No, they'll be perfectly happy. Every kilowatt-hour of energy that you pump back in is one that they're charging someone else for receiving... and only paying you a very small portion of what they charged them. If I recall, if they sell it to someone else for 10 cents, you'll get 1 or 2 cents.
Well, someone has to maintain all those wires! Don't like, it? Build your own electrical grid and bill your own customers.
Except chimps don't earn money, their owners do. It's their owners who pay taxes on that income.
Well, if chimps have human rights, doesn't the fact that they are owned mean they are slaves? Isn't slavery considered to be a crime against humanity by the UN? These "owners" you speak of need to be arrested immediately for crimes against humanity and their slaves released and compensated!
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--> But all it seems to me that they did was look into potentially harmful groups that may pose a security risk And if that's all they did, there wouldn't be an issue. However, a point which the NYT article raises is that NYPD's collection and sharing of information went beyond this. I'm saying that this is something to be wary of, that it can very easily get out of hand.
I don't see this as any different than placing an undercover officer in a drug ring or underground casino or whatever. I mean, going into a bar looking for illegal gaming, it is not known if any crime has been committed. When you send out a "John" to try to hire hookers, up until that point, the suspect has committed no crime. How is this any different than any other undercover operation? Granted, I agree that it could have gotten out of hand, but it didn't. This story is two years old. This happened back in 2004 and nothing came of it. The Republican Brownshirts did not swoop down on these groups and beat them senseless with bars of soap in socks. Nothing came from it. The abuse of power that could have come, didn't. It really is much ado about nothing. No laws were broken. No rights were violated. Nothing happened.
Do you think the NYPD spontaneously decided to spy on democrats (or whoever the RNC wanted info about). Well, I'm sure you were protesting the loudest when the Clintons used the FBI to retrieve information about political opponents. I assume you'll be voting for Ms. Clinton this time around? Still, that's neither here nor there...
I don't know how the police got involved in this but the orders must have come from higher up, Mostly likely from republicans associated with the RNC. I read the article and I didn't see Karl Rove's name mentioned anywhere. Oh, wait, he must have used the dark side of the force to disguise his disfigured face.
Seriously, even when the article makes no mention of Republicans, other than the fact that it was their convention, you assume that Republicans must have been behind the whole thing. You literally read it into the article, even though it is not there. Go back and re-read your post and tell me that you honestly think you can view any story about politics with an open mind and without an anti-conservative bias. Tell me that your mind is not made up before you read anything. It seems to me that in your mind, nothing bad can happen without a Republican being behind it. Unbelievable!
The problem is that when you give people power over other people, abuse all too easily follows. We saw that in Abu Ghraib, and it's been demonstrated over and over in psychological experiments. When you turn someone into a spy, especially someone who isn't properly trained, it can be difficult for them to remember their real mission -- suddenly, finding anything out about anyone starts to seem important. (Some special prosecutors seem to have suffered from this effect, too.) So with operations like this, real care and oversight is needed.
I was in NY during the Republican convention. I wasn't there FOR the convention, but I just happened to have an install that same week in NY. I saw the "protests". These people were allowed to crowd the streets, scream, yell, carry their signs, and even harass anyone they thought to be a delegate, which was anyone not dressed in "protester attire". There was no repression of free speech. There was no oppression of the masses. There were not even that many areas that were blocked off. I was able to walk within a rock's throw of the Garden without any problems whatsoever. One protester even managed her way into the convention itself to disrupt it. These people would block streets, throw things at the delegates and even lay their bodies down on the path to the Garden to try and stop the convention in its tracks.
THAT was the full intention of these "protests". These people were not out there to protest anything. They were out there to disrupt the convention. They wanted to deny the Republicans their right to convention. These people were no different than the brown-shirts of the 1930's and 40's. Their job was to silence all opposing views through any means possible. I see the same thing at pro life marches, support the troop rallies, pro Israeli marches or anything that does not jive with what is, ironically enough, considered to be the PC ideals.
It was not just the job of the NYPD to ensure the Republicans their right to a convention, but to also protect the President, the Vice President and nearly the entire Presidential cabinet. When you have that many high-profile government officials in one place, their safety is a matter of national security. Now if the NYPD kicked down doors, harassed friends, wives and family members of "suspects", and detained "persons of interest", then we'd be on to something. But all it seems to me that they did was look into potentially harmful groups that may pose a security risk.
But its analogy is not well-thought out, I mean, mac looks way nicer than they show it to be. And Linux, well, I dunno how the analogy is supposed to fit into how linux looks. Reality is much closer to Linux having mismatched colored socks, pants from goodwill, and a knock-off designer purse made in China (really, made in China). Not because it doesn't look nice and not because it's knockoff (no matter how well imitated, where is Linux innovation in GUI?), but because of how its put together. And then there are always people competing, within Linux, for your time (Gnome vs. Kde, etc). Instead of a person out of nowhere handing you a nice nifty new jacket, it would probably be a few people handing you nice jackets, all for free of course, and letting you put what in the closet you wish and wear what when you want.
I agree. I think it would have been much better if she had an entire rack of clothes to put on. Maybe hold up a leopard print jacket and say "KDE" and then a black jacket and say "or Gnome?". Then say, "It doesn't matter, I can do all my stuff with either look." At the end, she could pick up a purse or other accessory and say, "Oooh, Karamba!"
And yet it quite legal for topless women to walk down the street (and you do see the odd one) in my country (Canada) and not unusual to see a women breast feeding.
Well, I certainly wouldn't consider breast-feeding porn. Quite the opposite, actually. Nothing has turned me off of breasts faster than seeing a woman breastfeed. Not that it's gross or anything, but when you see something used for what nature intended, it kinda takes the thrill out of it!
But the first part of your argument is best I've read in this entire discussion. Deciding what is porn in the US is easy. Unfortunately, what we consider porn in the US is not considered porn in Germany, or Amsterdam, or Nigeria, or wherever else. So, who's standards do we use?
I don't have an answer for that except that maybe sites that end in.cn (is that correct for Canadian?), a Canadian board decides what domain name goes where. If a site ends in.uk, a board in the UK decides. An Italian board for.it domain names and so on.
The only problem with this that the US controls straight up.com names. I guess that's what you get for inventing it.
"Should we ban all laws where the crime is not plainly defined? " yes.
Uh, like rape (vs. rough sex), murder (vs self defense), parody (vs libel or slander), driving while intoxicated (drugs, not alcohol) and the list goes on. So, you are saying we should repeal all these laws because they are subjective? Subjective laws are not a bad laws. They allow for common sense.
"As for porn, it could be as simple as nudity for non-educational purposes. " no igt doesn't. SOme people might get off an a statue of David. Now it's porn? some people might just enjoy lokoing at it without any 'educational' value. Now it's porn?
Come on now. Are you telling me that you don't know the difference between the statue of David and Ron Jeremy? You can't tell the difference between The Mona Lisa and Jenna Jameson? Someone getting their rox off on it doesn't make it porn. Someone making something with the intent of getting people's rox off is porn. See the difference? National Geographic: not porn. Sears and Roebuck: not porn. Penisbot.com: Porn. It's not that hard to figure out. Maybe a five member porn board could check sites out that are challenging their porn status and make the decision there. See, I'm a mental midget and I can figure it out. I'm sure the geniuses at ICANN can do it too!
early exposure to view sexual acts at too young an age does cause problems. It is well known, many studies have been done. No we shouldn't ban it, but lets be hionest here, m'kay? Well, that's for me decide what is healthy for my kids. If you want your little girl seeing some chick get bukaked while a guy rams it up her ass, that's your business. Something tells me that the majority of the parents are with me and would like a little help managing it. I'm not saying that anything at all should be blocked, just categorized so it's easier for parents who don't know how to set up IPTables and Squid stand a chance at controlling what goes on with their home networks while the are at work, or grocery store, or in the shower, or on the crapper or wherever else they may be when they are not watching their kids like hawks.
Of course, how to you enforce this rule? If there was a practicle way to enforce this rule, then there would be a practicle way to block porn now. That is how the internet was intended and designed. Simple. ICANN controls domain names. If you display porn, you must have a.xxx domain name. ICANN controls and enforces it. ICANN can enforce domain names, that is what they do. ICANN can not control what goes on websites (like porn sites must have pr0n in the header or something), but they can sure as hell control who gets what domain names. That is what this whole debate is about. Again, no one is trying to say what can go on these sites. Please stop straw-manning this into a censorship arguments.
The internet is not a bunch of computer hooked to some grand central ISP. No, but there is a grand central authority that controls domain names, which is what we are talking about here.
There is no practicle solution. IF thre were a solution that allowed individual house holds to easily block porn, that would be great, but there isn't. THIS is a practical solution. THIS allows individual households to easily block porn. And since you say that this would be great, why are you arguing?
So people are going to ned to wise up and relize two things:
1) Take steps to control your computer. There won't ba a one solution solves everything answer This helps with that. Of course this is not the end-all-be-all solution. There's still newsgroups, email, IRC, torrents and so on that this will not block.
2) RElize that your going to see some skin once and a while, deal with it. I realize that people are going to get murdered and women are going to be raped. Does that mean I should oppose laws against it?
Personally, I hope the internet helps the world get to
What about non-nude pictures which have still been intended for sexual arousal? This is especially the case with less-vanilla stuff like BDSM material. And whilst you and I might count that as erotica rather than pornography, bear in mind that many people and Governments do not (e.g., the UK Government's definition of pornography in their plans to criminalise possession of simulated and consensual "extreme porn" is any image which was produced for the purposes of arousal, whether or not it shows nudity or sex). Tough call, but there are porn laws on the books now. I don't see why ICANN just adopt some of the currently existing laws and use those. I get your point but I think something like foot-fetish sites would serve as a better example. It will be subjective, no doubt, but it is certainly doable.
On the other hand, there could be nude pictures which aren't porn, but aren't educational either. I mean, would a topless woman count? Breastfeeding? What about nudists? Yes, probably no and yes.
Another problem, even if we have a fixed definition of porn, is that it's not easily to split everything up into different websites. For example, what if someone wants to post an erotic picture on their LiveJournal? Suddenly we'd have to have LiveJournal.xxx, and split it across two domains. What about national geographic, Victoria's Secret or Sears & Roebuck's bra and panty section? I agree, it's subjective and some will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Personally I think rather than trying to split off "porn", it would be better to split off a "for kiddies [and anyone offended by stuff they don't have to look at] only" domain, leaving an "adult" Internet for the rest of us. Good point, but that's like doing away with traffic laws altogether except for "old people driving" lanes that are padded surrounded by blockades and have a speed-limit of 20!
Yes but going through a criminal trial to assess every website is not practical.
And it's not clear how to handle the Internet being international - I suppose servers are still in one country, but it becomes difficult if every country has different requirements.
Actually, wouldn't ICANN (or whoever is in charge of domain names) handle this? I don't see why you need to get the courts involved unless Phil Flash wants his stuff declared as art as opposed to porn and sues to keep his.com name since there's really no actual nudity on his site (as far as I know anyway. I don't pay for porn...especially when it may not even be porn!). I think he'd have a good case.
Well yes I agree with you here, but I'm tempted to go for a more broader "for adults / no children", so it doesn't have the same connotations of being just porn.
I agree that would be much better. If we could just have porn admins use proper tagging, this wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way that this could be enforced. I would certainly agree to a.adult tag as opposed to a.xxx one, but I don't see how this would not expand the debate we're currently seeing.xxx!
My concern with a specific domain is that is simply will not give protection but Mr and Mrs Ignorant will think it does; it is the parent's responsablilty to monitor their children; not the ISP; not anyone else. So I certainly concede the point that people are already ignorant and that this won't make them more ignorant; maybe this will help but I just think it will make porn easier to find
Good point. I agree that it is the parent's responsibility to raise their own children (the village can go screw itself!). I'm sure that your experience with filtering software showed you how ineffective it can be, especially with ignorant parents. This could be a tool that makes it easier to do. I'm not suggesting that it is the responsibility of the ISP to block questionable content, especially since, right now, I doubt that they could do a very good job of it!.xxx domain names could make it so easy that even an ISP could do it. Granted, it's not a cure. Domain names have no effect on newsgroups, IRC, bit torrent or other methods of sharing, so, like you, I will still recommend keeping the computer in the family room! However, will prevent the teacher from accidentally (ignorantly) typing in whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov.
Oh and what is wrong with coding in Assembler???;-) About the same as writing letter to mum using a hammer, chisel and stone tablet as opposed to paper and pen. You end up with a much higher quality product, but it's hardly efficient:-)
Is a family photo album site, which happens to contain pictures of a kid taking a bath, "educational?" Is artistic photography "educational?" I'd say "no" and "no." But neither of them are "porn," either!
Current laws define what porn is and yeah, it's subjective. Photo processing labs all over the country deal with this every day. Sometimes people get stupid and call the cops over a baby in the bathtub picture. Sometimes, people get stupid and take a picture of their child in the bathtub when the "child" is 12! So yeah, some of these are going to have to be handled on a case-by-case basis. And yes, those deciding will have to use common sense because it is subjective. Then again, so are murder laws and many other laws on the books. Are you suggesting that we throw out all laws that are not pure black and white? A baby in a bathtub is not porn. It lacks class in my opinion, but I wouldn't call it porn. Sites like Crush-photo, Met-Art, and even Playboy are done artistically, but I think they easily qualify as porn. I don't think you would find too many that would argue with that and deciding what is porn and what is not is not really that hard to do.
Therein lies the problem - what's porn? Nekkid chicks? Nope - half the Smithsonian's art collection would qualify. Is it nekkid people doing the nasty? Umm, nope - plenty of porn sites specialize in costumes and full rubber body suits. Sexual depiction? Well, there goes every health site which does 2d and 3d clinical cut-away renderings showing how human reproduction occurs.
Difficult to define or enforce should not be a reason to avoid a law. What constitutes murder vs. manslaughter vs self defense? What is the difference between libel and parody? Should we ban all laws where the crime is not plainly defined? As for porn, it could be as simple as nudity for non-educational purposes. This would exclude "art", anatomy or whatever else people are afraid of being banned. Telling the difference between porn and art is not really that difficult but may be difficult to define. Phil-flash.com is porn as far as I can tell, but there is no nudity there. That site may get the slip and stay with its.com name. So yeah, there is a gray area, but that can be worked out without too much grief.
Also - let's look at a state like Utah... the place is hella restrictive on what it considers "porn"; I could see the Utah state legislature mandating that ALL ISP's who do business there block the entire.xxx TLD from its citizenry. Adults, kids, whomever... everybody looking for pr0n gets the firewall in the land of Deseret. I suspect that more than a few counties and towns/cities/etc in the Southern US would happily pass similar laws (see also alcohol and "Wet Counties" vs. "Dry Counties") Care to be a multi-state or multi-national ISP having to add that selective and patchwork firewall burden to your list of things to do?
If that's what the good citizens of Utah want, then that is what they should be allowed to have. (This is why I don't live in Utah, btw!) As for the national ISP's that do business in Utah, I'm sure they have DNS servers set up locally in Utah. If not, it really isn't that big of deal to set them up. Otherwise, don't do business in Utah. What's the problem here? Hell, it would actually make it easier to do business in Utah as it would be easier to block the content that the legislature requires.
Just looks to be more trouble than it's worth on a macro scale, IMHO. I agree that it is not perfect and there will be some valid complaints. Personally, I like my porn and I'm tired of people saying it's harmful to children and trying to restrict or eliminate it using that argument. Take away that argument and you take away the primary excuse for restrictions. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it!
The problem is that there is no way to define what IS and IS NOT porn.
I think it's a bit easier than "I'll know it when I see it."
How about "if it shows nudity for non-educational purposes." If there's any doubt, you could set up a board or something to decide disputes. It's really not that hard to figure out. (pun not intended!) Ron Jeremy movies were not rated G for a reason.
This is a bad idea IMHO - anything that makes mum and dad ignorant think that the Internet is a safe environment and absolves them of responsablitly for supervising their children on the internet is a bad idea.
That's like saying anything that makes the sky blue... Most parents are already ignorant! You could also say that GUI's should be banned because they make the computer user ignorant... or that C++ should be banned because it makes programmers ignorant (as opposed to using straight assembly or even writing in true binary!). Should we ban cars because they make us fat?
I could go on and on here, but making something easy does not make people ignorant! It makes the ignorant able to do more!
I fail to understand why we DON'T have.xxx domain names. If we did, we could lump all the porn sites together, making them both easier to find and easier to block. No one would accidentally stumble upon a porn site while looking for something completely unrelated (remember whitehouse.com?). This also gives the added advantage of freeing up porn sites to do more of whatever it is they wish to do. Gone is the excuse of "What about the children?" because blocking it would be so easy, than even an ISP could do it. Imagine, all you have to do is call your ISP and say, "Please block all html-based porn. Thank you." All your ISP would need to do is simply block all.xxx domain names. Your children are safe and porn operators have that much more freedom!
I don't understand how this is NOT a win-win for everyone! (Except for those that either want to block porn altogether and those that want to make it that much easier to "stumble on." F*ck both those groups!)
It's hard enough for me accept the name "Ubuntu", let alone their release names. I wonder if they could have a contest to actually make the version names somehow worse. I'm sure I would get a lot of street cred with the other IT guys when I tell them I run "Feisty Fawn". I'll have to make sure to wear my neckerchief...
Are you running the "Stoned Beaver" "Out of Detox" or "Feisty Dunnart" kernel?
(in other words, code names suck, but there is no way around them)
Performance is no longer an issue! The speed for both APIs has come out exactly even for well written programs. The performance can only be gauged per machine, and that by testing. There is no way to predict which will run faster.
However, as another poster pointed out, these links are pretty dated and do not include the latest OpenGL or DX10. From what I gathered from your links and my own quick and inadequate research is this:
DirectX10 is much easier to write for due to the managed code aspect of.Net, but you are limiting yourself to Windows users. OpenGL is portable and will run on any platform that supports it, which includes the big 3 (Windows, Linux and OSX). Performance is a push as it depends more on the drivers than the software itself.
Now mayhap the OP is writing about Direct3D... in that case, even DirectX 9.x's version of Direct3d features a LOT more functionality than OpenGL's most recent revision contains.
Anyone else able to confirm this? I'm no developer so I'm fairly ignorant on the matter. However, when someone that goes by MSFanBoi2 says that MS's proprietary product is better than an open standard, I take it with a grain of salt.
Slashdot Mirror
No, they'll be perfectly happy. Every kilowatt-hour of energy that you pump back in is one that they're charging someone else for receiving... and only paying you a very small portion of what they charged them. If I recall, if they sell it to someone else for 10 cents, you'll get 1 or 2 cents.
Well, someone has to maintain all those wires! Don't like, it? Build your own electrical grid and bill your own customers.
Any chance to actually use that lightning for energy as well?
Worked for Doc Brown and Marty McFly!
Except chimps don't earn money, their owners do. It's their owners who pay taxes on that income.
Well, if chimps have human rights, doesn't the fact that they are owned mean they are slaves? Isn't slavery considered to be a crime against humanity by the UN? These "owners" you speak of need to be arrested immediately for crimes against humanity and their slaves released and compensated!
Can someone please explain how a 340 pilot can see 5nm *behind* the aircraft? They don't exactly have rear-view mirrors, ya know...
Maybe he flew under it.
Is this an early April Fool's joke or something?
The Saturn North Pole? Isn't that where Saturn Clause lives? Maybe he has something to do with it.
Warning: if you do not follow the group think and echo the popular sentiment being expressed in the thread, you will be labeled "Flamebait". Evidently, it is not enough to follow big brother, you must love him as well.
--> But all it seems to me that they did was look into potentially harmful groups that may pose a security risk
And if that's all they did, there wouldn't be an issue. However, a point which the NYT article raises is that NYPD's collection and sharing of information went beyond this. I'm saying that this is something to be wary of, that it can very easily get out of hand.
I don't see this as any different than placing an undercover officer in a drug ring or underground casino or whatever. I mean, going into a bar looking for illegal gaming, it is not known if any crime has been committed. When you send out a "John" to try to hire hookers, up until that point, the suspect has committed no crime. How is this any different than any other undercover operation?
Granted, I agree that it could have gotten out of hand, but it didn't. This story is two years old. This happened back in 2004 and nothing came of it. The Republican Brownshirts did not swoop down on these groups and beat them senseless with bars of soap in socks. Nothing came from it. The abuse of power that could have come, didn't. It really is much ado about nothing. No laws were broken. No rights were violated. Nothing happened.
Do you think the NYPD spontaneously decided to spy on democrats (or whoever the RNC wanted info about).
Well, I'm sure you were protesting the loudest when the Clintons used the FBI to retrieve information about political opponents. I assume you'll be voting for Ms. Clinton this time around? Still, that's neither here nor there...
I don't know how the police got involved in this but the orders must have come from higher up, Mostly likely from republicans associated with the RNC.
I read the article and I didn't see Karl Rove's name mentioned anywhere. Oh, wait, he must have used the dark side of the force to disguise his disfigured face.
Seriously, even when the article makes no mention of Republicans, other than the fact that it was their convention, you assume that Republicans must have been behind the whole thing. You literally read it into the article, even though it is not there. Go back and re-read your post and tell me that you honestly think you can view any story about politics with an open mind and without an anti-conservative bias. Tell me that your mind is not made up before you read anything. It seems to me that in your mind, nothing bad can happen without a Republican being behind it. Unbelievable!
The problem is that when you give people power over other people, abuse all too easily follows. We saw that in Abu Ghraib, and it's been demonstrated over and over in psychological experiments. When you turn someone into a spy, especially someone who isn't properly trained, it can be difficult for them to remember their real mission -- suddenly, finding anything out about anyone starts to seem important. (Some special prosecutors seem to have suffered from this effect, too.) So with operations like this, real care and oversight is needed.
I was in NY during the Republican convention. I wasn't there FOR the convention, but I just happened to have an install that same week in NY. I saw the "protests". These people were allowed to crowd the streets, scream, yell, carry their signs, and even harass anyone they thought to be a delegate, which was anyone not dressed in "protester attire". There was no repression of free speech. There was no oppression of the masses. There were not even that many areas that were blocked off. I was able to walk within a rock's throw of the Garden without any problems whatsoever. One protester even managed her way into the convention itself to disrupt it. These people would block streets, throw things at the delegates and even lay their bodies down on the path to the Garden to try and stop the convention in its tracks.
THAT was the full intention of these "protests". These people were not out there to protest anything. They were out there to disrupt the convention. They wanted to deny the Republicans their right to convention. These people were no different than the brown-shirts of the 1930's and 40's. Their job was to silence all opposing views through any means possible. I see the same thing at pro life marches, support the troop rallies, pro Israeli marches or anything that does not jive with what is, ironically enough, considered to be the PC ideals.
It was not just the job of the NYPD to ensure the Republicans their right to a convention, but to also protect the President, the Vice President and nearly the entire Presidential cabinet. When you have that many high-profile government officials in one place, their safety is a matter of national security. Now if the NYPD kicked down doors, harassed friends, wives and family members of "suspects", and detained "persons of interest", then we'd be on to something. But all it seems to me that they did was look into potentially harmful groups that may pose a security risk.
Since when is the NYPD Republican?
But its analogy is not well-thought out, I mean, mac looks way nicer than they show it to be. And Linux, well, I dunno how the analogy is supposed to fit into how linux looks. Reality is much closer to Linux having mismatched colored socks, pants from goodwill, and a knock-off designer purse made in China (really, made in China). Not because it doesn't look nice and not because it's knockoff (no matter how well imitated, where is Linux innovation in GUI?), but because of how its put together. And then there are always people competing, within Linux, for your time (Gnome vs. Kde, etc). Instead of a person out of nowhere handing you a nice nifty new jacket, it would probably be a few people handing you nice jackets, all for free of course, and letting you put what in the closet you wish and wear what when you want.
I agree. I think it would have been much better if she had an entire rack of clothes to put on. Maybe hold up a leopard print jacket and say "KDE" and then a black jacket and say "or Gnome?". Then say, "It doesn't matter, I can do all my stuff with either look." At the end, she could pick up a purse or other accessory and say, "Oooh, Karamba!"
And yet it quite legal for topless women to walk down the street (and you do see the odd one) in my country (Canada) and not unusual to see a women breast feeding.
.cn (is that correct for Canadian?), a Canadian board decides what domain name goes where. If a site ends in .uk, a board in the UK decides. An Italian board for .it domain names and so on.
.com names. I guess that's what you get for inventing it.
Well, I certainly wouldn't consider breast-feeding porn. Quite the opposite, actually. Nothing has turned me off of breasts faster than seeing a woman breastfeed. Not that it's gross or anything, but when you see something used for what nature intended, it kinda takes the thrill out of it!
But the first part of your argument is best I've read in this entire discussion. Deciding what is porn in the US is easy. Unfortunately, what we consider porn in the US is not considered porn in Germany, or Amsterdam, or Nigeria, or wherever else. So, who's standards do we use?
I don't have an answer for that except that maybe sites that end in
The only problem with this that the US controls straight up
"Should we ban all laws where the crime is not plainly defined? "
.xxx domain name. ICANN controls and enforces it. ICANN can enforce domain names, that is what they do. ICANN can not control what goes on websites (like porn sites must have pr0n in the header or something), but they can sure as hell control who gets what domain names. That is what this whole debate is about. Again, no one is trying to say what can go on these sites. Please stop straw-manning this into a censorship arguments.
yes.
Uh, like rape (vs. rough sex), murder (vs self defense), parody (vs libel or slander), driving while intoxicated (drugs, not alcohol) and the list goes on. So, you are saying we should repeal all these laws because they are subjective? Subjective laws are not a bad laws. They allow for common sense.
"As for porn, it could be as simple as nudity for non-educational purposes. "
no igt doesn't. SOme people might get off an a statue of David. Now it's porn? some people might just enjoy lokoing at it without any 'educational' value. Now it's porn?
Come on now. Are you telling me that you don't know the difference between the statue of David and Ron Jeremy? You can't tell the difference between The Mona Lisa and Jenna Jameson? Someone getting their rox off on it doesn't make it porn. Someone making something with the intent of getting people's rox off is porn. See the difference? National Geographic: not porn. Sears and Roebuck: not porn. Penisbot.com: Porn. It's not that hard to figure out. Maybe a five member porn board could check sites out that are challenging their porn status and make the decision there. See, I'm a mental midget and I can figure it out. I'm sure the geniuses at ICANN can do it too!
early exposure to view sexual acts at too young an age does cause problems. It is well known, many studies have been done. No we shouldn't ban it, but lets be hionest here, m'kay?
Well, that's for me decide what is healthy for my kids. If you want your little girl seeing some chick get bukaked while a guy rams it up her ass, that's your business. Something tells me that the majority of the parents are with me and would like a little help managing it. I'm not saying that anything at all should be blocked, just categorized so it's easier for parents who don't know how to set up IPTables and Squid stand a chance at controlling what goes on with their home networks while the are at work, or grocery store, or in the shower, or on the crapper or wherever else they may be when they are not watching their kids like hawks.
Of course, how to you enforce this rule? If there was a practicle way to enforce this rule, then there would be a practicle way to block porn now. That is how the internet was intended and designed.
Simple. ICANN controls domain names. If you display porn, you must have a
The internet is not a bunch of computer hooked to some grand central ISP.
No, but there is a grand central authority that controls domain names, which is what we are talking about here.
There is no practicle solution. IF thre were a solution that allowed individual house holds to easily block porn, that would be great, but there isn't.
THIS is a practical solution. THIS allows individual households to easily block porn. And since you say that this would be great, why are you arguing?
So people are going to ned to wise up and relize two things:
1) Take steps to control your computer. There won't ba a one solution solves everything answer
This helps with that. Of course this is not the end-all-be-all solution. There's still newsgroups, email, IRC, torrents and so on that this will not block.
2) RElize that your going to see some skin once and a while, deal with it.
I realize that people are going to get murdered and women are going to be raped. Does that mean I should oppose laws against it?
Personally, I hope the internet helps the world get to
What about non-nude pictures which have still been intended for sexual arousal? This is especially the case with less-vanilla stuff like BDSM material. And whilst you and I might count that as erotica rather than pornography, bear in mind that many people and Governments do not (e.g., the UK Government's definition of pornography in their plans to criminalise possession of simulated and consensual "extreme porn" is any image which was produced for the purposes of arousal, whether or not it shows nudity or sex).
Tough call, but there are porn laws on the books now. I don't see why ICANN just adopt some of the currently existing laws and use those. I get your point but I think something like foot-fetish sites would serve as a better example. It will be subjective, no doubt, but it is certainly doable.
On the other hand, there could be nude pictures which aren't porn, but aren't educational either. I mean, would a topless woman count? Breastfeeding? What about nudists?
Yes, probably no and yes.
Another problem, even if we have a fixed definition of porn, is that it's not easily to split everything up into different websites. For example, what if someone wants to post an erotic picture on their LiveJournal? Suddenly we'd have to have LiveJournal.xxx, and split it across two domains.
What about national geographic, Victoria's Secret or Sears & Roebuck's bra and panty section? I agree, it's subjective and some will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Personally I think rather than trying to split off "porn", it would be better to split off a "for kiddies [and anyone offended by stuff they don't have to look at] only" domain, leaving an "adult" Internet for the rest of us.
Good point, but that's like doing away with traffic laws altogether except for "old people driving" lanes that are padded surrounded by blockades and have a speed-limit of 20!
Yes but going through a criminal trial to assess every website is not practical.
.com name since there's really no actual nudity on his site (as far as I know anyway. I don't pay for porn...especially when it may not even be porn!). I think he'd have a good case.
.adult tag as opposed to a .xxx one, but I don't see how this would not expand the debate we're currently seeing .xxx!
And it's not clear how to handle the Internet being international - I suppose servers are still in one country, but it becomes difficult if every country has different requirements.
Actually, wouldn't ICANN (or whoever is in charge of domain names) handle this? I don't see why you need to get the courts involved unless Phil Flash wants his stuff declared as art as opposed to porn and sues to keep his
Well yes I agree with you here, but I'm tempted to go for a more broader "for adults / no children", so it doesn't have the same connotations of being just porn.
I agree that would be much better. If we could just have porn admins use proper tagging, this wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way that this could be enforced. I would certainly agree to a
My concern with a specific domain is that is simply will not give protection but Mr and Mrs Ignorant will think it does; it is the parent's responsablilty to monitor their children; not the ISP; not anyone else. So I certainly concede the point that people are already ignorant and that this won't make them more ignorant; maybe this will help but I just think it will make porn easier to find
.xxx domain names could make it so easy that even an ISP could do it. Granted, it's not a cure. Domain names have no effect on newsgroups, IRC, bit torrent or other methods of sharing, so, like you, I will still recommend keeping the computer in the family room! However, will prevent the teacher from accidentally (ignorantly) typing in whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov.
;-) :-)
Good point. I agree that it is the parent's responsibility to raise their own children (the village can go screw itself!). I'm sure that your experience with filtering software showed you how ineffective it can be, especially with ignorant parents. This could be a tool that makes it easier to do. I'm not suggesting that it is the responsibility of the ISP to block questionable content, especially since, right now, I doubt that they could do a very good job of it!
Oh and what is wrong with coding in Assembler???
About the same as writing letter to mum using a hammer, chisel and stone tablet as opposed to paper and pen. You end up with a much higher quality product, but it's hardly efficient
Is a family photo album site, which happens to contain pictures of a kid taking a bath, "educational?" Is artistic photography "educational?" I'd say "no" and "no." But neither of them are "porn," either!
Current laws define what porn is and yeah, it's subjective. Photo processing labs all over the country deal with this every day. Sometimes people get stupid and call the cops over a baby in the bathtub picture. Sometimes, people get stupid and take a picture of their child in the bathtub when the "child" is 12! So yeah, some of these are going to have to be handled on a case-by-case basis. And yes, those deciding will have to use common sense because it is subjective. Then again, so are murder laws and many other laws on the books. Are you suggesting that we throw out all laws that are not pure black and white? A baby in a bathtub is not porn. It lacks class in my opinion, but I wouldn't call it porn. Sites like Crush-photo, Met-Art, and even Playboy are done artistically, but I think they easily qualify as porn. I don't think you would find too many that would argue with that and deciding what is porn and what is not is not really that hard to do.
Therein lies the problem - what's porn? Nekkid chicks? Nope - half the Smithsonian's art collection would qualify. Is it nekkid people doing the nasty? Umm, nope - plenty of porn sites specialize in costumes and full rubber body suits. Sexual depiction? Well, there goes every health site which does 2d and 3d clinical cut-away renderings showing how human reproduction occurs.
.com name. So yeah, there is a gray area, but that can be worked out without too much grief.
.xxx TLD from its citizenry. Adults, kids, whomever... everybody looking for pr0n gets the firewall in the land of Deseret. I suspect that more than a few counties and towns/cities/etc in the Southern US would happily pass similar laws (see also alcohol and "Wet Counties" vs. "Dry Counties") Care to be a multi-state or multi-national ISP having to add that selective and patchwork firewall burden to your list of things to do?
Difficult to define or enforce should not be a reason to avoid a law. What constitutes murder vs. manslaughter vs self defense? What is the difference between libel and parody? Should we ban all laws where the crime is not plainly defined? As for porn, it could be as simple as nudity for non-educational purposes. This would exclude "art", anatomy or whatever else people are afraid of being banned. Telling the difference between porn and art is not really that difficult but may be difficult to define. Phil-flash.com is porn as far as I can tell, but there is no nudity there. That site may get the slip and stay with its
Also - let's look at a state like Utah... the place is hella restrictive on what it considers "porn"; I could see the Utah state legislature mandating that ALL ISP's who do business there block the entire
If that's what the good citizens of Utah want, then that is what they should be allowed to have. (This is why I don't live in Utah, btw!) As for the national ISP's that do business in Utah, I'm sure they have DNS servers set up locally in Utah. If not, it really isn't that big of deal to set them up. Otherwise, don't do business in Utah. What's the problem here? Hell, it would actually make it easier to do business in Utah as it would be easier to block the content that the legislature requires.
Just looks to be more trouble than it's worth on a macro scale, IMHO.
I agree that it is not perfect and there will be some valid complaints. Personally, I like my porn and I'm tired of people saying it's harmful to children and trying to restrict or eliminate it using that argument. Take away that argument and you take away the primary excuse for restrictions. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it!
The problem is that there is no way to define what IS and IS NOT porn.
I think it's a bit easier than "I'll know it when I see it."
How about "if it shows nudity for non-educational purposes." If there's any doubt, you could set up a board or something to decide disputes. It's really not that hard to figure out. (pun not intended!) Ron Jeremy movies were not rated G for a reason.
This is a bad idea IMHO - anything that makes mum and dad ignorant think that the Internet is a safe environment and absolves them of responsablitly for supervising their children on the internet is a bad idea.
That's like saying anything that makes the sky blue... Most parents are already ignorant! You could also say that GUI's should be banned because they make the computer user ignorant... or that C++ should be banned because it makes programmers ignorant (as opposed to using straight assembly or even writing in true binary!). Should we ban cars because they make us fat?
I could go on and on here, but making something easy does not make people ignorant! It makes the ignorant able to do more!
I fail to understand why we DON'T have .xxx domain names. If we did, we could lump all the porn sites together, making them both easier to find and easier to block. No one would accidentally stumble upon a porn site while looking for something completely unrelated (remember whitehouse.com?). This also gives the added advantage of freeing up porn sites to do more of whatever it is they wish to do. Gone is the excuse of "What about the children?" because blocking it would be so easy, than even an ISP could do it. Imagine, all you have to do is call your ISP and say, "Please block all html-based porn. Thank you." All your ISP would need to do is simply block all .xxx domain names. Your children are safe and porn operators have that much more freedom!
I don't understand how this is NOT a win-win for everyone! (Except for those that either want to block porn altogether and those that want to make it that much easier to "stumble on." F*ck both those groups!)
It's hard enough for me accept the name "Ubuntu", let alone their release names. I wonder if they could have a contest to actually make the version names somehow worse. I'm sure I would get a lot of street cred with the other IT guys when I tell them I run "Feisty Fawn". I'll have to make sure to wear my neckerchief...
Are you running the "Stoned Beaver" "Out of Detox" or "Feisty Dunnart" kernel?
(in other words, code names suck, but there is no way around them)
However, as another poster pointed out, these links are pretty dated and do not include the latest OpenGL or DX10. From what I gathered from your links and my own quick and inadequate research is this:
DirectX10 is much easier to write for due to the managed code aspect of
OpenGL is portable and will run on any platform that supports it, which includes the big 3 (Windows, Linux and OSX).
Performance is a push as it depends more on the drivers than the software itself.
Oh, and running either in software mode sux!
DirectX has a LOT more functionality than OpenGL.
Now mayhap the OP is writing about Direct3D... in that case, even DirectX 9.x's version of Direct3d features a LOT more functionality than OpenGL's most recent revision contains.
Anyone else able to confirm this? I'm no developer so I'm fairly ignorant on the matter. However, when someone that goes by MSFanBoi2 says that MS's proprietary product is better than an open standard, I take it with a grain of salt.