You probably didn't know I'm of Peruvian origins when you wrote this, but I'll say this: in many ways, Peru *is* freer than the US. You actually have less de facto interference and hassle from a variety of perspectives, from speech to day-to-day running of business to how you dispense with your property to the use of substances. Of course, there's also poverty in Peru.
Economic freedom isn't even addressed in the constitution, really. The fact is that the 'economic freedom' as experienced in the US has more to do with the options that prosperity creates than with anything else.
And you did an unusual flip-flop. One one hand, you cite economic freedom as a demonstration of the relative freedom of the US, but farther up the thread you had said that the civil penalties against speech are not as significant as loss of freedom. One one hand you avail yourself of an economic argument for freedom, on the other you abandon that for a discursive/civil one.
The first statement was a bon mot, not a serious analysis of freedom of speech in the US. It was attached to the ridiculous, almost meaningless and oft-recited cliche that the US is the freest society in the world (incarceration rates alone should at least problematize that claim). As far as the "under God" bit goes, though, I can't understand how any objective observer could see it as constitutional. It so clearly mandates a monotheistic doctrine, and makes that doctrine essential to national unity. (While students were excused from saying the pledge, teachers were not - which meant that a public institution was requiring them to lead the pledge, or lose their jobs. This is clearly a violation of the spirit of not allowing the state to respect the establishment of religion - and of course, just as at one time states may have established churches, states also violated the nature of the constitution by maintaining slavery for decades. That's irrelevant. And if those states had mandated compulsory membership in those state churches for employees, that too, I think, would be seen as explicitly unconstitutional.) Many of us who do advocate the ongoing separation between church and state are unhappy with the timing of the decision - it's not a battle that is best fought now, with patriotic fervor still at high levels, and it's a pyrrhic victory - but let's face it, the 9th Court of Appeals had the case in their docket and had to rule on it.
I've seen far worse uses of large quantities of money.
Daikatana, for one.
Seriously, I actually envy the guy, unlike the majority of idle wealthy who use their wealth to confirm their status, make themselves feel better than everyone else, jack up prices for land, and do far worse. Fosset is having fun, in a way that hurts no one and may benefit some. More power to him - and I say this as someone who doesn't really like the wealthy.
If you lose your livelihood, you've lost some freedom already. After all, it is a remedy in criminal cases as well that one be fined.
Essentially, you are relying on the justice system to defy the anti-freedom populist sentiment in the US. I don't think they will. The last decision of principle - roundly condemned by both parties and most of the press, yet the only reasonably constitutional decision that any objective judges could come to - was the "under God" decision by the 9th US court of appeals. The fact that it's going to be overturned by the SCOTUS will demonstrate that the judiciary is not going to protect the constitution any more.
I'll admit I was being hyperbolic in the name of literary license, but the primary place I'll take issue with you here is your distinction between civil and criminal law. We don't live in states, we live in societies, and the fact that private parties can avail themselves of statutes which allow them to squelch the speech of others makes this a less free society, even though no constitutional violation has occurred.
The limitations on depictions of sex between minors was, of course, from legislation that hasn't passed, but we're one hysteria away from having that happen.
The 2600 case is a case in which just linking to a copyright-protection-violating description was prohibited. Again, the civil/criminal distinction is irrelevant from the perspective of the effect on free speech.
And as far as the drug-speech goes, check out HR the rider of HR833 (section 1701),making it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison to teach, demonstrate or distribute information on the manufacture or use of illegal drugs.
The question is whether your staying could be counterproductive by continuing to lend legitimacy and a form of sanction to their operation, or whether you could frankly do more good elsewhere. In many ways, your position is comparable to that of Colin Powell's in the Bush Administration, although you are actually a little freer than he is to directly express criticism.
Almost correct. The purpose of a privately held company is whatever the owners want it to do. If they want to break even and spend any profits on funny hats for the sales team, that's what it's for. If they want to fill their factory with toy mice and start singing in Dutch, as long as they can afford to, then that's what their for. In fact, many privately held companies - like Hershey, for example - have charters which make profit a secondary motive to some other, social cause (in the case of Hershey, it's supporting education).
As long as what you say doesn't jeopardize national security, suggest an interest in terrorism, reveal trade secrets, infringe on copyrights, trademarks, or patents, isn't a description of sexual activities involving anyone under the age of majority, isn't disruptive, doesn't explain how to circumvent copyright, doesn't explain how to acquire or use drugs, isn't seditious, doesn't reveal trade secrets, doesn't threaten our vital national unity during this ongoing and arduous war against terrorism, and is otherwise relatively inoffensive, you can say almost anything you like in the US.
"Aunt Bertha" doesn't have to know anything about drivers, she just knows that when she bought her new mouse, it came with an installation CD that magically makes it work when you double-click the installer.
Not that I have problems with the rest of your post, but, umm, if she's installing a mouse, how does she double-click anything?
Re:the whole GUI thing is so 20th century
on
GUIs for Everyone
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· Score: 2
Voice-interaction in computing is going to be limited by the fact that speech/hearing is essentially a serial operation with a significant bottleneck, while visual/motor tasks are far easier to parallelize. A speech-driven computing paradigm would mean a significant drop in productivity, due to the limits of the human brain, not of the computer.
My grandfather (may he rest in peace) doesn't need a computer at all - and if he did, he'd avail himself of the skills and knowledge possessed by those who already have a history of interaction. I have relatives in their 60's and 70's and all have some experience with web browsing and email (usually hotmail or the like) on some machine or another. While making a little internet device for them might amuse them, it's not going to be the basis of the future growth in computing technology. How many of the people who have no priming about interfaces really are chomping at the bit to get a computer, but just aren't happy with the UI metaphor yet?
Even if you don't use a computer, the interface features of computers are depicted and described in language and media everywhere. Also, I don't know about rural Africa, but I know about remote corners of Latin America, and in many small villages and towns there is one old 486 running Windows95 that is shared by dozens of people in Internet 'cafes', giving everyone some exposure.
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to quantify the way that the learned practices of modern computing have permeated society. Computer ownership has very little to do with it - libraries, kiosks, cybercafes, schools, and the like are filled with computers, and many of the people who use them don't own computers of their own. So I don't know just what "backing it up" would mean for you, except in appealing to the evidence day to day experience in the world. I think that the failures of attempts to create large, viable markets using low-end internet applications could be thought of as some sort of supporting evidence.
I disagree. The number of users who don't understand that you start a word processor to create a document is small enough to be irrelevant. Your way leads to the "New Document" item on a menu. No one uses those. People start Word or a Word equivalent because they already have the background understanding that creating data requires loading an application.
On one hand, I laud the attempt to redefine and get back to the essentials of user motivation, but ultimately it's ahistorical. Simply ignoring the cultivated, learned practices of the vast majority of the computing population is counter-productive. Yes, the model of computing we use now would be counter-intuitive to someone from the 19th century, but we don't have to build systems for them.
Re:a non-GUI solution that works
on
GUIs for Everyone
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The computer-illiterate do exist, but the myth is that they are the El Dorado of computing - a vast untapped market that only the Perfect Interface will capture. Far more important as a market are people with some experience with UI's - and I'm talking about interacting with a computer to do basic tasks, not about setting it up. Your mom and dad know a lot more about computers than a tabula rasa - they know that different windows usually mean different applications, that moving the mouse moves the cursor, they even understand the (really artificial) difference between an application and data. They understand, for the most part, that online data is different from the data they store on their hard drives, they usually understand what it means to "save" a file. All these things are glaringly obvious to virtually anyone doing business in the first world, but in fact they only seem obvious because we're steeped in these practice.
The business and educational markets - where no one except the IT schlep really worries about setting up hardware and installing drivers - is more important and more dynamic than the home "where's the ANY key" market, and will lead it. (Besides, most home users don't get gray boxes, they get hardware support from a name-brand vendor like Dell). A lot of computer hobbyists - yes, that's you - make a mistake about extrapolating their own relationships with technology onto everyone else.
Re:Serious Question...
on
GUIs for Everyone
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· Score: 5, Insightful
That is wrong. "Flashy" is the dead wrong idea. The right word is pleasurable, just like the article said.
In a GUI substance and style are pretty closely linked. "Style" is a shorthand for visual features that communicate things clearly and elegantly, in a pleasurable, attractive way.
One of the limitations that the linux GUI is suffering right now is that there are too many aesthetes, actually, who mistake skinning and customization with actual GUI style. Where you put the buttons for the windows and what color the window borders are isn't what's important - it's how whatever symbolic language that the GUI embodies communicates that tasks desired by the user in a way that doesn't provoke anxiety, is unambiguous, and fun.
One problem that a lot of writers about GUIS and HCI - including MS and Apple - often run into is the myth of the pure non-user: the idea that GUIs have to be made to address the people who have a complete blank slate about computers. There are no such things. Like it or not, we have a population that has a history of interaction with computers and that has given them a set of skills and expectations that must be accounted for. I've seen efforts to "reinvent computing" to capture the mythical "Aunt Bertha" market that all run aground of the fact that most people in modern societies already have developed a background of interactive strategies for dealing with computers, and that it's somewhat inefficient for them to completely dispose of it.
Edge Magazine, from the UK, is impartial, for any value of the word "impartial" that has meaning on Earth Prime. Of course, they're British, so you probably don't get to read it much in the US.
E3 was pathetic. The few women in the gaming profession who weren't booth-bimbos seem to be surviving on a diet of low-grade mortification. Video games have the potential to be the defining medium for the 21st century, but only when they stop be exclusively marketed towards young men's most insipid fantasies
I'm not someone who thinks that the numbers have to be equal, either - I, like Henry Jenkins of MIT, think that there are reasons why boys are more interested in video games than girls, the most important one being the loss of public space for boys' unsupervised play. Video games answer a call for a need that young (10 to 15 year old) boys have particularly strongly in the US. In the most literal sense, it's OK for adolescent males to have a 'treehouse' that's boys-only - girls do the same, and it's an important part of social development to have gendered playspaces. At that stage, I can understand the gap.
However, at a place like E3 that fact is irrelevant. That the industry talks to itself with depictions of T&A is pathetic. It feels deeply unprofessional, and the attitude, I think, is stunting the potential of videogames. The average PS2 owner, for example, is 25 years old - the industry should be getting smarter.
As far as Ziff-Davis goes, their gaming magazines are weak. The best general magazine for gaming I've ever read is Edge, from the UK. No US magazine comes close to such intelligence, production values, actually useful reviews (yes, lots of pans - in fact, more pans than praise), and good, literary-quality writing.
This is not to say I wouldn't pirate software for educational purposes if I had no other opportunity, but that most certainly does not make it 'ok'. I don't know where people get the notion that 'education' gives you a noble right to take what isn't yours. Sheesh.
So, you're saying you would do it, but that it's not OK. Wow, a thousand ethics philosophers are spinning in their graves, and many of them aren't even dead yet.
I got beaten for being in a sit-in on a campus in the eighties. It was a cause that probably 80 percent of the people would at least feel was worthwhile, but that's not the issue. It's not a question of whether I'm a hero or not: I don't care whether you think I'm a hero. And the causes that I would fight for now aren't the causes I was fighting for then, either: I'm more mature now than I was then, and I would probably look at the person I was then and think I was being a little simplistic. It's simply that it's possible to take a stand and not be afraid of getting hurt if you believe in the cause. My grandfather, from Peru, was a hero in my book - he didn't just risk a few lumps and cuts and a couple nights in jail, he was pursued by death squads and lived several years in exile while trying to fight for his principles (which happened to be for democracy, against military dictator Odria) - his children, including my Mom, used to get smuggled across the border just to visit him. He spent a lot of time in jail - although that was an era when, really, one educated and committed person with some determination really could change a society, especially a society like Peru's. Not only do I not have his energy, I don't live in the same times as his, so I don't think I could ever be a hero on that level.
But I'm arguing against cowardice and complacency, not to impress you. You should be asking yourself what's possible for you do to, not simply trying to debunk anyone who might be doing more.
Breaking it, leading to a public court case in which it is found unconstitutional, is the best way to change it, in this case. As it is in many cases. Demonstrating actively that a law is 1. unenforceable and 2. destructive is far more effective than just saying so.
I'm not some partisan robot. For one thing, Alaska's republicans are better environmentalists than, say, Texas' democrats. I voted for Tom Campbell over Dianne Feinstein. I don't know whether I would vote for this guy or not, even if he was on the Hollywood payroll - if his opponent were David Duke, or Bob Dornan, I probably would; if it were Campbell or McCain, probably not. I don't hug trees - I'm an environmentalist, not a fanatic, so save your caricatures for yourself.
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Economic freedom isn't even addressed in the constitution, really. The fact is that the 'economic freedom' as experienced in the US has more to do with the options that prosperity creates than with anything else.
And you did an unusual flip-flop. One one hand, you cite economic freedom as a demonstration of the relative freedom of the US, but farther up the thread you had said that the civil penalties against speech are not as significant as loss of freedom. One one hand you avail yourself of an economic argument for freedom, on the other you abandon that for a discursive/civil one.
The first statement was a bon mot, not a serious analysis of freedom of speech in the US. It was attached to the ridiculous, almost meaningless and oft-recited cliche that the US is the freest society in the world (incarceration rates alone should at least problematize that claim). As far as the "under God" bit goes, though, I can't understand how any objective observer could see it as constitutional. It so clearly mandates a monotheistic doctrine, and makes that doctrine essential to national unity. (While students were excused from saying the pledge, teachers were not - which meant that a public institution was requiring them to lead the pledge, or lose their jobs. This is clearly a violation of the spirit of not allowing the state to respect the establishment of religion - and of course, just as at one time states may have established churches, states also violated the nature of the constitution by maintaining slavery for decades. That's irrelevant. And if those states had mandated compulsory membership in those state churches for employees, that too, I think, would be seen as explicitly unconstitutional.) Many of us who do advocate the ongoing separation between church and state are unhappy with the timing of the decision - it's not a battle that is best fought now, with patriotic fervor still at high levels, and it's a pyrrhic victory - but let's face it, the 9th Court of Appeals had the case in their docket and had to rule on it.
Daikatana, for one.
Seriously, I actually envy the guy, unlike the majority of idle wealthy who use their wealth to confirm their status, make themselves feel better than everyone else, jack up prices for land, and do far worse. Fosset is having fun, in a way that hurts no one and may benefit some. More power to him - and I say this as someone who doesn't really like the wealthy.
Essentially, you are relying on the justice system to defy the anti-freedom populist sentiment in the US. I don't think they will. The last decision of principle - roundly condemned by both parties and most of the press, yet the only reasonably constitutional decision that any objective judges could come to - was the "under God" decision by the 9th US court of appeals. The fact that it's going to be overturned by the SCOTUS will demonstrate that the judiciary is not going to protect the constitution any more.
The limitations on depictions of sex between minors was, of course, from legislation that hasn't passed, but we're one hysteria away from having that happen.
The 2600 case is a case in which just linking to a copyright-protection-violating description was prohibited. Again, the civil/criminal distinction is irrelevant from the perspective of the effect on free speech.
And as far as the drug-speech goes, check out HR the rider of HR833 (section 1701),making it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison to teach, demonstrate or distribute
information on the manufacture or use of illegal drugs.
The question is whether your staying could be counterproductive by continuing to lend legitimacy and a form of sanction to their operation, or whether you could frankly do more good elsewhere. In many ways, your position is comparable to that of Colin Powell's in the Bush Administration, although you are actually a little freer than he is to directly express criticism.
Almost correct. The purpose of a privately held company is whatever the owners want it to do. If they want to break even and spend any profits on funny hats for the sales team, that's what it's for. If they want to fill their factory with toy mice and start singing in Dutch, as long as they can afford to, then that's what their for. In fact, many privately held companies - like Hershey, for example - have charters which make profit a secondary motive to some other, social cause (in the case of Hershey, it's supporting education).
As long as what you say doesn't jeopardize national security, suggest an interest in terrorism, reveal trade secrets, infringe on copyrights, trademarks, or patents, isn't a description of sexual activities involving anyone under the age of majority, isn't disruptive, doesn't explain how to circumvent copyright, doesn't explain how to acquire or use drugs, isn't seditious, doesn't reveal trade secrets, doesn't threaten our vital national unity during this ongoing and arduous war against terrorism, and is otherwise relatively inoffensive, you can say almost anything you like in the US.
Not that I have problems with the rest of your post, but, umm, if she's installing a mouse, how does she double-click anything?
... the story of the King and the Toaster. Good to see that heads will roll.
So, you're in luck.
Even if you don't use a computer, the interface features of computers are depicted and described in language and media everywhere. Also, I don't know about rural Africa, but I know about remote corners of Latin America, and in many small villages and towns there is one old 486 running Windows95 that is shared by dozens of people in Internet 'cafes', giving everyone some exposure.
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to quantify the way that the learned practices of modern computing have permeated society. Computer ownership has very little to do with it - libraries, kiosks, cybercafes, schools, and the like are filled with computers, and many of the people who use them don't own computers of their own. So I don't know just what "backing it up" would mean for you, except in appealing to the evidence day to day experience in the world. I think that the failures of attempts to create large, viable markets using low-end internet applications could be thought of as some sort of supporting evidence.
On one hand, I laud the attempt to redefine and get back to the essentials of user motivation, but ultimately it's ahistorical. Simply ignoring the cultivated, learned practices of the vast majority of the computing population is counter-productive. Yes, the model of computing we use now would be counter-intuitive to someone from the 19th century, but we don't have to build systems for them.
The business and educational markets - where no one except the IT schlep really worries about setting up hardware and installing drivers - is more important and more dynamic than the home "where's the ANY key" market, and will lead it. (Besides, most home users don't get gray boxes, they get hardware support from a name-brand vendor like Dell). A lot of computer hobbyists - yes, that's you - make a mistake about extrapolating their own relationships with technology onto everyone else.
In a GUI substance and style are pretty closely linked. "Style" is a shorthand for visual features that communicate things clearly and elegantly, in a pleasurable, attractive way.
One of the limitations that the linux GUI is suffering right now is that there are too many aesthetes, actually, who mistake skinning and customization with actual GUI style. Where you put the buttons for the windows and what color the window borders are isn't what's important - it's how whatever symbolic language that the GUI embodies communicates that tasks desired by the user in a way that doesn't provoke anxiety, is unambiguous, and fun.
One problem that a lot of writers about GUIS and HCI - including MS and Apple - often run into is the myth of the pure non-user: the idea that GUIs have to be made to address the people who have a complete blank slate about computers. There are no such things. Like it or not, we have a population that has a history of interaction with computers and that has given them a set of skills and expectations that must be accounted for. I've seen efforts to "reinvent computing" to capture the mythical "Aunt Bertha" market that all run aground of the fact that most people in modern societies already have developed a background of interactive strategies for dealing with computers, and that it's somewhat inefficient for them to completely dispose of it.
Edge Magazine, from the UK, is impartial, for any value of the word "impartial" that has meaning on Earth Prime. Of course, they're British, so you probably don't get to read it much in the US.
E3 was pathetic. The few women in the gaming profession who weren't booth-bimbos seem to be surviving on a diet of low-grade mortification. Video games have the potential to be the defining medium for the 21st century, but only when they stop be exclusively marketed towards young men's most insipid fantasies
I'm not someone who thinks that the numbers have to be equal, either - I, like Henry Jenkins of MIT, think that there are reasons why boys are more interested in video games than girls, the most important one being the loss of public space for boys' unsupervised play. Video games answer a call for a need that young (10 to 15 year old) boys have particularly strongly in the US. In the most literal sense, it's OK for adolescent males to have a 'treehouse' that's boys-only - girls do the same, and it's an important part of social development to have gendered playspaces. At that stage, I can understand the gap.
However, at a place like E3 that fact is irrelevant. That the industry talks to itself with depictions of T&A is pathetic. It feels deeply unprofessional, and the attitude, I think, is stunting the potential of videogames. The average PS2 owner, for example, is 25 years old - the industry should be getting smarter.
As far as Ziff-Davis goes, their gaming magazines are weak. The best general magazine for gaming I've ever read is Edge, from the UK. No US magazine comes close to such intelligence, production values, actually useful reviews (yes, lots of pans - in fact, more pans than praise), and good, literary-quality writing.
So, you're saying you would do it, but that it's not OK. Wow, a thousand ethics philosophers are spinning in their graves, and many of them aren't even dead yet.
Here's your folding keyboard. Works on a bunch of models.
They make an attachable keyboard for the i85s. It probably works for the i95s.
If you live in the US, there's something called the DMCA. If your tinkering counts as circumventing a copyright protection mechanism, it's illegal.
But I'm arguing against cowardice and complacency, not to impress you. You should be asking yourself what's possible for you do to, not simply trying to debunk anyone who might be doing more.
That is the way it should be. That is not the way it is. It will take Lawyers, Guns and Money to change that.
Breaking it, leading to a public court case in which it is found unconstitutional, is the best way to change it, in this case. As it is in many cases. Demonstrating actively that a law is 1. unenforceable and 2. destructive is far more effective than just saying so.
I'm not some partisan robot. For one thing, Alaska's republicans are better environmentalists than, say, Texas' democrats. I voted for Tom Campbell over Dianne Feinstein. I don't know whether I would vote for this guy or not, even if he was on the Hollywood payroll - if his opponent were David Duke, or Bob Dornan, I probably would; if it were Campbell or McCain, probably not. I don't hug trees - I'm an environmentalist, not a fanatic, so save your caricatures for yourself.