Sweden actually has the oldest legislation there is regarding freedom of speech. The problem is that it is too old.
Two separate acts, with a common ground, regulate freedom of the press and freedom of broadasting media respectively -- it is technology dependent. Anyone publishing (or broadcasting) media must have a license to do so, and whoever has the license is the registered publisher, who alone will face any legal actions if anyone in the staff commits a "crime of freedom of speech" (that is what is it called, totally Orwellian, I know).
An exception to this was when two journalists (Guillou and Brattström) were convicted of spying when they exposed the Information Bureau, an illegal intelligence agency.
Anyway, people publishing without such a license (like bloggers) are not protected by the two separate acts that regulate freedom of speech. Instead, private citizens are subject to a "Personal Data Act", that initially made it an offense to publish virtually anything about anyone without written permission. People have been convicted for describing colleagues breaking a foot in the yard under this law. It was initially a very harsh interpretation of a EU directive.
Reality later had its impact as the Internet grew larger, and especially since Web 2.0 applications began to spread on the net (blogs, newspaper comments and so forth). The "Personal Data Act" was changed accordingly this year, and private citizens publishing stuff that is of an artistic or journalistic nature are in essence covered by one of the two basic acts on freedom of speech (both of which are part of the constitution, which by the way is not as strong as the American constitution), namely the one regulating broadcasting media. People who blog for other reasons than debate or journalism have no such protection.
Mr. Bildt's blogging is thus covered by the constitution. But the comments are not, because yet another law covers such elements, namely the so called BBS Law (or law on electronic billboards). This law states that anyone operating a billboard (or equivalent; a blog is a billboard acccording to this definition) has the same role as a registered publisher in a media company, and therefore has to surveill the platform he is letting up for public use and also take action within reasonable time, should there be reason to do so.
Practically, this means one has to remove illegal messages or comments within a week from being notified of their existence. One can also apply for a license to operate as a media company, to get the fullest protection of the law (which means that only a special prosecutor can prosecute). But then one also have to save every intermediate state of the media in question, that is the state inbetween every comment and change on the blog, like a versioning system -- this is too overwhelming for a private publisher of a blog. In the current case, a common prosecutor is investigating the case -- no one has yet been notified of anything, it is just an investigation.
So, these are the basics of Swedish "freedom of speech". In essence, the law has a 16th century view on such freedoms of expression, only recognizing media companies as valid publishers. The common man has until fairly recently been rather unfree. The press and the media are thought to be "representatives" of the people, which is why the media is usually called "the third state power" in Sweden. Regular folks are not supposed to have freedom of speech. The press and the broadcasting media are an elite group with special privileges, and recently they have begun attacking blogs for infringing on those privileges.
Regarding the current case, there will probably be no action, since Carl Bildt has had his foreign ministry staff go through all comments and remove those that may be unlawful. They have missed one or two such comments after being notified, but the law isn't that rigorous. A reasonable effort has been made, and it is likely no one will be held accountable for anything in this matter.
Quicktime and PDFKit are required to run Safari, so it should be part of the package. Besides, the whole iPod enchilada is based on Quicktime, so I can't see how you figure it is not included.
That's not true. People have complained about the Apple Metal UI, but they don't see the forest for all the trees.
There are two points with the metal interface. The first is that the gray color just vanishes when browsing or watching videos; it doesn't compete with the colors of the video. Compare that to WIE7's "interface", which looks like a fucking christmas tree or pile of candy.
The other point is that just plain gray is something that you associate with Windows; it still has to be slick and stylish. Therefore, it is metal; it is slick, but it still doesn't draw your attention when you are looking at more elaborate designs (such as web pages or videos).
That's excellent UI design. Compare it to previous Apple UIs, which were white. White is too shiny and strains your eyes when actually looking at content that is darker.
Well, listen here, Mr. Schmok, you can install any OS you want on a Mac, including, but not limited to, Windows and Linux. The only question is why you would want to run an inferior OS.
As for the hackers "rebelling" against the monopoly, how much success have htey had the last 20 years? None. Zilch. Nada. Nil. All they have done is to create a plethora of viruses that make the PC experience similar to taking a shit, but people still use the shit.
The more creative hackers have made OSS, but have only have limited success in the tech savvy server market.
Mac being closed is the advantage Apple has against others, since they control the software/hardware combo, which makes for a stable system. If the current trend continues, Macs will have an impact in the general population, by its stability, superior experience, and -- as of late -- its competitive pricing.
I guess if 1.3 billion Chinese really got fed up with the system, they would make a revolution and strip their leaders into pieces. That's how these things work, my friend.
But since they don't, we must draw the conclusion that the Chinese are in fact not fed up with the system. Even more shocking to an American is to hear that the Chinese actually support the current system and the current leaders, and that their view of America is not as golden as you would have hoped for.
Those who really are fed up with the system will end up in the US, where they start web sites propagating hate speech against the Chinese government. They will be like veritable political pandas in the West, used as a tool to smash the "communist" regime in the head on occasion, just like the fool Dalai Lama has been the cute boy and political bat in the past.
"What if some small European country put out a scathing report on how limiting American speech is?"
Actually, we are a bit concerned (to say the least) about the freedom of speech in America. You are not doing too well on the freedom of press index, and having a state-run agency fine or censor nipples on TV is certainly not going to change that.
But America is America, the self-proclaimed moral leader of the world, the country in which 60% "don't believe" in evolution and where religion is as strong as ever in Iran or other countries currently on the shit list. Therefore, it might come to no one's surprise that America will try to set the standards in both directions, for instance when they pressed Japan to have stricter laws on pornography.
Putting a blogger in jail is not really helping the case either. Or having nearly 1% of your population in jail altogether (similar number for China is 0.2% btw).
Sorry for bashing a fundamentally good country, I am just concerned that if America doesn't get, that if America continues on this neo-religious, neo-moralistic, neo-fascist road, we will all be fucked in the end.
Everything except the following (in decreasing severity):
1. Some separatist propaganda and information (Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan). You will have to work hard to read epochtimes (an FLG propaganda site) in China.
2. Some FLG information.
3. Human rights organizations' web sites, which are concerned about points 1 and 2.
4. Tian'anmen incident.
5. Google is not censored, but using it triggers the cut-off mechanism all too easily (for no valid reason). I would recommend banning spiders from competing baidu.com on your own site until this unfair practice is mended.
6. A few select porn sites.
7. BBC World News (they are pissed at the BBC for some reason).
8. Occasionally Wikipedia, Blogspot (accessible as of today again) and other blog sites.
Normal surfers hardly ever note the presence of the great firewall, except when Blogspot is affected. Also note that there is no blocking of P2P and other services, and that you can get any information you want if you are determined to. The firewall is aimed at preventing the masses to get hold of sensitive information regarding Chinese politics. Which in itself is stupid, since those with access to the internet already know all about it, being the educated elite.
No, this is not a Microsoft problem. RSS is already integrated since long in Safari, and whatever Safari can do, RSS can also do, and should be able to do. It is a general security problem that is part of the browser security aspect.
Since most people (me excluded) use pre-fabbed blog tools like Wordpress or online blog services, most feeds should already be sanitized.
Microsoft just have to make browser and email security a top issue in Vista, and disable most services (especially automatic execution) by default.
No, looking at illegal content is not illegal. Distributing illegal content, on the other hand, is.
For example, distributing secret information can land you in jail, and it usually does if you appear to be opposing the system (otherwise they may let you off with a warning, depending on the material).
Distributing porn is also illegal, although it has to be in numbers (at least 20 movies or 200 pictures). They don't care about petty private trade, and certainly not about downloading porn (P2P is completely unfiltered, and most porn sites on the web are accessible). They want the commercial traders. Most and everyone on the net in China digs Japanese AV.
Looking at porn at an internet cafe or other public space is illegal, however, and may render you a fine. Usually the police just comes to scare you away.
... is that Google is the private branch of NSA. You took the "No evil" bite, and now it's too late. The Complex is already in place, and we are on the verge of celebrating the birth of AI. As for who will strike first, we don't know; but we do know it will be us that scorge the skies when the times come to fight the Google Machine.
But which people are the bad guys is subject to continuous change. Yesterday it was the rapists and murderers. Today it is the filesharers. Tomorrow it is the occasional book reader.
My System and Library folders on Mac OS X occupy 7 GB. It is practically only native Apple stuff going in there. Add a number of applications, and you are up to 8 GB, standard installation.
Much of it has to do with "internationalization", having language resources (help files, menus whatever) in some fifty major languages. Hard core 7-bit people can get rid of this, but for many of us this is very very practical.
Copyright as we know it was invented in England, but has existed in many other countries, like China, throughout history.
Let me requote from another thread (Thomas Jefferson):
"It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance."
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. China is a solid candidate.
Sweden actually has the oldest legislation there is regarding freedom of speech. The problem is that it is too old.
Two separate acts, with a common ground, regulate freedom of the press and freedom of broadasting media respectively -- it is technology dependent. Anyone publishing (or broadcasting) media must have a license to do so, and whoever has the license is the registered publisher, who alone will face any legal actions if anyone in the staff commits a "crime of freedom of speech" (that is what is it called, totally Orwellian, I know).
An exception to this was when two journalists (Guillou and Brattström) were convicted of spying when they exposed the Information Bureau, an illegal intelligence agency.
Anyway, people publishing without such a license (like bloggers) are not protected by the two separate acts that regulate freedom of speech. Instead, private citizens are subject to a "Personal Data Act", that initially made it an offense to publish virtually anything about anyone without written permission. People have been convicted for describing colleagues breaking a foot in the yard under this law. It was initially a very harsh interpretation of a EU directive.
Reality later had its impact as the Internet grew larger, and especially since Web 2.0 applications began to spread on the net (blogs, newspaper comments and so forth). The "Personal Data Act" was changed accordingly this year, and private citizens publishing stuff that is of an artistic or journalistic nature are in essence covered by one of the two basic acts on freedom of speech (both of which are part of the constitution, which by the way is not as strong as the American constitution), namely the one regulating broadcasting media. People who blog for other reasons than debate or journalism have no such protection.
Mr. Bildt's blogging is thus covered by the constitution. But the comments are not, because yet another law covers such elements, namely the so called BBS Law (or law on electronic billboards). This law states that anyone operating a billboard (or equivalent; a blog is a billboard acccording to this definition) has the same role as a registered publisher in a media company, and therefore has to surveill the platform he is letting up for public use and also take action within reasonable time, should there be reason to do so.
Practically, this means one has to remove illegal messages or comments within a week from being notified of their existence. One can also apply for a license to operate as a media company, to get the fullest protection of the law (which means that only a special prosecutor can prosecute). But then one also have to save every intermediate state of the media in question, that is the state inbetween every comment and change on the blog, like a versioning system -- this is too overwhelming for a private publisher of a blog. In the current case, a common prosecutor is investigating the case -- no one has yet been notified of anything, it is just an investigation.
So, these are the basics of Swedish "freedom of speech". In essence, the law has a 16th century view on such freedoms of expression, only recognizing media companies as valid publishers. The common man has until fairly recently been rather unfree. The press and the media are thought to be "representatives" of the people, which is why the media is usually called "the third state power" in Sweden. Regular folks are not supposed to have freedom of speech. The press and the broadcasting media are an elite group with special privileges, and recently they have begun attacking blogs for infringing on those privileges.
Regarding the current case, there will probably be no action, since Carl Bildt has had his foreign ministry staff go through all comments and remove those that may be unlawful. They have missed one or two such comments after being notified, but the law isn't that rigorous. A reasonable effort has been made, and it is likely no one will be held accountable for anything in this matter.
On the ot
Quicktime and PDFKit are required to run Safari, so it should be part of the package. Besides, the whole iPod enchilada is based on Quicktime, so I can't see how you figure it is not included.
This will prevent 100% of the bots from even entering your page... ... plus a few IE users.
You probably mean Daodejing (daode, as in morals or virtue, and jing, as in book).
That's not true. People have complained about the Apple Metal UI, but they don't see the forest for all the trees.
There are two points with the metal interface. The first is that the gray color just vanishes when browsing or watching videos; it doesn't compete with the colors of the video. Compare that to WIE7's "interface", which looks like a fucking christmas tree or pile of candy.
The other point is that just plain gray is something that you associate with Windows; it still has to be slick and stylish. Therefore, it is metal; it is slick, but it still doesn't draw your attention when you are looking at more elaborate designs (such as web pages or videos).
That's excellent UI design. Compare it to previous Apple UIs, which were white. White is too shiny and strains your eyes when actually looking at content that is darker.
Somebody just said she can't get through to http://www.xingfu.se/blogge/ using IE7. So what's this fuss all about? If it's still broken, don't bother.
Well, listen here, Mr. Schmok, you can install any OS you want on a Mac, including, but not limited to, Windows and Linux. The only question is why you would want to run an inferior OS.
As for the hackers "rebelling" against the monopoly, how much success have htey had the last 20 years? None. Zilch. Nada. Nil. All they have done is to create a plethora of viruses that make the PC experience similar to taking a shit, but people still use the shit.
The more creative hackers have made OSS, but have only have limited success in the tech savvy server market.
Mac being closed is the advantage Apple has against others, since they control the software/hardware combo, which makes for a stable system. If the current trend continues, Macs will have an impact in the general population, by its stability, superior experience, and -- as of late -- its competitive pricing.
Well, I am in Shanghai, not on a "government line", but on a regular China Telecom DSL pipe. Wikipedia is up here.
Funny, but Slashdot has in fact never been affected by the GFW, despite all the China bashing.
"I would be willing to bet dollars to yuan that an educated Chinese population would endeavor to change their situation."
Yes, they would, and they will. But not now.
I guess if 1.3 billion Chinese really got fed up with the system, they would make a revolution and strip their leaders into pieces. That's how these things work, my friend.
But since they don't, we must draw the conclusion that the Chinese are in fact not fed up with the system. Even more shocking to an American is to hear that the Chinese actually support the current system and the current leaders, and that their view of America is not as golden as you would have hoped for.
Those who really are fed up with the system will end up in the US, where they start web sites propagating hate speech against the Chinese government. They will be like veritable political pandas in the West, used as a tool to smash the "communist" regime in the head on occasion, just like the fool Dalai Lama has been the cute boy and political bat in the past.
Wikipedia is open as we speak.
"What if some small European country put out a scathing report on how limiting
American speech is?"
Actually, we are a bit concerned (to say the least) about the freedom of speech in America. You are not doing too well on the freedom of press index, and having a state-run agency fine or censor nipples on TV is certainly not going to change that.
But America is America, the self-proclaimed moral leader of the world, the country in which 60% "don't believe" in evolution and where religion is as strong as ever in Iran or other countries currently on the shit list. Therefore, it might come to no one's surprise that America will try to set the standards in both directions, for instance when they pressed Japan to have stricter laws on pornography.
Putting a blogger in jail is not really helping the case either. Or having nearly 1% of your population in jail altogether (similar number for China is 0.2% btw).
Sorry for bashing a fundamentally good country, I am just concerned that if America doesn't get, that if America continues on this neo-religious, neo-moralistic, neo-fascist road, we will all be fucked in the end.
Everything except the following (in decreasing severity):
1. Some separatist propaganda and information (Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan). You will have to work hard to read epochtimes (an FLG propaganda site) in China.
2. Some FLG information.
3. Human rights organizations' web sites, which are concerned about points 1 and 2.
4. Tian'anmen incident.
5. Google is not censored, but using it triggers the cut-off mechanism all too easily (for no valid reason). I would recommend banning spiders from competing baidu.com on your own site until this unfair practice is mended.
6. A few select porn sites.
7. BBC World News (they are pissed at the BBC for some reason).
8. Occasionally Wikipedia, Blogspot (accessible as of today again) and other blog sites.
Normal surfers hardly ever note the presence of the great firewall, except when Blogspot is affected. Also note that there is no blocking of P2P and other services, and that you can get any information you want if you are determined to. The firewall is aimed at preventing the masses to get hold of sensitive information regarding Chinese politics. Which in itself is stupid, since those with access to the internet already know all about it, being the educated elite.
... any Chinese doesn't know about the censorship. Or the way to go round it, if they cared.
... welcome our new al-Reuters image manipulating overlords!
No, this is not a Microsoft problem. RSS is already integrated since long in Safari, and whatever Safari can do, RSS can also do, and should be able to do. It is a general security problem that is part of the browser security aspect.
Since most people (me excluded) use pre-fabbed blog tools like Wordpress or online blog services, most feeds should already be sanitized.
Microsoft just have to make browser and email security a top issue in Vista, and disable most services (especially automatic execution) by default.
No XML. Poor CSS. Lame.
No, looking at illegal content is not illegal. Distributing illegal content, on the other hand, is.
For example, distributing secret information can land you in jail, and it usually does if you appear to be opposing the system (otherwise they may let you off with a warning, depending on the material).
Distributing porn is also illegal, although it has to be in numbers (at least 20 movies or 200 pictures). They don't care about petty private trade, and certainly not about downloading porn (P2P is completely unfiltered, and most porn sites on the web are accessible). They want the commercial traders. Most and everyone on the net in China digs Japanese AV.
Looking at porn at an internet cafe or other public space is illegal, however, and may render you a fine. Usually the police just comes to scare you away.
... is that Google is the private branch of NSA. You took the "No evil" bite, and now it's too late. The Complex is already in place, and we are on the verge of celebrating the birth of AI. As for who will strike first, we don't know; but we do know it will be us that scorge the skies when the times come to fight the Google Machine.
Two methods:
1) Safari
2) www.privoxy.org
But which people are the bad guys is subject to continuous change. Yesterday it was the rapists and murderers. Today it is the filesharers. Tomorrow it is the occasional book reader.
My System and Library folders on Mac OS X occupy 7 GB. It is practically only native Apple stuff going in there. Add a number of applications, and you are up to 8 GB, standard installation.
Much of it has to do with "internationalization", having language resources (help files, menus whatever) in some fifty major languages. Hard core 7-bit people can get rid of this, but for many of us this is very very practical.
Copyright as we know it was invented in England, but has existed in many other countries, like China, throughout history.
Let me requote from another thread (Thomas Jefferson):
"It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance."