And I have advertising links for indie-only music [blogspot.com] where I and my blog actually get a commission if you buy something.
Hmm. I'm poor right now but I'll make a point of hopping over to Amazon through your blog the next time I buy something. I love Amazon's MP3 service -- high-bitrate DRM free music. What's not to like?
You probably don't get that much off it but I hope you can put what you do get to good use:)
I hope so. I was actually pleasantly surprised to discover how much non-RIAA music is out there and how often my favorite radio station plays it. That actually surprised me the most -- the radio station in question is owned by Clear Channel yet I've discovered a lot of good indie music through them. Who would've thought?
Pandora is another good source in my experience, although it seems to take them longer to get new albums up for some reason (licensing issues?)
I am confident that the federal government would regard your suggestion as the opposite of making "reasonable efforts" to combat illegal file sharing.
Perhaps. But there are other "reasonable efforts" that one can take -- and besides, who said I work for a higher education institution that receives Federal funding?
But yeah, it is a mafia. Funny thing is that RIAA's antics have made me more likely to purchase music -- from non-RIAA labels. Before I was likely to just download whatever I wanted (yeah, guilty as charged) -- now I check out RIAA Radar and hand over some scratch if I hear a song that I like and discover the artist is signed with an indie label.
I doubt my purchases matter much in the grand scheme of things but I'm going to vote with my wallet anyway.
Yeah, we did. It's a shame too because we had really high hopes for him. He won 61 out of 62 counties too so he actually had a mandate to do some of the stuff he promised. Then he burned up his political capital on drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants instead of reforming Albany.....
Guess you can't win them all. At least we got a funny blind dude who isn't afraid to crack jokes at his own expense out of the deal;)
Read any discussion along the lines of 'Unions: good thing or bad thing?' and tell me this crowd's left-wing
I think your mistaking the crowd with pudge and his friends;) This site isn't Daily Kos by any stretch of the imagination (thank god) but I've never heard it called right-leaning before. Do you have any links to all these anti-union discussions you are thinking about?
That's pretty dedicated right-wing ideology
I don't think being skeptical about Unions is automatically a right-wing ideology. I'm a registered Democrat and I'm skeptical about Unions. I think that a lot of them started out with the best of intentions but got corrupted overtime and now value the institution more than the members.
Well, gosh, when you spin it that way, who'd let themselves be used?!
Eh, I wasn't spinning, that's how I really see it. My job as an IT person is to make sure that the network is functional for my users. My job isn't to help RIAA build a case that will be used to bankrupt one of my users based on some thin argument like "making available". Not having logs of IP assignments (or keeping those logs for very short periods of time) isn't going to be a huge hindrance to me -- so I choose not to keep them in my shop.
The RIAA and their unlicensed investigative agencies do that
Then I suppose you have to decide what's more important -- having the ability to track people down for other purposes or preventing your shop from being used as RIAA's evidence gathering team.
How can you be "impeding the investigation" if you took these measures before any such investigation existed? It would be one thing to destroy evidence after being issued a subpoena but I'm not aware of any law that requires IT departments to retain logs of IP assignments.......
I'm not so sure why your so pissed at people talking about solutions instead of being pissed at the people causing the problems the solutions are attempting to address.
The only reason I'm "pissed" (I think annoyed would be a better word, but whatever) is because people are suggesting that we punish all cell phone users for the actions of an annoying minority. I offered a solution -- bring back ushers in the movie theaters -- it has the advantage of solving a few other problems too (people who talk to their friends throughout the movie for instance -- which is at least as annoying as somebody texting on his phone). Somebody shot it down whilst whining that somebody walking around with a flashlight would be more annoying than somebody using a cell phone.
I don't have a better suggestion than that. What I will say is that any theater that blocks cell phone signals is a theater that won't see another dime of my money. Not all of us have the luxury of being out of contact for 2+ hours. We can debate the reasons for that until the cows come home but that's a fact of life for a lot of people. Saying that people lived before cell phones misses the point -- they exist nowadays and a lot of us are forced to rely upon them.
I don't see how you can call a ban on cell phones 'draconian' in an environment where you are subject to cavity searches and have to shower with 30 other people watching. It's prison for goodness sakes.... it's not supposed to be fun or easy.
but then they need to make regular phone calls reasonable.
I would concur with that. Collect calls from prison are a rip-off used to line the pockets of the state and the telephone company. I don't understand why they can't just offer a reasonable per-minute rate and deduct it out of the commissary account as they do with other expenses.
Apparently it is ok for corporations as a whole to snoop on your calls
No, it's ok for the Government to snoop on your calls to people who are overseas. Mind you, I don't think thats any better, but we should at least be aware of what the FISA bill actually does when we are discussing it......
But these were VZW employees who were given the ability to look at records as part of their job.
Maybe they shouldn't have that ability? If I was Verizon I would design the system such that the Level 1 CSRs don't see any details about the account until they enter some verification info provided by the customer. They always ask you for your account password or SSN to verify who you are when you call -- so why not design the system such that they don't see anything either until that information is entered?
I can't think of a ligitmate reason that a typical call center person would have for needing to access my account unless I'm on the phone with him. If I'm on the phone I can provide the information needed to unlock the account. If I lose or forget that information then I have to go to a store and show ID to verify whom I am -- this is how it currently works if you forget your account password so it wouldn't be a new policy.
Those with a business need to access accounts of customers they aren't talking to can be provided with that access. Presumably they have been with the company longer and the company has more reasons to trust them.
No, it means they can't take their cell phones to the theaters because if the on-call cell phone rings / lights up / vibrates loudly it will piss me off.
If a vibrating cell phone is all it takes to piss you off then I'd say that you are the one who has issues.
Even if they don't answer and walk out.
Do people who answer the call of nature during the movie similarly piss you off?
It means you can't go to theaters, because you're not guaranteed to be there for the whole movie, you might have to leave.
What law says I can't go to a theater if I might have to leave before the movie is done?
It means you can't drink alcohol because you'll be impaired
Depends on what your job is. Doctor, probably not. IT person? Probably yes. I drink when I'm on call -- because I'm on call to answer problems over the phone and not to come to work.
Don't take a job where you're required to be on call if you can't do that.
How about you stay at home and leave the rest of us whom don't get pissed off and self-righteous over a vibrating cell phone alone?
And what would be even more annoying than a guy on a cell phone? A guy with a flashlight walking down to tell him to shut up.
I don't think you'd need the guy to do that very often once it became known that the theater is willing to kick you out if you abuse your cell phone. And really, is the guy on his cell phone any more annoying than the asshole three seats down who is talking to his friends? Ushers could solve both problems -- without blocking legitimate uses.
How about they don't go to the movies when they are on call and need to be reached.
So anyone who works a job where they are on call 24/7 should just forget about having a social life because some asshole teenyboppers abuse their cell phone at the movies and piss you off?
Ask your mom what she did when you were a kid
She managed, but that's not the point. My great-grandparents also managed to raise their kids without electricity -- should we give up that modern convenience too just because we know we can live without it?
I still think monitoring instead of blocking is the way to go though.
Are you suggesting just monitoring to see where the cell phones are being used or actually trying to monitor the conversations? If you are suggesting the former then it's quite doable -- the latter is a lot more complicated and expensive and might not even be possible with CDMA phones.
So anyone who works in the medical field should just have to forgo going to the movies? What about people with kids and a babysitter at home that needs to reach them? Wouldn't a better solution be for the fucking theaters to employ ushers again, whom could presumably stop people from abusing their cell phones while the movie is playing?
Setup smaller receivers around the prison that for one, would let officers get the drop on anything inmates try to plan out, surely there's no wiretapping laws in prison considering phones are surely contraband
Umm, it's not that easy to wiretap cell phones over the air as you suggest. My understanding is that with GSM it requires very specialized (i.e: expensive) equipment and that with CDMA it may be nearly impossible for anyone who lacks the resources of the Federal Government.
A better idea would be to just retrofit the cell blocks with a Faraday cage. Of course that might pose a problem with the guards with radios -- so they'd probably need some sort of repeater system that only worked on the frequencies of whatever communications system they use.
Slashdot Mirror
And I have advertising links for indie-only music [blogspot.com] where I and my blog actually get a commission if you buy something.
Hmm. I'm poor right now but I'll make a point of hopping over to Amazon through your blog the next time I buy something. I love Amazon's MP3 service -- high-bitrate DRM free music. What's not to like?
You probably don't get that much off it but I hope you can put what you do get to good use :)
What's wrong with Azureus? Is there a better open-source client out there that I'm not aware of?
I hope so. I was actually pleasantly surprised to discover how much non-RIAA music is out there and how often my favorite radio station plays it. That actually surprised me the most -- the radio station in question is owned by Clear Channel yet I've discovered a lot of good indie music through them. Who would've thought?
Pandora is another good source in my experience, although it seems to take them longer to get new albums up for some reason (licensing issues?)
I am confident that the federal government would regard your suggestion as the opposite of making "reasonable efforts" to combat illegal file sharing.
Perhaps. But there are other "reasonable efforts" that one can take -- and besides, who said I work for a higher education institution that receives Federal funding?
I didn't want to be accused of spinning again ;)
But yeah, it is a mafia. Funny thing is that RIAA's antics have made me more likely to purchase music -- from non-RIAA labels. Before I was likely to just download whatever I wanted (yeah, guilty as charged) -- now I check out RIAA Radar and hand over some scratch if I hear a song that I like and discover the artist is signed with an indie label.
I doubt my purchases matter much in the grand scheme of things but I'm going to vote with my wallet anyway.
Yeah, we did. It's a shame too because we had really high hopes for him. He won 61 out of 62 counties too so he actually had a mandate to do some of the stuff he promised. Then he burned up his political capital on drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants instead of reforming Albany.....
Guess you can't win them all. At least we got a funny blind dude who isn't afraid to crack jokes at his own expense out of the deal ;)
Read any discussion along the lines of 'Unions: good thing or bad thing?' and tell me this crowd's left-wing
I think your mistaking the crowd with pudge and his friends ;) This site isn't Daily Kos by any stretch of the imagination (thank god) but I've never heard it called right-leaning before. Do you have any links to all these anti-union discussions you are thinking about?
That's pretty dedicated right-wing ideology
I don't think being skeptical about Unions is automatically a right-wing ideology. I'm a registered Democrat and I'm skeptical about Unions. I think that a lot of them started out with the best of intentions but got corrupted overtime and now value the institution more than the members.
Tell that to Elliot Spitzer ;)
Well, gosh, when you spin it that way, who'd let themselves be used?!
Eh, I wasn't spinning, that's how I really see it. My job as an IT person is to make sure that the network is functional for my users. My job isn't to help RIAA build a case that will be used to bankrupt one of my users based on some thin argument like "making available". Not having logs of IP assignments (or keeping those logs for very short periods of time) isn't going to be a huge hindrance to me -- so I choose not to keep them in my shop.
The RIAA and their unlicensed investigative agencies do that
Fixed that for you :)
Me coming up with a 'plan' would be like asking me to do your plumbing
Ray the plumber? Is that you? ;)
Then I suppose you have to decide what's more important -- having the ability to track people down for other purposes or preventing your shop from being used as RIAA's evidence gathering team.
How can you be "impeding the investigation" if you took these measures before any such investigation existed? It would be one thing to destroy evidence after being issued a subpoena but I'm not aware of any law that requires IT departments to retain logs of IP assignments.......
I'm not so sure why your so pissed at people talking about solutions instead of being pissed at the people causing the problems the solutions are attempting to address.
The only reason I'm "pissed" (I think annoyed would be a better word, but whatever) is because people are suggesting that we punish all cell phone users for the actions of an annoying minority. I offered a solution -- bring back ushers in the movie theaters -- it has the advantage of solving a few other problems too (people who talk to their friends throughout the movie for instance -- which is at least as annoying as somebody texting on his phone). Somebody shot it down whilst whining that somebody walking around with a flashlight would be more annoying than somebody using a cell phone.
I don't have a better suggestion than that. What I will say is that any theater that blocks cell phone signals is a theater that won't see another dime of my money. Not all of us have the luxury of being out of contact for 2+ hours. We can debate the reasons for that until the cows come home but that's a fact of life for a lot of people. Saying that people lived before cell phones misses the point -- they exist nowadays and a lot of us are forced to rely upon them.
The world isn't going to fall apart if they aren't reachable to 2 hours
And the world is going to fall apart if my phone vibrates in the middle of the movie and I get up and walk out?
If they want a draconian ban on cell phones
I don't see how you can call a ban on cell phones 'draconian' in an environment where you are subject to cavity searches and have to shower with 30 other people watching. It's prison for goodness sakes.... it's not supposed to be fun or easy.
but then they need to make regular phone calls reasonable.
I would concur with that. Collect calls from prison are a rip-off used to line the pockets of the state and the telephone company. I don't understand why they can't just offer a reasonable per-minute rate and deduct it out of the commissary account as they do with other expenses.
Apparently it is ok for corporations as a whole to snoop on your calls
No, it's ok for the Government to snoop on your calls to people who are overseas. Mind you, I don't think thats any better, but we should at least be aware of what the FISA bill actually does when we are discussing it......
But these were VZW employees who were given the ability to look at records as part of their job.
Maybe they shouldn't have that ability? If I was Verizon I would design the system such that the Level 1 CSRs don't see any details about the account until they enter some verification info provided by the customer. They always ask you for your account password or SSN to verify who you are when you call -- so why not design the system such that they don't see anything either until that information is entered?
I can't think of a ligitmate reason that a typical call center person would have for needing to access my account unless I'm on the phone with him. If I'm on the phone I can provide the information needed to unlock the account. If I lose or forget that information then I have to go to a store and show ID to verify whom I am -- this is how it currently works if you forget your account password so it wouldn't be a new policy.
Those with a business need to access accounts of customers they aren't talking to can be provided with that access. Presumably they have been with the company longer and the company has more reasons to trust them.
You sound like the RIAA saying that Kazaa is only useful for copyright infringement
C'mon, you can do better than trying to stereotype me just because I don't agree with you.....
I'd rather prisoners have contact with normal, law abiding citizenry (i.e., people not in jail) than only having criminals to talk to
They already have a way to do this. Letters and phone calls through approved channels come to mind. They also have visitation.
I'd rather have them come out of prison better than when they went in, instead of worse.
I would too. But I don't see how encouraging them to disobey prison regulations teaches them how to follow the law once they get out of prison.
No, it means they can't take their cell phones to the theaters because if the on-call cell phone rings / lights up / vibrates loudly it will piss me off.
If a vibrating cell phone is all it takes to piss you off then I'd say that you are the one who has issues.
Even if they don't answer and walk out.
Do people who answer the call of nature during the movie similarly piss you off?
It means you can't go to theaters, because you're not guaranteed to be there for the whole movie, you might have to leave.
What law says I can't go to a theater if I might have to leave before the movie is done?
It means you can't drink alcohol because you'll be impaired
Depends on what your job is. Doctor, probably not. IT person? Probably yes. I drink when I'm on call -- because I'm on call to answer problems over the phone and not to come to work.
Don't take a job where you're required to be on call if you can't do that.
How about you stay at home and leave the rest of us whom don't get pissed off and self-righteous over a vibrating cell phone alone?
But actually, I think letting prisoners have cell phones is a GOOD thing; that is, if we want to rehabilitate these people
How does giving them cell phones that they use to commit fraud help to rehabilitate them?
And what would be even more annoying than a guy on a cell phone? A guy with a flashlight walking down to tell him to shut up.
I don't think you'd need the guy to do that very often once it became known that the theater is willing to kick you out if you abuse your cell phone. And really, is the guy on his cell phone any more annoying than the asshole three seats down who is talking to his friends? Ushers could solve both problems -- without blocking legitimate uses.
How about they don't go to the movies when they are on call and need to be reached.
So anyone who works a job where they are on call 24/7 should just forget about having a social life because some asshole teenyboppers abuse their cell phone at the movies and piss you off?
Ask your mom what she did when you were a kid
She managed, but that's not the point. My great-grandparents also managed to raise their kids without electricity -- should we give up that modern convenience too just because we know we can live without it?
I still think monitoring instead of blocking is the way to go though.
Are you suggesting just monitoring to see where the cell phones are being used or actually trying to monitor the conversations? If you are suggesting the former then it's quite doable -- the latter is a lot more complicated and expensive and might not even be possible with CDMA phones.
So anyone who works in the medical field should just have to forgo going to the movies? What about people with kids and a babysitter at home that needs to reach them? Wouldn't a better solution be for the fucking theaters to employ ushers again, whom could presumably stop people from abusing their cell phones while the movie is playing?
Setup smaller receivers around the prison that for one, would let officers get the drop on anything inmates try to plan out, surely there's no wiretapping laws in prison considering phones are surely contraband
Umm, it's not that easy to wiretap cell phones over the air as you suggest. My understanding is that with GSM it requires very specialized (i.e: expensive) equipment and that with CDMA it may be nearly impossible for anyone who lacks the resources of the Federal Government.
A better idea would be to just retrofit the cell blocks with a Faraday cage. Of course that might pose a problem with the guards with radios -- so they'd probably need some sort of repeater system that only worked on the frequencies of whatever communications system they use.