Given that MS was in on the development, and we can assume the requirements were known, it's a straight out case of vendor (and consultants) lying about the capabilities of the project, and customer later finding out the hard way.
But then again, spun that way it wouldn't be news.
the need to continue to protect the public from obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy material,
Uh, maybe I missed something here. Did they display their simulated rape in a public square? Is it "the public" or isn't it rather voluntary customers of such material?
I believe you are giving our ancestors more credit than they are due with the "heavens" thing.
We have quite solid linguistic and historic evidence that abstract thinking of the kind we consider normal today is a relatively recent invention, definitely not made before the greeks (and thus after most of the old testament). Ancient man was very much "grounded in reality" in his speech and thoughts. For example, the "burning bush" part is almost certainly a hallucination, not a metaphor.
I do agree that the meaning of ancient texts has changed over time. What you see in the bible is certainly not the same meaning that some early christian saw in it. The discussion usually centers on individual terms (the most famous one being he "young woman" vs. "virgin" debate, of course), but it applies much more so to general meaning and view of the world.
You should also note that art especially was not as removed from reality as we see it today. For almost all of human history, art was more of a craft than a remote expression of some weirdos, as we often see it today. In fact, in old greek the word for "art" and "craft" is the same word. Again, ancient artworks can far more often be assumed to be directly interpretable rather than metaphorical. Cave paintings depicting hunting scenes were almost certainly meant to - depict hunting scenes, not visualize the struggle of mankind via the metaphor of hunting, as a modern painting might.
Finally, "where the gods are" (monotheism being an unusual and late concept) was largely a non-question until the middle ages. To ancient man, the gods were all around them, sharing physical reality. "The Golden Bough" is the primary authority book on the subject and contains more examples than you can shake a stick at. Some interesting research also indicates that due to neurological differences in the brain, ancient man actually heard the voices of the gods, not imagined or assumed them (cf. "The breakdown of the bicameral mind"). Much research has been done regarding a considerable difference in the world-ego perception between early greeks and late greeks (the Homerian texts usually assumed to indicate the split line), and it can be assumed that the same event happend to other cultures around the world at roughly the same time (which means within a couple hundred years, in this context).
With all things that we share, there is also a huge abyss between us and ancient man, and we have as much difficulty "thinking in their heads" as we'd have with modern-age aliens.
It's not that they're being unreasonable, per se. It's that they're applying and old model to a new technology. It's a bit like trying to do rocket science with the math available to Aristotle.
Physical location matters little on the Internet. But our countries and states are defined by physical location. So it's not a trivial problem, but applying solutions that simply don't fit will not solve anything.
Remember when Columbus set sail? He knew, setting out, that he could reach India if he sailed west. He just didn't realise there was another continent in the way.
For one, that was fairly late, past the dark ages. Two, there was still a vocal minority (end of the 15th century!) that claimed he'd fall off the edge. Lately, the division of the world between Spain and Portugal that was made by the pope only works on the assumption of a flat earth, if you care to check it out. On a spherical world, you need two border lines, not one.
Nobody (in the Christian west, at least) ever believed women have no souls. We're talking about a time when people practically worshipped the Virgin Mary. She was a woman, remember?
Yes, as the vessel of the birth, not as herself. You can do the research yourself, I assure you the topic was under hot discussion by the so-called "intelligentia" of the time (aka priests).
Nobody but children ever believed that heaven was just above the clouds.
Weird, we have a lot of pictures that speak a different language, and art history experts say they weren't meant metaphorical in the sense we understand today.
That's the difference between a study and an uneducated guess.
Sure, sometimes the study simply confirms what everyone knows. Still, it's confirmation. And everyone "knew" once that the earth is flat, women have no souls, and above the clouds you'll find heaven. The important questions were how many angels can dance on the top of a pin or whether or not heathens qualify as human beings.
I, for one, am glad that we've moved beyond that and actually investigate the things that "everyone knows". Be they as important as gravity, or as mundane as womens' buttocks.
So, now that we here in Germany have introduced Internet censorship (via the crazy Zensursula von der Leyen law, your choice whether "crazy" applies to the law or the person) - will the US senators punish the companies that supply the infrastructure for that as well?
Oh wait, Germany isn't a "rogue country", right? We don't go by facts, we go by political climate, don't we?
Yes, a browser should schedule the download of additional content, and it should give priority to same domain, next to different subdomains of same domain (e.g. "images.mysite.com") and last to other domains.
Of course, if that were the standard, the ad people would come up with something to defeat it. See, these are the people who are actively working on giving you content that you don't want, and they consider it important to bypass all your filters, to make sure you've seen their ads. Because you don't count, only our pageview or clickthrough does.
They could try staying in power by being good at what they do, you know?
But politicians are like top managers. It doesn't really matter if they're good at anything, and they do not suffer consequences for even the worst decisions.
It just struck me how little difference there is between the rulers of Iran and our own.
Here in Germany, they just passed a law to censor the Internet wrt "child porn". A party leader held a speech yesterday essentially telling the citizens that they suck and should participate more in politics (and yet when they do, as with the record signatures petition against the child porn censorship law, they get ignored). Essentially, reminding me of Brecht who once said "If the people aren't to the liking of parliament, why doesn't parliament simply dissolve the people and elect a new one?"
Seems that people in power around the world share the same priorities. Most importantly: Staying in power and having control comes first. Everything else is secondary to that.
Maybe in a thousand years we'll look back at the early 21st century and shake our heads at how those ancient, primitive people could still have believed in government, states and the whole power structures. At least I hope that future generations will find better ways to govern themselves.
The effects of this control have been seen over the past couple days, with only a few harrowing pictures and videos getting through Iran's closed net.
To properly judge the effects, you would have to know how many do not get through. If you're seing 100, but only 200 were sent, the effectiveness of the filter is 50%. But if 1000 were sent, it is 90%. You can't judge without knowing the second data point.
So maybe the filter effectively, or maybe the unrest isn't as large as the west makes it. Don't forget that the USA already staged a coup in Iran within the life time of many of us here. Who says the reporting about unrest and revolution is entirely true? It only takes ten people or so to fake a few hundred twitter accounts, youtube videos, etc.
Maybe they should've read the research on the topic, some more than five years old.
While the "think tanks" write bullshit papers, companies like Apple already implement what's been found to be the optimal trade-off: Display the last letter that you just typed for a couple seconds. Turns out that this largely eliminates shoulder-surfing and accidental password disclosure if someone catches a short glimpse of your monitor, and brings typos to almost the same level as normal typing.
Are you serious? YOU used the metaphor. A metaphor is a device in English for making comparisons to something more familiar.
Yes, but what exactly is being compared is what matters. See http://efl.htmlplanet.com/metaphors.htm - one other example with a dog: If you call someone the "top dog", you're not trying to say he is, looks or behaves like a dog. The comparison is not between the type of life form, but between the social status involved in each case.
Given the topic of discussion, I assume you have one or more partners - a girlfriend, wife, spouse? Go use that metaphor on them and see how much use you have for a condom.
I don't hit my wife, but I'll tell you if she barks when I do.:-)
Putting aside for a moment that you've just compared me to a dog (and are wondering why I might be insulted or "defensive"
See, that's your problem. There was no comparison. I was quoting a figure of speech that happens to involved a dog. However, the meaning does in no way compare to the dog in any form and is entirely contained within the metaphor.
If someone calls you "cool like Elvis", do you complain that they've just wished you were dead?;-)
Implying I'm a selfish lover is exactly what you were intending to say.
Your reading of my words does not have to be identical to my intentions when writing those same words. The transmission error can be in the coding (i.e. I didn't express myself very well) or in the decoding (i.e. you read something into it that's not there). In psychology you can write a book about the details of debating where the error occured. In information technology we've largely agreed that the productive way is finding out that an error occurred and initiating a re-transmit. I studied IT. Here's your re-transmit: Many of the alleged disadvantages of condoms are personal preferences, can be reduced by a better choice of condom brand, or can be offset by advantages that are not as obvious on first glance.
Which is 100% an acquired preference. Some people like the smell of latex.
Most spermacides, being artificial poisons aren't going to smell like roses.
Agreed. Nevertheless, depending on the brand, it's better or worse. I didn't say there are condoms that smell so great you'd want them around to perfume the room, but there certainly are brands that smell better than others.
That pretty much sums up your attitude doesn't it.
No, but if you absolutely must become defensive then be my guest.:-)
Last I checked the guy had to wipe fluids away too regardless of condom usage,
That, exactly, is my point. You've got to clean yourself up anyways. If you use a condom, you've got to put that away, too (= more trouble for you), but your partner doesn't get your juice into herself (= less cleanup for her). Equals out if you think about sex as a cooperative two-player game. Plus if you do wish to do things to her afterwards, it's cleaner for you, too, which kind of balances the doing-away-icky-condom part.
For pity sake, now you're painting me as a selfish lover who won't even satisfy his partner. You know nothing about me you arrogant troll.
I said nothing like that, but here in Germany we have a saying: "Getretene Hunde bellen", translation: "Hit dogs bark", meaning: "If someone complains very loudly, you've probably hit where it hurts".;-)
Pick a better brand, there are some that aren't that bad. Plus as with anything non-toxic, preferences are often acquired and can be changed.
they distract from the spontenaity of the moment,
Not too badly, and if you're with a girl that's comfortable with using them, it's easy to make rolling it on a part of foreplay. There are very few cases where this is really an argument (e.g. the instant quicky in the elevator, where every second counts).
they decrease sensitivity,
For lots of men - or rather, their women - that's a good thing, because it makes you last longer.
they're never handy at the moment you want them,
Bad organisation.
they're disgusting to take off, they're awkward to dispose of.
Not any worse than using a towel to wipe your stuff away, is it? Oh, wait, if you think that's entirely the girls problem, then you could be right. If you think about both partners, it just shifts the responsibility of disposal from one person to the other. Plus it allows for some things you'd not otherwise consider (like going down on her to finish her off as well - unless you like doing that after you just came inside of her without a condom...).
The reason is obvious to anybody that's ever used one.
Just as it was obvious to anyone before, say, 1500 AD that light travels at infinite speed? Or to anyone before around 1880 AD that time is a constant? Or, to be blunt, to anyone in medieval Europe AD 1200 that God exists, the earth is flat and witches are evil?
One of the jobs of science is to question the obvious, and replace "obvious" with "scientifically verified".
Blogging is different then advertising and should have different rules -- or NO rules.
That's the whole point. Let me, the reader, know whether you're doing blogging or advertising.
I'm all for free speech and all, but at the same time I believe in rules. Free speech becomes meaningless when the signal-to-noise ratio goes south, you know? Or, as they said very well in a song: "You can say what you want, but it doesn't change anything." Guess why. Trust, which in a sense is the opposite of confusion, is a vital part of that.
Now only if we would start to use that on a regular basis. I can dream, can't I?
Acting would have a higher probability of changing something.
Yes, originally corporations were servants of the public. Like many servants, they didn't like their role, so over the years and decades and sometimes even centuries, they plotted and schemed and used whatever means available to revert the roles.
Funny how we react differently to other technology. We say that P2P is not only for copyright infringement, but also for other uses. We say that hacker tools are also used by security researchers and consultants. Whenever the politicians or the mainstream press try to demonize a technology, we are the first to show that it's not that simple.
But with technology that hits one of our sweet spots - censorship - we turn around 180 degrees? And wish the companies PR backlash? Why? Are we doing anyone a favour? Should not the anger about censorship be focussed on those who engage and support censorship, and not the technology?
Actually, it looks more and more like he was set up, intentionally, and possibly in preparation for pushing this law through. The timing is excellent, and the one, most vocal, and most respected MP was silenced just before the discussion on this law started, and with the exact same topic. You could not damage his reputation any better, and you could not make his dissenting voice more questionable then by tagging the exact same label on him that you tacked on the law - kiddie porn.
I'm not saying I know he was framed, but it does seem suspiciously coincidental.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that MS was in on the development, and we can assume the requirements were known, it's a straight out case of vendor (and consultants) lying about the capabilities of the project, and customer later finding out the hard way.
But then again, spun that way it wouldn't be news.
the need to continue to protect the public from obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy material,
Uh, maybe I missed something here. Did they display their simulated rape in a public square? Is it "the public" or isn't it rather voluntary customers of such material?
I believe you are giving our ancestors more credit than they are due with the "heavens" thing.
We have quite solid linguistic and historic evidence that abstract thinking of the kind we consider normal today is a relatively recent invention, definitely not made before the greeks (and thus after most of the old testament). Ancient man was very much "grounded in reality" in his speech and thoughts. For example, the "burning bush" part is almost certainly a hallucination, not a metaphor.
I do agree that the meaning of ancient texts has changed over time. What you see in the bible is certainly not the same meaning that some early christian saw in it. The discussion usually centers on individual terms (the most famous one being he "young woman" vs. "virgin" debate, of course), but it applies much more so to general meaning and view of the world.
You should also note that art especially was not as removed from reality as we see it today. For almost all of human history, art was more of a craft than a remote expression of some weirdos, as we often see it today. In fact, in old greek the word for "art" and "craft" is the same word. Again, ancient artworks can far more often be assumed to be directly interpretable rather than metaphorical. Cave paintings depicting hunting scenes were almost certainly meant to - depict hunting scenes, not visualize the struggle of mankind via the metaphor of hunting, as a modern painting might.
Finally, "where the gods are" (monotheism being an unusual and late concept) was largely a non-question until the middle ages. To ancient man, the gods were all around them, sharing physical reality. "The Golden Bough" is the primary authority book on the subject and contains more examples than you can shake a stick at. Some interesting research also indicates that due to neurological differences in the brain, ancient man actually heard the voices of the gods, not imagined or assumed them (cf. "The breakdown of the bicameral mind"). Much research has been done regarding a considerable difference in the world-ego perception between early greeks and late greeks (the Homerian texts usually assumed to indicate the split line), and it can be assumed that the same event happend to other cultures around the world at roughly the same time (which means within a couple hundred years, in this context).
With all things that we share, there is also a huge abyss between us and ancient man, and we have as much difficulty "thinking in their heads" as we'd have with modern-age aliens.
It's not that they're being unreasonable, per se. It's that they're applying and old model to a new technology. It's a bit like trying to do rocket science with the math available to Aristotle.
Physical location matters little on the Internet. But our countries and states are defined by physical location. So it's not a trivial problem, but applying solutions that simply don't fit will not solve anything.
Remember when Columbus set sail? He knew, setting out, that he could reach India if he sailed west. He just didn't realise there was another continent in the way.
For one, that was fairly late, past the dark ages. Two, there was still a vocal minority (end of the 15th century!) that claimed he'd fall off the edge. Lately, the division of the world between Spain and Portugal that was made by the pope only works on the assumption of a flat earth, if you care to check it out. On a spherical world, you need two border lines, not one.
Nobody (in the Christian west, at least) ever believed women have no souls. We're talking about a time when people practically worshipped the Virgin Mary. She was a woman, remember?
Yes, as the vessel of the birth, not as herself. You can do the research yourself, I assure you the topic was under hot discussion by the so-called "intelligentia" of the time (aka priests).
Nobody but children ever believed that heaven was just above the clouds.
Weird, we have a lot of pictures that speak a different language, and art history experts say they weren't meant metaphorical in the sense we understand today.
That's the difference between a study and an uneducated guess.
Sure, sometimes the study simply confirms what everyone knows. Still, it's confirmation. And everyone "knew" once that the earth is flat, women have no souls, and above the clouds you'll find heaven. The important questions were how many angels can dance on the top of a pin or whether or not heathens qualify as human beings.
I, for one, am glad that we've moved beyond that and actually investigate the things that "everyone knows". Be they as important as gravity, or as mundane as womens' buttocks.
So, now that we here in Germany have introduced Internet censorship (via the crazy Zensursula von der Leyen law, your choice whether "crazy" applies to the law or the person) - will the US senators punish the companies that supply the infrastructure for that as well?
Oh wait, Germany isn't a "rogue country", right? We don't go by facts, we go by political climate, don't we?
I'm looking forward to an embargo...
Good point.
Yes, a browser should schedule the download of additional content, and it should give priority to same domain, next to different subdomains of same domain (e.g. "images.mysite.com") and last to other domains.
Of course, if that were the standard, the ad people would come up with something to defeat it. See, these are the people who are actively working on giving you content that you don't want, and they consider it important to bypass all your filters, to make sure you've seen their ads. Because you don't count, only our pageview or clickthrough does.
They could try staying in power by being good at what they do, you know?
But politicians are like top managers. It doesn't really matter if they're good at anything, and they do not suffer consequences for even the worst decisions.
Hakim Bey called it "the spectacle". I think this is exactly what he meant.
It just struck me how little difference there is between the rulers of Iran and our own.
Here in Germany, they just passed a law to censor the Internet wrt "child porn". A party leader held a speech yesterday essentially telling the citizens that they suck and should participate more in politics (and yet when they do, as with the record signatures petition against the child porn censorship law, they get ignored). Essentially, reminding me of Brecht who once said "If the people aren't to the liking of parliament, why doesn't parliament simply dissolve the people and elect a new one?"
Seems that people in power around the world share the same priorities. Most importantly: Staying in power and having control comes first. Everything else is secondary to that.
Maybe in a thousand years we'll look back at the early 21st century and shake our heads at how those ancient, primitive people could still have believed in government, states and the whole power structures. At least I hope that future generations will find better ways to govern themselves.
The effects of this control have been seen over the past couple days, with only a few harrowing pictures and videos getting through Iran's closed net.
To properly judge the effects, you would have to know how many do not get through. If you're seing 100, but only 200 were sent, the effectiveness of the filter is 50%. But if 1000 were sent, it is 90%. You can't judge without knowing the second data point.
So maybe the filter effectively, or maybe the unrest isn't as large as the west makes it. Don't forget that the USA already staged a coup in Iran within the life time of many of us here. Who says the reporting about unrest and revolution is entirely true? It only takes ten people or so to fake a few hundred twitter accounts, youtube videos, etc.
Movie hint: "Wag The Dog"
Maybe they should've read the research on the topic, some more than five years old.
While the "think tanks" write bullshit papers, companies like Apple already implement what's been found to be the optimal trade-off: Display the last letter that you just typed for a couple seconds. Turns out that this largely eliminates shoulder-surfing and accidental password disclosure if someone catches a short glimpse of your monitor, and brings typos to almost the same level as normal typing.
Are you serious? YOU used the metaphor. A metaphor is a device in English for making comparisons to something more familiar.
Yes, but what exactly is being compared is what matters. See http://efl.htmlplanet.com/metaphors.htm - one other example with a dog: If you call someone the "top dog", you're not trying to say he is, looks or behaves like a dog. The comparison is not between the type of life form, but between the social status involved in each case.
Given the topic of discussion, I assume you have one or more partners - a girlfriend, wife, spouse? Go use that metaphor on them and see how much use you have for a condom.
I don't hit my wife, but I'll tell you if she barks when I do. :-)
Putting aside for a moment that you've just compared me to a dog (and are wondering why I might be insulted or "defensive"
See, that's your problem. There was no comparison. I was quoting a figure of speech that happens to involved a dog. However, the meaning does in no way compare to the dog in any form and is entirely contained within the metaphor.
If someone calls you "cool like Elvis", do you complain that they've just wished you were dead? ;-)
Implying I'm a selfish lover is exactly what you were intending to say.
Your reading of my words does not have to be identical to my intentions when writing those same words. The transmission error can be in the coding (i.e. I didn't express myself very well) or in the decoding (i.e. you read something into it that's not there). In psychology you can write a book about the details of debating where the error occured. In information technology we've largely agreed that the productive way is finding out that an error occurred and initiating a re-transmit. I studied IT. Here's your re-transmit: Many of the alleged disadvantages of condoms are personal preferences, can be reduced by a better choice of condom brand, or can be offset by advantages that are not as obvious on first glance.
You can. You just need to either jailbreak it, or become an iPhone developer, which is ridiculously easy.
Latex smells like latex.
Which is 100% an acquired preference. Some people like the smell of latex.
Most spermacides, being artificial poisons aren't going to smell like roses.
Agreed. Nevertheless, depending on the brand, it's better or worse. I didn't say there are condoms that smell so great you'd want them around to perfume the room, but there certainly are brands that smell better than others.
That pretty much sums up your attitude doesn't it.
No, but if you absolutely must become defensive then be my guest. :-)
Last I checked the guy had to wipe fluids away too regardless of condom usage,
That, exactly, is my point. You've got to clean yourself up anyways. If you use a condom, you've got to put that away, too (= more trouble for you), but your partner doesn't get your juice into herself (= less cleanup for her). Equals out if you think about sex as a cooperative two-player game. Plus if you do wish to do things to her afterwards, it's cleaner for you, too, which kind of balances the doing-away-icky-condom part.
For pity sake, now you're painting me as a selfish lover who won't even satisfy his partner. You know nothing about me you arrogant troll.
I said nothing like that, but here in Germany we have a saying: "Getretene Hunde bellen", translation: "Hit dogs bark", meaning: "If someone complains very loudly, you've probably hit where it hurts". ;-)
You need more practice, simple as that.
They smell bad,
Pick a better brand, there are some that aren't that bad. Plus as with anything non-toxic, preferences are often acquired and can be changed.
they distract from the spontenaity of the moment,
Not too badly, and if you're with a girl that's comfortable with using them, it's easy to make rolling it on a part of foreplay. There are very few cases where this is really an argument (e.g. the instant quicky in the elevator, where every second counts).
they decrease sensitivity,
For lots of men - or rather, their women - that's a good thing, because it makes you last longer.
they're never handy at the moment you want them,
Bad organisation.
they're disgusting to take off, they're awkward to dispose of.
Not any worse than using a towel to wipe your stuff away, is it? Oh, wait, if you think that's entirely the girls problem, then you could be right. If you think about both partners, it just shifts the responsibility of disposal from one person to the other. Plus it allows for some things you'd not otherwise consider (like going down on her to finish her off as well - unless you like doing that after you just came inside of her without a condom...).
The reason is obvious to anybody that's ever used one.
Just as it was obvious to anyone before, say, 1500 AD that light travels at infinite speed? Or to anyone before around 1880 AD that time is a constant? Or, to be blunt, to anyone in medieval Europe AD 1200 that God exists, the earth is flat and witches are evil?
One of the jobs of science is to question the obvious, and replace "obvious" with "scientifically verified".
Blogging is different then advertising and should have different rules -- or NO rules.
That's the whole point. Let me, the reader, know whether you're doing blogging or advertising.
I'm all for free speech and all, but at the same time I believe in rules. Free speech becomes meaningless when the signal-to-noise ratio goes south, you know? Or, as they said very well in a song: "You can say what you want, but it doesn't change anything." Guess why. Trust, which in a sense is the opposite of confusion, is a vital part of that.
You wanted to replace the "old media", now stop crying. With power comes responsibility.
Now only if we would start to use that on a regular basis. I can dream, can't I?
Acting would have a higher probability of changing something.
Yes, originally corporations were servants of the public. Like many servants, they didn't like their role, so over the years and decades and sometimes even centuries, they plotted and schemed and used whatever means available to revert the roles.
Simple as that, really.
Funny how we react differently to other technology. We say that P2P is not only for copyright infringement, but also for other uses. We say that hacker tools are also used by security researchers and consultants. Whenever the politicians or the mainstream press try to demonize a technology, we are the first to show that it's not that simple.
But with technology that hits one of our sweet spots - censorship - we turn around 180 degrees? And wish the companies PR backlash? Why? Are we doing anyone a favour? Should not the anger about censorship be focussed on those who engage and support censorship, and not the technology?
Actually, it looks more and more like he was set up, intentionally, and possibly in preparation for pushing this law through. The timing is excellent, and the one, most vocal, and most respected MP was silenced just before the discussion on this law started, and with the exact same topic. You could not damage his reputation any better, and you could not make his dissenting voice more questionable then by tagging the exact same label on him that you tacked on the law - kiddie porn.
I'm not saying I know he was framed, but it does seem suspiciously coincidental.