... for filtering book (and book advertiser) content through human decision-making processes.
I claim MY patent for "a method of monopolizing obvious ideas for which there is lots of prior art by means of convincing the Patent Office that the same old idea, when done with a computer, is somehow radically different and worthy of being treated like a new and innovative invention."
The way I see it, I should make billions. BILLIONS!!
Reading books with ads in them? No thanks. I'll be off to the pirate ba... shit.
Hey look, the story is about advertisements in books. And wow, look at that! - this comment is also about advertising in books!... and for some reason, it was modded Offtopic.
That's a good example of shitty moderation. As in, this is what not to do.
As for me, do your worst. I have karma to burn. Any points you waste on me for saying what you know to be the fuckin' truth are points you won't waste improperly modding someone else. So, make my day.
Yah. Let them use patent law to stick ads in books, and then the pissed-off authors can use copyright law to stop them from creating unlicensed "derivative" works.
That and the GNU Public License makes me think, "man, I'm glad copyright law as we know it is good for something."
Seriously. It means that anyone else with this idiotic idea will have to pay a royalty fee, which should discourage them. Unless you want to fight a prior art campaign against Amazon, claiming magazines with ads are prior art. Either way the money will discourage people from trying and this idea will die a lonely death.
Except for Amazon of course, since they hold the patent. But they can try it, and then they can see for themselves just how great this idea is when they launch it. It'll tank, hard. Nobody will want this.
That's the thing I don't understand, about all of these ideas. None of them come from overwhelming customer demand.
Am I to believe that no one EVER gives them any suggestions, feature requests, etc.? Should I believe also that they never conduct any sort of market analysis, or hold focus groups, or otherwise try to find out what people already want so that they can come up with ways to meet that need?
This is about control just like far too many things I hear about that come from either corporations or governments. For just that reason, it deserves to fail. Miserably. The problem is that there seems to be a long-standing tradition involving inherently failed ideas: when they don't work out, the perpetrator responds by trying harder instead of recognizing that the idea is a failed idea.
I would like to find a reason not to agree with Bill Hicks and what he said marketers should do ("there's no fuckin' joke"), but I can't. "Ooooh, the anti-marketing dollar, that's a huge market..." "OOOOOhhhh, the plea-for-sanity dollar, that's a HUGE market, HUGE!!"
I've always believed that Microsoft don't really get mission critical software so I'm surprised they got the contract. My experience with their OSs suggests that time and time again they fail to get the basics right or that things just work superficially. They cover this up by submerging it in a slopping sea of unwanted bloaty features.
What this implies is that they must have damned good sales executives to overcome the word on the street.
The only Microsoft products in my personal possession are a keyboard and a mouse. So, I believe this is accurate but I admit up-front that I might have this wrong. Please correct me if I am mistaken.
Does not the standard EULA for Windows specifically state that it is not intended to be used for such mission-critical purposes? If that is the case, then I am all the more surprised that Microsoft themselves supported this venture.
This is a good death. There's no shame in this, in a man's death. A man who has done fine works. We're making a better world. All of them - better worlds.
Ah, the movie Serenity. That was definitely a good quote.
People think this is "just a Web site." No. The Web site is a reflection of the people who participate in it. It is the people who need to change, to come to see why such abuses are wrong, why it is preferable that we live in a world where people understand these things.
The disasters and massacres HAVE happened, and people still haven't realized it's a bad idea. It's because of our entitlement culture, where all problems are external to you. You can't be the problem... something else (video games, television, big companies, SOMETHING) must have caused it.
I think the problem is that people know the definitions of the words you just used, but cannot appreciate the sum total of what you said and its implications because they really don't know what it means. Thus, they don't know that when they learn something is their own fault, this is good news because that means it is within their control, that they can work to change it. That's so much better than being helpless and it's a shame that so few can appreciate this.
That victim mentality is something I have stood against wherever I have found it. Any flak I have caught for so doing was more than worthwhile.
a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_jeopardy">double jeopardy?
besides, the actual killer got immunity.
it's like one of those Law & Order scenarios where the bad guy got away....legally
Haha Law and Order scenarios indeed. The ones that send the message, "the world would be a safer/better/etc place, if only we didn't have these god-awful technicalities!" Nevermind that those technicalities are one of the stronger reasons why we're not already learning the goose step, because that doesn't make for good TV drama. Nevermind too that the justice system, having full knowledge of those technicalities, can always decide to, y'know, follow the rules.
No, she shouldn't be charged with anything. Charging her with one of the above is far beyond the intent or probably the letter of the law, or are so vague that anyone could be potentially charged with those crimes. We have enough crazy catch-all laws as it is, don't validate their existence just because hang a woman that did something you don't like.
The girl had emotional problems beyond just someone messing with her on the internet, and to be quite honest if your skin is so thin that you can't take being insulted online then you're going to have major problems somewhere down the road. I've been insulted in school far worse than what Lori Drew said, and I'd been physically assaulted in front of teachers and other authority (which I'd consider even far worse than what Lori Drew did) at around the same age that girl was. Retribution isn't going to bring anyone back from the dead, and you can't base "justice" around how someone reacts to what you do (particularly when the outcome is extreme and unforeseeable), only what you actually DO do, because we have no way of peering into a crystal ball to determine the future and that road could take us down a pretty scary place anyway.
She should have been charged with cyberstalking, stalking, harassment, something.
The fact that you had to end this with "something" shows that your mindset here is trying to pin something down on this woman, because you're not sure what crime she actually committed. This is a common method of how the police work, especially since we have enough laws that you can find and stretch any law to stick any American in jail, but I am personally disgusted with it. If you're not sure what crime she actually committed then it's probably safe to say that whatever she did, even if it was horrible, probably shouldn't be "a crime" and that any thing you charge her with will be stretching the law past its original intent to satiate some bloodthirsty mob or your own anger. In my opinion, if the action is not obviously a crime (murder, stealing, etc) and you're not sure what crime they may have committed (especially if you're grabbing at straws like "cyberstalking!) then one should be pretty suspicious of bringing in the entire "justice" system from the get-go.
This is yet another manifestation of the "FOR THE CHILDREN!" mindset, except it's more subtle. Fascinating how even many slashdotters fall for it, too... The proper recourse here is socially ostracizing her.
I see the "Troll" mod on this post and I must say something about this.
This person gave an opinion in a calm and non-inflammatory manner. He also gave some reasons to explain why he holds that particular opinion. There is absolutely no reason to believe that this is anything other than a reasonable expression of what he sincerely believes. That's why this moderation is abusive. I'm not saying something because of this particular moderation, but rather, because it has also happened to me personally and because too much of this shit goes on in general.
I've said it before, recently, and I'll say it again. This reminds me of a sig I see from time to time. Mods, read it well and know that it is completely correct: "Slashdot does not have a -1 DisagreeAndWishToCensor moderation, and no, Flamebait, Offtopic, and Troll are not substitutes."
There are few things more petty and childish than trying to shut someone up merely because you disagree with him or don't like what he said. Seriously, grow up and get over yourself and quit trying to punish people for thinking and believing differently than you do. It's really quite shameful.
I read in Section 6.3 of the moderator guidelines that there's some (probably small) chance that moderator access will be revoked for such abusive moderations. You know what? I'm going to submit this to Rob Malda and ask that this be done. No, I don't enjoy doing that and I do
Most of us do. As parents, we also teach them to be careful about what they post. However, young people are... well, young. And inexperienced. And not completely rational.
The problem is many parents pay lip service to the concept of finding meaning and strength within, and then they give many subtle indications that what the neighbors think or whether they have a bigger house, a fancier car, more frivolous luxuries, or a higher paying job than someone else is important to them. The single biggest weakness of most (otherwise decent, normal) parents is that they think they can hide their hypocrisy from their children. The children see it, even if they don't really want to. They might get scolded, or called ungrateful, or otherwise intimidated (i.e. bullied) into not saying that they see it, but they do see it. The reason why you don't bully your children this way is because it establishes a pattern that ensures they grow up to be subject to bullies all their lives. If you've ever known people who were just complete pushovers and never stood up for themselves, this is how they got to be that way.
Sounds like they were trying to create the online equivalent of "disorderly conduct." That is, "we don't have any other crime to charge you with but we really, really don't like you, so have this generic charge instead."
It's scarier than that; they were claiming that a TOS violation was enough to charge you under CFAA (unauthorized access, or exceeding authorized access). If that were true, being rude on a message board (that banned such behavior in its TOS) would be a criminal offense. It would be possible to charge almost any person with a crime for "hacking".
If government exploited a tragedy in order to create a law or set a precedent that expands its powers, it certainly wouldn't be the first time.
They're vultures, only they're worse than vultures because an animal cannot help but be what it is. Those of you who welcome increasing centalization and increasing state control might be well-meaning but you have no clue concerning what kind of people are bringing it to you.
Allegedly. Prior to the original verdict, even the girl's mother confirmed the she and her daughter had argued when her daughter tried to speak to her about the supposed boy who broke her heart. It was not directly after she received the message "the world would be better off without you" when the girl hung herself, but after an argument with her mother and her mother left for work.
I have no doubt that Lori Drew's actions were a contributor to the girl's behavior, but I don't believe it was the only catalyst.
What disturbs me significantly more is that a child can have such deep and painful psychological problems without a parent, or a teacher, or a neighbor, or a peer, noticing this and doing something about it.
It's sort of like the Columbine massacre. Those boys obtained guns and ammunition and assembled homemade bombs in their bedrooms without the parents even noticing that something wasn't right about them. If they did notice, they didn't step up to the plate and act like parents.
Do some parents really believe that they can be so uninvolved in the lives of minor children who really need their loving guidance without something bad happening? Does some disaster or massacre really have to take place before people decide that this is a really bad idea? I bet one person who really gives a shit can accomplish what hundreds of metal detectors could never do. Usually the subject is computer security when I say things like "we as a culture do not believe in prevention, in being proactive, or in exercising foresight" but things like this are sad reminders of just how deeply ingrained this character flaw really is.
It's a raw that Lori Drew won't be held responsible for her actions, but I prefer not stretching and bending the law to meet an emotional need. New situations arise, people suffer, but hopefully some level headed evolution of the law can deal better with similar occurrences in the future.
That said, Lori Drew is an evil cunt.
Instead of wallowing in how evil such people are (and I do not doubt that), why don't we instead teach young people that this is why you cannot base your life's meaning and your self-esteem on the writings of pseudononymous trolls? And then, instead of merely paying lip service to the concept, give them good examples of what it means to find those things from within by both celebrating and striving to be those strong individuals who understand this?
That would accomplish so much more than another two minutes hate.
Drew was accused of participating in a cyberbullying scheme against a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide. The case against Drew hinged on the governmentâ(TM)s novel argument that violating MySpaceâ(TM)s terms of service for the purpose of harming another was the legal equivalent of computer hacking.
Sounds like they were trying to create the online equivalent of "disorderly conduct." That is, "we don't have any other crime to charge you with but we really, really don't like you, so have this generic charge instead."
The stated reason is that, if vendors will refuse to implement a portion of the spec, that part shouldn't be in the spec. The spec isn't supposed to force vendors to implement something, it's supposed to be a common set of rules that everyone can follow, and mandating Theora is counter to that goal.
Sure, but there needs to be a way to distinguish between:
A) refusing to implement because there are sound engineering reasons not to do so
B) refusing to implement because doing so would make it harder for a company to lock people into proprietary formats
No standards body worthy of the slightest respect should ever concern itself with that second category.
I am not fond of putting it this way, but I think what really needs to happen is for the average user to grow a pair and realize why Item B is not in their interests and never will be. So long as the masses of users have no understanding of these things, it is always going to be an uphill battle to maintain an Internet that is as free and open as possible.
Perhaps it is a stupid question but why do the vendors have a say what goes into the spec and what doesn't? Isn't it up to them to choose to implement the spec fully or not? FFS just make it Ogg Vorbis/Theora and if Apple doesn't want to support it then Safari can just not support that part of the spec. It isn't like any of the browser are 100% complient anyway.
I feel the same way. The only requirement for the spec should be that it's a free, open standard that anyone can use, unrestricted, without having to worry about any sort of royalties or other payments. So far as I know, Vorbis/Theora like what you describe meets that criteria.
It's a shame this didn't work out. What I'd really like to see is for Flash and Silverlight and all these other proprietary/encumbered formats go the way of the dinosaur and become replaced by truly open standards. Hopefully there are or will be other ways to encourage this. The free and open exchange of readily available information without regard for platform is the kind of Internet I want to see more of. Given a choice, I'd rather see both Adobe and Microsoft go bankrupt than see them manipulate what I recognize is not rightfully theirs to control. If we the customers and users offered them this choice, and were willing to vote with our feet and our wallets in order to enforce it, they would get with the program in record time. It'd be nice to see just one such incident to prove to both the companies and the average user that yes, we do have this power so long as our principles come first.
Or another method, don't allow the javascript to see what color the link is. That might break some stuff.
I seriously cannot think of any Web site that would break without this functionality. Though, I may be biased as I have been using NoScript for a long time now and think that default-deny is a great idea. As in, it's borderline negligence that all browsers don't have something like NoScript built in as a standard feature.
Personally I think seeing the color of the link is likely to be a frivolous/cosmetic feature of dubious utility. But let's just assume for the sake of argument that it's a critical feature for some important Web site. In that case, why does JS need to be able to transmit this information back to the Web server?
who's the numbnuts who thought it would be a great idea to make this information available to anyone who asks for it?
Changing the color of a link you've visited has been around forever. Changing the style of a link you've visited to one that can send information back to the server eg "background-image:url(/visited.pl?site=slashdot)", that's newer.
Sorry but I don't think I fully understand how that relates to this story. Would you elaborate please? What you describe there sounds like a re-implementation of so-called "http ping."
FAT is hardly a submarine patent. MS has sued MANY manufacturers over their use of FAT in electronic devices and most companies end up reaching a licensing agreement and the lawsuit is dropped.
Thank you for correcting my ignorance on this matter.
Incidentally, the more I hear of things like this, the better I can understand why so many Europeans think it's absurd that the USA has software patents at all.
I went to the sniffing page linked from the summary and it stayed on 0% for 5 minutes so I guess it does not work for me.
NoScript (I presume) saves the day again!
Well, yeah. The whole thing is JavaScript powered, so if you're not executing their JavaScript it's going to stay at 0% for a lot longer than 5 minutes...
This is defnitely not the first time I was glad I use NoScript.
So just disable your browser history if you are that paranoid about it. It only takes a few clicks in any major browser. Plus if you for some reason don't want to do that, most browsers now have a private mode that doesn't record those sites in the history.
I think the point can be explained this way: "who's the numbnuts who thought it would be a great idea to make this information available to anyone who asks for it?" Speaking generally about all user data and all remote IP addresses, all remote hosts are on a need-to-know basis and 99.999% of the time, they don't need to know. They particularly don't need to know without prompting the user and asking "do you want to give out this information?" with that question defaulting to "No" and a box, checked by default, which says "Remember this preference".
You can subtly dismiss it as paranoia if you like. That doesn't excuse poor design. Also, globally disabling the browser history would deny the remote Web site access to the browser's history, sure, but it would also deprive the user of this local feature. There should be a more reasonable alternative to either "lose this feature" or "make this feature available to anyone who asks with no regard for privacy." Apparently NoScript provides such an alternative.
Slashdot Mirror
Monsanto "pollution free" Oxy-Gen just might be. Their corn is.
Yeah. Do you know much about Monsanto, at all? I assume you do, given the way you have worded that comment.
A person I greatly respect once described them this way: "evil has a name."
I claim MY patent for "a method of monopolizing obvious ideas for which there is lots of prior art by means of convincing the Patent Office that the same old idea, when done with a computer, is somehow radically different and worthy of being treated like a new and innovative invention."
The way I see it, I should make billions. BILLIONS!!
Reading books with ads in them? No thanks. I'll be off to the pirate ba... shit.
Hey look, the story is about advertisements in books. And wow, look at that! - this comment is also about advertising in books! ... and for some reason, it was modded Offtopic.
That's a good example of shitty moderation. As in, this is what not to do.
As for me, do your worst. I have karma to burn. Any points you waste on me for saying what you know to be the fuckin' truth are points you won't waste improperly modding someone else. So, make my day.
That and the GNU Public License makes me think, "man, I'm glad copyright law as we know it is good for something."
Keywords: "as we know it."
Seriously. It means that anyone else with this idiotic idea will have to pay a royalty fee, which should discourage them. Unless you want to fight a prior art campaign against Amazon, claiming magazines with ads are prior art. Either way the money will discourage people from trying and this idea will die a lonely death.
Except for Amazon of course, since they hold the patent. But they can try it, and then they can see for themselves just how great this idea is when they launch it. It'll tank, hard. Nobody will want this.
That's the thing I don't understand, about all of these ideas. None of them come from overwhelming customer demand.
..." "OOOOOhhhh, the plea-for-sanity dollar, that's a HUGE market, HUGE!!"
Am I to believe that no one EVER gives them any suggestions, feature requests, etc.? Should I believe also that they never conduct any sort of market analysis, or hold focus groups, or otherwise try to find out what people already want so that they can come up with ways to meet that need?
This is about control just like far too many things I hear about that come from either corporations or governments. For just that reason, it deserves to fail. Miserably. The problem is that there seems to be a long-standing tradition involving inherently failed ideas: when they don't work out, the perpetrator responds by trying harder instead of recognizing that the idea is a failed idea.
I would like to find a reason not to agree with Bill Hicks and what he said marketers should do ("there's no fuckin' joke"), but I can't. "Ooooh, the anti-marketing dollar, that's a huge market
I've always believed that Microsoft don't really get mission critical software so I'm surprised they got the contract. My experience with their OSs suggests that time and time again they fail to get the basics right or that things just work superficially. They cover this up by submerging it in a slopping sea of unwanted bloaty features.
What this implies is that they must have damned good sales executives to overcome the word on the street.
The only Microsoft products in my personal possession are a keyboard and a mouse. So, I believe this is accurate but I admit up-front that I might have this wrong. Please correct me if I am mistaken.
Does not the standard EULA for Windows specifically state that it is not intended to be used for such mission-critical purposes? If that is the case, then I am all the more surprised that Microsoft themselves supported this venture.
A quote from another source is appropriate here:
This is a good death. There's no shame in this, in a man's death. A man who has done fine works. We're making a better world. All of them - better worlds.
Ah, the movie Serenity. That was definitely a good quote.
Thanks for speaking up. I appreciate it...
It is my privilege.
People think this is "just a Web site." No. The Web site is a reflection of the people who participate in it. It is the people who need to change, to come to see why such abuses are wrong, why it is preferable that we live in a world where people understand these things.
The disasters and massacres HAVE happened, and people still haven't realized it's a bad idea. It's because of our entitlement culture, where all problems are external to you. You can't be the problem... something else (video games, television, big companies, SOMETHING) must have caused it.
I think the problem is that people know the definitions of the words you just used, but cannot appreciate the sum total of what you said and its implications because they really don't know what it means. Thus, they don't know that when they learn something is their own fault, this is good news because that means it is within their control, that they can work to change it. That's so much better than being helpless and it's a shame that so few can appreciate this.
That victim mentality is something I have stood against wherever I have found it. Any flak I have caught for so doing was more than worthwhile.
a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_jeopardy">double jeopardy?
besides, the actual killer got immunity.
it's like one of those Law & Order scenarios where the bad guy got away....legally
Haha Law and Order scenarios indeed. The ones that send the message, "the world would be a safer/better/etc place, if only we didn't have these god-awful technicalities!" Nevermind that those technicalities are one of the stronger reasons why we're not already learning the goose step, because that doesn't make for good TV drama. Nevermind too that the justice system, having full knowledge of those technicalities, can always decide to, y'know, follow the rules.
No, she shouldn't be charged with anything. Charging her with one of the above is far beyond the intent or probably the letter of the law, or are so vague that anyone could be potentially charged with those crimes. We have enough crazy catch-all laws as it is, don't validate their existence just because hang a woman that did something you don't like.
The girl had emotional problems beyond just someone messing with her on the internet, and to be quite honest if your skin is so thin that you can't take being insulted online then you're going to have major problems somewhere down the road. I've been insulted in school far worse than what Lori Drew said, and I'd been physically assaulted in front of teachers and other authority (which I'd consider even far worse than what Lori Drew did) at around the same age that girl was. Retribution isn't going to bring anyone back from the dead, and you can't base "justice" around how someone reacts to what you do (particularly when the outcome is extreme and unforeseeable), only what you actually DO do, because we have no way of peering into a crystal ball to determine the future and that road could take us down a pretty scary place anyway.
The fact that you had to end this with "something" shows that your mindset here is trying to pin something down on this woman, because you're not sure what crime she actually committed. This is a common method of how the police work, especially since we have enough laws that you can find and stretch any law to stick any American in jail, but I am personally disgusted with it. If you're not sure what crime she actually committed then it's probably safe to say that whatever she did, even if it was horrible, probably shouldn't be "a crime" and that any thing you charge her with will be stretching the law past its original intent to satiate some bloodthirsty mob or your own anger. In my opinion, if the action is not obviously a crime (murder, stealing, etc) and you're not sure what crime they may have committed (especially if you're grabbing at straws like "cyberstalking!) then one should be pretty suspicious of bringing in the entire "justice" system from the get-go.
This is yet another manifestation of the "FOR THE CHILDREN!" mindset, except it's more subtle. Fascinating how even many slashdotters fall for it, too... The proper recourse here is socially ostracizing her.
I see the "Troll" mod on this post and I must say something about this.
This person gave an opinion in a calm and non-inflammatory manner. He also gave some reasons to explain why he holds that particular opinion. There is absolutely no reason to believe that this is anything other than a reasonable expression of what he sincerely believes. That's why this moderation is abusive. I'm not saying something because of this particular moderation, but rather, because it has also happened to me personally and because too much of this shit goes on in general.
I've said it before, recently, and I'll say it again. This reminds me of a sig I see from time to time. Mods, read it well and know that it is completely correct: "Slashdot does not have a -1 DisagreeAndWishToCensor moderation, and no, Flamebait, Offtopic, and Troll are not substitutes."
There are few things more petty and childish than trying to shut someone up merely because you disagree with him or don't like what he said. Seriously, grow up and get over yourself and quit trying to punish people for thinking and believing differently than you do. It's really quite shameful.
I read in Section 6.3 of the moderator guidelines that there's some (probably small) chance that moderator access will be revoked for such abusive moderations. You know what? I'm going to submit this to Rob Malda and ask that this be done. No, I don't enjoy doing that and I do
"Lady" is a beautiful word with a beautiful meaning. If you have ever met a real one, then know what I mean. I wish you wouldn't cheapen it that way.
The problem is many parents pay lip service to the concept of finding meaning and strength within, and then they give many subtle indications that what the neighbors think or whether they have a bigger house, a fancier car, more frivolous luxuries, or a higher paying job than someone else is important to them. The single biggest weakness of most (otherwise decent, normal) parents is that they think they can hide their hypocrisy from their children. The children see it, even if they don't really want to. They might get scolded, or called ungrateful, or otherwise intimidated (i.e. bullied) into not saying that they see it, but they do see it. The reason why you don't bully your children this way is because it establishes a pattern that ensures they grow up to be subject to bullies all their lives. If you've ever known people who were just complete pushovers and never stood up for themselves, this is how they got to be that way.
Sounds like they were trying to create the online equivalent of "disorderly conduct." That is, "we don't have any other crime to charge you with but we really, really don't like you, so have this generic charge instead."
It's scarier than that; they were claiming that a TOS violation was enough to charge you under CFAA (unauthorized access, or exceeding authorized access). If that were true, being rude on a message board (that banned such behavior in its TOS) would be a criminal offense. It would be possible to charge almost any person with a crime for "hacking".
If government exploited a tragedy in order to create a law or set a precedent that expands its powers, it certainly wouldn't be the first time.
They're vultures, only they're worse than vultures because an animal cannot help but be what it is. Those of you who welcome increasing centalization and increasing state control might be well-meaning but you have no clue concerning what kind of people are bringing it to you.
She trolled someone to death.
Allegedly. Prior to the original verdict, even the girl's mother confirmed the she and her daughter had argued when her daughter tried to speak to her about the supposed boy who broke her heart. It was not directly after she received the message "the world would be better off without you" when the girl hung herself, but after an argument with her mother and her mother left for work. I have no doubt that Lori Drew's actions were a contributor to the girl's behavior, but I don't believe it was the only catalyst.
What disturbs me significantly more is that a child can have such deep and painful psychological problems without a parent, or a teacher, or a neighbor, or a peer, noticing this and doing something about it.
It's sort of like the Columbine massacre. Those boys obtained guns and ammunition and assembled homemade bombs in their bedrooms without the parents even noticing that something wasn't right about them. If they did notice, they didn't step up to the plate and act like parents.
Do some parents really believe that they can be so uninvolved in the lives of minor children who really need their loving guidance without something bad happening? Does some disaster or massacre really have to take place before people decide that this is a really bad idea? I bet one person who really gives a shit can accomplish what hundreds of metal detectors could never do. Usually the subject is computer security when I say things like "we as a culture do not believe in prevention, in being proactive, or in exercising foresight" but things like this are sad reminders of just how deeply ingrained this character flaw really is.
It's a raw that Lori Drew won't be held responsible for her actions, but I prefer not stretching and bending the law to meet an emotional need. New situations arise, people suffer, but hopefully some level headed evolution of the law can deal better with similar occurrences in the future.
That said, Lori Drew is an evil cunt.
Instead of wallowing in how evil such people are (and I do not doubt that), why don't we instead teach young people that this is why you cannot base your life's meaning and your self-esteem on the writings of pseudononymous trolls? And then, instead of merely paying lip service to the concept, give them good examples of what it means to find those things from within by both celebrating and striving to be those strong individuals who understand this?
That would accomplish so much more than another two minutes hate.
From the article:
Drew was accused of participating in a cyberbullying scheme against a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide. The case against Drew hinged on the governmentâ(TM)s novel argument that violating MySpaceâ(TM)s terms of service for the purpose of harming another was the legal equivalent of computer hacking.
Sounds like they were trying to create the online equivalent of "disorderly conduct." That is, "we don't have any other crime to charge you with but we really, really don't like you, so have this generic charge instead."
The stated reason is that, if vendors will refuse to implement a portion of the spec, that part shouldn't be in the spec. The spec isn't supposed to force vendors to implement something, it's supposed to be a common set of rules that everyone can follow, and mandating Theora is counter to that goal.
Sure, but there needs to be a way to distinguish between:
No standards body worthy of the slightest respect should ever concern itself with that second category.
I am not fond of putting it this way, but I think what really needs to happen is for the average user to grow a pair and realize why Item B is not in their interests and never will be. So long as the masses of users have no understanding of these things, it is always going to be an uphill battle to maintain an Internet that is as free and open as possible.
Perhaps it is a stupid question but why do the vendors have a say what goes into the spec and what doesn't? Isn't it up to them to choose to implement the spec fully or not? FFS just make it Ogg Vorbis/Theora and if Apple doesn't want to support it then Safari can just not support that part of the spec. It isn't like any of the browser are 100% complient anyway.
I feel the same way. The only requirement for the spec should be that it's a free, open standard that anyone can use, unrestricted, without having to worry about any sort of royalties or other payments. So far as I know, Vorbis/Theora like what you describe meets that criteria.
It's a shame this didn't work out. What I'd really like to see is for Flash and Silverlight and all these other proprietary/encumbered formats go the way of the dinosaur and become replaced by truly open standards. Hopefully there are or will be other ways to encourage this. The free and open exchange of readily available information without regard for platform is the kind of Internet I want to see more of. Given a choice, I'd rather see both Adobe and Microsoft go bankrupt than see them manipulate what I recognize is not rightfully theirs to control. If we the customers and users offered them this choice, and were willing to vote with our feet and our wallets in order to enforce it, they would get with the program in record time. It'd be nice to see just one such incident to prove to both the companies and the average user that yes, we do have this power so long as our principles come first.
I am using Firefox 3.0.11 on Ubuntu 9.04 with a T7500 CPU (Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz).
That site pegged one core of my CPU.
Really? That would be damn obvious, not to mention most people would see the slow down and close the browser.
If they were also reading Slashdot then I don't know how the hell they'd notice.
Seriously. I like Slashdot very much, but its JS is atrociously, embarassingly slow.
Or another method, don't allow the javascript to see what color the link is. That might break some stuff.
I seriously cannot think of any Web site that would break without this functionality. Though, I may be biased as I have been using NoScript for a long time now and think that default-deny is a great idea. As in, it's borderline negligence that all browsers don't have something like NoScript built in as a standard feature.
Personally I think seeing the color of the link is likely to be a frivolous/cosmetic feature of dubious utility. But let's just assume for the sake of argument that it's a critical feature for some important Web site. In that case, why does JS need to be able to transmit this information back to the Web server?
who's the numbnuts who thought it would be a great idea to make this information available to anyone who asks for it?
Changing the color of a link you've visited has been around forever. Changing the style of a link you've visited to one that can send information back to the server eg "background-image:url(/visited.pl?site=slashdot)", that's newer.
Sorry but I don't think I fully understand how that relates to this story. Would you elaborate please? What you describe there sounds like a re-implementation of so-called "http ping."
FAT is hardly a submarine patent. MS has sued MANY manufacturers over their use of FAT in electronic devices and most companies end up reaching a licensing agreement and the lawsuit is dropped.
Thank you for correcting my ignorance on this matter.
Incidentally, the more I hear of things like this, the better I can understand why so many Europeans think it's absurd that the USA has software patents at all.
I went to the sniffing page linked from the summary and it stayed on 0% for 5 minutes so I guess it does not work for me. NoScript (I presume) saves the day again!
Well, yeah. The whole thing is JavaScript powered, so if you're not executing their JavaScript it's going to stay at 0% for a lot longer than 5 minutes ...
This is defnitely not the first time I was glad I use NoScript.
So just disable your browser history if you are that paranoid about it. It only takes a few clicks in any major browser. Plus if you for some reason don't want to do that, most browsers now have a private mode that doesn't record those sites in the history.
I think the point can be explained this way: "who's the numbnuts who thought it would be a great idea to make this information available to anyone who asks for it?" Speaking generally about all user data and all remote IP addresses, all remote hosts are on a need-to-know basis and 99.999% of the time, they don't need to know. They particularly don't need to know without prompting the user and asking "do you want to give out this information?" with that question defaulting to "No" and a box, checked by default, which says "Remember this preference".
You can subtly dismiss it as paranoia if you like. That doesn't excuse poor design. Also, globally disabling the browser history would deny the remote Web site access to the browser's history, sure, but it would also deprive the user of this local feature. There should be a more reasonable alternative to either "lose this feature" or "make this feature available to anyone who asks with no regard for privacy." Apparently NoScript provides such an alternative.