methods of past generations where students learned and understood instead of being programmed and cranked off the "perfect student" assembly line. The populace needs to be educated in all moral and ethical facets of the genome project before they can make rational decisions (i.e. voting for congressmen, laws, etc..) about how to treat such groundbreaking knowledge.