...if that Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John had entered in a binding legal agreement not to do something which they then violated 15 years later, sure. Why not?
Had they met? I'm trying to remember, its been a while since I saw that movie (I refuse to watch the new updated versions, so I havn't seen it since our old VHS versions died). But I seem to remember that Obi-Wan didn't recognize Luke, and being that he was the son of his old friend, that probably means they were not that close.
The fact that Luke recognizes the name "Kenobi" doesn't mean that much. I mean I would recognize the names 'Bush', 'Kerry', 'Cheney', and 'Edwards', even though I have never met any of the four people we associate with those names (although John Edwards did try to kill me once, but thats another story...).
Microsoft products always have a bad stench around them. That doesn't mean anything, it still isn't even close to being dead. What percentage of the market share does it have? 80-90%? And the closest competitor, Firefox, has undergone some serious problems lately. More security bugs, memory leaks, a tendency to crash, etc. The movement to embrace Firefox has stalled, and IE is gaining their market share again. And most people out there probably don't know what Opera or Safari are either (hell they probably don't really know what IE is, they think the program they are opening is called "The Internet").
If when you see a vagina, the first image that pops into your head is a baby being born, well you have issues. Its probably going to make it very hard to ever have sex, unless a woman giving birth turns you on, in which case you really have issues.
1. Wait for new technological advances and an increasing supply of broadband providers to lower the price.
2. Claim the success of the market as your own.
3. Profit!
Because Yahoo and MS never made their mission statement "Do no evil" and people claiming (in issues like the one in the article, assuming anyone actually remembers what it is about) that they are fighting the good fight for the rights of Internet users. MSN and Yahoo have taken a lot of heat as well, even if you were not paying attention at the time.
"Google gets a list of search terms to block. Google blocks those terms and only those terms. Users use Google to get around the censorship (intentional mispellings)."
Internet-savy users were able to find ways around the censorhip before as well. Its the other 99% of them I'm worried about.
And no, they are blocking results, not search terms. There is a pretty big difference between the two.
"
Which do you think is better for open information in China? Beijing is Far Away and the Mountains are Very Tall and all that."
To have its citizens demand a free Internet. Not to have them settle for something their government says is 'almost as good'.
"Now then. You say that China would be better with more democratic reforms. Explain. Seriously. Do you really, honestly think that democratic==good?"
Well lets think about this for a second. If what I thought was that having a democracy automatically makes a government good, I would have probably worded my statement something like "This would end up pushing China to enact more democratic reforms. Which would make it a good government". Instead I said "This would end up pushing China to enact more democratic reforms. Which would be a good thing". Meaning a move to democracy is good, meaning more democracy is better than less democracy. Do you need help understanding the difference between "good" and "better"? Because most of us learned that in the 2nd grade...
And the simple reason for this fact is that a government that governs without the consent of its people is inherently unjust. Nothing can change that injustice other than democratic reforms.
"If you're in China and you try to use the regular Google site for a search whose results will include things which the Chinese government doesn't want you to see, you probably won't get any results at all."
Actually, I belive China blocked access to the entire search engine, or at least they use to. It pissed off a lot of Chinese citizens. And even if they tried to do it on a page by page basis (only block out links to pages that might enlighten your citizens), the search results will remain the same. They just won't be able click on them. A couple of years ago, I volunteered teaching computer related skills at an elementary school, and of course the net was censored pretty heavily. Believe me, the kids noticed it. I can't imagine an entire country having to go through that without getting some resentment against those who were censoring them.
"If you do a Google search on the China version of their site and some of the results are censored by the Chinese government, Google doesn't show them to you, but it does let you know that censorship has happened."
Here is Google's translation of the Chinese search results, (compare them to the normal search results). The only mention of the censorship is at the bottom of the page, where it states "According to local laws, regulations, and policies, not part of the search results show." Not exactly a giant neon sign saying "You are being censored by a government that doesn't want you to know the truth about what its doing".
"What was Google supposed to do, not filter search results and get completely blocked by the Communist Party? "
YES!!!!
At least if they really cared about their "Do no evil" policy. Sure, you can argue that the Chinese people are not really missing anything as without this version of the search engine they would not be able to use Google at all, but by obeying the government's demands Google has, for all intents and purposes, given their stamp of approval to Chinese censorship. If they had instead made a big fuss about it, insisting that their service would not be censored, that would certainly raise some eyebrows in China. People would hear about this great search engine that their friends from other parts of the world use, and would want to know why it is that their government has this huge problem with it. This would end up pushing China to enact more democratic reforms. Which would be a good thing.
Yeah, but "Google defending privacy against evil government goons" is a nicer soundbite. That way they sound like they care about the rights of their users (unless of course they live in China).
I don't see anything in the article saying that this is the completed product. In fact, the second paragraph states
The simulation pushes today's computing power to the limit. But it is only a first step. In future researchers hope that bigger, longer simulations will reveal details about how viruses invade cells and cause disease.
This sounds like it is meant more as a proof of concept, not a complete simulation.
"You are not "defending" yourself against anything. You are persistently on the attack here, trying to drive home your pet peeve, which is the very thing I was attempting to ward against with my remark."
The very thing you were attempting to ward off? WTF? The very thing you stated you were trying to argue with it I had conceded in my first post. 'Pre-emptive' arguing is never a good idea, but its even worse when you are arguing against something that is already over with...
"I am quite familiar with what normal, sane ISP's do, and the one thing they do not do is write articles for white supremacist sites"
Meaning (drumroll please...) he must have performed those actions as an individual, not as the owner of an ISP. This isn't that hard to understand...
"I mentioned Canadian law specifically to pre-empt a long winded and completely irrelevant, but predictable, discussion on merits of the law itself in the light of the US constitution, human rights, George Bush and what not by the usual crew of freaked-out Americans."
Aside from the fact that I had earlier specifically said US law was not relevant when I quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes...
Fine. You made a 'pre-emptive' OT remark. But don't throw a hissy fit when I defend myself against the only rational interpretation of that remark in the context it was given.
"The company was fined for creating and operating the site, just like a person would. "
Ok, you simply do not know enough knowledge of the IT industry to know what an ISP does. In that case, I forgive you. Ignorance is more forgivable than stupidity.
"Again, the "validity" of the law itself has no bearing on the relationship of the white supremacist and the ISP in question, and the subsequent fines for both."
Agreed. Your mention of Canadian law was OT.
"In other words, there is no distinction in this case between the ISP and the white supremacist when it comes to operation of the site."
Yes, thats what scares people. Instead of just fining him for posting that content in the context of a site owner, they also fined his company (which in the eyes of the law is distinct from the flesh and blood people who own it).
"And which is totally irrelevant to the post I made, which dealt with the accuracy of the slashdot summary."
Which itself was totally irrelevant to the post you were responding to. Anyways, you brought up the fact that it was legal under Canadian law, the quoted line was a response to that, not your statements concerning the accuracy of the/. summary. I was dismissing the mention of Canadian law as unimportant to this debate (I am arguing what should be legal, not what is legal), so yes, that statement was very relevant. Don't get mad at me when you bring up tangent topics.
"For his actions as an owner of that ISP. No other ISP has been so charged (and there were many such cases involving hate web sites already) and none will, unless, like in this case, they also happened to be deeply involved in the affair."
Are you sure about that? Does the law state that ISPs can only be fined if the owner of the site has also committed some other crimes? Or is the law being selectively applied based on other actions performed by the ISP's owner. I really don't care, my statements apply to either case.
"It does so. From the perspective of fear of random bystander ISPs being targetted to that of a specific site opertor being targetted, under existing Canadian law."
I am well aware this is legal under existing Canadian law. That is not the point. I disagree with that law.
"Not so. The boastful comments of the self-interested winning party claiming so aside, the judge was certain to take into the consideration both the ownership chain as well as the responses of the "ISP" in question to the complaints. "
Yes, I know their lack of action when they were asked to remove the content was the basis for the fine. Thats what has everyone pissed off, requiring ISPs to remove content is censorship.
"He actually operated the website, which is a far cry from "sharing the opinion" of it."
Are you now trying to imply he disagreed with the content?
Whether or not he operated the website is irrelevant to the ISP fine as it was for owning the ISP, not operating the website.
"Even if you agree that people who post this crap should be fined, his fine should have been limited to covering only what he said."
"Which is precisely the case."
No its not. Seperate fines were given for the actual posting of the material. He is recieving an additional fine as the owner of the ISP. Thats the $5000 fine everyone is talking about. Please RTFA. While the other fines were censorship as well, this is the one that is really pissing everyone off.
I'm typing inbetween sneezes, so excuse any typos I may/will make here...
"No, what I am saying is that the Slashdot summary is misleading."
/. summaries are always misleading. This one never said or even implied the owner of the ISP was not a white supremacist or was an innocent bystander, so in this case it was actually better than usual.
Anyways, you brought up this point in a fairly critical response ("As usual, noone reads the original article...") to someone suggesting that this could be applied to any ISP. Thus a fairly common sense reading of your post would conclude that you don't think that could happen, apparently because this fine only happened because the owner was a racist. If that was not your point, I'm afraid it was your post that was irrelevant to the post you were replying to...
Furthermore, you were not simply pointing out that the owner of the ISP was a racist, you made a claim that this knowledge "changes the whole perspective on things". The fact is, it should not change the perspective in any way. Racists should have the same laws applied to them that are applied to the rest of us. This particular fine was not for expressing a particularly vile political position, it was for owning an ISP that hosted a website that expressed a particularly vile political position. Knowledge that he shared the website's positions should do nothing to change any perspective. Even if you agree that people who post this crap should be fined, his fine should have been limited to covering only what he said.
So you are saying that this particular law allowing the government to fine ISPs that don't remove hate content will only be enforced against people society currently finds despicable? And that is supposed to make us think better of this ruling? To quote Oliver Wendell Holmes (and yes, I know US Supreme Court has no effect in Canada, I'm quoting him to express a certain principle), "If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate."
Yes, white supremists are assholes, and in a purely just world they would be hung from their balls and set on fire. But that doesn't mean we should throw out the free marketplace of ideas and use the government's force to shut up anyone we disagree with.
I think the headline here is that parents are spending time with their kids, which is something that apparently now is so rare that it has become newsworthy.
Well its not like he is going to make an important decision based on this response. I mean its not like he is going to risk somthing important like the education of our children.
"
HOWEVER, it would also be a disservice to these kids to NOT know anything about the other OSs out there. High school is a good place to introduce *nix for basic programming/computer science curriculums."
Well considering these kids ages range from 4-12, I doubt they are in high school (unless they skipped a grade or two).
Slashdot Mirror
...if that Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John had entered in a binding legal agreement not to do something which they then violated 15 years later, sure. Why not?
The fact that Luke recognizes the name "Kenobi" doesn't mean that much. I mean I would recognize the names 'Bush', 'Kerry', 'Cheney', and 'Edwards', even though I have never met any of the four people we associate with those names (although John Edwards did try to kill me once, but thats another story...).
Microsoft products always have a bad stench around them. That doesn't mean anything, it still isn't even close to being dead. What percentage of the market share does it have? 80-90%? And the closest competitor, Firefox, has undergone some serious problems lately. More security bugs, memory leaks, a tendency to crash, etc. The movement to embrace Firefox has stalled, and IE is gaining their market share again. And most people out there probably don't know what Opera or Safari are either (hell they probably don't really know what IE is, they think the program they are opening is called "The Internet").
And in the real world, I doubt my boss would be happy if, come the deadline, I said my work was 70% complete.
If when you see a vagina, the first image that pops into your head is a baby being born, well you have issues. Its probably going to make it very hard to ever have sex, unless a woman giving birth turns you on, in which case you really have issues.
Sometimes I get worried when posts I make that were intended to be sarcastic get modded up as 'Insightful'...
2. Claim the success of the market as your own.
3. Profit!
And if 1 never happens, just blame it on Bush.
Because Yahoo and MS never made their mission statement "Do no evil" and people claiming (in issues like the one in the article, assuming anyone actually remembers what it is about) that they are fighting the good fight for the rights of Internet users. MSN and Yahoo have taken a lot of heat as well, even if you were not paying attention at the time.
Internet-savy users were able to find ways around the censorhip before as well. Its the other 99% of them I'm worried about.
And no, they are blocking results, not search terms. There is a pretty big difference between the two.
" Which do you think is better for open information in China? Beijing is Far Away and the Mountains are Very Tall and all that."
To have its citizens demand a free Internet. Not to have them settle for something their government says is 'almost as good'.
"Now then. You say that China would be better with more democratic reforms. Explain. Seriously. Do you really, honestly think that democratic==good?"
Well lets think about this for a second. If what I thought was that having a democracy automatically makes a government good, I would have probably worded my statement something like "This would end up pushing China to enact more democratic reforms. Which would make it a good government". Instead I said "This would end up pushing China to enact more democratic reforms. Which would be a good thing". Meaning a move to democracy is good, meaning more democracy is better than less democracy. Do you need help understanding the difference between "good" and "better"? Because most of us learned that in the 2nd grade...
And the simple reason for this fact is that a government that governs without the consent of its people is inherently unjust. Nothing can change that injustice other than democratic reforms.
Ok, so you are modifying "Do no evil" to "Do no evil unless someone else is doing more evil"?
Actually, I belive China blocked access to the entire search engine, or at least they use to. It pissed off a lot of Chinese citizens. And even if they tried to do it on a page by page basis (only block out links to pages that might enlighten your citizens), the search results will remain the same. They just won't be able click on them. A couple of years ago, I volunteered teaching computer related skills at an elementary school, and of course the net was censored pretty heavily. Believe me, the kids noticed it. I can't imagine an entire country having to go through that without getting some resentment against those who were censoring them.
"If you do a Google search on the China version of their site and some of the results are censored by the Chinese government, Google doesn't show them to you, but it does let you know that censorship has happened."
Here is Google's translation of the Chinese search results, (compare them to the normal search results). The only mention of the censorship is at the bottom of the page, where it states "According to local laws, regulations, and policies, not part of the search results show." Not exactly a giant neon sign saying "You are being censored by a government that doesn't want you to know the truth about what its doing".
YES!!!!
At least if they really cared about their "Do no evil" policy. Sure, you can argue that the Chinese people are not really missing anything as without this version of the search engine they would not be able to use Google at all, but by obeying the government's demands Google has, for all intents and purposes, given their stamp of approval to Chinese censorship. If they had instead made a big fuss about it, insisting that their service would not be censored, that would certainly raise some eyebrows in China. People would hear about this great search engine that their friends from other parts of the world use, and would want to know why it is that their government has this huge problem with it. This would end up pushing China to enact more democratic reforms. Which would be a good thing.
Yeah, but "Google defending privacy against evil government goons" is a nicer soundbite. That way they sound like they care about the rights of their users (unless of course they live in China).
This sounds like it is meant more as a proof of concept, not a complete simulation.
If you get caught speeding while driving to work, do you get worried that your employer is going to get fined because you broke the law?
The very thing you were attempting to ward off? WTF? The very thing you stated you were trying to argue with it I had conceded in my first post. 'Pre-emptive' arguing is never a good idea, but its even worse when you are arguing against something that is already over with...
"I am quite familiar with what normal, sane ISP's do, and the one thing they do not do is write articles for white supremacist sites"
Meaning (drumroll please...) he must have performed those actions as an individual, not as the owner of an ISP. This isn't that hard to understand...
Aside from the fact that I had earlier specifically said US law was not relevant when I quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes...
Fine. You made a 'pre-emptive' OT remark. But don't throw a hissy fit when I defend myself against the only rational interpretation of that remark in the context it was given.
"The company was fined for creating and operating the site, just like a person would. "
Ok, you simply do not know enough knowledge of the IT industry to know what an ISP does. In that case, I forgive you. Ignorance is more forgivable than stupidity.
Agreed. Your mention of Canadian law was OT.
"In other words, there is no distinction in this case between the ISP and the white supremacist when it comes to operation of the site."
Yes, thats what scares people. Instead of just fining him for posting that content in the context of a site owner, they also fined his company (which in the eyes of the law is distinct from the flesh and blood people who own it).
Which itself was totally irrelevant to the post you were responding to. Anyways, you brought up the fact that it was legal under Canadian law, the quoted line was a response to that, not your statements concerning the accuracy of the /. summary. I was dismissing the mention of Canadian law as unimportant to this debate (I am arguing what should be legal, not what is legal), so yes, that statement was very relevant. Don't get mad at me when you bring up tangent topics.
"For his actions as an owner of that ISP. No other ISP has been so charged (and there were many such cases involving hate web sites already) and none will, unless, like in this case, they also happened to be deeply involved in the affair."
Are you sure about that? Does the law state that ISPs can only be fined if the owner of the site has also committed some other crimes? Or is the law being selectively applied based on other actions performed by the ISP's owner. I really don't care, my statements apply to either case.
I am well aware this is legal under existing Canadian law. That is not the point. I disagree with that law.
"Not so. The boastful comments of the self-interested winning party claiming so aside, the judge was certain to take into the consideration both the ownership chain as well as the responses of the "ISP" in question to the complaints. "
Yes, I know their lack of action when they were asked to remove the content was the basis for the fine. Thats what has everyone pissed off, requiring ISPs to remove content is censorship.
"He actually operated the website, which is a far cry from "sharing the opinion" of it."
Are you now trying to imply he disagreed with the content?
Whether or not he operated the website is irrelevant to the ISP fine as it was for owning the ISP, not operating the website.
"Even if you agree that people who post this crap should be fined, his fine should have been limited to covering only what he said."
"Which is precisely the case."
No its not. Seperate fines were given for the actual posting of the material. He is recieving an additional fine as the owner of the ISP. Thats the $5000 fine everyone is talking about. Please RTFA. While the other fines were censorship as well, this is the one that is really pissing everyone off.
"No, what I am saying is that the Slashdot summary is misleading."
Anyways, you brought up this point in a fairly critical response ("As usual, noone reads the original article...") to someone suggesting that this could be applied to any ISP. Thus a fairly common sense reading of your post would conclude that you don't think that could happen, apparently because this fine only happened because the owner was a racist. If that was not your point, I'm afraid it was your post that was irrelevant to the post you were replying to...
Furthermore, you were not simply pointing out that the owner of the ISP was a racist, you made a claim that this knowledge "changes the whole perspective on things". The fact is, it should not change the perspective in any way. Racists should have the same laws applied to them that are applied to the rest of us. This particular fine was not for expressing a particularly vile political position, it was for owning an ISP that hosted a website that expressed a particularly vile political position. Knowledge that he shared the website's positions should do nothing to change any perspective. Even if you agree that people who post this crap should be fined, his fine should have been limited to covering only what he said.
Yes, white supremists are assholes, and in a purely just world they would be hung from their balls and set on fire. But that doesn't mean we should throw out the free marketplace of ideas and use the government's force to shut up anyone we disagree with.
I think the headline here is that parents are spending time with their kids, which is something that apparently now is so rare that it has become newsworthy.
Oh wait...
Well considering these kids ages range from 4-12, I doubt they are in high school (unless they skipped a grade or two).